Assessing the effects of lumbar posterior stabilization and fusion to vertebral bone density in stabilized and adjacent segments by using Hounsfield unit

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Öksüz, Erol; Deniz, Fatih Ersay; Demir, Osman

2017-01-01

Background Computed tomography (CT) with Hounsfield unit (HU) is being used with increasing frequency for determining bone density. Established correlations between HU and bone density have been shown in the literature. The aim of this retrospective study was to determine the bone density changes of the stabilized and adjacent segment vertebral bodies by comparing HU values before and after lumbar posterior stabilization. Methods Sixteen patients who had similar diagnosis of lumbar spondylosis and stenosis were evaluated in this study. Same surgical procedures were performed to all of the patients with L2-3-4-5 transpedicular screw fixation, fusion and L3-4 total laminectomy. Bone mineral density measurements were obtained with clinical CT. Measurements were obtained from stabilized and adjacent segment vertebral bodies. Densities of vertebral bodies were evaluated with HU before the surgeries and approximately one year after the surgeries. The preoperative HU value of each vertebra was compared with postoperative HU value of the same vertebrae by using statistical analysis. Results The HU values of vertebra in the stabilized and adjacent segments consistently decreased after the operations. There were significant differences between the preoperative HU values and the postoperative HU values of the all evaluated vertebral bodies in the stabilized and adjacent segments. Additionally first sacral vertebra HU values were found to be significantly higher than lumbar vertebra HU values in the preoperative group and postoperative group. Conclusions Decrease in the bone density of the adjacent segment vertebral bodies may be one of the major predisposing factors for adjacent segment disease (ASD). PMID:29354730

Mechanical deformation and glycosaminoglycan content changes in a rabbit annular puncture disc degeneration model.

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Chan, Deva D; Khan, Safdar N; Ye, Xiaojing; Curtiss, Shane B; Gupta, Munish C; Klineberg, Eric O; Neu, Corey P

2011-08-15

Evaluation of degenerated intervertebral discs from a rabbit annular puncture model by using specialized magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques, including displacement encoding with stimulated echoes and a fast-spin echo (DENSE-FSE) acquisition and delayed gadolinium-enhanced MRI of cartilage (dGEMRIC). To evaluate a rabbit disc degeneration model by using various MRI techniques. To determine the displacements and strains, spin-lattice relaxation time (T1), and glycosaminoglycan (GAG) distribution of degenerated discs as compared to normal and adjacent level discs. Annular puncture of the intervertebral disc produces disc degeneration in rabbits. DENSE-FSE has been previously demonstrated in articular cartilage for the measurement of soft tissue displacements and strains. MRI also can measure the T1 of tissue, and dGEMRIC can quantify GAG concentration in cartilage. METHODS.: In eight New Zealand white rabbits, the annulus fibrosis of a lumbar disc was punctured. After 4 weeks, the punctured and cranially adjacent motion segments were isolated for MRI and histology. MRI was used to estimate the disc volume and map T1. DENSE-FSE was used to determine displacements for the estimation of strains. dGEMRIC was then used to determine GAG distributions. Histology and standard MRI indicated degeneration in punctured discs. Disc volume increased significantly at 4 weeks after the puncture. Displacement of the nucleus pulposus was distinct from that of the annulus fibrosis in most untreated discs but not in punctured discs. T1 was significantly higher and GAG concentration significantly lower in punctured discs compared with untreated adjacent level discs. Noninvasive and quantitative MRI techniques can be used to evaluate the mechanical and biochemical changes that occur with animal models of disc degeneration. DENSE-FSE, dGEMRIC, and similar techniques have potential for evaluating the progression of disc degeneration and the efficacy of treatments.

Effect of Interbody Fusion on the Remaining Discs of the Lumbar Spine in Subjects with Disc Degeneration.

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Ryu, Robert; Techy, Fernando; Varadarajan, Ravikumar; Amirouche, Farid

2016-02-01

To study effects (stress loads) of lumbar fusion on the remaining segments (adjacent or not) of the lumbar spine in the setting of degenerated adjacent discs. A lumbar spine finite element model was built and validated. The full model of the lumbar spine was a parametric finite element model of segments L 1-5 . Numerous hypothetical combinations of one-level lumbar spine fusion and one-level disc degeneration were created. These models were subjected to 10 Nm flexion and extension moments and the stresses on the endplates and consequently on the intervertebral lumbar discs measured. These values were compared to the stresses on healthy lumbar spine discs under the same load and fusion scenarios. Increased stress at endplates was observed only in the settings of L4-5 fusion and L3-4 disc degeneration (8% stress elevation at L2,3 in flexion or extension, and 25% elevation at L3,4 in flexion only). All other combinations showed less endplate stress than did the control model. For fusion at L3-4 and degeneration at L4-5 , the stresses in the endplates at the adjacent level inferior to the fused disc decreased for both loading disc height reductions. Stresses in flexion decreased after fusion by 29.5% and 25.8% for degeneration I and II, respectively. Results for extension were similar. For fusion at L2-3 and degeneration at L4-5 , stresses in the endplates decreased more markedly at the degenerated (30%), than at the fused level (14%) in the presence of 25% disc height reduction and 10 Nm flexion, whereas in extension stresses decreased more at the fused (24.3%) than the degenerated level (5.86%). For fusion at L3-4 and degeneration at L2-3 , there were no increases in endplate stress in any scenario. For fusion at L4-5 and degeneration at L3-4 , progression of degeneration from I to II had a significant effect only in flexion. A dramatic increase in stress was noted in the endplates of the degenerated disc (L3-4 ) in flexion for degeneration II. Stresses are greater

Adjacent segment pathology following anterior decompression and fusion using cage and plate for the treatment of degenerative cervical spinal diseases.

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Song, Kyung-Jin; Choi, Byung-Wan; Kim, Jong-Kil

2014-12-01

Retrospective study. To analyze the incidence and prevalence of clinical adjacent segment pathology (CASP) following anterior decompression and fusion with cage and plate augmentation for degenerative cervical diseases. No long-term data on the use of cage and plate augmentation have been reported. The study population consisted of 231 patients who underwent anterior cervical discectomy and fusion (ACDF) with cage and plate for degenerative cervical spinal disease. The incidence and prevalence of CASP was determined by using the Kaplan-Meier survival analysis. To analyze the factors that influence CASP, data on preoperative and postoperative sagittal alignment, spinal canal diameter, the distance between the plate and adjacent disc, extent of fusion level, and the presence or absence of adjacent segment degenerative changes by imaging studies were evaluated. CASP occurred in 15 of the cases, of which 9 required additional surgery. At 8-year follow-up, the average yearly incidence was 1.1%. The rate of disease-free survival based on Kaplan-Meier survival analysis was 93.6% at 5 years and 90.2% at 8 years. No statistically significant differences in CASP incidence based on radiological analysis were observed. Significantly high incidence of CASP was observed in the presence of increased adjacent segment degenerative changes (pdegenerative cervical disease is associated with a lower incidence in CSAP by 1.1% per year, and the extent of preoperative adjacent segment degenerative changes has been shown as a risk factor for CASP.

[Partial nucleotomy of the ovine disc as an in vivo model for disc degeneration].

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Guder, E; Hill, S; Kandziora, F; Schnake, K J

2009-01-01

The aim of this study was to develop a suitable animal model for the clinical situation of progressive disc degeneration after microsurgical nucleotomy. Twenty sheep underwent standardised partial anterolateral nucleotomy at lumbar segment 3/4. After randomisation, 10 animals were sacrificed after 12 weeks (group 1). The remainder was sacrificed after 48 weeks (group 2). For radiological examination X-rays, MRI and post-mortem CT scans were performed. Lumbar discs L 3/4 with adjacent subchondral trabecular bone were harvested and analysed macroscopically and histologically. An image-analysing computer program was used to measure histomorphometric indices of bone structure. 17 segments could be evaluated. After 12 weeks (group 1) histological and radiological degenerative disc changes were noted. After 48 weeks (group 2), radiological signs in MRI reached statistical significance. Furthermore, group 2 showed significantly more osteophyte formations in CT scans. Histomorphometric changes of the disc and the adjacent vertebral bone structure suggest a significant progressive degenerative remodelling. The facet joints did not show any osteoarthrosis after 48 weeks. Partial nucleotomy of the ovine lumbar disc leads to radiological and histological signs of disc degeneration similar to those seen in humans after microsurgical nucleotomy. The presented in vivo model may be useful to evaluate new orthopaedic treatment strategies.

Sagittal Alignment As a Predictor of Clinical Adjacent Segment Pathology requiring Surgery after Anterior Cervical Arthrodesis

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Park, Moon Soo; Kelly, Michael P.; Lee, Dong-Ho; Min, Woo-Kie; Rahman, Ra’Kerry K.; Riew, K. Daniel

2014-01-01

BACKGROUND CONTEXT Postoperative malalignment of the cervical spine may alter cervical spine mechanics, and put patients at risk for clinical adjacent segment pathology requiring surgery. PURPOSE To investigate whether a relationship exists between cervical spine sagittal alignment and clinical adjacent segment pathology requiring surgery (CASP-S) following anterior cervical fusion (ACF). STUDY DESIGN Retrospective matched study. PATIENT SAMPLE One hundred twenty two patients undergoing ACF from 1996 to 2008 were identified, with a minimum of 2 year follow-up. OUTCOME MEASURES Radiographs were reviewed to measure the sagittal alignment using C2 and C7 sagittal plumb lines, distance from the fusion mass plumb line to the C2 and C7 plumb lines, the alignment of the fusion mass, caudally adjacent disc angle, the sagittal slope angle of the superior endplate of the vertebra caudally adjacent to the fusion mass, T1 sagittal angle, overall cervical sagittal alignment, and curve patterns by Katsuura classification. METHODS One hundred twenty two patients undergoing ACF from 1996 to 2008 were identified, with a minimum of 1 year follow-up. Patients were divided into groups according to the development of CASP requiring surgery (Control / CASP-S) and by number/location of levels fused. Radiographs were reviewed to measure the sagittal alignment using C2 and C7 sagittal plumb lines, distance from the fusion mass plumb line to the C2 and C7 plumb lines, the alignment of the fusion mass, caudally adjacent disc angle, the sagittal slope angle of the superior endplate of the vertebra caudally adjacent to the fusion mass, T1 sagittal angle, overall cervical sagittal alignment, and curve patterns by Katsuura classification. Appropriate statistical tests were performed to calculate relationships between the variables and the development of CASP-S. No funds were received in support of this work. No benefits in any form have been or will be received from a commercial party related

Methodology for the systematic reviews on an adjacent segment pathology.

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Norvell, Daniel C; Dettori, Joseph R; Skelly, Andrea C; Riew, K Daniel; Chapman, Jens R; Anderson, Paul A

2012-10-15

A systematic review. To provide a detailed description of the methods undertaken in the systematic search and analytical summary of adjacent segment pathology (ASP) issues and to describe the process used to develop consensus statements and clinical recommendations regarding factors associated with the prevention and treatment of ASP. We present methods used in conducting the systematic, evidence-based reviews and development of expert panel consensus statements and clinical recommendations on the classification, natural history, risk factors, and treatment of radiographical and clinical ASP. Our intent is that clinicians will combine the information from these reviews with an understanding of their own capacities and experience to better manage patients at risk of ASP and consider future research for the prevention and treatment of ASP. A systematic search and critical review of the English-language literature was undertaken for articles published on the classification, risk, risk factors, and treatment of radiographical and clinical ASP. Articles were screened for relevance using a priori criteria, and relevant articles were critically reviewed. Whether an article was included for review depended on whether the study question was descriptive, one of therapy, or one of prognosis. The strength of evidence for the overall body of literature in each topic area was determined by 2 independent reviewers considering risk of bias, consistency, directness, and precision of results using a modification of the Grades of Recommendation Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) criteria. Disagreements were resolved by consensus. Findings from articles meeting inclusion criteria were summarized. From these summaries, consensus statements or clinical recommendations were formulated among subject experts through a modified Delphi process using the GRADE approach. A total of 3382 articles were identified and screened on 14 topics relating to the classification, risks, risk

Long-segment plication technique for arteriovenous fistulae threatened by diffuse aneurysmal degeneration: short-term results.

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Powell, Alexis; Wooster, Mathew; Carroll, Megan; Cardentey-Oliva, Damian; Cavanagh-Voss, Sean; Armstrong, Paul; Shames, Murray; Illig, Karl; Gabbard, Wesley

2015-08-01

A substantial number of patients with autologous arteriovenous fistulas (AVFs) develop diffuse aneurysmal degeneration, which frequently interferes with successful access. These AVFs are often deemed unsalvageable. We hypothesize that long-segment plication in these patients can be performed safely with acceptable short-term AVF salvage rates. We reviewed a prospectively maintained database to identify all patients with extensive AVF aneurysmal disease operated on for this problem. Thirty-five patients, 25 (71%) male and 10 (29%) female were operated on between July 2012 and January 2014. AVFs included 23 (66%) brachiocephalic, 5 (14%) radiocephalic, and 7 brachiobasilic (20%) fistulae (one first stage only but in use). The cohort had one or a combination of local pain, arm edema, cannulation issue, recurrent thrombosis, dysfunctional during dialysis, or extreme tortuousity. Time range for AVF creation to consultation ranged from 3 months to 11 years. All underwent long-segment plication over a 20-Fr Bougie with or without segmental vein resection; 3 underwent concomitant first rib resection for costoclavicular stenosis; 21 patients had tunneled catheter placement for use while healing, whereas 13 were allowed segmental use of their AVF during the perioperative period (1 patient was not yet on dialysis). Early in our experience, AVFs were left under the wound, whereas all but one repaired since early 2013 were left under a lateral flap. All patients were followed by clinical examination and duplex. In the 30-day postoperative period, 2 AVFs (5.7%) became infected requiring excision, 2 occluded (5.7%), 1 day 1 and the other at 24 days out, 1 patient developed steal and required DRIL 1 week postoperatively, and 1 patient died, unrelated to his surgery. Postoperative functional primary patency was 88% (30 of 34). Of the patients needing temporary access catheter, mean time to first fistula use was 44 days. No wound or bleeding complications have occurred in repaired

Disc degeneration: current surgical options

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C Schizas

2010-10-01

Full Text Available Chronic low back pain attributed to lumbar disc degeneration poses a serious challenge to physicians. Surgery may be indicated in selected cases following failure of appropriate conservative treatment. For decades, the only surgical option has been spinal fusion, but its results have been inconsistent. Some prospective trials show superiority over usual conservative measures while others fail to demonstrate its advantages. In an effort to improve results of fusion and to decrease the incidence of adjacent segment degeneration, total disc replacement techniques have been introduced and studied extensively. Short-term results have shown superiority over some fusion techniques. Mid-term results however tend to show that this approach yields results equivalent to those of spinal fusion. Nucleus replacement has gained some popularity initially, but evidence on its efficacy is scarce. Dynamic stabilisation, a technique involving less rigid implants than in spinal fusion and performed without the need for bone grafting, represents another surgical option. Evidence again is lacking on its superiority over other surgical strategies and conservative measures. Insertion of interspinous devices posteriorly, aiming at redistributing loads and relieving pain, has been used as an adjunct to disc removal surgery for disc herniation. To date however, there is no clear evidence on their efficacy. Minimally invasive intradiscal thermocoagulation techniques have also been tried, but evidence of their effectiveness is questioned. Surgery using novel biological solutions may be the future of discogenic pain treatment. Collaboration between clinicians and basic scientists in this multidisciplinary field will undoubtedly shape the future of treating symptomatic disc degeneration.

Is Preventative Long-Segment Surgery for Multi-Level Spondylolysis Necessary? A Finite Element Analysis Study.

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Jianqiang Mo

Full Text Available For multi-level spondylolysis patients, surgeons commonly choose to fix all the segments with pars interarticularis defect even those without slippage and not responsible for clinical symptoms. In this study, we tried to study the necessity of the preventative long-segment surgery for the defected segment without slippage in treatment of multi-level spondylolysis patients from a biomechanical perspective.We established a bi-level spondylolysis model with pars defects at L4 and L5 segments, and simulated posterior lumbar interbody fusion (PLIF and pedicle screw fixation at L5-S1 level. Then we compared the biomechanical changes at L4 segment before and after surgery in neutral, flexion, extension, lateral bending and axial rotation position.The stress on L4 pars interarticularis was very similar before and after surgery, and reached the highest in axial rotation. The L3-L4 intradiscal pressure was almost the same, while L4-L5 intradiscal pressure changed a little in lateral bending (increase from 1.993 to 2.160 MPa and axial rotation (decrease from 1.639 to 1.307 MPa after surgery. The PLIF surgery caused a little increase of range of motion at adjacent L4-L5 and L3-L4 levels, but the change is very tiny (1 degree.The PLIF surgery will not cause significant biomechanical change at adjacent segment with pars defect in multi-level spondylolysis. On the contrary, excessive long-segment surgery will damage surrounding soft tissues which are important for maintaining the stability of spine. So a preventative long-segment surgery is not necessary for multi-level spondylolysis as long as there are no soft tissue degeneration signs at adjacent level.

Is Preventative Long-Segment Surgery for Multi-Level Spondylolysis Necessary? A Finite Element Analysis Study.

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Mo, Jianqiang; Zhang, Wen; Zhong, Dongyan; Xu, Hao; Wang, Lan; Yu, Jia; Luo, Zongping

2016-01-01

For multi-level spondylolysis patients, surgeons commonly choose to fix all the segments with pars interarticularis defect even those without slippage and not responsible for clinical symptoms. In this study, we tried to study the necessity of the preventative long-segment surgery for the defected segment without slippage in treatment of multi-level spondylolysis patients from a biomechanical perspective. We established a bi-level spondylolysis model with pars defects at L4 and L5 segments, and simulated posterior lumbar interbody fusion (PLIF) and pedicle screw fixation at L5-S1 level. Then we compared the biomechanical changes at L4 segment before and after surgery in neutral, flexion, extension, lateral bending and axial rotation position. The stress on L4 pars interarticularis was very similar before and after surgery, and reached the highest in axial rotation. The L3-L4 intradiscal pressure was almost the same, while L4-L5 intradiscal pressure changed a little in lateral bending (increase from 1.993 to 2.160 MPa) and axial rotation (decrease from 1.639 to 1.307 MPa) after surgery. The PLIF surgery caused a little increase of range of motion at adjacent L4-L5 and L3-L4 levels, but the change is very tiny (1 degree). The PLIF surgery will not cause significant biomechanical change at adjacent segment with pars defect in multi-level spondylolysis. On the contrary, excessive long-segment surgery will damage surrounding soft tissues which are important for maintaining the stability of spine. So a preventative long-segment surgery is not necessary for multi-level spondylolysis as long as there are no soft tissue degeneration signs at adjacent level.

Relationship between screw sagittal angle and stress on endplate of adjacent segments after anterior cervical corpectomy and fusion with internal fixation: a Chinese finite element study.

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Zhang, Yu; Tang, Yibo; Shen, Hongxing

2017-12-01

In order to reduce the incidence of adjacent segment disease (ASD), the current study was designed to establish Chinese finite element models of normal 3rd~7th cervical vertebrae (C3-C7) and anterior cervical corpectomy and fusion (ACCF) with internal fixation , and analyze the influence of screw sagittal angle (SSA) on stress on endplate of adjacent cervical segments. Mimics 8.1 and Abaqus/CAE 6.10 softwares were adopted to establish finite element models. For C4 superior endplate and C6 inferior endplate, their anterior areas had the maximum stress in anteflexion position, and their posterior areas had the maximum stress in posterior extension position. As SSA increased, the stress reduced. With an increase of 10° in SSA, the stress on anterior areas of C4 superior endplate and C6 inferior endplate reduced by 12.67% and 7.99% in anteflexion position, respectively. With an increase of 10° in SSA, the stress on posterior areas of C4 superior endplate and C6 inferior endplate reduced by 9.68% and 10.22% in posterior extension position, respectively. The current study established Chinese finite element models of normal C3-C7 and ACCF with internal fixation , and demonstrated that as SSA increased, the stress on endplate of adjacent cervical segments decreased. In clinical surgery, increased SSA is able to play important role in protecting the adjacent cervical segments and reducing the incidence of ASD.

Segmentation and quantification of retinal lesions in age-related macular degeneration using polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography.

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Baumann, Bernhard; Gotzinger, Erich; Pircher, Michael; Sattmann, Harald; Schuutze, Christopher; Schlanitz, Ferdinand; Ahlers, Christian; Schmidt-Erfurth, Ursula; Hitzenberger, Christoph K

2010-01-01

We present polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography (PS-OCT) for quantitative assessment of retinal pathologies in age-related macular degeneration (AMD). On the basis of the polarization scrambling characteristics of the retinal pigment epithelium, novel segmentation algorithms were developed that allow one to segment pathologic features such as drusen and atrophic zones in dry AMD as well as to determine their dimensions. Results from measurements in the eyes of AMD patients prove the ability of PS-OCT for quantitative imaging based on the retinal features polarizing properties. Repeatability measurements were performed in retinas diagnosed with drusen and geographic atrophy in order to evaluate the performance of the described methods. PS-OCT appears as a promising imaging modality for three-dimensional retinal imaging and ranging with additional contrast based on the structures' tissue-inherent polarization properties.

IMMEDIATE RECIPROCAL CHANGES AT ADJACENT LEVEL FOLLOWING SINGLE-LEVEL ALIF

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Enrique Vargas Uribe

2015-12-01

Full Text Available Objective : To assess the segmental sagittal parameters and the adjacent mobile segment after interbody fusion by anterior approach in single-level L5-S1. Methods : Retrospective study. Inclusion: Interbody fusion by anterior approach (10°/15° angle, due to DDD, low-grade spondylolisthesis and/or stenosis without prior lumbar fusion. Thirty-five cases were included (25 women; mean age 47±15 years. Analysis of lumbar radiographs were performed preoperatively and 3 months after surgery. The following parameters were evaluated: lumbar lordosis; segmental lordosis L4-L5 and L5-S1; sacral and L5 slope. Two independent evaluators made the measurements. Student's t test was used. Results : There was correction of lordosis at the L5-S1 level, from an average of 19° prior to surgery to 28° three months after surgery (p<0.001. It was observed reduction of the L4-L5 angle from 17° to 14° (p <0.001. Moreover, there was a small, but statistically significant, reduction of L5 inclination from 17 ° to 13 ° (p=0.007 and increase in the sacral slope from 37° to 40° (p=0.002. The change of total lumbar lordosis was not significant: 52° versus 53° (p=0.461. Before surgical correction, lordosis of the L5-S1 level contributed, on average, 37% of lumbar lordosis, and after, 54% (p<0.001. The L4-L5 level accounted for 34% and decreased to 24% (p<0.001. Conclusion : In the group studied, it was observed a decrease in lordosis of the adjacent mobile level following the treatment of the degenerate level by anterior interbody fusion and concomitant increase in lordosis.

Adjacent Lumbar Disc Herniation after Lumbar Short Spinal Fusion

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Koshi Ninomiya

2014-01-01

Full Text Available A 70-year-old outpatient presented with a chief complaint of sudden left leg motor weakness and sensory disturbance. He had undergone L4/5 posterior interbody fusion with L3–5 posterior fusions for spondylolisthesis 3 years prior, and the screws were removed 1 year later. He has been followed up for 3 years, and there had been no adjacent segment problems before this presentation. Lumbar magnetic resonance imaging (MRI showed a large L2/3 disc hernia descending to the L3/4 level. Compared to the initial MRI, this hernia occurred in an “intact” disc among multilevel severely degenerated discs. Right leg paresis and bladder dysfunction appeared a few days after admission. Microscopic lumbar disc herniotomy was performed. The right leg motor weakness improved just after the operation, but the moderate left leg motor weakness and difficulty in urination persisted.

Loosely coupled level sets for retinal layers and drusen segmentation in subjects with dry age-related macular degeneration

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Novosel, Jelena; Wang, Ziyuan; de Jong, Henk; Vermeer, Koenraad A.; van Vliet, Lucas J.

2016-03-01

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is used to produce high-resolution three-dimensional images of the retina, which permit the investigation of retinal irregularities. In dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a chronic eye disease that causes central vision loss, disruptions such as drusen and changes in retinal layer thicknesses occur which could be used as biomarkers for disease monitoring and diagnosis. Due to the topology disrupting pathology, existing segmentation methods often fail. Here, we present a solution for the segmentation of retinal layers in dry AMD subjects by extending our previously presented loosely coupled level sets framework which operates on attenuation coefficients. In eyes affected by AMD, Bruch's membrane becomes visible only below the drusen and our segmentation framework is adapted to delineate such a partially discernible interface. Furthermore, the initialization stage, which tentatively segments five interfaces, is modified to accommodate the appearance of drusen. This stage is based on Dijkstra's algorithm and combines prior knowledge on the shape of the interface, gradient and attenuation coefficient in the newly proposed cost function. This prior knowledge is incorporated by varying the weights for horizontal, diagonal and vertical edges. Finally, quantitative evaluation of the accuracy shows a good agreement between manual and automated segmentation.

A hybrid segmentation approach for geographic atrophy in fundus auto-fluorescence images for diagnosis of age-related macular degeneration.

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Lee, Noah; Laine, Andrew F; Smith, R Theodore

2007-01-01

Fundus auto-fluorescence (FAF) images with hypo-fluorescence indicate geographic atrophy (GA) of the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) in age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Manual quantification of GA is time consuming and prone to inter- and intra-observer variability. Automatic quantification is important for determining disease progression and facilitating clinical diagnosis of AMD. In this paper we describe a hybrid segmentation method for GA quantification by identifying hypo-fluorescent GA regions from other interfering retinal vessel structures. First, we employ background illumination correction exploiting a non-linear adaptive smoothing operator. Then, we use the level set framework to perform segmentation of hypo-fluorescent areas. Finally, we present an energy function combining morphological scale-space analysis with a geometric model-based approach to perform segmentation refinement of false positive hypo- fluorescent areas due to interfering retinal structures. The clinically apparent areas of hypo-fluorescence were drawn by an expert grader and compared on a pixel by pixel basis to our segmentation results. The mean sensitivity and specificity of the ROC analysis were 0.89 and 0.98%.

Motor axon excitability during Wallerian degeneration

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Moldovan, Mihai; Alvarez, Susana; Krarup, Christian

2008-01-01

Axonal loss and degeneration are major factors in determining long-term outcome in patients with peripheral nerve disorders or injury. Following loss of axonal continuity, the isolated nerve stump distal to the lesion undergoes Wallerian degeneration in several phases. In the initial 'latent' phase......, action potential propagation and structural integrity of the distal segment are maintained. The aim of this study was to investigate in vivo the changes in membrane function of motor axons during the 'latent' phase of Wallerian degeneration. Multiple indices of axonal excitability of the tibial nerve...

Mutation mechanisms that underlie turnover of a human telomere-adjacent segmental duplication containing an unstable minisatellite.

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Hills, Mark; Jeyapalan, Jennie N; Foxon, Jennifer L; Royle, Nicola J

2007-04-01

Subterminal regions, juxtaposed to telomeres on human chromosomes, contain a high density of segmental duplications, but relatively little is known about the evolutionary processes that underlie sequence turnover in these regions. We have characterized a segmental duplication adjacent to the Xp/Yp telomere, each copy containing a hypervariable array of the DXYS14 minisatellite. Both DXYS14 repeat arrays mutate at a high rate (0.3 and 0.2% per gamete) but linkage disequilibrium analysis across 27 SNPs and a direct crossover assay show that recombination during meiosis is suppressed. Therefore instability at DXYS14a and b is dominated by intra-allelic processes or possibly conversion limited to the repeat arrays. Furthermore some chromosomes (14%) carry only one copy of the duplicon, including one DXYS14 repeat array that is also highly mutable (1.2% per gamete). To explain these and other observations, we propose there is another low-rate mutation process that causes copy number change in part or all of the duplicon.

Short term outcome of posterior dynamic stabilization system in degenerative lumbar diseases

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Mingyuan Yang

2014-01-01

Conclusion: Dynamic stabilization system treating lumbar degenerative disease showed clinical benefits with motion preservation of the operated segments, but does not have the significant advantage on motion preservation at adjacent segments, to avoid the degeneration of adjacent intervertebral disk.

Adjacent-segment disease after thoracic pedicle screw fixation.

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Agarwal, Nitin; Heary, Robert F; Agarwal, Prateek

2018-03-01

OBJECTIVE Pedicle screw fixation is a technique widely used to treat conditions ranging from spine deformity to fracture stabilization. Pedicle screws have been used traditionally in the lumbar spine; however, they are now being used with increasing frequency in the thoracic spine as a more favorable alternative to hooks, wires, or cables. Although safety concerns, such as the incidence of adjacent-segment disease (ASD) after cervical and lumbar fusions, have been reported, such issues in the thoracic spine have yet to be addressed thoroughly. Here, the authors review the literature on ASD after thoracic pedicle screw fixation and report their own experience specifically involving the use of pedicle screws in the thoracic spine. METHODS Select references from online databases, such as PubMed (provided by the US National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health), were used to survey the literature concerning ASD after thoracic pedicle screw fixation. To include the authors' experience at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, a retrospective review of a prospectively maintained database was performed to determine the incidence of complications over a 13-year period in 123 consecutive adult patients who underwent thoracic pedicle screw fixation. Children, pregnant or lactating women, and prisoners were excluded from the review. By comparing preoperative and postoperative radiographic images, the occurrence of thoracic ASD and disease within the surgical construct was determined. RESULTS Definitive radiographic fusion was detected in 115 (93.5%) patients. Seven incidences of instrumentation failure and 8 lucencies surrounding the screws were observed. One patient was observed to have ASD of the thoracic spine. The mean follow-up duration was 50 months. CONCLUSIONS This long-term radiographic evaluation revealed the use of pedicle screws for thoracic fixation to be an effective stabilization modality. In particular, ASD seems to be less of a problem in the

Hyaline cartilage degenerates after autologous osteochondral transplantation.

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Tibesku, C O; Szuwart, T; Kleffner, T O; Schlegel, P M; Jahn, U R; Van Aken, H; Fuchs, S

2004-11-01

Autologous osteochondral grafting is a well-established clinical procedure to treat focal cartilage defects in patients, although basic research on this topic remains sparse. The aim of the current study was to evaluate (1) histological changes of transplanted hyaline cartilage of osteochondral grafts and (2) the tissue that connects the transplanted cartilage with the adjacent cartilage in a sheep model. Both knee joints of four sheep were opened surgically and osteochondral grafts were harvested and simultaneously transplanted to the contralateral femoral condyle. The animals were sacrificed after three months and the received knee joints were evaluated histologically. Histological evaluation showed a complete ingrowth of the osseous part of the osteochondral grafts. A healing or ingrowth at the level of the cartilage could not be observed. Histological evaluation of the transplanted grafts according to Mankin revealed significantly more and more severe signs of degeneration than the adjacent cartilage, such as cloning of chondrocytes and irregularities of the articular surface. We found no connecting tissue between the transplanted and the adjacent cartilage and histological signs of degeneration of the transplanted hyaline cartilage. In the light of these findings, long-term results of autologous osteochondral grafts in human beings have to be followed critically.

Apparatus For Laminating Segmented Core For Electric Machine

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Lawrence, Robert Anthony; Stabel, Gerald R

2003-06-17

A segmented core for an electric machine includes segments stamped from coated electric steel. The segments each have a first end, a second end, and winding openings. A predetermined number of segments are placed end-to-end to form layers. The layers are stacked such that each of the layers is staggered from adjacent layers by a predetermined rotation angle. The winding openings of each of the layers are in vertical alignment with the winding openings of the adjacent layers. The stack of layers is secured to form the segmented core.

Percutaneous full endoscopic lumbar foraminoplasty for adjacent level foraminal stenosis following vertebral intersegmental fusion in an awake and aware patient under local anesthesia: A case report.

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Yamashita, Kazuta; Higashino, Kosaku; Sakai, Toshinori; Takata, Yoichiro; Hayashi, Fumio; Tezuka, Fumitake; Morimoto, Masatoshi; Chikawa, Takashi; Nagamachi, Akihiro; Sairyo, Koichi

2017-01-01

Percutaneous endoscopic surgery for the lumbar spine has become established in the last decade. It requires only an 8 mm skin incision, causes minimal damage to the paravertebral muscles, and can be performed under local anesthesia. With the advent of improved equipment, in particular the high-speed surgical drill, the indications for percutaneous endoscopic surgery have expanded to include lumbar spinal canal stenosis. Transforaminal percutaneous endoscopic discectomy has been used to treat intervertebral stenosis. However, it has been reported that adjacent level disc degeneration and foraminal stenosis can occur following intervertebral segmental fusion. When this adjacent level pathology becomes symptomatic, additional fusion surgery is often needed. We performed minimally invasive percutaneous full endoscopic lumbar foraminoplasty in an awake and aware 50-year-old woman under local anesthesia. The procedure was successful with no complications. Her radiculopathy, including muscle weakness and leg pain due to impingement of the exiting nerve, improved after the surgery. J. Med. Invest. 64: 291-295, August, 2017.

Medium-term effects of Dynesys dynamic stabilization versus posterior lumbar interbody fusion for treatment of multisegmental lumbar degenerative disease.

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Wu, Haiting; Pang, Qingjiang; Jiang, Guoqiang

2017-10-01

Objective To compare the medium-term clinical and radiographic outcomes of Dynesys dynamic stabilization and posterior lumbar interbody fusion (PLIF) for treatment of multisegmental lumbar degenerative disease. Methods Fifty-seven patients with multisegmental lumbar degenerative disease underwent Dynesys stabilization (n = 26) or PLIF (n = 31) from December 2008 to February 2010. The mean follow-up period was 50.3 (range, 46-65) months. Clinical outcomes were evaluated using a visual analogue scale (VAS) and the Oswestry disability index (ODI). Radiographic evaluations included disc height and range of motion (ROM) of the operative segments and proximal adjacent segment on lumbar flexion-extension X-rays. The intervertebral disc signal change was defined by magnetic resonance imaging, and disc degeneration was classified by the Pfirrmann grade. Results The clinical outcomes including the VAS score and ODI were significantly improved in both groups at 3 months and the final follow-up, but the difference between the two was not significant. At the final follow-up, the disc height of stabilized segments in both groups was significantly increased; the increase was more notable in the Dynesys than PLIF group. The ROM of stabilized segments at the final follow-up decreased from 6.20° to 2.76° and 6.56° to 0.00° in the Dynesys and PLIF groups, respectively. There was no distinct change in the height of the proximal adjacent segment in the two groups. The ROM of the proximal adjacent segment in both groups increased significantly at the final follow-up; the change was significantly greater in the PLIF than Dynesys group. Only one case of adjacent segment degeneration occurred in the PLIF group, and this patient underwent a second operation. Conclusions Both Dynesys stabilization and PLIF can improve the clinical and radiographic outcomes of multisegmental lumbar degenerative disease. Compared with PLIF, Dynesys stabilization can maintain the mobility of the

Segmentation error and macular thickness measurements obtained with spectral-domain optical coherence tomography devices in neovascular age-related macular degeneration

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Moosang Kim

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Purpose: To evaluate frequency and severity of segmentation errors of two spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT devices and error effect on central macular thickness (CMT measurements. Materials and Methods: Twenty-seven eyes of 25 patients with neovascular age-related macular degeneration, examined using the Cirrus HD-OCT and Spectralis HRA + OCT, were retrospectively reviewed. Macular cube 512 × 128 and 5-line raster scans were performed with the Cirrus and 512 × 25 volume scans with the Spectralis. Frequency and severity of segmentation errors were compared between scans. Results: Segmentation error frequency was 47.4% (baseline, 40.7% (1 month, 40.7% (2 months, and 48.1% (6 months for the Cirrus, and 59.3%, 62.2%, 57.8%, and 63.7%, respectively, for the Spectralis, differing significantly between devices at all examinations (P < 0.05, except at baseline. Average error score was 1.21 ± 1.65 (baseline, 0.79 ± 1.18 (1 month, 0.74 ± 1.12 (2 months, and 0.96 ± 1.11 (6 months for the Cirrus, and 1.73 ± 1.50, 1.54 ± 1.35, 1.38 ± 1.40, and 1.49 ± 1.30, respectively, for the Spectralis, differing significantly at 1 month and 2 months (P < 0.02. Automated and manual CMT measurements by the Spectralis were larger than those by the Cirrus. Conclusions: The Cirrus HD-OCT had a lower frequency and severity of segmentation error than the Spectralis HRA + OCT. SD-OCT error should be considered when evaluating retinal thickness.

A level-set method for pathology segmentation in fluorescein angiograms and en face retinal images of patients with age-related macular degeneration

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Mohammad, Fatimah; Ansari, Rashid; Shahidi, Mahnaz

2013-03-01

The visibility and continuity of the inner segment outer segment (ISOS) junction layer of the photoreceptors on spectral domain optical coherence tomography images is known to be related to visual acuity in patients with age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Automatic detection and segmentation of lesions and pathologies in retinal images is crucial for the screening, diagnosis, and follow-up of patients with retinal diseases. One of the challenges of using the classical level-set algorithms for segmentation involves the placement of the initial contour. Manually defining the contour or randomly placing it in the image may lead to segmentation of erroneous structures. It is important to be able to automatically define the contour by using information provided by image features. We explored a level-set method which is based on the classical Chan-Vese model and which utilizes image feature information for automatic contour placement for the segmentation of pathologies in fluorescein angiograms and en face retinal images of the ISOS layer. This was accomplished by exploiting a priori knowledge of the shape and intensity distribution allowing the use of projection profiles to detect the presence of pathologies that are characterized by intensity differences with surrounding areas in retinal images. We first tested our method by applying it to fluorescein angiograms. We then applied our method to en face retinal images of patients with AMD. The experimental results included demonstrate that the proposed method provided a quick and improved outcome as compared to the classical Chan-Vese method in which the initial contour is randomly placed, thus indicating the potential to provide a more accurate and detailed view of changes in pathologies due to disease progression and treatment.

Semiautomated segmentation and analysis of retinal layers in three-dimensional spectral-domain optical coherence tomography images of patients with atrophic age-related macular degeneration.

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Hu, Zhihong; Shi, Yue; Nandanan, Kiran; Sadda, Srinivas R

2017-01-01

Historically, regular drusen and geographic atrophy (GA) have been recognized as the hallmarks of nonneovascular age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Recent imaging developments have revealed another distinct nonneovascular AMD phenotype, reticular pseudodrusen (RPD). We develop an approach to semiautomatically quantify retinal surfaces associated with various AMD lesions (i.e., regular drusen, RPD, and GA) in spectral domain (SD) optical coherence tomography (OCT) images. More specifically, a graph-based algorithm was used to segment multiple retinal layers in SD-OCT volumes. Varying surface feasibility constraints based on the presegmentation were applied on the double-surface graph search to refine the surface segmentation. The thicknesses of these layers and their correlation with retinal functional measurements, including microperimetry (MP) sensitivity and visual acuity (VA), were investigated. The photoreceptor outer segment layer demonstrated significant thinning with a reduction in MP sensitivity and VA score when atrophic AMD lesions were present. Regular drusen and RPD were separately segmented on SD-OCT images to allow their characteristics and distribution to be studied separately. The mean thickness of regular drusen was found to significantly correlate with the VA score. RPD appeared to be distributed evenly throughout the macula and regular drusen appeared to be more concentrated centrally.

A novel line segment detection algorithm based on graph search

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Zhao, Hong-dan; Liu, Guo-ying; Song, Xu

2018-02-01

To overcome the problem of extracting line segment from an image, a method of line segment detection was proposed based on the graph search algorithm. After obtaining the edge detection result of the image, the candidate straight line segments are obtained in four directions. For the candidate straight line segments, their adjacency relationships are depicted by a graph model, based on which the depth-first search algorithm is employed to determine how many adjacent line segments need to be merged. Finally we use the least squares method to fit the detected straight lines. The comparative experimental results verify that the proposed algorithm has achieved better results than the line segment detector (LSD).

Cervical facet dislocation adjacent to the fused motion segment

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Kunio Yokoyama

2016-01-01

Full Text Available This study reports on a case that forces re-examination of merits and demerits of anterior cervical fusion. A 79-year-old male was brought to the emergency room (ER of our hospital after he fell and struck the occipital region of his head following excessive alcohol consumption. Four years prior, he had undergone anterior cervical discectomy and fusion of C5/6 and a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI performed 3 years after this surgery indicated that he was suffering from degeneration of C6/7 intervertebral discs. After arriving at the ER, he presented motor impairment at level C7 and lower of manual muscle testing grade 1 as well as moderate loss of physical sensation from the trunk and peripheries of both upper limbs to the peripheries of both lower limbs (Frankel B. Cervical computed tomography (CT indicated anterior dislocation of C6/7, and MRI indicated severe spinal cord edema. We performed manipulative reduction of C6/7 with the patient under general anesthesia. Next, we performed laminectomy on C5-T1 and posterior fusion on C6/7. Postoperative CT indicated that cervical alignment had improved, and MRI indicated that the spinal cord edema observed prior to surgery had been mitigated. Three months after surgery, motor function and sensory impairment of the lower limbs had improved, and the patient was ambulatory upon discharge from the hospital (Frankel D. In the present case, although C5 and 6 were rigidly fused, degeneration of the C6/7 intervertebral disc occurred and stability was compromised. As a result, even slight trauma placed a severe dynamic burden on the facet joint of C6/7, which led to dislocation.

Segmented rail linear induction motor

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Cowan, Jr., Maynard; Marder, Barry M.

1996-01-01

A segmented rail linear induction motor has a segmented rail consisting of a plurality of nonferrous electrically conductive segments aligned along a guideway. The motor further includes a carriage including at least one pair of opposed coils fastened to the carriage for moving the carriage. A power source applies an electric current to the coils to induce currents in the conductive surfaces to repel the coils from adjacent edges of the conductive surfaces.

Automated Segmentation Methods of Drusen to Diagnose Age-Related Macular Degeneration Screening in Retinal Images

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Young Jae Kim

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Existing drusen measurement is difficult to use in clinic because it requires a lot of time and effort for visual inspection. In order to resolve this problem, we propose an automatic drusen detection method to help clinical diagnosis of age-related macular degeneration. First, we changed the fundus image to a green channel and extracted the ROI of the macular area based on the optic disk. Next, we detected the candidate group using the difference image of the median filter within the ROI. We also segmented vessels and removed them from the image. Finally, we detected the drusen through Renyi’s entropy threshold algorithm. We performed comparisons and statistical analysis between the manual detection results and automatic detection results for 30 cases in order to verify validity. As a result, the average sensitivity was 93.37% (80.95%~100% and the average DSC was 0.73 (0.3~0.98. In addition, the value of the ICC was 0.984 (CI: 0.967~0.993, p<0.01, showing the high reliability of the proposed automatic method. We expect that the automatic drusen detection helps clinicians to improve the diagnostic performance in the detection of drusen on fundus image.

Total resection of any segment of the lateral meniscus may cause early cartilage degeneration: Evaluation by magnetic resonance imaging using T2 mapping.

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Murakami, Koji; Arai, Yuji; Ikoma, Kazuya; Kato, Kammei; Inoue, Hiroaki; Nakagawa, Shuji; Fujii, Yuta; Ueshima, Keiichiro; Fujiwara, Hiroyoshi; Kubo, Toshikazu

2018-06-01

The aim of this study was to perform quantitative evaluation of degeneration of joint cartilage using T2 mapping in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) after arthroscopic partial resection of the lateral meniscus.The subjects were 21 patients (23 knees) treated with arthroscopic partial resection of the lateral meniscus. MRI was performed for all knees before surgery and 6 months after surgery to evaluate the center of the lateral condyle of the femur in sagittal images for T2 mapping. Ten regions of interest (ROIs) on the articular cartilage were established at 10-degree intervals, from the point at which the femur shaft crossed the lateral femoral condyle joint to the articular cartilage 90° relative to the femur shaft. Preoperative and postoperative T2 values were evaluated at each ROI. Age, sex, body mass index, femorotibial angle, Tegner score, and amount of meniscal resection were evaluated when the T2 value increased more than 6% at 30°.T2 values at approximately 10 °, 20 °, 30 °, 40 °, 50 °, and 60 ° degrees relative to the anatomical axis of the femur were significantly greater postoperatively (3.1, 3.6, 5.5, 4.4, 5.0, 6.4%, respectively) than preoperatively. A >6% increase at 30° was associated with total resection of any segment of the meniscus.Degeneration of the articular cartilage, as shown by the disorganization of collagen arrays at positions approximately 10 °, 20 °, 30 °, 40 °, 50 °, and 60 ° relative to the anatomical axis of the femur, may start soon after arthroscopic lateral meniscectomy. Total resection of any segment of the lateral meniscus may cause T2 elevation of articular cartilage of lateral femoral condyle.

Is it possible to preserve lumbar lordosis after hybrid stabilization? Preliminary results of a novel rigid-dynamic stabilization system in degenerative lumbar pathologies.

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Formica, Matteo; Cavagnaro, Luca; Basso, Marco; Zanirato, Andrea; Felli, Lamberto; Formica, Carlo

2015-11-01

To evaluate the results of a novel rigid-dynamic stabilization technique in lumbar degenerative segment diseases (DSD), expressly pointing out the preservation of postoperative lumbar lordosis (LL). Forty-one patients with one level lumbar DSD and initial disc degeneration at the adjacent level were treated. Circumferential lumbar arthrodesis and posterior hybrid instrumentation were performed to preserve an initial disc degeneration above the segment that has to be fused. Clinical and spino-pelvic parameters were evaluated pre- and postoperatively. At 2-year follow-up, a significant improvement of clinical outcomes was reported. No statistically significant difference was noted between postoperative and 2-year follow-up in LL and in disc/vertebral body height ratio at the upper adjacent fusion level. When properly selected, this technique leads to good results. A proper LL should be achieved after any hybrid stabilization to preserve the segment above the fusion.

IMMEDIATE RECIPROCAL CHANGES AT ADJACENT LEVEL FOLLOWING SINGLE-LEVEL ALIF

OpenAIRE

Uribe, Enrique Vargas; Amaral, Rodrigo; Marchi, Luis; Jensen, Rubens; Oliveira, Leonardo; Fortti, Fernanda; Coutinho, Etevaldo; Pimenta, Luiz

2015-01-01

Objective : To assess the segmental sagittal parameters and the adjacent mobile segment after interbody fusion by anterior approach in single-level L5-S1. Methods : Retrospective study. Inclusion: Interbody fusion by anterior approach (10°/15° angle), due to DDD, low-grade spondylolisthesis and/or stenosis without prior lumbar fusion. Thirty-five cases were included (25 women; mean age 47±15 years). Analysis of lumbar radiographs were performed preoperatively and 3 months after surgery. The ...

Retina image–based optic disc segmentation

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Ching-Lin Wang

2016-05-01

Full Text Available The change of optic disc can be used to diagnose many eye diseases, such as glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy and macular degeneration. Moreover, retinal blood vessel pattern is unique for human beings even for identical twins. It is a highly stable pattern in biometric identification. Since optic disc is the beginning of the optic nerve and main blood vessels in retina, it can be used as a reference point of identification. Therefore, optic disc segmentation is an important technique for developing a human identity recognition system and eye disease diagnostic system. This article hence presents an optic disc segmentation method to extract the optic disc from a retina image. The experimental results show that the optic disc segmentation method can give impressive results in segmenting the optic disc from a retina image.

Correlation between cervical lordosis and adjacent segment pathology after anterior cervical spinal surgery.

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Lee, Soo Eon; Jahng, Tae-Ahn; Kim, Hyun Jib

2015-12-01

To evaluate the incidence and risk factors for adjacent segment pathology (ASP) after anterior cervical spinal surgery. Fourteen patients (12 male, mean age 47.1 years) who underwent single-level cervical disk arthroplasty (CDA group) and 28 case-matched patients (24 male, mean age 53.6 years) who underwent single-level anterior cervical discectomy and fusion (ACDF group) were included. Presence of radiologic ASP (RASP) was based on observed changes in anterior osteophytes, disks, and calcification of the anterior longitudinal ligament on lateral radiographs. The mean follow-up period was 43.4 months in the CDA group and 44.6 months in the ACDF group. At final follow-up, ASP was observed in 5 (35.7%) CDA patients and 16 (57.1%) ACDF patients (p = 0.272). The interval between surgery and ASP development was 33.8 months in the CDA group and 16.3 months in the ACDF group (p = 0.046). The ASP risk factor analysis indicated postoperative cervical angle at C3-7 being more lordotic in non-ASP patients in both groups. Restoration of lordosis occurred in the CDA group regardless of the presence of ASP, but heterotopic ossification development was associated with the presence of ASP in the CDA group. And the CDA group had significantly greater clinical improvements than those in the ACDF group when ASP was present. In both CDA and ACDF patients, RASP developed, but CDA was associated with a delay in ASP development. A good clinical outcome was expected in CDA group, even when ASP developed. Restoration of cervical lordosis was an important factor in anterior cervical spine surgery.

Dual Contrast CT Method Enables Diagnostics of Cartilage Injuries and Degeneration Using a Single CT Image.

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Saukko, Annina E A; Honkanen, Juuso T J; Xu, Wujun; Väänänen, Sami P; Jurvelin, Jukka S; Lehto, Vesa-Pekka; Töyräs, Juha

2017-12-01

Cartilage injuries may be detected using contrast-enhanced computed tomography (CECT) by observing variations in distribution of anionic contrast agent within cartilage. Currently, clinical CECT enables detection of injuries and related post-traumatic degeneration based on two subsequent CT scans. The first scan allows segmentation of articular surfaces and lesions while the latter scan allows evaluation of tissue properties. Segmentation of articular surfaces from the latter scan is difficult since the contrast agent diffusion diminishes the image contrast at surfaces. We hypothesize that this can be overcome by mixing anionic contrast agent (ioxaglate) with bismuth oxide nanoparticles (BINPs) too large to diffuse into cartilage, inducing a high contrast at the surfaces. Here, a dual contrast method employing this mixture is evaluated by determining the depth-wise X-ray attenuation profiles in intact, enzymatically degraded, and mechanically injured osteochondral samples (n = 3 × 10) using a microCT immediately and at 45 min after immersion in contrast agent. BiNPs were unable to diffuse into cartilage, producing high contrast at articular surfaces. Ioxaglate enabled the detection of enzymatic and mechanical degeneration. In conclusion, the dual contrast method allowed detection of injuries and degeneration simultaneously with accurate cartilage segmentation using a single scan conducted at 45 min after contrast agent administration.

Narrative review of the in vivo mechanics of the cervical spine after anterior arthrodesis as revealed by dynamic biplane radiography.

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Anderst, William

2016-01-01

Arthrodesis is the standard of care for numerous pathologic conditions of the cervical spine and is performed over 150,000 times annually in the United States. The primary long-term concern after this surgery is adjacent segment disease (ASD), defined as new clinical symptoms adjacent to a previous fusion. The incidence of adjacent segment disease is approximately 3% per year, meaning that within 10 years of the initial surgery, approximately 25% of cervical arthrodesis patients require a second procedure to address symptomatic adjacent segment degeneration. Despite the high incidence of ASD, until recently, there was little data available to characterize in vivo adjacent segment mechanics during dynamic motion. This manuscript reviews recent advances in our knowledge of adjacent segment mechanics after cervical arthrodesis that have been facilitated by the use of dynamic biplane radiography. The primary observations from these studies are that current in vitro test paradigms often fail to replicate in vivo spine mechanics before and after arthrodesis, that intervertebral mechanics vary among cervical motion segments, and that joint arthrokinematics (i.e., the interactions between adjacent vertebrae) are superior to traditional kinematics measurements for identifying altered adjacent segment mechanics after arthrodesis. Future research challenges are identified, including improving the biofidelity of in vitro tests, determining the natural history of in vivo spine mechanics, conducting prospective longitudinal studies on adjacent segment kinematics and arthrokinematics after single and multiple-level arthrodesis, and creating subject-specific computational models to accurately estimate muscle forces and tissue loading in the spine during dynamic activities. © 2015 Orthopaedic Research Society. Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Biomechanical effect of interspinous process distraction height after lumbar fixation surgery: An in vitro model.

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Fu, Lin; Ma, Jianxiong; Lu, Bin; Jia, Haobo; Zhao, Jie; Kuang, Mingjie; Feng, Rui; Xu, Liyan; Bai, Haohao; Sun, Lei; Wang, Ying; Ma, Xinlong

2017-07-01

Pedicle screw fixation may induce abnormal activity at adjacent segment and accelerate the degeneration of lumbar vertebrae. Dynamic stabilizers could provide an intermediate solution between conservative treatment and fusion surgery. Lumbar vertebral segment cephalad to instrumented fixation was the most common localization of adjacent segment degeneration. The aim of this study is to explore the use of interspinous process devices in the lumbar vertebral segment cephalad to fixation segment in changing the mechanical distribution and limiting abnormal activity of the spine. Eight specimens were tested in the following groups: intact group, instability group (bilateral facetectomy at L3-L4), fixation group (bilateral facetectomy and pedicle screw fixation at L3-L4), and hybrid fixation group (fixation at L3-L4 and simulating interspinous device implantation of 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, and 18 mm at L2-L3). Range of motion, motion of vertebral body, and strain distribution change were recorded. The range of motion in extension with 16- and 18-mm hybrid constructs was significantly lower than intact, instability, and fixation groups. In flexion and lateral bending, the strain values of L4 inferior articular process with 18-mm hybrid construct have a significant difference compared with other groups. In axial rotation, under the condition of a contralateral state, the strain values of L2 superior articular process with 18-mm hybrid construct have a significant difference compared with intact and fixation groups. The strain value of the L4 inferior articular process had negative correlation with height distraction in three dimensions, except extension. A negative correlation between the strain value of the L2 superior articular process and distraction height was found in contralateral bending and contralateral axial rotation. Interspinous process devices above the fixation segment can change the mechanical distribution of the spine and limit activity in some of the

Association of age-related macular degeneration and reticular macular disease with cardiovascular disease.

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Rastogi, Neelesh; Smith, R Theodore

2016-01-01

Age-related macular degeneration is the leading cause of adult blindness in the developed world. Thus, major endeavors to understand the risk factors and pathogenesis of this disease have been undertaken. Reticular macular disease is a proposed subtype of age-related macular degeneration correlating histologically with subretinal drusenoid deposits located between the retinal pigment epithelium and the inner segment ellipsoid zone. Reticular lesions are more prevalent in females and in older age groups and are associated with a higher mortality rate. Risk factors for developing age-related macular degeneration include hypertension, smoking, and angina. Several genes related to increased risk for age-related macular degeneration and reticular macular disease are also associated with cardiovascular disease. Better understanding of the clinical and genetic risk factors for age-related macular degeneration and reticular macular disease has led to the hypothesis that these eye diseases are systemic. A systemic origin may help to explain why reticular disease is diagnosed more frequently in females as males suffer cardiovascular mortality at an earlier age, before the age of diagnosis of reticular macular disease and age-related macular degeneration. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Using tracheal segments for replacement of cervical oesophagus: an experimental study.

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Abbasidezfouli, Azizollah; Sharifi, Davood; Sasani, Farhang; Ansari, Damoon; Abarkar, Mohammad; Rahmanijoo, Nasrin; Abbasidezfouli, Golbahar; Sheikhy, Kambiz

2012-03-01

Segmental resection and anastomosis of oesophageal lesions are not performed as a routine clinical practice because of complications and associated problems, whereas tracheal resection and anastomosis are a routine clinical practice. In this experimental study, we resected a segment of cervical oesophagus and replaced it with a tracheal segment. In eight dogs (mixed races), weighing 20-30 kg, ageing 1-2 years, under general anaesthesia, through a cervical incision, 5 cm of cervical trachea was separated while preserving its attachments to surrounding fibroareolar tissues. Afterwards, 5 cm of the oesophagus was resected and replaced with a prepared segment of the trachea. Oral liquids were started at the first post-operative day; the animals were kept for 2 months and then euthanized. Quality of swallowing and voice were evaluated. After an autopsy, anastomoses were examined grossly and histopathologically. No complications occurred during surgery. Swallowing function and voice were normal in all eight dogs after the operation. No sign of aspiration was seen in clinical and radiographic examinations after starting oral diet. In autopsy examination, anastomoses were patent without narrowing or abnormal mucosal changes. Remarkable histopathological findings in replaced tracheal segments were squamous metaplasia, atrophy and degeneration of mucosal glands and degeneration of cartilages. Replacement of a segment of the oesophagus with an autogenous tracheal segment is a practical procedure with low complications and can probably be used for the treatment of cervical oesophageal lesions in human beings.

Semi-automatic geographic atrophy segmentation for SD-OCT images

OpenAIRE

Chen, Qiang; de Sisternes, Luis; Leng, Theodore; Zheng, Luoluo; Kutzscher, Lauren; Rubin, Daniel L.

2013-01-01

Geographic atrophy (GA) is a condition that is associated with retinal thinning and loss of the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) layer. It appears in advanced stages of non-exudative age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and can lead to vision loss. We present a semi-automated GA segmentation algorithm for spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) images. The method first identifies and segments a surface between the RPE and the choroid to generate retinal projection images in wh...

Intervertebral disc (IVD): Structure, degeneration, repair and regeneration

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Whatley, Benjamin R.; Wen Xuejun, E-mail: xjwen@clemson.edu

2012-02-01

Low back pain affects a large portion of the population, resulting in high care costs for therapy and treatment. One primary cause of low back pain is the degeneration of the intervertebral disc (IVD) resulting in the compression of the spinal nerves and adjacent vertebrae. Exact causes of degeneration are unknown, but it is thought that natural aging, and both biological and genetic factors may play a significant role in the degenerative process. Conventional methods to alleviate low back pain include spinal fusion and artificial disc replacement. Traditional treatments through spinal fusion may eliminate pain yet do not restore disc function and lead to further degeneration of adjacent levels by altering disc biomechanics and natural kinematics. Recently, artificial IVD replacements have started to gain interest, with two IVD implants currently approved in the United States. Although these implants facilitate the preservation of motions and disc space height, they are unable to sustain compressive forces due to their lack of elasticity. In addition, the implants may produce wear debris that can cause osteolysis and other deleterious effects. As an alternative to these conventional approaches, tissue engineered IVD constructs offer the advantage of biointegration while preserving the essential attributes of natural motion and disc space restoration. There is a great need for the development of tissue engineered scaffolds that simulate the natural 3D morphology and microenvironment of the targeted tissue. Scaffolds should facilitate biological transport to satisfy nutrition and waste removal requirements within the IVD. The discrete tissue architectures of the nucleus pulposus (NP) and annulus fibrosus (AF) have posed great challenges to IVD tissue engineering. Current attempts have not been able to satisfy the biological functions and/or mechanical properties of native tissue. Therefore, these current scaffolds are far from satisfactory. This review highlights the

Intacs for early pellucid marginal degeneration.

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Kymionis, George D; Aslanides, Ioannis M; Siganos, Charalambos S; Pallikaris, Ioannis G

2004-01-01

A 42-year-old man had Intacs (Addition Technology Inc.) implantation for early pellucid marginal degeneration (PMD). Two Intacs segments (0.45 mm thickness) were inserted uneventfully in the fashion typically used for low myopia correction (nasal-temporal). Eleven months after the procedure, the uncorrected visual acuity was 20/200, compared with counting fingers preoperatively, while the best spectacle-corrected visual acuity improved to 20/25 from 20/50. Corneal topographic pattern also improved. Although the results are encouraging, concern still exists regarding the long-term effect of this approach for the management of patients with PMD.

Loss of Arf4 causes severe degeneration of the exocrine pancreas but not cystic kidney disease or retinal degeneration.

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Jillian N Pearring

2017-04-01

Full Text Available Arf4 is proposed to be a critical regulator of membrane protein trafficking in early secretory pathway. More recently, Arf4 was also implicated in regulating ciliary trafficking, however, this has not been comprehensively tested in vivo. To directly address Arf4's role in ciliary transport, we deleted Arf4 specifically in either rod photoreceptor cells, kidney, or globally during the early postnatal period. Arf4 deletion in photoreceptors did not cause protein mislocalization or retinal degeneration, as expected if Arf4 played a role in protein transport to the ciliary outer segment. Likewise, Arf4 deletion in kidney did not cause cystic disease, as expected if Arf4 were involved in general ciliary trafficking. In contrast, global Arf4 deletion in the early postnatal period resulted in growth restriction, severe pancreatic degeneration and early death. These findings are consistent with Arf4 playing a critical role in endomembrane trafficking, particularly in the pancreas, but not in ciliary function.

Cervical disc arthroplasty: Pros and cons.

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Moatz, Bradley; Tortolani, P Justin

2012-01-01

Cervical disc arthroplasty has emerged as a promising potential alternative to anterior cervical discectomy and fusion (ACDF) in appropriately selected patients. Despite a history of excellent outcomes after ACDF, the question as to whether a fusion leads to adjacent segment degeneration remains unanswered. Numerous US investigational device exemption trials comparing cervical arthroplasty to fusion have been conducted to answer this question. This study reviews the current research regarding cervical athroplasty, and emphasizes both the pros and cons of arthroplasty as compared with ACDF. Early clinical outcomes show that cervical arthroplasty is as effective as the standard ACDF. However, this new technology is also associated with an expanding list of novel complications. Although there is no definitive evidence that cervical disc replacement reduces the incidence of adjacent segment degeneration, it does show other advantages; for example, faster return to work, and reduced need for postoperative bracing.

MRI histogram analysis enables objective and continuous classification of intervertebral disc degeneration.

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Waldenberg, Christian; Hebelka, Hanna; Brisby, Helena; Lagerstrand, Kerstin Magdalena

2018-05-01

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is the best diagnostic imaging method for low back pain. However, the technique is currently not utilized in its full capacity, often failing to depict painful intervertebral discs (IVDs), potentially due to the rough degeneration classification system used clinically today. MR image histograms, which reflect the IVD heterogeneity, may offer sensitive imaging biomarkers for IVD degeneration classification. This study investigates the feasibility of using histogram analysis as means of objective and continuous grading of IVD degeneration. Forty-nine IVDs in ten low back pain patients (six males, 25-69 years) were examined with MRI (T2-weighted images and T2-maps). Each IVD was semi-automatically segmented on three mid-sagittal slices. Histogram features of the IVD were extracted from the defined regions of interest and correlated to Pfirrmann grade. Both T2-weighted images and T2-maps displayed similar histogram features. Histograms of well-hydrated IVDs displayed two separate peaks, representing annulus fibrosus and nucleus pulposus. Degenerated IVDs displayed decreased peak separation, where the separation was shown to correlate strongly with Pfirrmann grade (P histogram appearances. Histogram features correlated well with IVD degeneration, suggesting that IVD histogram analysis is a suitable tool for objective and continuous IVD degeneration classification. As histogram analysis revealed IVD heterogeneity, it may be a clinical tool for characterization of regional IVD degeneration effects. To elucidate the usefulness of histogram analysis in patient management, IVD histogram features between asymptomatic and symptomatic individuals needs to be compared.

Optical Coherence Tomography of Retinal Degeneration in Royal College of Surgeons Rats and Its Correlation with Morphology and Electroretinography

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Yamauchi, Kodai; Mounai, Natsuki; Tanabu, Reiko; Nakazawa, Mitsuru

2016-01-01

Purpose To evaluate the correlation between optical coherence tomography (OCT) and the histological, ultrastructural and electroretinography (ERG) findings of retinal degeneration in Royal College of Surgeons (RCS-/-) rats. Materials and Methods Using OCT, we qualitatively and quantitatively observed the continual retinal degeneration in RCS-/- rats, from postnatal (PN) day 17 until PN day 111. These findings were compared with the corresponding histological, electron microscopic, and ERG findings. We also compared them to OCT findings in wild type RCS+/+ rats, which were used as controls. Results After PN day 17, the hyperreflective band at the apical side of the photoreceptor layer became blurred. The inner segment (IS) ellipsoid zone then became obscured, and the photoreceptor IS and outer segment (OS) layers became diffusely hyperreflective after PN day 21. These changes correlated with histological and electron microscopic findings showing extracellular lamellar material that accumulated in the photoreceptor OS layer. After PN day 26, the outer nuclear layer became significantly thinner (P RCS-/- and RCS+/+ rats. Conclusion Our results suggest that OCT demonstrates histologically validated photoreceptor degeneration in RCS rats, and that OCT findings partly correlate with ERG findings. We propose that OCT is a less invasive and useful method for evaluating photoreceptor degeneration in animal models of retinitis pigmentosa. PMID:27644042

A Gaussian process and derivative spectral-based algorithm for red blood cell segmentation

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Xue, Yingying; Wang, Jianbiao; Zhou, Mei; Hou, Xiyue; Li, Qingli; Liu, Hongying; Wang, Yiting

2017-07-01

As an imaging technology used in remote sensing, hyperspectral imaging can provide more information than traditional optical imaging of blood cells. In this paper, an AOTF based microscopic hyperspectral imaging system is used to capture hyperspectral images of blood cells. In order to achieve the segmentation of red blood cells, Gaussian process using squared exponential kernel function is applied first after the data preprocessing to make the preliminary segmentation. The derivative spectrum with spectral angle mapping algorithm is then applied to the original image to segment the boundary of cells, and using the boundary to cut out cells obtained from the Gaussian process to separated adjacent cells. Then the morphological processing method including closing, erosion and dilation is applied so as to keep adjacent cells apart, and by applying median filtering to remove noise points and filling holes inside the cell, the final segmentation result can be obtained. The experimental results show that this method appears better segmentation effect on human red blood cells.

Outer segment phagocytosis by cultured retinal pigment epithelial cells requires Gas6.

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Hall, M O; Prieto, A L; Obin, M S; Abrams, T A; Burgess, B L; Heeb, M J; Agnew, B J

2001-10-01

The function and viability of vertebrate photoreceptors requires the daily phagocytosis of photoreceptor outer segments (OS) by the adjacent retinal pigment epithelium (RPE). We demonstrate here a critical role in this process for Gas6 and by implication one of its receptor protein tyrosine kinases (RTKs), Mertk (Mer). Gas6 specifically and selectively stimulates the phagocytosis of OS by normal cultured rat RPE cells. The magnitude of the response is dose-dependent and shows an absolute requirement for calcium. By contrast the Royal College of Surgeons (RCS) rat RPE cells, in which a mutation in the gene Mertk results in the expression of a truncated, non-functional receptor, does not respond to Gas6. These data strongly suggest that activation of Mertk by its ligand, Gas6, is the specific signaling pathway responsible for initiating the ingestion of shed OS. Moreover, photoreceptor degeneration in the RCS rat retina, which lacks Mertk, and in humans with a mutation in Mertk, strongly suggests that the Gas6/Mertk signaling pathway is essential for photoreceptor viability. We believe that this is the first demonstration of a specific function for Gas6 in the eye. Copyright 2001 Academic Press.

An Improved Random Walker with Bayes Model for Volumetric Medical Image Segmentation

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Chunhua Dong

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Random walk (RW method has been widely used to segment the organ in the volumetric medical image. However, it leads to a very large-scale graph due to a number of nodes equal to a voxel number and inaccurate segmentation because of the unavailability of appropriate initial seed point setting. In addition, the classical RW algorithm was designed for a user to mark a few pixels with an arbitrary number of labels, regardless of the intensity and shape information of the organ. Hence, we propose a prior knowledge-based Bayes random walk framework to segment the volumetric medical image in a slice-by-slice manner. Our strategy is to employ the previous segmented slice to obtain the shape and intensity knowledge of the target organ for the adjacent slice. According to the prior knowledge, the object/background seed points can be dynamically updated for the adjacent slice by combining the narrow band threshold (NBT method and the organ model with a Gaussian process. Finally, a high-quality image segmentation result can be automatically achieved using Bayes RW algorithm. Comparing our method with conventional RW and state-of-the-art interactive segmentation methods, our results show an improvement in the accuracy for liver segmentation (p<0.001.

Biochemical Measurements of Free Opsin in Macular Degeneration Eyes: Examining the 11-CIS Retinal Deficiency Hypothesis of Delayed Dark Adaptation (An American Ophthalmological Society Thesis).

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Hanneken, Anne; Neikirk, Thomas; Johnson, Jennifer; Kono, Masahiro

2017-08-01

To test the hypothesis that delayed dark adaptation in patients with macular degeneration is due to an excess of free unliganded opsin (apo-opsin) and a deficiency of the visual chromophore, 11 -cis retinal, in rod outer segments. A total of 50 human autopsy eyes were harvested from donors with and without macular degeneration within 2-24 hrs. postmortem. Protocols were developed which permitted dark adaptation of normal human eyes after death and enucleation. Biochemical methods of purifying rod outer segments were optimized and the concentration of rhodopsin and apo-opsin was measured with UV-visible scanning spectroscopy. The presence of apo-opsin was calculated by measuring the difference in the rhodopsin absorption spectra before and after the addition of 11 -cis retinal. A total of 20 normal eyes and 16 eyes from donors with early, intermediate and advanced stages of macular degeneration were included in the final analysis. Dark adaptation was achieved by harvesting whole globes in low light, transferring into dark (light-proof) canisters and dissecting the globes using infrared light and image converters for visualization. Apo-opsin was readily detected in positive controls after the addition of 11 -cis retinal. Normal autopsy eyes showed no evidence of apo-opsin. Eyes with macular degeneration also showed no evidence of apo-opsin, regardless of the severity of disease. Methods have been developed to study dark adaptation in human autopsy eyes. Eyes with age-related macular degeneration do not show a deficiency of 11 -cis retinal or an excess of apo-opsin within rod outer segments.

Pregnancy outcome of a patient following myomectomy performed during first trimester for red degeneration of fibroid

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Asma Habib

2016-08-01

Full Text Available Pain due to red degeneration of fibroid during pregnancy is usually associated with large myomas. Necrobiosis / red degeneration typically manifests itself about midpregnancy when Lhe leiomyoma suddenly becomes acutely painful, enlarged and tender. The common differential diagnosis of this condition are torsion of the pedicle of an ovarian cyst/a leiomyoma, abruplion placentae, acute pyelitis or any abdominal catastrophe. Ultrasound can easily delineate the presence of myomas of mixed echogenicity along with pregnancy and clinical findings usually suggest the diagnosis of pregnancy complicated by red degeneration of fibroid. The acute pain usually subsides within 3-10 days of conservative treatment. Only refractory cases (2% of patients may demand surgical intervention in early gestation with the known risk of miscarriage. Here we report a pregnancy managed at 13 weeks by myomectomy for red degeneration. The patient ultimately delivered a healthy female child at 38 weeks by lower segment caesarean section.

Sucrose-Metabolizing Enzymes in Transport Tissues and Adjacent Sink Structures in Developing Citrus Fruit 1

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Lowell, Cadance A.; Tomlinson, Patricia T.; Koch, Karen E.

1989-01-01

Juice tissues of citrus lack phloem; therefore, photosynthates enroute to juice sacs exit the vascular system on the surface of each segment. Areas of extensive phloem unloading and transport (vascular bundles + segment epidermis) can thus be separated from those of assimilate storage (juice sacs) and adjacent tissues where both processes occur (peel). Sugar composition, dry weight accumulation, and activities of four sucrose-metabolizing enzymes (soluble and cell-wall-bound acid invertase, alkaline invertase, sucrose synthase, and sucrose phosphate synthase) were measured in these transport and sink tissues of grapefruit (Citrus paradisi Macf.) to determine more clearly whether a given enzyme appeared to be more directly associated with assimilate transport versus deposition or utilization. Results were compared at three developmental stages. Activity of sucrose (per gram fresh weight and per milligram protein) extracted from zones of extensive phloem unloading and transport was significantly greater than from adjacent sink tissues during the stages (II and III) when juice sacs grow most rapidly. In stage II fruit, activity of sucrose synthase also significantly surpassed that of all other sucrose-metabolizing enzymes in extracts from the transport tissues (vascular bundles + segment epidermis). In contrast, sucrose phosphate synthase and alkaline invertase at this stage of growth were the most active enzymes from adjacent, rapidly growing, phloem-free sink tissues (juice sacs). Activity of these two enzymes in extracts from juice sacs was significantly greater than that form the transport tissues (vascular bundles + segment epidermis). Soluble acid invertase was the most active enzyme in extracts from all tissues of very young fruit (stage I), including nonvascular regions, but nearly disappeared prior to the onset of juice sac sugar accumulation. The physiological function of high sucrose synthase activity in the transport tissues during rapid sucrose import

Laser Truss Sensor for Segmented Telescope Phasing

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Liu, Duncan T.; Lay, Oliver P.; Azizi, Alireza; Erlig, Herman; Dorsky, Leonard I.; Asbury, Cheryl G.; Zhao, Feng

2011-01-01

A paper describes the laser truss sensor (LTS) for detecting piston motion between two adjacent telescope segment edges. LTS is formed by two point-to-point laser metrology gauges in a crossed geometry. A high-resolution (distribution can be optimized using the range-gated metrology (RGM) approach.

Automated degenerate PCR primer design for high-throughput sequencing improves efficiency of viral sequencing

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Li Kelvin

2012-11-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background In a high-throughput environment, to PCR amplify and sequence a large set of viral isolates from populations that are potentially heterogeneous and continuously evolving, the use of degenerate PCR primers is an important strategy. Degenerate primers allow for the PCR amplification of a wider range of viral isolates with only one set of pre-mixed primers, thus increasing amplification success rates and minimizing the necessity for genome finishing activities. To successfully select a large set of degenerate PCR primers necessary to tile across an entire viral genome and maximize their success, this process is best performed computationally. Results We have developed a fully automated degenerate PCR primer design system that plays a key role in the J. Craig Venter Institute’s (JCVI high-throughput viral sequencing pipeline. A consensus viral genome, or a set of consensus segment sequences in the case of a segmented virus, is specified using IUPAC ambiguity codes in the consensus template sequence to represent the allelic diversity of the target population. PCR primer pairs are then selected computationally to produce a minimal amplicon set capable of tiling across the full length of the specified target region. As part of the tiling process, primer pairs are computationally screened to meet the criteria for successful PCR with one of two described amplification protocols. The actual sequencing success rates for designed primers for measles virus, mumps virus, human parainfluenza virus 1 and 3, human respiratory syncytial virus A and B and human metapneumovirus are described, where >90% of designed primer pairs were able to consistently successfully amplify >75% of the isolates. Conclusions Augmenting our previously developed and published JCVI Primer Design Pipeline, we achieved similarly high sequencing success rates with only minor software modifications. The recommended methodology for the construction of the consensus

Quantitative Characteristics of Spectral-Domain Optical Coherence Tomography in Corresponding Areas of Increased Autofluorescence at the Margin of Geographic Atrophy in Patients With Age-Related Macular Degeneration.

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Hariri, Amir H; Nittala, Muneeswar G; Sadda, SriniVas R

2016-06-01

To evaluate the spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) characteristics of the junctional zone corresponding to areas of increased autofluorescence (IAF) at the margin of geographic atrophy (GA) in patients with age-related macular degeneration (AMD). SD-OCT and fundus autofluorescence (FAF) images from untreated eyes with GA available from archived studies at Doheny Image Reading Center were evaluated. Areas of definite decreased autofluorescence (DDAF) corresponding to GA, and areas of IAF at the margins of the GA were manually segmented. Eyes with evidence of IAF were selected. Following manual registration of FAF and OCT data, areas of IAF and normal fluorescence were correlated with OCT features at these locations. Thirty eyes were included. The mean retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) thickness in areas of IAF was 40.6 µm ± 7.69 µm, compared to 28.8 µm ± 7.09 µm in normal adjacent areas (P Retina. 2016;47:523-527.]. Copyright 2016, SLACK Incorporated.

Production of linear polarization by segmentation of helical undulator

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tanaka, T.; Kitamura, H.

2002-01-01

A simple scheme to obtain linearly polarized radiation (LPR) with a segmented undulator is proposed. The undulator is composed of several segments each of which forms a helical undulator and has helicity opposite to those of adjacent segments. Due to coherent sum of radiation, the circularly polarized component is canceled out resulting in production of LPR without any higher harmonics. The radiation from the proposed device is investigated analytically, which shows that a high degree of linear polarization is obtained in spite of a finite beam emittance and angular acceptance of optics, if a sufficiently large number of segments and an adequate photon energy are chosen. Results of calculation to investigate practical performances of the proposed device are presented

Target migration from re-inflation of adjacent atelectasis during lung stereotactic body radiotherapy.

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Mao, Bijing; Verma, Vivek; Zheng, Dandan; Zhu, Xiaofeng; Bennion, Nathan R; Bhirud, Abhijeet R; Poole, Maria A; Zhen, Weining

2017-06-10

Stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) is a widely accepted option for the treatment of medically inoperable early-stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Herein, we highlight the importance of interfraction image guidance during SBRT. We describe a case of early-stage NSCLC associated with segmental atelectasis that translocated 15 mm anteroinferiorly due to re-expansion of the adjacent segmental atelectasis following the first fraction. The case exemplifies the importance of cross-sectional image-guided radiotherapy that shows the intended target, as opposed to aligning based on rigid anatomy alone, especially in cases associated with potentially "volatile" anatomic areas.

Segmental in vivo vertebral kinematics at the walk, trot and canter: a preliminary study.

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Haussler, K K; Bertram, J E; Gellman, K; Hermanson, J W

2001-04-01

Understanding the pathophysiology of equine back problems, for clinical evaluation, treatment or injury prevention, requires understanding of the normal 3-dimensional motion characteristics of the vertebral column. Recent studies have investigated regional vertebral kinematics; however, there are no reported measures of direct in vivo segmental vertebral kinematics in exercising horses. Relative movements between 2 adjacent vertebrae were recorded for 3 horses that were clinically sound and did not have a known history of a back problem. A transducer consisting of 2 fixtures and an array of liquid metal strain gauges (LMSGs) was used to measure 3-dimensional segmental vertebral motion. The transducer was attached directly to Steinmann pins implanted in the dorsal spinous processes of adjacent vertebrae in 3 vertebral regions: thoracic (T14 to T16), lumbar (L1 to L3) and lumbosacral (L6 to S2). Rotational displacements between adjacent vertebrae were calculated from the differential outputs of the LMSG array during walk, trot and canter on a treadmill. Peak magnitudes of dorsoventral flexion, lateral bending and axial rotation were recorded continuously for each stride. The largest motion of the 3 instrumented vertebral segments was at the lumbosacral junction. In general, the greatest magnitude of segmental vertebral motion occurred during the canter and the least during the trot. The dynamic and continuous measure of 3-dimensional in vivo segmental vertebral motion provides an important new perspective for evaluating vertebral motion and back problems in horses.

Evaluation of intravertebral changes associated with the disk degeneration based on the MRI findings

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Saiki, Natoru

2000-01-01

The magnetic resonance images (MRI) of 441 vertebral bodies of the 199 patients with intravertebral abnormality associated with adjacent disk degeneration were evaluated according to the Modic classification and a new geographic classification. They were also evaluated in relation with the various factors including disk space narrowing, vacuum phenomenon, disk herniation, Schmorl's node, ostephyte formation and spondylolisthesis. The new geographic classification is based on the three factors; depth of invasion: stage 1 (thin layer along the end-plate), stage 2 (less than a half of the vertebral height) and stage 3 (more than a half of the vertebral height), shape: end-plate type, Schmorl's node type, triangle type, meniscus type and band type, location: front type, center type, rear type, front and rear type and whole type. Only about a half of the vertebral bodies with intervertebral abnormality showed bilateral invasion adjacent to the degenerative disks on both sides and the superior edges were much more frequently involved than the inferior ones. There was relatively higher incidence (7%) of Modic Type I degeneration defined as high signal intensity (HSI) on T2 weighted spin-echo images (T2WI) and low signal intensity (LSI) on T1 weighted spin-echo images (T1WI) representing vascularized fibrous tissue than those previously reported. On the other hand there was relatively lower incidence (5%) of Modic Type II degeneration defined as high or iso intensity on T1WI and HSI on T2WI. Triangle front type was seen in almost a half of the vertebrae in stage 2 and stage 3, and the rest was divided into meniscus type and band type almost evenly. The end plate front type must be a precursor of the triangle front type. The Schmorl's node type was considered to be a precursor of the meniscus type as well as band type in some but many must stay in its form transformed to Type II degeneration. In general, the intravertebral abnormality may not be necessary to be progressive

Interactive segmentation for geographic atrophy in retinal fundus images.

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Lee, Noah; Smith, R Theodore; Laine, Andrew F

2008-10-01

Fundus auto-fluorescence (FAF) imaging is a non-invasive technique for in vivo ophthalmoscopic inspection of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the most common cause of blindness in developed countries. Geographic atrophy (GA) is an advanced form of AMD and accounts for 12-21% of severe visual loss in this disorder [3]. Automatic quantification of GA is important for determining disease progression and facilitating clinical diagnosis of AMD. The problem of automatic segmentation of pathological images still remains an unsolved problem. In this paper we leverage the watershed transform and generalized non-linear gradient operators for interactive segmentation and present an intuitive and simple approach for geographic atrophy segmentation. We compare our approach with the state of the art random walker [5] algorithm for interactive segmentation using ROC statistics. Quantitative evaluation experiments on 100 FAF images show a mean sensitivity/specificity of 98.3/97.7% for our approach and a mean sensitivity/specificity of 88.2/96.6% for the random walker algorithm.

Novel active contour model based on multi-variate local Gaussian distribution for local segmentation of MR brain images

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Zheng, Qiang; Li, Honglun; Fan, Baode; Wu, Shuanhu; Xu, Jindong

2017-12-01

Active contour model (ACM) has been one of the most widely utilized methods in magnetic resonance (MR) brain image segmentation because of its ability of capturing topology changes. However, most of the existing ACMs only consider single-slice information in MR brain image data, i.e., the information used in ACMs based segmentation method is extracted only from one slice of MR brain image, which cannot take full advantage of the adjacent slice images' information, and cannot satisfy the local segmentation of MR brain images. In this paper, a novel ACM is proposed to solve the problem discussed above, which is based on multi-variate local Gaussian distribution and combines the adjacent slice images' information in MR brain image data to satisfy segmentation. The segmentation is finally achieved through maximizing the likelihood estimation. Experiments demonstrate the advantages of the proposed ACM over the single-slice ACM in local segmentation of MR brain image series.

Adjacent Lumbar Disc Herniation after Lumbar Short Spinal Fusion

OpenAIRE

Ninomiya, Koshi; Iwatsuki, Koichi; Ohnishi, Yu-ichiro; Ohkawa, Toshika; Yoshimine, Toshiki

2014-01-01

A 70-year-old outpatient presented with a chief complaint of sudden left leg motor weakness and sensory disturbance. He had undergone L4/5 posterior interbody fusion with L3–5 posterior fusions for spondylolisthesis 3 years prior, and the screws were removed 1 year later. He has been followed up for 3 years, and there had been no adjacent segment problems before this presentation. Lumbar magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) showed a large L2/3 disc hernia descending to the L3/4 level. Compared to...

Automated image alignment and segmentation to follow progression of geographic atrophy in age-related macular degeneration.

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Ramsey, David J; Sunness, Janet S; Malviya, Poorva; Applegate, Carol; Hager, Gregory D; Handa, James T

2014-07-01

To develop a computer-based image segmentation method for standardizing the quantification of geographic atrophy (GA). The authors present an automated image segmentation method based on the fuzzy c-means clustering algorithm for the detection of GA lesions. The method is evaluated by comparing computerized segmentation against outlines of GA drawn by an expert grader for a longitudinal series of fundus autofluorescence images with paired 30° color fundus photographs for 10 patients. The automated segmentation method showed excellent agreement with an expert grader for fundus autofluorescence images, achieving a performance level of 94 ± 5% sensitivity and 98 ± 2% specificity on a per-pixel basis for the detection of GA area, but performed less well on color fundus photographs with a sensitivity of 47 ± 26% and specificity of 98 ± 2%. The segmentation algorithm identified 75 ± 16% of the GA border correctly in fundus autofluorescence images compared with just 42 ± 25% for color fundus photographs. The results of this study demonstrate a promising computerized segmentation method that may enhance the reproducibility of GA measurement and provide an objective strategy to assist an expert in the grading of images.

Biomechanics of Artificial Disc Replacements Adjacent to a 2-Level Fusion in 4-Level Hybrid Constructs: An In Vitro Investigation

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Liao, Zhenhua; Fogel, Guy R.; Wei, Na; Gu, Hongsheng; Liu, Weiqiang

2015-01-01

Background The ideal procedure for multilevel cervical degenerative disc diseases remains controversial. Recent studies on hybrid surgery combining anterior cervical discectomy and fusion (ACDF) and artificial cervical disc replacement (ACDR) for 2-level and 3-level constructs have been reported in the literature. The purpose of this study was to estimate the biomechanics of 3 kinds of 4-level hybrid constructs, which are more likely to be used clinically compared to 4-level arthrodesis. Material/Methods Eighteen human cadaveric spines (C2–T1) were evaluated in different testing conditions: intact, with 3 kinds of 4-level hybrid constructs (hybrid C3–4 ACDR+C4–6 ACDF+C6–7ACDR; hybrid C3–5ACDF+C5–6ACDR+C6–7ACDR; hybrid C3–4ACDR+C4–5ACDR+C5–7ACDF); and 4-level fusion. Results Four-level fusion resulted in significant decrease in the C3–C7 ROM compared with the intact spine. The 3 different 4-level hybrid treatment groups caused only slight change at the instrumented levels compared to intact except for flexion. At the adjacent levels, 4-level fusion resulted in significant increase of contribution of both upper and lower adjacent levels. However, for the 3 hybrid constructs, significant changes of motion increase far lower than 4P at adjacent levels were only noted in partial loading conditions. No destabilizing effect or hypermobility were observed in any 4-level hybrid construct. Conclusions Four-level fusion significantly eliminated motion within the construct and increased motion at the adjacent segments. For all 3 different 4-level hybrid constructs, ACDR normalized motion of the index segment and adjacent segments with no significant hypermobility. Compared with the 4-level ACDF condition, the artificial discs in 4-level hybrid constructs had biomechanical advantages compared to fusion in normalizing adjacent level motion. PMID:26694835

Open-source software platform for medical image segmentation applications

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Namías, R.; D'Amato, J. P.; del Fresno, M.

2017-11-01

Segmenting 2D and 3D images is a crucial and challenging problem in medical image analysis. Although several image segmentation algorithms have been proposed for different applications, no universal method currently exists. Moreover, their use is usually limited when detection of complex and multiple adjacent objects of interest is needed. In addition, the continually increasing volumes of medical imaging scans require more efficient segmentation software design and highly usable applications. In this context, we present an extension of our previous segmentation framework which allows the combination of existing explicit deformable models in an efficient and transparent way, handling simultaneously different segmentation strategies and interacting with a graphic user interface (GUI). We present the object-oriented design and the general architecture which consist of two layers: the GUI at the top layer, and the processing core filters at the bottom layer. We apply the framework for segmenting different real-case medical image scenarios on public available datasets including bladder and prostate segmentation from 2D MRI, and heart segmentation in 3D CT. Our experiments on these concrete problems show that this framework facilitates complex and multi-object segmentation goals while providing a fast prototyping open-source segmentation tool.

Mechanical and morphological evaluation of age-related changes in the Beagle spine

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gillett, N.A.; Gerlach, R.; Cassidy, J.; Brown, S.

1986-01-01

Age-related changes were evaluated in the spines of Beagle dogs by biomechanical testing, radiology and pathology. Thirty age-matched healthy Beagle dogs were divided into five groups having mean ages of 2, 5, 8, 11, and 14 years. Spinal radiographs of anesthetized dogs were taken prior to euthanasia and on defleshed pines following necropsy. Cervical, thoracic, and lumbar segments were tested in compression to calculate peak stress, peak strain, and elastic modulus. Adjacent spinal segments were examined histologically. Histological evidence of the disc degeneration and changes in the mechanical properties of the intervertebral disc joint preceded radiographical evidence of spondylosis. Changes in the mechanical properties of the disc space were probably a result of the disc degeneration rather than the spondylytic lesions. 3 references, 4 figures

Effect of pharmacologically induced retinal degeneration on retinal autofluorescence lifetimes in mice.

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Dysli, Chantal; Dysli, Muriel; Zinkernagel, Martin S; Enzmann, Volker

2016-12-01

Fluorescence lifetime imaging ophthalmoscopy (FLIO) was used to investigate retinal autofluorescence lifetimes in mouse models of pharmacologically induced retinal degeneration over time. Sodium iodate (NaIO 3 , 35 mg/kg intravenously) was used to induce retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) degeneration with subsequent loss of photoreceptors (PR) whereas N-methyl-N-nitrosourea (MNU, 45 mg/kg intraperitoneally) was employed for degeneration of the photoreceptor cell layer alone. All mice were measured at day 3, 7, 14, and 28 after the respective injection of NaIO 3 , MNU or NaCl (control). Fluorescence lifetime imaging was performed using a fluorescence lifetime imaging ophthalmoscope (Heidelberg Engineering, Heidelberg, Germany). Fluorescence was excited at 473 nm and fluorescence lifetimes were measured in a short and a long spectral channel (498-560 nm and 560-720 nm). Corresponding optical coherence tomography (OCT) images were consecutively acquired and histology was performed at the end of the experiments. Segmentation of OCT images and histology verified the cell type-specific degeneration process over time. Retinal autofluorescence lifetimes increased from day 3 to day 28 in mice after NaIO 3 treatment. Finally, at day 28, fluorescence lifetimes were prolonged by 8% in the short and 61% in the long spectral channel compared to control animals (p = 0.21 and p = 0.004, respectively). In mice after MNU treatment, the mean retinal autofluorescence lifetimes were already decreased at day 3 and retinal lifetimes were finally shortened by 27% in the short and 51% in the long spectral channel at day 28 (p = 0.0028). In conclusion, degeneration of the RPE with subsequent photoreceptor degeneration by NaIO 3 lead to longer mean fluorescence lifetimes of the retina compared to control mice, whereas during specific degeneration of the photoreceptor layer induced by MNU shorter lifetimes were measured. Therefore, short retinal fluorescence lifetimes may originate

Histopathological effects of intraoperative radiotherapy on pancreas and adjacent tissues: a postmortem analysis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hoekstra, H.J.; Restrepo, C.; Kinsella, T.J.; Sindelar, W.F.

1988-01-01

Intraoperative radiotherapy (IORT) has been utilized in the treatment of resectable and unresectable pancreatic carcinoma at the National Cancer Institute. Detailed autopsy analyses of the radiation effects on the pancreas and adjacent tissues were performed on 13 patients dying at various times following therapy. IORT can induce a progressive retroperitoneal fibrosis and fibrosis of the porta hepatis in patients with resectable pancreatic carcinoma. In unresectable pancreatic carcinoma, the major expression of intraoperative irradiation with external beam irradiation is a progressive fibrosis of the pancreas with vascular sclerosis, nerve degeneration, atrophy of acinar cells, and atypical changes in the ducts of the pancreas, as well as degenerative changes of the pancreatic tumor

Multiple sclerosis and anterograde axonal degeneration study by magnetic resonance

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Martinez Pardo, P.; Capdevila Cirera, A.; Sanz Marin, P.M.; Gili Planas, J.

1993-01-01

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a disease of the central nervous system that affects specifically the myelin. Its diagnosis by imaging techniques is, since the development of magnetic resonance (MR), relatively simple, and its occasional association with anterograde axonal degeneration (WD) has been reported. In both disorders, there is a lengthening of the T1 and T2 relaxation times. In the present report, 76 patients with MS with less than 4 plaques in the typical periventricular position were studied retrospectively, resulting in a rate of association with anterograde axonal degeneration of 8%. We consider that in spite of their same behavior in MR,MS and WD, with moreover represent completely different pathologies, are perfectly differential by MR. The S-E images with longer repetition and echo times in the axial and coronal planes have proved to be those most sensitive for this differentiation. Given that MS is specific pathology of then myelin, the axonal damages in delayed until several plaques adjacent to an axon affect it. We consider that this, added to the restriction of our study group (less than 4 plaques), is the cause of the pow percentage of the MS-WD association in our study. (Author)

Imaging geographic atrophy in age-related macular degeneration.

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Göbel, Arno P; Fleckenstein, Monika; Schmitz-Valckenberg, Steffen; Brinkmann, Christian K; Holz, Frank G

2011-01-01

Advances in retinal imaging technology have largely contributed to the understanding of the natural history, prognostic markers and disease mechanisms of geographic atrophy (GA) due to age-related macular degeneration. There is still no therapy available to halt or slow the disease process. In order to evaluate potential therapeutic effects in interventional trials, there is a need for precise quantification of the GA progression rate. Fundus autofluorescence imaging allows for accurate identification and segmentation of atrophic areas and currently represents the gold standard for evaluating progressive GA enlargement. By means of high-resolution spectral-domain optical coherence tomography, distinct microstructural alterations related to GA can be visualized. Copyright © 2011 S. Karger AG, Basel.

The comparative study of radiograph, MRI and pathology in degeneration of lumbar intervertebral disc

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Shang Tiesong; Wang Yunzhao

2002-01-01

Objective: To investigate the pathology, and MRI features of the degeneration of lumbar intervertebral discs (IVD). Methods: Thirteen human lumbar spine segments with 31 IVDs were harvested from fresh cadavers. High quality radiographs were taken for all specimens. Five segments with 20 IVD underwent MRl. Then, the radiographic and MRI findings were correlated with corresponding 87 pathologic sections. Results: Variant degeneration was observed in pathologic sections in all 31 IVDs. With MRI T 2 WI images, 20 IVDs showed linear and spotty high signal in the annular fibers, or most of the IVD showed high signal. On pathologic cuts, 22 of 31 IVDs showed infolding of annular fibers, 18 of 31 showed outfolding of annular fibers. On MRI T 1 WI and T 2 WI images, infolding and outfolding of annular fibers were seen as low signal. 20 of 31 IVDs had necrotic debris of cells in the nucleus pulposus. 14 of 20 demonstrated spotty low signal areas on MRI T 2 WI images. 7 Schmorl nodules were found. On pathologic sections Schmorl nodules were seen as IVD tissue protruding into vertebral endplates, they were seen as high signal on T 2 WI images. Two large fissures found on sections were seen as low signal on T 2 WI. Degenerative fibrosis seen on 6 IVD, which showed intermediate signal on T 2 WI images. However, radiographs only demonstrated osteophytes on 3 vertebrae, 7 Schmorl's nodules. Sclerotic, concave and irregular endplates were seen in 11 IVDs, the tatter is the indication of cartilaginous endplate disruption, Conclusion: MRI is very useful in demonstrating the degeneration of IVD, radiograph is able to indirectly show the disappearance of cartilaginous endplate

Macular degeneration (image)

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... macula in the back of the eye. The macula is important for clear central vision, allowing an individual to see fine details. There are two types of macular degeneration, dry and wet. Dry macular degeneration is more ...

Paranode Abnormalities and Oxidative Stress in Optic Nerve Vulnerable to Secondary Degeneration: Modulation by 670 nm Light Treatment.

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Charis R Szymanski

Full Text Available Secondary degeneration of nerve tissue adjacent to a traumatic injury results in further loss of neurons, glia and function, via mechanisms that may involve oxidative stress. However, changes in indicators of oxidative stress have not yet been demonstrated in oligodendrocytes vulnerable to secondary degeneration in vivo. We show increases in the oxidative stress indicator carboxymethyl lysine at days 1 and 3 after injury in oligodendrocytes vulnerable to secondary degeneration. Dihydroethidium staining for superoxide is reduced, indicating endogenous control of this particular reactive species after injury. Concurrently, node of Ranvier/paranode complexes are altered, with significant lengthening of the paranodal gap and paranode as well as paranode disorganisation. Therapeutic administration of 670 nm light is thought to improve oxidative metabolism via mechanisms that may include increased activity of cytochrome c oxidase. Here, we show that light at 670 nm, delivered for 30 minutes per day, results in in vivo increases in cytochrome c oxidase activity co-localised with oligodendrocytes. Short term (1 day 670 nm light treatment is associated with reductions in reactive species at the injury site. In optic nerve vulnerable to secondary degeneration superoxide in oligodendrocytes is reduced relative to handling controls, and is associated with reduced paranode abnormalities. Long term (3 month administration of 670 nm light preserves retinal ganglion cells vulnerable to secondary degeneration and maintains visual function, as assessed by the optokinetic nystagmus visual reflex. Light at a wavelength of 670 nm may serve as a therapeutic intervention for treatment of secondary degeneration following neurotrauma.

MR imaging of central nervous system white matter tract degeneration (Wallerian degeneration)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kuhn, M.J.; Johnson, K.A.; Davis, K.R.

1987-01-01

Wallerian degeneration is readily demonstrated by MR imaging. Twenty-one patients with MR signal abnormalities in various central nervous system (CNS) white matter tracts were evaluated with regard to (1) nature of signal abnormality, (2) MR anatomy of the involved tract, and (3) primary pathology (e.g., infarct, tumor, hemorrhage). Most examples of wallerian degeneration result in a thin, continuous band of long T1, long T2 signal abnormality conforming to the known anatomic pathway of a CNS axonal tract. Old, large cortical infarcts have the greatest propensity to show subsequent white-matter tract degeneration. Corticospinal tract degeneration is the type most readily visualized, often seen extending completely from the cerebral cortex through the medulla

Lung tumor segmentation in PET images using graph cuts.

Science.gov (United States)

Ballangan, Cherry; Wang, Xiuying; Fulham, Michael; Eberl, Stefan; Feng, David Dagan

2013-03-01

The aim of segmentation of tumor regions in positron emission tomography (PET) is to provide more accurate measurements of tumor size and extension into adjacent structures, than is possible with visual assessment alone and hence improve patient management decisions. We propose a segmentation energy function for the graph cuts technique to improve lung tumor segmentation with PET. Our segmentation energy is based on an analysis of the tumor voxels in PET images combined with a standardized uptake value (SUV) cost function and a monotonic downhill SUV feature. The monotonic downhill feature avoids segmentation leakage into surrounding tissues with similar or higher PET tracer uptake than the tumor and the SUV cost function improves the boundary definition and also addresses situations where the lung tumor is heterogeneous. We evaluated the method in 42 clinical PET volumes from patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Our method improves segmentation and performs better than region growing approaches, the watershed technique, fuzzy-c-means, region-based active contour and tumor customized downhill. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Regional disc change in segmental hypoplasia of the lumbosacral vertebral bodies: MR findings

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kim, Sung Kyu; Lee Seung Ro; Moon, Won Jin; Park, Dong Woo; Hahm, Chang Kok

2000-01-01

To classify types of vertebral hypoplasia and to investigate the prevalence and patterns of associated disc degeneration. Defining vertebral hypoplasia as occurring when the AP diameter of a lower vertebral body is smaller than that of an upper ones, we retrospectively reviewed the MR images obtained in 34 cases of this condition involving young adults. Two major types and two subtypes, a total of four different entities were classified as follows; type I: hypoplasia involving a single vertebral body; type II: hypoplasia involving serial lower segmental vertebral bodies; subtype a: hypoplastic body located anteriorly along the anterior spinal line; subtype b: hypoplastic body located posteriorly along the posterior spinal line. We also investigated each type of vertebral hypoplasia and patterns of associated disc changes. Three different types were observed. In type IIa (n=3D29), posterior disc occurred in 8/29 cases, diffuse degeneration in 21/29 patients, and posterior disc herniation in all. All type Ia cases (3/3) showed diffuse disc degeneration at both upper and lower disc levels, with posterior disc herniation, while both type IIb cases (2/2) showed diffuse disc degeneration, with bidirectional disc herniation. By identifying the exact patterns of vertebral hypoplasia, we were able to predict which portion of the disc was likely to degenerate. (author)

Interactive segmentation for geographic atrophy in retinal fundus images

OpenAIRE

Lee, Noah; Smith, R. Theodore; Laine, Andrew F.

2008-01-01

Fundus auto-fluorescence (FAF) imaging is a non-invasive technique for in vivo ophthalmoscopic inspection of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the most common cause of blindness in developed countries. Geographic atrophy (GA) is an advanced form of AMD and accounts for 12–21% of severe visual loss in this disorder [3]. Automatic quantification of GA is important for determining disease progression and facilitating clinical diagnosis of AMD. The problem of automatic segmentation of patho...

Role of calpains in the injury-induced dysfunction and degeneration of the mammalian axon.

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Ma, Marek

2013-12-01

Axonal injury and degeneration, whether primary or secondary, contribute to the morbidity and mortality seen in many acquired and inherited central nervous system (CNS) and peripheral nervous system (PNS) disorders, such as traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury, cerebral ischemia, neurodegenerative diseases, and peripheral neuropathies. The calpain family of proteases has been mechanistically linked to the dysfunction and degeneration of axons. While the direct mechanisms by which transection, mechanical strain, ischemia, or complement activation trigger intra-axonal calpain activity are likely different, the downstream effects of unregulated calpain activity may be similar in seemingly disparate diseases. In this review, a brief examination of axonal structure is followed by a focused overview of the calpain family. Finally, the mechanisms by which calpains may disrupt the axonal cytoskeleton, transport, and specialized domains (axon initial segment, nodes, and terminals) are discussed. © 2013.

Human cartilaginous endplate degeneration is induced by calcium and the extracellular calcium-sensing receptor in the intervertebral disc

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MP Grant

2016-07-01

Full Text Available The cartilaginous endplates (CEPs are thin layers of hyaline cartilage found adjacent to intervertebral discs (IVDs. In addition to providing structural support, CEPs regulate nutrient and metabolic exchange in the disc. In IVD pathogenesis, CEP undergoes degeneration and calcification, compromising nutrient availability and disc cell metabolism. The mechanism(s underlying the biochemical changes of CEP in disc degeneration are currently unknown. Since calcification is often observed in later stages of IVD degeneration, we hypothesised that elevations in free calcium (Ca2+ impair CEP homeostasis. Indeed, our results demonstrated that the Ca2+ content was consistently higher in human CEP tissue with grade of disc degeneration. Increasing the levels of Ca2+ resulted in decreases in the secretion and accumulation of collagens type I, II and proteoglycan in cultured human CEP cells. Ca2+ exerted its effects on CEP matrix protein synthesis through activation of the extracellular calcium-sensing receptor (CaSR; however, aggrecan content was also affected independent of CaSR activation as increases in Ca2+ directly enhanced the activity of aggrecanases. Finally, supplementing Ca2+ in our IVD organ cultures was sufficient to induce degeneration and increase the mineralisation of CEP, and decrease the diffusion of glucose into the disc. Thus, any attempt to induce anabolic repair of the disc without addressing Ca2+ may be impaired, as the increased metabolic demand of IVD cells would be compromised by decreases in the permeability of the CEP.

What Is Age-Related Macular Degeneration?

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... Eye Health / Eye Health A-Z Age-Related Macular Degeneration Sections What Is Macular Degeneration? How is AMD ... What Does Macular Degeneration Look Like? What Is Macular Degeneration? Leer en Español: ¿Qué es la degeneración macular ...

Splitting deformations of degenerations of complex curves towards the classification of atoms of degenerations

CERN Document Server

2006-01-01

The author develops a deformation theory for degenerations of complex curves; specifically, he treats deformations which induce splittings of the singular fiber of a degeneration. He constructs a deformation of the degeneration in such a way that a subdivisor is "barked" (peeled) off from the singular fiber. These "barking deformations" are related to deformations of surface singularities (in particular, cyclic quotient singularities) as well as the mapping class groups of Riemann surfaces (complex curves) via monodromies. Important applications, such as the classification of atomic degenerations, are also explained.

Degenerate pressure driven modified nucleus-acoustic waves in degenerate plasmas

Science.gov (United States)

Mamun, A. A.

2018-02-01

The existence of degenerate pressure driven modified nucleus-acoustic (DPDMNA) waves propagating in a cold degenerate quantum plasma (DQP) system [containing cold inertialess degenerate electron species (DES), cold inertial non-degenerate light nucleus species (LNS), and stationary heavy nucleus species (HNS)] is predicted for the first time. The DPDMNA waves (in which the mass density of the cold LNS provides the inertia and the cold inertialess DES gives rise to the restoring force) are new since they completely disappear if the degenerate pressure of the cold DES is neglected. It is found that the phase speed (Vp) of the DPDMNA waves decreases with the rise of the charge number density of the stationary HNS for both non-relativistic and ultra-relativistic DES, and that the ultra-relativistic DES does not have any effect on Vp when β = 1, where β = Λc/Λe with Λ e = ne 0 - 1 / 3 being the average inter-electron distance in the DQP system and Λc being the constant (˜10-10 cm) for the DES. However, the ultra-relativistic DES does have quite a significant effect on Vp for β ≫ 1 and β ≪ 1, and the ultra-relativistic effect significantly enhances (reduces) Vp for β ≫ 1 (β ≪ 1). The DPDMNA waves and their dispersion properties are expected to be useful in understanding the basic features of the electrostatic perturbation mode in space and laboratory DQP systems.

Age-related macular degeneration: prevention and treatment. A review

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K. A. Mirzabekova

2014-07-01

Full Text Available Age-related macular degeneration (AMD is a multifactorial disease. Age, light exposure, smoking, melanin levels and low-antioxidant diet are contributed to AMD development and progression. Cardiovascular disorders are of considerable importance as well. In macula, photoreceptor outer segments that are rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids (FA, particularly, docosahexaenoic acid (DHA, are susceptible to free radicals damage. High blood flow velocity and oxygen partial pressure as well as direct sunlight exposure induce oxidative processes. The source of free radicals in photoreceptor cells and retinal pigment epithelium (RPE is an extensive mitochondrial metabolism, photoreceptor outer segments phagocytosis, lipofuscin phototoxic activity and hemoglobin or protoporphyrin precursors photosensitization. Oxidative stress is considered as an universal component of cell depth in necrosis, apoptosis and toxic damage. Antioxidant protective system consists of enzymes (superoxide dismutase, glutathione peroxidase and catalase and non-enzymatic factors (ascorbic acid, alpha tocopherol, retinol, carotenoids. Specific antioxidant food supplement containing ascorbic acid (500 mg, vitamin E (400 IU and beta carotene (15 mg coupled with zinc (80 mg of zinc oxide and copper (2 mg of copper oxide results in 25 % decrease in late-stage AMD development rate. Amongst the agents that can protect retina from oxidative stress and AMD development, carotenoids are of special importance. Lutein and zeaxanthin containing in retina and lens screen blue light from central area of the retina. They also absorb blue light and inhibit free radicals generation thus preventing polyunsaturated FA light destruction. Association between lutein and zeaxanthin intake and late-stage AMD risk was revealed. Amongst the most important factors which deficiency favors macular degeneration are omega-3 FAs, i.e., DHA. DHA is the key component of visual pigment rhodopsin transformation. It

Age-related macular degeneration: prevention and treatment. A review

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

K. A. Mirzabekova

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Age-related macular degeneration (AMD is a multifactorial disease. Age, light exposure, smoking, melanin levels and low-antioxidant diet are contributed to AMD development and progression. Cardiovascular disorders are of considerable importance as well. In macula, photoreceptor outer segments that are rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids (FA, particularly, docosahexaenoic acid (DHA, are susceptible to free radicals damage. High blood flow velocity and oxygen partial pressure as well as direct sunlight exposure induce oxidative processes. The source of free radicals in photoreceptor cells and retinal pigment epithelium (RPE is an extensive mitochondrial metabolism, photoreceptor outer segments phagocytosis, lipofuscin phototoxic activity and hemoglobin or protoporphyrin precursors photosensitization. Oxidative stress is considered as an universal component of cell depth in necrosis, apoptosis and toxic damage. Antioxidant protective system consists of enzymes (superoxide dismutase, glutathione peroxidase and catalase and non-enzymatic factors (ascorbic acid, alpha tocopherol, retinol, carotenoids. Specific antioxidant food supplement containing ascorbic acid (500 mg, vitamin E (400 IU and beta carotene (15 mg coupled with zinc (80 mg of zinc oxide and copper (2 mg of copper oxide results in 25 % decrease in late-stage AMD development rate. Amongst the agents that can protect retina from oxidative stress and AMD development, carotenoids are of special importance. Lutein and zeaxanthin containing in retina and lens screen blue light from central area of the retina. They also absorb blue light and inhibit free radicals generation thus preventing polyunsaturated FA light destruction. Association between lutein and zeaxanthin intake and late-stage AMD risk was revealed. Amongst the most important factors which deficiency favors macular degeneration are omega-3 FAs, i.e., DHA. DHA is the key component of visual pigment rhodopsin transformation. It

Geometry of the vertebral bodies and the intervertebral discs in lumbar segments adjacent to spondylolysis and spondylolisthesis: pilot study.

Science.gov (United States)

Been, Ella; Li, Ling; Hunter, David J; Kalichman, Leonid

2011-07-01

The objective is to evaluate the geometric parameters of vertebral bodies and intervertebral discs in spinal segments adjacent to spondylolysis and spondylolisthesis. This pilot cross-sectional study was an ancillary project to the Framingham Heart Study. The presence of spondylolysis and spondylolisthesis as well as measurements of spinal geometry were identified on CT imaging of 188 individuals. Spinal geometry measurements included lordosis angle, wedging of each lumbar vertebra and intervertebral disc. Last measurements were used to calculate ΣB, the sum of the lumbar L1-L5 body wedge angles; and ΣD, the sum of the lumbar L1-L5 intervertebral disc angles. Using Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney test we compared the geometric parameters between individuals with no pathology and ones with spondylolysis (with no listhesis) at L5 vertebra, ones with isthmic spondylolisthesis at L5-S1 level, and ones with degenerative spondylolisthesis at L5-S1 level. Spinal geometry in individuals with spondylolysis or listhesis at L5 shows three major patterns: In spondylolysis without listhesis, spinal morphology is similar to that of healthy individuals; In isthmic spondylolisthesis there is high lordosis angle, high L5 vertebral body wedging and very high L4-5 disc wedging; In degenerative spondylolisthesis, spinal morphology shows more lordotic wedging of the L5 vertebral body, and less lordotic wedging of intervertebral discs. In conclusion, there are unique geometrical features of the vertebrae and discs in spondylolysis or listhesis. These findings need to be reproduced in larger scale study.

Segmentation and clustering as complementary sources of information

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Dale, Michael B.; Allison, Lloyd; Dale, Patricia E. R.

2007-03-01

This paper examines the effects of using a segmentation method to identify change-points or edges in vegetation. It identifies coherence (spatial or temporal) in place of unconstrained clustering. The segmentation method involves change-point detection along a sequence of observations so that each cluster formed is composed of adjacent samples; this is a form of constrained clustering. The protocol identifies one or more models, one for each section identified, and the quality of each is assessed using a minimum message length criterion, which provides a rational basis for selecting an appropriate model. Although the segmentation is less efficient than clustering, it does provide other information because it incorporates textural similarity as well as homogeneity. In addition it can be useful in determining various scales of variation that may apply to the data, providing a general method of small-scale pattern analysis.

Automated Segmentation Methods of Drusen to Diagnose Age-Related Macular Degeneration Screening in Retinal Images

OpenAIRE

Kim, Young Jae; Kim, Kwang Gi

2018-01-01

Existing drusen measurement is difficult to use in clinic because it requires a lot of time and effort for visual inspection. In order to resolve this problem, we propose an automatic drusen detection method to help clinical diagnosis of age-related macular degeneration. First, we changed the fundus image to a green channel and extracted the ROI of the macular area based on the optic disk. Next, we detected the candidate group using the difference image of the median filter within the ROI. We...

A method for automatic grain segmentation of multi-angle cross-polarized microscopic images of sandstone

Science.gov (United States)

Jiang, Feng; Gu, Qing; Hao, Huizhen; Li, Na; Wang, Bingqian; Hu, Xiumian

2018-06-01

Automatic grain segmentation of sandstone is to partition mineral grains into separate regions in the thin section, which is the first step for computer aided mineral identification and sandstone classification. The sandstone microscopic images contain a large number of mixed mineral grains where differences among adjacent grains, i.e., quartz, feldspar and lithic grains, are usually ambiguous, which make grain segmentation difficult. In this paper, we take advantage of multi-angle cross-polarized microscopic images and propose a method for grain segmentation with high accuracy. The method consists of two stages, in the first stage, we enhance the SLIC (Simple Linear Iterative Clustering) algorithm, named MSLIC, to make use of multi-angle images and segment the images as boundary adherent superpixels. In the second stage, we propose the region merging technique which combines the coarse merging and fine merging algorithms. The coarse merging merges the adjacent superpixels with less evident boundaries, and the fine merging merges the ambiguous superpixels using the spatial enhanced fuzzy clustering. Experiments are designed on 9 sets of multi-angle cross-polarized images taken from the three major types of sandstones. The results demonstrate both the effectiveness and potential of the proposed method, comparing to the available segmentation methods.

Development of Land Segmentation, Stream-Reach Network, and Watersheds in Support of Hydrological Simulation Program-Fortran (HSPF) Modeling, Chesapeake Bay Watershed, and Adjacent Parts of Maryland, Delaware, and Virginia

Science.gov (United States)

Martucci, Sarah K.; Krstolic, Jennifer L.; Raffensperger, Jeff P.; Hopkins, Katherine J.

2006-01-01

The U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Chesapeake Bay Program Office, Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin, Maryland Department of the Environment, Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation, Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, and the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science are collaborating on the Chesapeake Bay Regional Watershed Model, using Hydrological Simulation Program - FORTRAN to simulate streamflow and concentrations and loads of nutrients and sediment to Chesapeake Bay. The model will be used to provide information for resource managers. In order to establish a framework for model simulation, digital spatial datasets were created defining the discretization of the model region (including the Chesapeake Bay watershed, as well as the adjacent parts of Maryland, Delaware, and Virginia outside the watershed) into land segments, a stream-reach network, and associated watersheds. Land segmentation was based on county boundaries represented by a 1:100,000-scale digital dataset. Fifty of the 254 counties and incorporated cities in the model region were divided on the basis of physiography and topography, producing a total of 309 land segments. The stream-reach network for the Chesapeake Bay watershed part of the model region was based on the U.S. Geological Survey Chesapeake Bay SPARROW (SPAtially Referenced Regressions On Watershed attributes) model stream-reach network. Because that network was created only for the Chesapeake Bay watershed, the rest of the model region uses a 1:500,000-scale stream-reach network. Streams with mean annual streamflow of less than 100 cubic feet per second were excluded based on attributes from the dataset. Additional changes were made to enhance the data and to allow for inclusion of stream reaches with monitoring data that were not part of the original network. Thirty-meter-resolution Digital Elevation Model data were used to delineate watersheds for each

Automatic lung segmentation in the presence of alveolar collapse

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Noshadi Areg

2017-09-01

Full Text Available Lung ventilation and perfusion analyses using chest imaging methods require a correct segmentation of the lung to offer anatomical landmarks for the physiological data. An automatic segmentation approach simplifies and accelerates the analysis. However, the segmentation of the lungs has shown to be difficult if collapsed areas are present that tend to share similar gray values with surrounding non-pulmonary tissue. Our goal was to develop an automatic segmentation algorithm that is able to approximate dorsal lung boundaries even if alveolar collapse is present in the dependent lung areas adjacent to the pleura. Computed tomography data acquired in five supine pigs with injured lungs were used for this purpose. First, healthy lung tissue was segmented using a standard 3D region growing algorithm. Further, the bones in the chest wall surrounding the lungs were segmented to find the contact points of ribs and pleura. Artificial boundaries of the dorsal lung were set by spline interpolation through these contact points. Segmentation masks of the entire lung including the collapsed regions were created by combining the splines with the segmentation masks of the healthy lung tissue through multiple morphological operations. The automatically segmented images were then evaluated by comparing them to manual segmentations and determining the Dice similarity coefficients (DSC as a similarity measure. The developed method was able to accurately segment the lungs including the collapsed regions (DSCs over 0.96.

Statistical characterization and segmentation of drusen in fundus images.

Science.gov (United States)

Santos-Villalobos, H; Karnowski, T P; Aykac, D; Giancardo, L; Li, Y; Nichols, T; Tobin, K W; Chaum, E

2011-01-01

Age related Macular Degeneration (AMD) is a disease of the retina associated with aging. AMD progression in patients is characterized by drusen, pigmentation changes, and geographic atrophy, which can be seen using fundus imagery. The level of AMD is characterized by standard scaling methods, which can be somewhat subjective in practice. In this work we propose a statistical image processing approach to segment drusen with the ultimate goal of characterizing the AMD progression in a data set of longitudinal images. The method characterizes retinal structures with a statistical model of the colors in the retina image. When comparing the segmentation results of the method between longitudinal images with known AMD progression and those without, the method detects progression in our longitudinal data set with an area under the receiver operating characteristics curve of 0.99.

Statistical Characterization and Segmentation of Drusen in Fundus Images

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Santos-Villalobos, Hector J [ORNL; Karnowski, Thomas Paul [ORNL; Aykac, Deniz [ORNL; Giancardo, Luca [ORNL; Li, Yaquin [University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK); Nichols, Trent L [ORNL; Tobin Jr, Kenneth William [ORNL; Chaum, Edward [University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK)

2011-01-01

Age related Macular Degeneration (AMD) is a disease of the retina associated with aging. AMD progression in patients is characterized by drusen, pigmentation changes, and geographic atrophy, which can be seen using fundus imagery. The level of AMD is characterized by standard scaling methods, which can be somewhat subjective in practice. In this work we propose a statistical image processing approach to segment drusen with the ultimate goal of characterizing the AMD progression in a data set of longitudinal images. The method characterizes retinal structures with a statistical model of the colors in the retina image. When comparing the segmentation results of the method between longitudinal images with known AMD progression and those without, the method detects progression in our longitudinal data set with an area under the receiver operating characteristics curve of 0.99.

Degeneration of the cervical disc: histology compared with radiography and magnetic resonance imaging

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Christe, A.; Vock, P. [University of Berne, Department of Radiology, Inselspital, Berne (Switzerland); Laeubli, R.; Berlemann, U. [University of Berne, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Inselspital, Berne (Switzerland); Guzman, R.; Schroth, G. [University of Berne, Department of Neuroradiology, Inselspital, Berne (Switzerland); Moore, R.J. [Institute of Medical and Veterinary Science, Adelaide (Australia); Loevblad, K.O. [University of Berne, Department of Neuroradiology, Inselspital, Berne (Switzerland); Geneva University Hospital, Neuroradiology SRRI, Geneva 14 (Switzerland)

2005-10-01

Decisions about the treatment of neck pain are largely made on the basis of information gained from plain X-rays and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), which are used routinely as part of preliminary investigation. We performed a descriptive cadaveric study to compare histology with radiography and MRI. We correlated plain radiography, disc height [Farfan index (FI)] and MRI findings with histology to assess the ability of radiology to detect significant pathologic lesions. The study included 52 motion segments from nine subjects over the age of 50, who underwent routine hospital autopsy. Disc degeneration was assessed by histology, radiography, disc height (FI: anterior disc height plus posterior disc height divided by anterioposterior diameter) and MRI using established grading systems. Most of the discs were classified radiologically as grade 1 (19/52), grade 2 (13/52), grade 3 (9/52) or grade 4 (3/52). Eight of the discs were graded as normal. The distribution of MRI grades was grade 0 (9/36), grade 1 (9/36), grade 2 (7/36), grade 3 (8/36) and grade 4 (3/36). Half of the discs (26/52) showed advanced (grade 4) degeneration histologically. FI correlated with histological grade (P=0.013), MRI grade (P=0.02) and radiological grade (P<0.001) of degeneration. Radiological and histological grade of degeneration showed a weak correlation (r=0.3, P=0.033). MRI correlated with overall histological grade (r=0.41, P=0.015, n=34). Histological features (e.g., tears, rim lesions, prolapse of nucleus material) were poorly recognised by MRI, which had a sensitivity for disc material prolapse and annulus tears of less than 40%. Our study showed that discs from patients over 50 years are histologically severely degenerated; however, these changes may not be detected by conventional radiography and MRI. (orig.)

Degeneration of the cervical disc: histology compared with radiography and magnetic resonance imaging

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Christe, A.; Vock, P.; Laeubli, R.; Berlemann, U.; Guzman, R.; Schroth, G.; Moore, R.J.; Loevblad, K.O.

2005-01-01

Decisions about the treatment of neck pain are largely made on the basis of information gained from plain X-rays and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), which are used routinely as part of preliminary investigation. We performed a descriptive cadaveric study to compare histology with radiography and MRI. We correlated plain radiography, disc height [Farfan index (FI)] and MRI findings with histology to assess the ability of radiology to detect significant pathologic lesions. The study included 52 motion segments from nine subjects over the age of 50, who underwent routine hospital autopsy. Disc degeneration was assessed by histology, radiography, disc height (FI: anterior disc height plus posterior disc height divided by anterioposterior diameter) and MRI using established grading systems. Most of the discs were classified radiologically as grade 1 (19/52), grade 2 (13/52), grade 3 (9/52) or grade 4 (3/52). Eight of the discs were graded as normal. The distribution of MRI grades was grade 0 (9/36), grade 1 (9/36), grade 2 (7/36), grade 3 (8/36) and grade 4 (3/36). Half of the discs (26/52) showed advanced (grade 4) degeneration histologically. FI correlated with histological grade (P=0.013), MRI grade (P=0.02) and radiological grade (P<0.001) of degeneration. Radiological and histological grade of degeneration showed a weak correlation (r=0.3, P=0.033). MRI correlated with overall histological grade (r=0.41, P=0.015, n=34). Histological features (e.g., tears, rim lesions, prolapse of nucleus material) were poorly recognised by MRI, which had a sensitivity for disc material prolapse and annulus tears of less than 40%. Our study showed that discs from patients over 50 years are histologically severely degenerated; however, these changes may not be detected by conventional radiography and MRI. (orig.)

Loosely coupled level sets for retinal layers and drusen segmentation in subjects with dry age-related macular degeneration

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Novosel, J.; Wang, Ziyuan; De Jong, Henk; Vermeer, K.A.; van Vliet, L.J.; Styner, Martin A.; Angelini, Elsa D.

2016-01-01

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is used to produce high-resolution three-dimensional images of the retina, which permit the investigation of retinal irregularities. In dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a chronic eye disease that causes central vision loss, disruptions such as drusen and

Optical Coherence Tomography of Retinal Degeneration in Royal College of Surgeons Rats and Its Correlation with Morphology and Electroretinography.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kobu Adachi

Full Text Available To evaluate the correlation between optical coherence tomography (OCT and the histological, ultrastructural and electroretinography (ERG findings of retinal degeneration in Royal College of Surgeons (RCS-/- rats.Using OCT, we qualitatively and quantitatively observed the continual retinal degeneration in RCS-/- rats, from postnatal (PN day 17 until PN day 111. These findings were compared with the corresponding histological, electron microscopic, and ERG findings. We also compared them to OCT findings in wild type RCS+/+ rats, which were used as controls.After PN day 17, the hyperreflective band at the apical side of the photoreceptor layer became blurred. The inner segment (IS ellipsoid zone then became obscured, and the photoreceptor IS and outer segment (OS layers became diffusely hyperreflective after PN day 21. These changes correlated with histological and electron microscopic findings showing extracellular lamellar material that accumulated in the photoreceptor OS layer. After PN day 26, the outer nuclear layer became significantly thinner (P < 0.01 and hyperreflective compared with that in the controls; conversely, the photoreceptor IS and OS layers, as well as the inner retinal layers, became significantly thicker (P < 0.001 and P = 0.05, respectively. The apical hyperreflective band, as well as the IS ellipsoid zone, gradually disappeared between PN day 20 and PN day 30; concurrently, the ERG a- and b-wave amplitudes deteriorated. In contrast, the thicknesses of the combined retinal pigment epithelium and choroid did not differ significantly between RCS-/- and RCS+/+ rats.Our results suggest that OCT demonstrates histologically validated photoreceptor degeneration in RCS rats, and that OCT findings partly correlate with ERG findings. We propose that OCT is a less invasive and useful method for evaluating photoreceptor degeneration in animal models of retinitis pigmentosa.

A Novel Approach of Cardiac Segmentation In CT Image Based On Spline Interpolation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gao Yuan; Ma Pengcheng

2011-01-01

Organ segmentation in CT images is the basis of organ model reconstruction, thus precisely detecting and extracting the organ boundary are keys for reconstruction. In CT image the cardiac are often adjacent to the surrounding tissues and gray gradient between them is too slight, which cause the difficulty of applying classical segmentation method. We proposed a novel algorithm for cardiac segmentation in CT images in this paper, which combines the gray gradient methods and the B-spline interpolation. This algorithm can perfectly detect the boundaries of cardiac, at the same time it could well keep the timeliness because of the automatic processing.

Photoreceptor inner segment ellipsoid band integrity on spectral domain optical coherence tomography

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Saxena S

2014-12-01

Full Text Available Sandeep Saxena,1 Khushboo Srivastav,1 Chui M Cheung,2 Joanne YW Ng,3 Timothy YY Lai3 1Retina Service, Department of Ophthalmology, King George’s Medical University Lucknow, India; 2Singapore National Eye Centre, Singapore; 3Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong Abstract: Spectral domain optical coherence tomography cross-sectional imaging of the macula has conventionally been resolved into four bands. However, some doubts were raised regarding authentication of the existence of these bands. Recently, a number of studies have suggested that the second band appeared to originate from the inner segment ellipsoids of the foveal cone photoreceptors, and therefore the previously called inner segment-outer segment junction is now referred to as inner segment ellipsoidband. Photoreceptor dysfunction may be a significant predictor of visual acuity in a spectrum of surgical and medical retinal diseases. This review aims to provide an overview and summarizes the role of the photoreceptor inner segment ellipsoid band in the management and prognostication of various vitreoretinal diseases. Keywords: spectral domain optical coherence tomography, inner segment-outer segment junction, external limiting membrane, macular hole, diabetic macular edema, age relate macular degeneration

A comprehensive segmentation analysis of crude oil market based on time irreversibility

Science.gov (United States)

Xia, Jianan; Shang, Pengjian; Lu, Dan; Yin, Yi

2016-05-01

In this paper, we perform a comprehensive entropic segmentation analysis of crude oil future prices from 1983 to 2014 which used the Jensen-Shannon divergence as the statistical distance between segments, and analyze the results from original series S and series begin at 1986 (marked as S∗) to find common segments which have same boundaries. Then we apply time irreversibility analysis of each segment to divide all segments into two groups according to their asymmetry degree. Based on the temporal distribution of the common segments and high asymmetry segments, we figure out that these two types of segments appear alternately and do not overlap basically in daily group, while the common portions are also high asymmetry segments in weekly group. In addition, the temporal distribution of the common segments is fairly close to the time of crises, wars or other events, because the hit from severe events to oil price makes these common segments quite different from their adjacent segments. The common segments can be confirmed in daily group series, or weekly group series due to the large divergence between common segments and their neighbors. While the identification of high asymmetry segments is helpful to know the segments which are not affected badly by the events and can recover to steady states automatically. Finally, we rearrange the segments by merging the connected common segments or high asymmetry segments into a segment, and conjoin the connected segments which are neither common nor high asymmetric.

Assessment of the suitability of biodegradable rods for use in posterior lumbar fusion: An in-vitro biomechanical evaluation and finite element analysis.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Fon-Yih Tsuang

Full Text Available Interbody fusion with posterior instrumentation is a common method for treating lumbar degenerative disc diseases. However, the high rigidity of the fusion construct may produce abnormal stresses at the adjacent segment and lead to adjacent segment degeneration (ASD. As such, biodegradable implants are becoming more popular for use in orthopaedic surgery. These implants offer sufficient stability for fusion but at a reduced stiffness. Tailored to degrade over a specific timeframe, biodegradable implants could potentially mitigate the drawbacks of conventional stiff constructs and reduce the loading on adjacent segments. Six finite element models were developed in this study to simulate a spine with and without fixators. The spinal fixators used both titanium rods and biodegradable rods. The models were subjected to axial loading and pure moments. The range of motion (ROM, disc stresses, and contact forces of facet joints at adjacent segments were recorded. A 3-point bending test was performed on the biodegradable rods and a dynamic bending test was performed on the spinal fixators according to ASTM F1717-11a. The finite element simulation showed that lumbar spinal fusion using biodegradable implants had a similar ROM at the fusion level as at adjacent levels. As the rods degraded over time, this produced a decrease in the contact force at adjacent facet joints, less stress in the adjacent disc and greater loading on the anterior bone graft region. The mechanical tests showed the initial average fatigue strength of the biodegradable rods was 145 N, but this decreased to 115N and 55N after 6 months and 12 months of soaking in solution. Also, both the spinal fixator with biodegradable rods and with titanium rods was strong enough to withstand 5,000,000 dynamic compression cycles under a 145 N axial load. The results of this study demonstrated that biodegradable rods may present more favourable clinical outcomes for lumbar fusion. These polymer rods

The segmentation of the human brain; a message to the neuroimaging community from an adjacent domain of the neurosciences

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Nieuwenhuys, R.

2018-01-01

Morphological and genoarchitectonic studies have conclusively shown that the human brain (and that of all vertebrates) is segmented i. e. is fundamentally composed of a number of rostrocaudally arranged brain segments or neuromeres. However in the current neuroimaging literature the term

Degenerate nonlinear diffusion equations

CERN Document Server

Favini, Angelo

2012-01-01

The aim of these notes is to include in a uniform presentation style several topics related to the theory of degenerate nonlinear diffusion equations, treated in the mathematical framework of evolution equations with multivalued m-accretive operators in Hilbert spaces. The problems concern nonlinear parabolic equations involving two cases of degeneracy. More precisely, one case is due to the vanishing of the time derivative coefficient and the other is provided by the vanishing of the diffusion coefficient on subsets of positive measure of the domain. From the mathematical point of view the results presented in these notes can be considered as general results in the theory of degenerate nonlinear diffusion equations. However, this work does not seek to present an exhaustive study of degenerate diffusion equations, but rather to emphasize some rigorous and efficient techniques for approaching various problems involving degenerate nonlinear diffusion equations, such as well-posedness, periodic solutions, asympt...

On Degenerate Partial Differential Equations

OpenAIRE

Chen, Gui-Qiang G.

2010-01-01

Some of recent developments, including recent results, ideas, techniques, and approaches, in the study of degenerate partial differential equations are surveyed and analyzed. Several examples of nonlinear degenerate, even mixed, partial differential equations, are presented, which arise naturally in some longstanding, fundamental problems in fluid mechanics and differential geometry. The solution to these fundamental problems greatly requires a deep understanding of nonlinear degenerate parti...

Geographic atrophy segmentation in infrared and autofluorescent retina images using supervised learning.

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Devisetti, K; Karnowski, T P; Giancardo, L; Li, Y; Chaum, E

2011-01-01

Geographic Atrophy (GA) of the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) is an advanced form of atrophic age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and is responsible for about 20% of AMD-related legal blindness in the United States. Two different imaging modalities for retinas, infrared imaging and autofluorescence imaging, serve as interesting complimentary technologies for highlighting GA. In this work we explore the use of neural network classifiers in performing segmentation of GA in registered infrared (IR) and autofluorescence (AF) images. Our segmentation achieved a performance level of 82.5% sensitivity and 92.9% specificity on a per-pixel basis using hold-one-out validation testing. The algorithm, feature extraction, data set and experimental results are discussed and shown.

Early Events in Retinal Degeneration Caused by Rhodopsin Mutation or Pigment Epithelium Malfunction: Differences and Similarities

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Di Pierdomenico, Johnny; García-Ayuso, Diego; Pinilla, Isabel; Cuenca, Nicolás; Vidal-Sanz, Manuel; Agudo-Barriuso, Marta; Villegas-Pérez, María P.

2017-01-01

To study the course of photoreceptor cell death and macro and microglial reactivity in two rat models of retinal degeneration with different etiologies. Retinas from P23H-1 (rhodopsin mutation) and Royal College of Surgeon (RCS, pigment epithelium malfunction) rats and age-matched control animals (Sprague-Dawley and Pievald Viro Glaxo, respectively) were cross-sectioned at different postnatal ages (from P10 to P60) and rhodopsin, L/M- and S-opsin, ionized calcium-binding adapter molecule 1 (Iba1), glial fibrillary acid protein (GFAP), and proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) proteins were immunodetected. Photoreceptor nuclei rows and microglial cells in the different retinal layers were quantified. Photoreceptor degeneration starts earlier and progresses quicker in P23H-1 than in RCS rats. In both models, microglial cell activation occurs simultaneously with the initiation of photoreceptor death while GFAP over-expression starts later. As degeneration progresses, the numbers of microglial cells increase in the retina, but decreasing in the inner retina and increasing in the outer retina, more markedly in RCS rats. Interestingly, and in contrast with healthy animals, microglial cells reach the outer nuclei and outer segment layers. The higher number of microglial cells in dystrophic retinas cannot be fully accounted by intraretinal migration and PCNA immunodetection revealed microglial proliferation in both models but more importantly in RCS rats. The etiology of retinal degeneration determines the initiation and pattern of photoreceptor cell death and simultaneously there is microglial activation and migration, while the macroglial response is delayed. The actions of microglial cells in the degeneration cannot be explained only in the basis of photoreceptor death because they participate more actively in the RCS model. Thus, the retinal degeneration caused by pigment epithelium malfunction is more inflammatory and would probably respond better to interventions

Dynamic Post-Earthquake Image Segmentation with an Adaptive Spectral-Spatial Descriptor

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Genyun Sun

2017-08-01

Full Text Available The region merging algorithm is a widely used segmentation technique for very high resolution (VHR remote sensing images. However, the segmentation of post-earthquake VHR images is more difficult due to the complexity of these images, especially high intra-class and low inter-class variability among damage objects. Herein two key issues must be resolved: the first is to find an appropriate descriptor to measure the similarity of two adjacent regions since they exhibit high complexity among the diverse damage objects, such as landslides, debris flow, and collapsed buildings. The other is how to solve over-segmentation and under-segmentation problems, which are commonly encountered with conventional merging strategies due to their strong dependence on local information. To tackle these two issues, an adaptive dynamic region merging approach (ADRM is introduced, which combines an adaptive spectral-spatial descriptor and a dynamic merging strategy to adapt to the changes of merging regions for successfully detecting objects scattered globally in a post-earthquake image. In the new descriptor, the spectral similarity and spatial similarity of any two adjacent regions are automatically combined to measure their similarity. Accordingly, the new descriptor offers adaptive semantic descriptions for geo-objects and thus is capable of characterizing different damage objects. Besides, in the dynamic region merging strategy, the adaptive spectral-spatial descriptor is embedded in the defined testing order and combined with graph models to construct a dynamic merging strategy. The new strategy can find the global optimal merging order and ensures that the most similar regions are merged at first. With combination of the two strategies, ADRM can identify spatially scattered objects and alleviates the phenomenon of over-segmentation and under-segmentation. The performance of ADRM has been evaluated by comparing with four state-of-the-art segmentation methods

Indian hedgehog contributes to human cartilage endplate degeneration.

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Wang, Shaowei; Yang, Kun; Chen, Shuai; Wang, Jiying; Du, Guoqing; Fan, Shunwu; Wei, Lei

2015-08-01

To determine the role of Indian hedgehog (Ihh) signaling in human cartilage endplate (CEP) degeneration. CEP-degenerated tissues from patients with Modic I or II changes (n = 9 and 45, respectively) and normal tissues from vertebral burst fracture patients (n = 17) were collected. Specimens were either cut into slices for organ culture ex vivo or digested to isolate chondrocytes for cell culture in vitro. Ihh expression and the effect of Ihh on cartilage degeneration were determined by investigating degeneration markers in this study. Ihh expression and cartilage degeneration markers significantly increased in the Modic I and II groups. The expression of cartilage degeneration markers was positively correlated with degeneration severity. Gain-of-function for Ihh promoted expression of cartilage degeneration markers in vitro, while loss-of-function for Ihh inhibited their expression both in vitro and ex vivo. These findings demonstrated that Ihh promotes CEP degeneration. Blocking Ihh pathway has potential clinical usage for attenuating CEP degeneration.

Experimental replacement of esophagus with a short segment of trachea.

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Abbasidezfouli, Azizollah; Ansari, Damoon; Sheikhy, Kambiz; Abarkar, Mohammad; Sadeghbeigi, Farahnaz; Abbasidezfouli, Sepehr; Sharifi, Davood

2016-03-01

Segmental resection of esophagus with primary anastomosis is prohibited because of the risk of dehiscence. We previously have shown that replacement of a segment of cervical esophagus with a tracheal segment of the same length could successfully be performed in a canine model. In this study, we sought to assess the feasibility of replacement of the esophageal defect with a shorter segment of trachea. In five mongrel dogs weighting 20-30 kg, under general anesthesia and after a cervical incision, 8 cm of the cervical esophagus was resected and replaced by a 4-cm segment of the adjacent trachea. The animals were evaluated clinically for signs and symptoms of stenosis and dehiscence and then euthanized after 2 mo of follow-up. All dogs recovered from surgery and started regular diet on the seventh postoperative day. No clinical or endoscopic sign of stenosis or voice change was seen. Squamous metaplasia and atrophy of mucosal glands and cartilage were detected in the histopathologic examination of the replaced segments. Replacement of a cervical esophageal defect with a shorter segment of trachea can be performed successfully in dogs. This procedure can be potentially used for the treatment of cervical esophageal lesions in humans. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Computer aided vertebral visualization and analysis: a methodology using the sand rat, a small animal model of disc degeneration

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Hanley Edward N

2003-03-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background The purpose of this study is to present an automated system that analyzes digitized x-ray images of small animal spines identifying the effects of disc degeneration. The age-related disc and spine degeneration that occurs in the sand rat (Psammomys obesus has previously been documented radiologically; selected representative radiographs with age-related changes were used here to develop computer-assisted vertebral visualization/analysis techniques. Techniques presented here have the potential to produce quantitative algorithms that create more accurate and informative measurements in a time efficient manner. Methods Signal and image processing techniques were applied to digitized spine x-ray images the spine was segmented, and orientation and curvature determined. The image was segmented based on orientation changes of the spine; edge detection was performed to define vertebral boundaries. Once vertebrae were identified, a number of measures were introduced and calculated to retrieve information on the vertebral separation/orientation and sclerosis. Results A method is described which produces computer-generated quantitative measurements of vertebrae and disc spaces. Six sand rat spine radiographs illustrate applications of this technique. Results showed that this method can successfully automate calculation and analysis of vertebral length, vertebral spacing, vertebral angle, and can score sclerosis. Techniques also provide quantitative means to explore the relation between age and vertebral shape. Conclusions This method provides a computationally efficient system to analyze spinal changes during aging. Techniques can be used to automate the quantitative processing of vertebral radiographic images and may be applicable to human and other animal radiologic models of the aging/degenerating spine.

Síndrome adyacente Síndrome adjacente Adjacent segment disease

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Gustavo Martin

2012-06-01

recovered in both cases. MRI before the first intervention was 83% with Pfirmann IV. AS level: 38% L3-L4, L5-S1: 26%. AS types: lumbar stenosis worsened by monosegmental antero-listhesis in 20 and retro-listhesis in 14; multisegmental stenosis 4, disc herniation 4, crush fracture 4, stenosis without listhesis 4. Period between the 2 surgeries: on average 6 years. CONCLUSION: An incidence of 9.4% of reoperation due to adjacent syndrome makes this disease an important long-term problem, forcing the surgeon to take all the possible steps to avoid this. With the results of this retrospective study we could only say that the segments more likely to develop AS are those with Pfirmann IV on MRI and that the relation VP (20% and PS (80% pre and post-operative should be taken into account to return to the spinal column perfect mechanical condition. Prospective clinical studies are needed for more conclusive results.

SU-C-207B-03: A Geometrical Constrained Chan-Vese Based Tumor Segmentation Scheme for PET

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chen, L; Zhou, Z; Wang, J

2016-01-01

Purpose: Accurate segmentation of tumor in PET is challenging when part of tumor is connected with normal organs/tissues with no difference in intensity. Conventional segmentation methods, such as thresholding or region growing, cannot generate satisfactory results in this case. We proposed a geometrical constrained Chan-Vese based scheme to segment tumor in PET for this special case by considering the similarity between two adjacent slices. Methods: The proposed scheme performs segmentation in a slice-by-slice fashion where an accurate segmentation of one slice is used as the guidance for segmentation of rest slices. For a slice that the tumor is not directly connected to organs/tissues with similar intensity values, a conventional clustering-based segmentation method under user’s guidance is used to obtain an exact tumor contour. This is set as the initial contour and the Chan-Vese algorithm is applied for segmenting the tumor in the next adjacent slice by adding constraints of tumor size, position and shape information. This procedure is repeated until the last slice of PET containing tumor. The proposed geometrical constrained Chan-Vese based algorithm was implemented in Matlab and its performance was tested on several cervical cancer patients where cervix and bladder are connected with similar activity values. The positive predictive values (PPV) are calculated to characterize the segmentation accuracy of the proposed scheme. Results: Tumors were accurately segmented by the proposed method even when they are connected with bladder in the image with no difference in intensity. The average PPVs were 0.9571±0.0355 and 0.9894±0.0271 for 17 slices and 11 slices of PET from two patients, respectively. Conclusion: We have developed a new scheme to segment tumor in PET images for the special case that the tumor is quite similar to or connected to normal organs/tissues in the image. The proposed scheme can provide a reliable way for segmenting tumors.

SU-C-207B-03: A Geometrical Constrained Chan-Vese Based Tumor Segmentation Scheme for PET

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Chen, L; Zhou, Z; Wang, J [UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX (United States)

2016-06-15

Purpose: Accurate segmentation of tumor in PET is challenging when part of tumor is connected with normal organs/tissues with no difference in intensity. Conventional segmentation methods, such as thresholding or region growing, cannot generate satisfactory results in this case. We proposed a geometrical constrained Chan-Vese based scheme to segment tumor in PET for this special case by considering the similarity between two adjacent slices. Methods: The proposed scheme performs segmentation in a slice-by-slice fashion where an accurate segmentation of one slice is used as the guidance for segmentation of rest slices. For a slice that the tumor is not directly connected to organs/tissues with similar intensity values, a conventional clustering-based segmentation method under user’s guidance is used to obtain an exact tumor contour. This is set as the initial contour and the Chan-Vese algorithm is applied for segmenting the tumor in the next adjacent slice by adding constraints of tumor size, position and shape information. This procedure is repeated until the last slice of PET containing tumor. The proposed geometrical constrained Chan-Vese based algorithm was implemented in Matlab and its performance was tested on several cervical cancer patients where cervix and bladder are connected with similar activity values. The positive predictive values (PPV) are calculated to characterize the segmentation accuracy of the proposed scheme. Results: Tumors were accurately segmented by the proposed method even when they are connected with bladder in the image with no difference in intensity. The average PPVs were 0.9571±0.0355 and 0.9894±0.0271 for 17 slices and 11 slices of PET from two patients, respectively. Conclusion: We have developed a new scheme to segment tumor in PET images for the special case that the tumor is quite similar to or connected to normal organs/tissues in the image. The proposed scheme can provide a reliable way for segmenting tumors.

Calcium channel blockers inhibit retinal degeneration in the retinal-degeneration-B mutant of Drosophila.

Science.gov (United States)

Sahly, I; Bar Nachum, S; Suss-Toby, E; Rom, A; Peretz, A; Kleiman, J; Byk, T; Selinger, Z; Minke, B

1992-01-01

Light accelerates degeneration of photoreceptor cells of the retinal degeneration B (rdgB) mutant of Drosophila. During early stages of degeneration, light stimuli evoke spikes from photoreceptors of the mutant fly; no spikes can be recorded from photoreceptors of the wild-type fly. Production of spike potentials from mutant photoreceptors was blocked by diltiazem, verapamil hydrochloride, and cadmium. Little, if any, effect of the (-)-cis isomer or (+)-cis isomer of diltiazem on the light response was seen. Further, the (+)-cis isomer was approximately 50 times more effective than the (-)-cis isomer in blocking the Ca2+ spikes, indicating that diltiazem action on the rdgB eye is mediated by means of blocking voltage-sensitive Ca2+ channels, rather than by blocking the light-sensitive channels. Application of the Ca(2+)-channel blockers (+)-cis-diltiazem and verapamil hydrochloride to the eyes of rdgB flies over a 7-day period largely inhibited light-dependent degeneration of the photoreceptor cells. Pulse labeling with [32P]phosphate showed much greater incorporation into eye proteins of [32P]phosphate in rdgB flies than in wild-type flies. Retarding the light-induced photoreceptor degeneration in the mutant by Ca(2+)-channel blockers, thus, suggests that toxic increase in intracellular Ca2+ by means of voltage-gated Ca2+ channels, possibly secondary to excessive phosphorylation, leads to photoreceptor degeneration in the rdgB mutant. Images PMID:1309615

Posteriorly directed shear loads and disc degeneration affect the torsional stiffness of spinal motion segments; a biomechanical modeling study

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Homminga, Jasper Johan; Lehr, A.M.; Meijer, Gerdine; Janssen, M.M.A.; Schlösser, T.P.C.; Verkerke, Gijsbertus Jacob; Castelein, R.M.

2013-01-01

Objective. To analyze the effects of posterior shear loads, disc degeneration, and the combination of both on spinal torsion stiffness. Summary of Background Data. Scoliosis is a 3-dimensional deformity of the spine that presents itself mainly in adolescent girls and elderly patients. Our concept of

Type II Modic Changes May not Always Represent Fat Degeneration: A Study Using MR Fat Suppression Sequence.

Science.gov (United States)

Feng, Zhiyun; Liu, Yuanhao; Wei, Wei; Hu, Shengping; Wang, Yue

2016-08-15

A radiological study of type II Modic changes (MCs). The aim of this study was to determine the characteristics of type II MCs on fat suppression (FS) magnetic resonance (MR) images and its association with radiological disc degeneration. Type II MCs are common endplate signal changes on MR images. On the basis of limited histological samples, type II MCs are thought to be stable fat degeneration. FS technique on MR, which can quantify fat content, may be an alternative to explore the pathology of MCs. To date, however, the characteristics of type II MCs on FS sequence have not been studied. Lumbar MR images conducted in a single hospital during a defined period were reviewed to include those with type II MCs and FS images. On FS images, signal status of type II MCs was visually classified as suppressed or not-suppressed. Signal intensity of vertebral regions with and without MCs was measured quantitatively on T2-weighted (T2W) and FS images to calculate fat content index and validate the visual classification. Using image analysis program Osirix, MCs size and adjacent disc degeneration were measured quantitatively. Paired t-tests and logistic regressions were used to determine the associations studied. Sixty-four lumbar MRIs were included and 150 endplates with type II MCs were studied. Although signal of 37 (24.7%) type II MCs was suppressed on FS images, that of 113 (75.3%) was not suppressed. The discs adjacent to type II MCs had lower signal intensity (0.13 ± 0.003 vs. 0.14 ± 0.004, P Type II MCs that were not suppressed on FS image were associated with greater age [odds ratio (OR) = 1.11, P type II MCs was not suppressed on FS MR images, suggesting that there are ongoing complicated pathologies. Type II MCs may not merely represent fat replacement. 3.

Semi-automatic geographic atrophy segmentation for SD-OCT images.

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Qiang; de Sisternes, Luis; Leng, Theodore; Zheng, Luoluo; Kutzscher, Lauren; Rubin, Daniel L

2013-01-01

Geographic atrophy (GA) is a condition that is associated with retinal thinning and loss of the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) layer. It appears in advanced stages of non-exudative age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and can lead to vision loss. We present a semi-automated GA segmentation algorithm for spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) images. The method first identifies and segments a surface between the RPE and the choroid to generate retinal projection images in which the projection region is restricted to a sub-volume of the retina where the presence of GA can be identified. Subsequently, a geometric active contour model is employed to automatically detect and segment the extent of GA in the projection images. Two image data sets, consisting on 55 SD-OCT scans from twelve eyes in eight patients with GA and 56 SD-OCT scans from 56 eyes in 56 patients with GA, respectively, were utilized to qualitatively and quantitatively evaluate the proposed GA segmentation method. Experimental results suggest that the proposed algorithm can achieve high segmentation accuracy. The mean GA overlap ratios between our proposed method and outlines drawn in the SD-OCT scans, our method and outlines drawn in the fundus auto-fluorescence (FAF) images, and the commercial software (Carl Zeiss Meditec proprietary software, Cirrus version 6.0) and outlines drawn in FAF images were 72.60%, 65.88% and 59.83%, respectively.

A CTRP5 gene S163R mutation knock-in mouse model for late-onset retinal degeneration.

Science.gov (United States)

Chavali, Venkata R M; Khan, Naheed W; Cukras, Catherine A; Bartsch, Dirk-Uwe; Jablonski, Monica M; Ayyagari, Radha

2011-05-15

Late-onset retinal macular degeneration (L-ORD) is an autosomal dominant inherited disorder caused by a single missense mutation (S163R) in the CTRP5/C1QTNF5 protein. Early phenotypic features of L-ORD include: dark adaptation abnormalities, nyctalopia, and drusen deposits in the peripheral macular region. Apart from posterior segment abnormalities, these patients also develop abnormally long anterior lens zonules. In the sixth decade of life the rod and cone function declines, accompanied by electroretinogram (ERG) abnormalities. Some patients also develop choroidal neovascularization and glaucoma. In order to understand the disease pathology and mechanisms involved in retinal dystrophy, we generated a knock-in (Ctrp5(+/-)) mouse model carrying the disease-associated mutation in the mouse Ctrp5/C1QTNF5 gene. These mice develop slower rod-b wave recovery consistent with early dark adaptation abnormalities, accumulation of hyperautofluorescence spots, retinal pigment epithelium abnormalities, drusen, Bruch's membrane abnormalities, loss of photoreceptors, and retinal vascular leakage. The Ctrp5(+/-) mice, which have most of the pathological features of age-related macular degeneration, are unique and may serve as a valuable model both to understand the molecular pathology of late-onset retinal degeneration and to evaluate therapies.

A method for smoothing segmented lung boundary in chest CT images

Science.gov (United States)

Yim, Yeny; Hong, Helen

2007-03-01

To segment low density lung regions in chest CT images, most of methods use the difference in gray-level value of pixels. However, radiodense pulmonary vessels and pleural nodules that contact with the surrounding anatomy are often excluded from the segmentation result. To smooth lung boundary segmented by gray-level processing in chest CT images, we propose a new method using scan line search. Our method consists of three main steps. First, lung boundary is extracted by our automatic segmentation method. Second, segmented lung contour is smoothed in each axial CT slice. We propose a scan line search to track the points on lung contour and find rapidly changing curvature efficiently. Finally, to provide consistent appearance between lung contours in adjacent axial slices, 2D closing in coronal plane is applied within pre-defined subvolume. Our method has been applied for performance evaluation with the aspects of visual inspection, accuracy and processing time. The results of our method show that the smoothness of lung contour was considerably increased by compensating for pulmonary vessels and pleural nodules.

Skew-adjacency matrices of graphs

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Cavers, M.; Cioaba, S.M.; Fallat, S.; Gregory, D.A.; Haemers, W.H.; Kirkland, S.J.; McDonald, J.J.; Tsatsomeros, M.

2012-01-01

The spectra of the skew-adjacency matrices of a graph are considered as a possible way to distinguish adjacency cospectral graphs. This leads to the following topics: graphs whose skew-adjacency matrices are all cospectral; relations between the matchings polynomial of a graph and the characteristic

Striatonigral Degeneration

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... See More About Research The NINDS supports and conducts research on disorders of the brain and nervous system such as striatonigral degeneration. This research ... Publications Definition Striatonigral ...

[Lattice degeneration of the retina].

Science.gov (United States)

Boĭko, E V; Suetov, A A; Mal'tsev, D S

2014-01-01

Lattice degeneration of the retina is a clinically important type of peripheral retinal dystrophies due to its participation in the pathogenesis of rhegmatogenous retinal detachment. In spite of extensive epidemiological, morphological, and clinical data, the question on causes of this particular type of retinal dystrophies currently remains debatable. Existing hypotheses on pathogenesis of retinal structural changes in lattice degeneration explain it to a certain extent. In clinical ophthalmology it is necessary to pay close attention to this kind of degenerations and distinguish between cases requiring preventive treatment and those requiring monitoring.

Socintigraphic evaluation of lateral segment of the left lobe of the liver

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Oyama, Kazuyuki; Hayashi, Sanshin; Kogure, Takashi; Hirakawa, Ken; Akaike, Akira

1979-01-01

Lateral segment of left lobe of the liver is clearly demarcated on sup(99m) Tc-labeled cholescintigram. With analysis of 112 sup(99m) Tc-pyridoxylideneisoleucine scintigrams about lateral border of left lobe, there are some variants in 22 cases (19.7%) in shape in lateral segment of Type 4 left lobe in morphologic classification. Of lateral segment of left lobe, there are classified into five types in the anterior view according to the degeneration; Type 1 is gradually elongated tapered type in 8 cases (36.4%), Type 2 is laterally elongated type as rod shape or island shape in 5 cases (22.7%), Type 3 is lobulated type in 1 case (4.6%), Type 4 is narrowing type in 5 cases (22.7%), Type 5 is indentation type in 3 cases (13.6%). Using colloidal radiopharmaceuticals in liver scintigraphy, lateral segment of left lobe often overlapps with the spleen, which disturb to interpret the abnormality in left lobe of the liver and in the spleen. This analysis depends upon the recent advances in sup(99m) Tc-labeled hepatobiliary radiopharmaceuticals and equipment, and there has never discussed about the shape of lateral segment of left lobe in roentgenologic and scintigraphic evaluations. (author)

Retinal Vessels Segmentation Techniques and Algorithms: A Survey

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jasem Almotiri

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Retinal vessels identification and localization aim to separate the different retinal vasculature structure tissues, either wide or narrow ones, from the fundus image background and other retinal anatomical structures such as optic disc, macula, and abnormal lesions. Retinal vessels identification studies are attracting more and more attention in recent years due to non-invasive fundus imaging and the crucial information contained in vasculature structure which is helpful for the detection and diagnosis of a variety of retinal pathologies included but not limited to: Diabetic Retinopathy (DR, glaucoma, hypertension, and Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD. With the development of almost two decades, the innovative approaches applying computer-aided techniques for segmenting retinal vessels are becoming more and more crucial and coming closer to routine clinical applications. The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive overview for retinal vessels segmentation techniques. Firstly, a brief introduction to retinal fundus photography and imaging modalities of retinal images is given. Then, the preprocessing operations and the state of the art methods of retinal vessels identification are introduced. Moreover, the evaluation and validation of the results of retinal vessels segmentation are discussed. Finally, an objective assessment is presented and future developments and trends are addressed for retinal vessels identification techniques.

Short term outcome of posterior dynamic stabilization system in degenerative lumbar diseases.

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, Mingyuan; Li, Chao; Chen, Ziqiang; Bai, Yushu; Li, Ming

2014-11-01

Decompression and fusion is considered as the 'gold standard' for the treatment of degenerative lumbar diseases, however, many disadvantages have been reported in several studies, recently like donor site pain, pseudoarthrosis, nonunion, screw loosening, instrumentation failure, infection, adjacent segment disease (ASDis) and degeneration. Dynamic neutralization system (Dynesys) avoids many of these disadvantages. This system is made up of pedicle screws, polyethylene terephthalate cords, and polycarbonate urethane spacers to stabilize the functional spinal unit and preserve the adjacent motion after surgeries. This was a retrospective cohort study to compare the effect of Dynesys for treating degenerative lumbar diseases with posterior lumbar interbody fusion (PLIF) based on short term followup. Seventy five consecutive patients of lumbar degenerative disease operated between October 2010 and November 2012 were studied with a minimum followup of 2 years. Patients were divided into two groups according to the different surgeries. 30 patients underwent decompression and implantation of Dynesys in two levels (n = 29) or three levels (n = 1) and 45 patients underwent PLIF in two levels (n = 39) or three levels (n = 6). Clinical and radiographic outcomes between two groups were reviewed. Thirty patients (male:17, female:13) with a mean age of 55.96 ± 7.68 years were included in Dynesys group and the PLIF group included 45 patients (male:21, female:24) with a mean age of 54.69 ± 3.26 years. The average followup in Dynesys group and PLIF group was 2.22 ± 0.43 year (range 2-3.5 year) and 2.17 ± 0.76 year (range 2-3 year), respectively. Dynesys group showed a shorter operation time (141.06 ± 11.36 min vs. 176.98 ± 6.72 min, P degenerative disease showed clinical benefits with motion preservation of the operated segments, but does not have the significant advantage on motion preservation at adjacent segments, to avoid the degeneration of adjacent intervertebral disk.

Multi-atlas pancreas segmentation: Atlas selection based on vessel structure.

Science.gov (United States)

Karasawa, Ken'ichi; Oda, Masahiro; Kitasaka, Takayuki; Misawa, Kazunari; Fujiwara, Michitaka; Chu, Chengwen; Zheng, Guoyan; Rueckert, Daniel; Mori, Kensaku

2017-07-01

Automated organ segmentation from medical images is an indispensable component for clinical applications such as computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) and computer-assisted surgery (CAS). We utilize a multi-atlas segmentation scheme, which has recently been used in different approaches in the literature to achieve more accurate and robust segmentation of anatomical structures in computed tomography (CT) volume data. Among abdominal organs, the pancreas has large inter-patient variability in its position, size and shape. Moreover, the CT intensity of the pancreas closely resembles adjacent tissues, rendering its segmentation a challenging task. Due to this, conventional intensity-based atlas selection for pancreas segmentation often fails to select atlases that are similar in pancreas position and shape to those of the unlabeled target volume. In this paper, we propose a new atlas selection strategy based on vessel structure around the pancreatic tissue and demonstrate its application to a multi-atlas pancreas segmentation. Our method utilizes vessel structure around the pancreas to select atlases with high pancreatic resemblance to the unlabeled volume. Also, we investigate two types of applications of the vessel structure information to the atlas selection. Our segmentations were evaluated on 150 abdominal contrast-enhanced CT volumes. The experimental results showed that our approach can segment the pancreas with an average Jaccard index of 66.3% and an average Dice overlap coefficient of 78.5%. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Cerebellar Degeneration

Science.gov (United States)

... FARA) National Ataxia Foundation (NAF) National Multiple Sclerosis Society See all related organizations Publications Degeneración cerebelosa Order NINDS Publications Definition Cerebellar degeneration is a process in which neurons ( ...

Improving graph-based OCT segmentation for severe pathology in retinitis pigmentosa patients

Science.gov (United States)

Lang, Andrew; Carass, Aaron; Bittner, Ava K.; Ying, Howard S.; Prince, Jerry L.

2017-03-01

Three dimensional segmentation of macular optical coherence tomography (OCT) data of subjects with retinitis pigmentosa (RP) is a challenging problem due to the disappearance of the photoreceptor layers, which causes algorithms developed for segmentation of healthy data to perform poorly on RP patients. In this work, we present enhancements to a previously developed graph-based OCT segmentation pipeline to enable processing of RP data. The algorithm segments eight retinal layers in RP data by relaxing constraints on the thickness and smoothness of each layer learned from healthy data. Following from prior work, a random forest classifier is first trained on the RP data to estimate boundary probabilities, which are used by a graph search algorithm to find the optimal set of nine surfaces that fit the data. Due to the intensity disparity between normal layers of healthy controls and layers in various stages of degeneration in RP patients, an additional intensity normalization step is introduced. Leave-one-out validation on data acquired from nine subjects showed an average overall boundary error of 4.22 μm as compared to 6.02 μm using the original algorithm.

Reproducibility of myelin content-based human habenula segmentation at 3 Tesla.

Science.gov (United States)

Kim, Joo-Won; Naidich, Thomas P; Joseph, Joshmi; Nair, Divya; Glasser, Matthew F; O'halloran, Rafael; Doucet, Gaelle E; Lee, Won Hee; Krinsky, Hannah; Paulino, Alejandro; Glahn, David C; Anticevic, Alan; Frangou, Sophia; Xu, Junqian

2018-03-26

In vivo morphological study of the human habenula, a pair of small epithalamic nuclei adjacent to the dorsomedial thalamus, has recently gained significant interest for its role in reward and aversion processing. However, segmenting the habenula from in vivo magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is challenging due to the habenula's small size and low anatomical contrast. Although manual and semi-automated habenula segmentation methods have been reported, the test-retest reproducibility of the segmented habenula volume and the consistency of the boundaries of habenula segmentation have not been investigated. In this study, we evaluated the intra- and inter-site reproducibility of in vivo human habenula segmentation from 3T MRI (0.7-0.8 mm isotropic resolution) using our previously proposed semi-automated myelin contrast-based method and its fully-automated version, as well as a previously published manual geometry-based method. The habenula segmentation using our semi-automated method showed consistent boundary definition (high Dice coefficient, low mean distance, and moderate Hausdorff distance) and reproducible volume measurement (low coefficient of variation). Furthermore, the habenula boundary in our semi-automated segmentation from 3T MRI agreed well with that in the manual segmentation from 7T MRI (0.5 mm isotropic resolution) of the same subjects. Overall, our proposed semi-automated habenula segmentation showed reliable and reproducible habenula localization, while its fully-automated version offers an efficient way for large sample analysis. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Intervertebral disc degeneration in dogs

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bergknut, N.

2011-01-01

Back pain is common in both dogs and humans, and is often associated with intervertebral disc (IVD) degeneration. The IVDs are essential structures of the spine and degeneration can ultimately result in diseases such as IVD herniation or spinal instability. In order to design new treatments halting

Intervertebral disc degeneration in dogs

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bergknut, Niklas

Back pain is common in both dogs and humans, and is often associated with intervertebral disc (IVD) degeneration. The IVDs are essential structures of the spine and degeneration can ultimately result in diseases such as IVD herniation or spinal instability. In order to design new treatments halting

Second order degenerate elliptic equations

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Duong Minh Duc.

1988-08-01

Using an improved Sobolev inequality we study a class of elliptic operators which is degenerate inside the domain and strongly degenerate near the boundary of the domain. Our results are applicable to the L 2 -boundary value problem and the mixed boundary problem. (author). 18 refs

LUMBOSACRAL TRANSITIONAL ANATOMY TYPES AND DISC DEGENERATIVE CHANGES

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Chabukovska Radulovska Jasminka

2014-07-01

Full Text Available Background and purpose: The relationship between presence of lumbo sacral transitional vertebra (LSTV and disc degenerative changes is unclear. The aim of the study was to examine the relation between different types of LSTV and disc degenerative changes at the transitional and the adjacent cephalad segment. Material and methods: Sixty-three patients (mean age 51.48 ± 13.51 out of 200 adults with low back pain who performed MRI examination of the lumbo sacral spine, classified as positive for LSTV, were included in the study. Annular tears, disc degeneration according to Phirmann classification and disc herniations were evaluated and graded at transitional and adjacent cephalad level. Results: The severity of disc degeneration at the transitional level and the adjacent level correlated with the types of LSTV. Severe disc degenerative changes were most frequent in articulated connection LSTV types and incombined LSTV type at the transitional level and in osseus connection LSTV types at the adjacent cephalad level. These changes were more frequent in unilateral articulated connection LSTV subtype (64% vs 54%; and in unilateral osseus connection LSTV subtype (25% vs no patients at transitional level, and in bilateral osseus connection LSTV subtype (100% vs 50% at the level above. High prevalence of disc herniations was observed in articulated connection LSTV types as well as in unilateral osseus connection LSTV subtype at transitional and the adjacent cephalad level. At the transitional level higher prevalence of disc herniations was characteristic for unilateral articulated connection LSTV sub type (46%vs 41% and for unilateral osseus connection LSTV subtype (50% vs no patients. At the adjacent level higher prevalence of disc herniations was observed in bilateral articulated connection LSTV subtype (38% vs 27% and in bilateral osseus connection LSTV subtype (50% vs 25%. Conclusions: The compact osseus connection (osseus bridging vs articular

Lumbosacral transitional anatomy types and disc degenerative changes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chabukovska-Radulovska Jasminka

2014-07-01

Full Text Available Background and purpose: The relationship between presence of lumbosacral transitional vertebra (LSTV and disc degenerative changes is unclear. The aim of the study was to examine the relation between different types of LSTV and disc degenerative changes at the transitional and the adjacent cephalad segment. Material and methods: Sixty-three patients (mean age 51.48 ± 13.51 out of200 adults with low back pain who performed MRI examination of the lumbosacral spine, classified as positive for LSTV, were included in the study. Annular tears, disc degeneration according to Phirmann classification and disc herniations were evaluated and graded at transitional and adjacent cephalad level. Results: The severity of disc degeneration at the transitional level and the adjacent level correlated with the types of LSTV. Severe disc degenerative changes were most frequent in articulated connection LSTV types and in combined LSTV type at the transitional level and in osseus connection LSTV types at the adjacent cephalad level. These changes were more frequent in unilateral articulated connection LSTV subtype (64% vs 54%; and in unilateral osseus connection LSTV subtype (25% vs no patients at transitional level, and in bilateral osseus connection LSTV subtype (100% vs 50% at the level above. High prevalence of disc herniations was observed in articulated connection LSTV types as well as in unilateral osseus connection LSTV subtype at transitional and the adjacent cephalad level. At the transitional level higher prevalence of disc herniations was characteristic for unilateral articulated connection LSTV subtype (46%vs 41% and for unilateral osseus connection LSTV subtype (50% vs no patients. At the adjacent level higher prevalence of disc herniations was observed in bilateral articulated connection LSTV subtype (38% vs 27% and in bilateral osseus connection LSTV subtype (50% vs 25%. Conclusions: The compact osseus connection (osseus bridging vs articular

Muscle gap approach under a minimally invasive channel technique for treating long segmental lumbar spinal stenosis: A retrospective study.

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Bin, Yang; De Cheng, Wang; Wei, Wang Zong; Hui, Li

2017-08-01

This study aimed to compare the efficacy of muscle gap approach under a minimally invasive channel surgical technique with the traditional median approach.In the Orthopedics Department of Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine Hospital, Tongzhou District, Beijing, 68 cases of lumbar spinal canal stenosis underwent surgery using the muscle gap approach under a minimally invasive channel technique and a median approach between September 2013 and February 2016. Both approaches adopted lumbar spinal canal decompression, intervertebral disk removal, cage implantation, and pedicle screw fixation. The operation time, bleeding volume, postoperative drainage volume, and preoperative and postoperative visual analog scale (VAS) score and Japanese Orthopedics Association score (JOA) were compared between the 2 groups.All patients were followed up for more than 1 year. No significant difference between the 2 groups was found with respect to age, gender, surgical segments. No diversity was noted in the operation time, intraoperative bleeding volume, preoperative and 1 month after the operation VAS score, preoperative and 1 month after the operation JOA score, and 6 months after the operation JOA score between 2 groups (P > .05). The amount of postoperative wound drainage (260.90 ± 160 mL vs 447.80 ± 183.60 mL, P gap approach group than in the median approach group (P gap approach under a minimally invasive channel group, the average drainage volume was reduced by 187 mL, and the average VAS score 6 months after the operation was reduced by an average of 0.48.The muscle gap approach under a minimally invasive channel technique is a feasible method to treat long segmental lumbar spinal canal stenosis. It retains the integrity of the posterior spine complex to the greatest extent, so as to reduce the adjacent spinal segmental degeneration and soft tissue trauma. Satisfactory short-term and long-term clinical results were obtained.

Oculomotor paralysis: 3D-CISS MR imaging with MPR in the evaluation of neuralgic manifestation and the adjacent structures

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Sun Xiaoli; Liang Changhu [Shandong Medical Imaging Research Institute, Shandong University, Jing-wu Road No. 324, Jinan 250021 (China); Liu Cheng [Shandong Medical Imaging Research Institute, Shandong University, Jing-wu Road No. 324, Jinan 250021 (China)], E-mail: sdsxl2005@126.com; Liu Shuwei; Deng Kai; He Jingzhen [Shandong Medical Imaging Research Institute, Shandong University, Jing-wu Road No. 324, Jinan 250021 (China)

2010-02-15

Purpose: To evaluate the value of three-dimensional (3D) constructive interference in steady-state (CISS) magnetic resonance (MR) imaging with multi-planar reconstruction (MPR) in displaying the relationship between the oculomotor nerve and its adjacent structures for patients with oculomotor paralysis. Materials and methods: 17 consecutive patients with oculomotor paralysis were examined with 3D-CISS and conventional spin-echo (SE) sequences on a 1.5-Tesla MR system. Original transverse and MPR images were used for image interpretation. The features of the oculomotor nerve and its adjacent structures were identified. The diagnosis was surgically confirmed in all patients. Results: Through 3D-CISS with MPR images, obvious relationship of the oculomotor nerve and its adjacent structures was demonstrated on 17 patients. Of those oculomotor nerves, 15 were compressed by the arteries (n = 15), one by the craniopharyngioma (n = 1), and another one by the neurofibroma (n = 1). Conclusion: 3D-CISS MR imaging with MPR provides an excellent way to characterize the relationship between the nerve and its adjacent structures in the cisternal segment of the oculomotor nerve in the patients with oculomotor paralysis. Moreover, this method shows anatomical details for imaging diagnosis and surgical procedure.

Oculomotor paralysis: 3D-CISS MR imaging with MPR in the evaluation of neuralgic manifestation and the adjacent structures

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sun Xiaoli; Liang Changhu; Liu Cheng; Liu Shuwei; Deng Kai; He Jingzhen

2010-01-01

Purpose: To evaluate the value of three-dimensional (3D) constructive interference in steady-state (CISS) magnetic resonance (MR) imaging with multi-planar reconstruction (MPR) in displaying the relationship between the oculomotor nerve and its adjacent structures for patients with oculomotor paralysis. Materials and methods: 17 consecutive patients with oculomotor paralysis were examined with 3D-CISS and conventional spin-echo (SE) sequences on a 1.5-Tesla MR system. Original transverse and MPR images were used for image interpretation. The features of the oculomotor nerve and its adjacent structures were identified. The diagnosis was surgically confirmed in all patients. Results: Through 3D-CISS with MPR images, obvious relationship of the oculomotor nerve and its adjacent structures was demonstrated on 17 patients. Of those oculomotor nerves, 15 were compressed by the arteries (n = 15), one by the craniopharyngioma (n = 1), and another one by the neurofibroma (n = 1). Conclusion: 3D-CISS MR imaging with MPR provides an excellent way to characterize the relationship between the nerve and its adjacent structures in the cisternal segment of the oculomotor nerve in the patients with oculomotor paralysis. Moreover, this method shows anatomical details for imaging diagnosis and surgical procedure.

Macular degeneration

Science.gov (United States)

The macula is the part of the retina that distinguishes fine details at the center of the field of vision. Macular degeneration results from a partial breakdown of the insulating layer between the retina and the choroid layer of ...

Automated lung tumor segmentation for whole body PET volume based on novel downhill region growing

Science.gov (United States)

Ballangan, Cherry; Wang, Xiuying; Eberl, Stefan; Fulham, Michael; Feng, Dagan

2010-03-01

We propose an automated lung tumor segmentation method for whole body PET images based on a novel downhill region growing (DRG) technique, which regards homogeneous tumor hotspots as 3D monotonically decreasing functions. The method has three major steps: thoracic slice extraction with K-means clustering of the slice features; hotspot segmentation with DRG; and decision tree analysis based hotspot classification. To overcome the common problem of leakage into adjacent hotspots in automated lung tumor segmentation, DRG employs the tumors' SUV monotonicity features. DRG also uses gradient magnitude of tumors' SUV to improve tumor boundary definition. We used 14 PET volumes from patients with primary NSCLC for validation. The thoracic region extraction step achieved good and consistent results for all patients despite marked differences in size and shape of the lungs and the presence of large tumors. The DRG technique was able to avoid the problem of leakage into adjacent hotspots and produced a volumetric overlap fraction of 0.61 +/- 0.13 which outperformed four other methods where the overlap fraction varied from 0.40 +/- 0.24 to 0.59 +/- 0.14. Of the 18 tumors in 14 NSCLC studies, 15 lesions were classified correctly, 2 were false negative and 15 were false positive.

Reactive power and voltage control strategy based on dynamic and adaptive segment for DG inverter

Science.gov (United States)

Zhai, Jianwei; Lin, Xiaoming; Zhang, Yongjun

2018-03-01

The inverter of distributed generation (DG) can support reactive power to help solve the problem of out-of-limit voltage in active distribution network (ADN). Therefore, a reactive voltage control strategy based on dynamic and adaptive segment for DG inverter is put forward to actively control voltage in this paper. The proposed strategy adjusts the segmented voltage threshold of Q(U) droop curve dynamically and adaptively according to the voltage of grid-connected point and the power direction of adjacent downstream line. And then the reactive power reference of DG inverter can be got through modified Q(U) control strategy. The reactive power of inverter is controlled to trace the reference value. The proposed control strategy can not only control the local voltage of grid-connected point but also help to maintain voltage within qualified range considering the terminal voltage of distribution feeder and the reactive support for adjacent downstream DG. The scheme using the proposed strategy is compared with the scheme without the reactive support of DG inverter and the scheme using the Q(U) control strategy with constant segmented voltage threshold. The simulation results suggest that the proposed method has a significant improvement on solving the problem of out-of-limit voltage, restraining voltage variation and improving voltage quality.

Comparison of Arterial Repair through the Suture, Suture with Fibrin or Cyanoacrylate Adhesive in Ex-Vivo Porcine Aortic Segment

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Marcus Vinicius H. de Carvalho

Full Text Available Abstract Introduction: Tissue adhesives can be used as adjacent to sutures to drop or avoid bleeding in cardiovascular operations. Objective: To verify the efficiency of fibrin and cyanoacrylate adhesive to seal arterial sutures and if the adhesives penetrate through suture line to the inner of arteries. Methods: 20 abdominal aorta segments of pigs were divided into two groups according to the adhesive which would be used as adjacent to the suture. In every arterial segment an arteriotomy was done, followed by a conventional artery closure. Afterwards a colloidal fluid was injected inside the arterial segment with a simultaneous intravascular pressure monitoring up to a fluid leakage through the suture. This procedure was repeated after application of one of the adhesives on the suture in order to check if the bursting pressure increases. The inner aorta segments also were analyzed in order to check if there was intraluminal adhesive penetration. Results: In Suture 1 group, the mean arterial pressure sustained by the arterial suture reached 86±5.35 mmHg and after the fibrin adhesive application reached 104±11.96 (P<0.002. In the Suture 2 group, the mean arterial pressure sustained by the suture reached 83±2.67 mmHg and after the cyanoacrylate adhesive application reached 152±14.58 mmHg (P<0.002. Intraluminal adhesive penetration has not been noticed. Conclusion: There was a significant rise in the bursting pressure when tissue adhesives were used as adjacent to arterial suture, and this rise was higher if the cyanoacrylate adhesive was used. In addition, the adhesives do not penetrate through the suture line into the arteries.

Total absorption by degenerate critical coupling

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Piper, Jessica R., E-mail: jrylan@stanford.edu; Liu, Victor; Fan, Shanhui, E-mail: shanhui@stanford.edu [Ginzton Laboratory, Department of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305 (United States)

2014-06-23

We consider a mirror-symmetric resonator with two ports. We show that, when excited from a single port, complete absorption can be achieved through critical coupling to degenerate resonances with opposite symmetry. Moreover, any time two resonances with opposite symmetry are degenerate in frequency and absorption is always significantly enhanced. In contrast, when two resonances with the same symmetry are nearly degenerate, there is no absorption enhancement. We numerically demonstrate these effects using a graphene monolayer on top of a photonic crystal slab, illuminated from a single side in the near-infrared.

Many-Body Green Function of Degenerate Systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Brouder, Christian; Panati, Gianluca; Stoltz, Gabriel

2009-01-01

A rigorous nonperturbative adiabatic approximation of the evolution operator in the many-body physics of degenerate systems is derived. This approximation is used to solve the long-standing problem of the choice of the initial states of H 0 leading to eigenstates of H 0 +V for degenerate systems. These initial states are eigenstates of P 0 VP 0 , where P 0 is the projection onto a degenerate eigenspace of H 0 . This result is used to give the proper definition of the Green function, the statistical Green function and the nonequilibrium Green function of degenerate systems. The convergence of these Green functions is established.

Accounting for the Confound of Meninges in Segmenting Entorhinal and Perirhinal Cortices in T1-Weighted MRI.

Science.gov (United States)

Xie, Long; Wisse, Laura E M; Das, Sandhitsu R; Wang, Hongzhi; Wolk, David A; Manjón, Jose V; Yushkevich, Paul A

2016-10-01

Quantification of medial temporal lobe (MTL) cortices, including entorhinal cortex (ERC) and perirhinal cortex (PRC), from in vivo MRI is desirable for studying the human memory system as well as in early diagnosis and monitoring of Alzheimer's disease. However, ERC and PRC are commonly over-segmented in T1-weighted (T1w) MRI because of the adjacent meninges that have similar intensity to gray matter in T1 contrast. This introduces errors in the quantification and could potentially confound imaging studies of ERC/PRC. In this paper, we propose to segment MTL cortices along with the adjacent meninges in T1w MRI using an established multi-atlas segmentation framework together with super-resolution technique. Experimental results comparing the proposed pipeline with existing pipelines support the notion that a large portion of meninges is segmented as gray matter by existing algorithms but not by our algorithm. Cross-validation experiments demonstrate promising segmentation accuracy. Further, agreement between the volume and thickness measures from the proposed pipeline and those from the manual segmentations increase dramatically as a result of accounting for the confound of meninges. Evaluated in the context of group discrimination between patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment and normal controls, the proposed pipeline generates more biologically plausible results and improves the statistical power in discriminating groups in absolute terms comparing to other techniques using T1w MRI. Although the performance of the proposed pipeline is inferior to that using T2-weighted MRI, which is optimized to image MTL sub-structures, the proposed pipeline could still provide important utilities in analyzing many existing large datasets that only have T1w MRI available.

Degenerated differential pair with controllable transconductance

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Mensink, Clemens; Mensink, Clemens H.J.; Nauta, Bram

1998-01-01

A differential pair with input transistors and provided with a variable degeneration resistor. The degeneration resistor comprises a series arrangement of two branches of coupled resistors which are shunted in mutually corresponding points by respective control transistors whose gates are

Time-constrained project scheduling with adjacent resources

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hurink, Johann L.; Kok, A.L.; Paulus, J.J.; Schutten, Johannes M.J.

We develop a decomposition method for the Time-Constrained Project Scheduling Problem (TCPSP) with adjacent resources. For adjacent resources the resource units are ordered and the units assigned to a job have to be adjacent. On top of that, adjacent resources are not required by single jobs, but by

Time-constrained project scheduling with adjacent resources

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hurink, Johann L.; Kok, A.L.; Paulus, J.J.; Schutten, Johannes M.J.

2008-01-01

We develop a decomposition method for the Time-Constrained Project Scheduling Problem (TCPSP) with Adjacent Resources. For adjacent resources the resource units are ordered and the units assigned to a job have to be adjacent. On top of that, adjacent resources are not required by single jobs, but by

A JOINT FRAMEWORK FOR 4D SEGMENTATION AND ESTIMATION OF SMOOTH TEMPORAL APPEARANCE CHANGES.

Science.gov (United States)

Gao, Yang; Prastawa, Marcel; Styner, Martin; Piven, Joseph; Gerig, Guido

2014-04-01

Medical imaging studies increasingly use longitudinal images of individual subjects in order to follow-up changes due to development, degeneration, disease progression or efficacy of therapeutic intervention. Repeated image data of individuals are highly correlated, and the strong causality of information over time lead to the development of procedures for joint segmentation of the series of scans, called 4D segmentation. A main aim was improved consistency of quantitative analysis, most often solved via patient-specific atlases. Challenging open problems are contrast changes and occurance of subclasses within tissue as observed in multimodal MRI of infant development, neurodegeneration and disease. This paper proposes a new 4D segmentation framework that enforces continuous dynamic changes of tissue contrast patterns over time as observed in such data. Moreover, our model includes the capability to segment different contrast patterns within a specific tissue class, for example as seen in myelinated and unmyelinated white matter regions in early brain development. Proof of concept is shown with validation on synthetic image data and with 4D segmentation of longitudinal, multimodal pediatric MRI taken at 6, 12 and 24 months of age, but the methodology is generic w.r.t. different application domains using serial imaging.

Joint Graph Layouts for Visualizing Collections of Segmented Meshes

KAUST Repository

Ren, Jing

2017-09-12

We present a novel and efficient approach for computing joint graph layouts and then use it to visualize collections of segmented meshes. Our joint graph layout algorithm takes as input the adjacency matrices for a set of graphs along with partial, possibly soft, correspondences between nodes of different graphs. We then use a two stage procedure, where in the first step, we extend spectral graph drawing to include a consistency term so that a collection of graphs can be handled jointly. Our second step extends metric multi-dimensional scaling with stress majorization to the joint layout setting, while using the output of the spectral approach as initialization. Further, we discuss a user interface for exploring a collection of graphs. Finally, we show multiple example visualizations of graphs stemming from collections of segmented meshes and we present qualitative and quantitative comparisons with previous work.

Joint Graph Layouts for Visualizing Collections of Segmented Meshes

KAUST Repository

Ren, Jing; Schneider, Jens; Ovsjanikov, Maks; Wonka, Peter

2017-01-01

We present a novel and efficient approach for computing joint graph layouts and then use it to visualize collections of segmented meshes. Our joint graph layout algorithm takes as input the adjacency matrices for a set of graphs along with partial, possibly soft, correspondences between nodes of different graphs. We then use a two stage procedure, where in the first step, we extend spectral graph drawing to include a consistency term so that a collection of graphs can be handled jointly. Our second step extends metric multi-dimensional scaling with stress majorization to the joint layout setting, while using the output of the spectral approach as initialization. Further, we discuss a user interface for exploring a collection of graphs. Finally, we show multiple example visualizations of graphs stemming from collections of segmented meshes and we present qualitative and quantitative comparisons with previous work.

Semi-automated segmentation of the sigmoid and descending colon for radiotherapy planning using the fast marching method

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Losnegaard, Are; Hodneland, Erlend; Lundervold, Arvid; Hysing, Liv Bolstad; Muren, Ludvig Paul

2010-01-01

A fast and accurate segmentation of organs at risk, such as the healthy colon, would be of benefit for planning of radiotherapy, in particular in an adaptive scenario. For the treatment of pelvic tumours, a great challenge is the segmentation of the most adjacent and sensitive parts of the gastrointestinal tract, the sigmoid and descending colon. We propose a semi-automated method to segment these bowel parts using the fast marching (FM) method. Standard 3D computed tomography (CT) image data obtained from routine radiotherapy planning were used. Our pre-processing steps distinguish the intestine, muscles and air from connective tissue. The core part of our method separates the sigmoid and descending colon from the muscles and other segments of the intestine. This is done by utilizing the ability of the FM method to compute a specified minimal energy functional integrated along a path, and thereby extracting the colon centre line between user-defined control points in the sigmoid and descending colon. Further, we reconstruct the tube-shaped geometry of the sigmoid and descending colon by fitting ellipsoids to points on the path and by adding adjacent voxels that are likely voxels belonging to these bowel parts. Our results were compared to manually outlined sigmoid and descending colon, and evaluated using the Dice coefficient (DC). Tests on 11 patients gave an average DC of 0.83 (±0.07) with little user interaction. We conclude that the proposed method makes it possible to fast and accurately segment the sigmoid and descending colon from routine CT image data.

Formation of Degenerate Band Gaps in Layered Systems

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alexey P. Vinogradov

2012-06-01

Full Text Available In the review, peculiarities of spectra of one-dimensional photonic crystals made of anisotropic and/or magnetooptic materials are considered. The attention is focused on band gaps of a special type—the so called degenerate band gaps which are degenerate with respect to polarization. Mechanisms of formation and properties of these band gaps are analyzed. Peculiarities of spectra of photonic crystals that arise due to the linkage between band gaps are discussed. Particularly, it is shown that formation of a frozen mode is caused by linkage between Brillouin and degenerate band gaps. Also, existence of the optical Borrmann effect at the boundaries of degenerate band gaps and optical Tamm states at the frequencies of degenerate band gaps are analyzed.

Laenderyggens degeneration og radiologi

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jacobsen, Steffen; Gosvig, Kasper Kjaerulf; Sonne-Holm, Stig

2006-01-01

Low back pain (LBP) is one of the most common conditions, and at the same time one of the most complex nosological entities. The lifetime prevalence is approximately 80%, and radiological features of lumbar degeneration are almost universal in adults. The individual risk factors for LBP and signi...... is cyclic: exacerbations relieved by asymptomatic periods. New imaging modalities, including the combination of MR imaging and multiplanar 3-D CT scans, have broadened our awareness of possible pain-generating degenerative processes of the lumbar spine other than disc degeneration....

Lattice degeneration of the retina and retinal detachment.

Science.gov (United States)

Semes, L P

1992-01-01

Lattice retinal degeneration is considered the most significant peripheral retinal disorder potentially predisposing to retinal breaks and retinal detachment. Lattice degeneration affects the vitreous and inner retinal layers with secondary changes as deep as the retinal pigment epithelium and perhaps the choriocapillaris. Variations in clinical appearance are the rule; geographically, lattice lesions favor the vertical meridians between the equator and the ora serrata. Lattice degeneration begins early in life and has been reported in sequential generations of the same family. Along with its customary bilateral occurrence, lattice shares other characteristics of a dystrophy. The association between the vitreous and retina in lattice lesions may be responsible for the majority of lattice-induced retinal detachments. The tumultuous event of posterior vitreous separation in the presence of abnormally strong vitreoretinal adherence is the trigger for a retinal tear that, in turn, may lead to retinal detachment. Although retinal holes in young patients with lattice degeneration may play a role in the evolution of retinal detachment, the clinical course of lattice degeneration seems to be one of dormancy rather than of progressive change. This discussion outlines the pathophysiology of lattice retinal degeneration and the relationship of pathophysiology to clinical presentation. The epidemiology of lattice degeneration is summarized, as are the possible precursors to retinal detachment. A clinical characterization of the natural history of lattice degeneration is offered, and interventions for complications are described. To conclude, management strategies from a primary-care standpoint are reviewed.

Degenerate conformal theories on higher-genus surfaces

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gerasimov, A.A.

1989-01-01

Two-dimensional degenerate field theories on higher-genus surfaces are investigated. Objects are built on the space of moduli, whose linear combinations are hypothetically conformal blocks in degenerate theories

A coarse-to-fine approach for pericardial effusion localization and segmentation in chest CT scans

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Liu, Jiamin; Chellamuthu, Karthik; Lu, Le; Bagheri, Mohammadhadi; Summers, Ronald M.

2018-02-01

Pericardial effusion on CT scans demonstrates very high shape and volume variability and very low contrast to adjacent structures. This inhibits traditional automated segmentation methods from achieving high accuracies. Deep neural networks have been widely used for image segmentation in CT scans. In this work, we present a two-stage method for pericardial effusion localization and segmentation. For the first step, we localize the pericardial area from the entire CT volume, providing a reliable bounding box for the more refined segmentation step. A coarse-scaled holistically-nested convolutional networks (HNN) model is trained on entire CT volume. The resulting HNN per-pixel probability maps are then threshold to produce a bounding box covering the pericardial area. For the second step, a fine-scaled HNN model is trained only on the bounding box region for effusion segmentation to reduce the background distraction. Quantitative evaluation is performed on a dataset of 25 CT scans of patient (1206 images) with pericardial effusion. The segmentation accuracy of our two-stage method, measured by Dice Similarity Coefficient (DSC), is 75.59+/-12.04%, which is significantly better than the segmentation accuracy (62.74+/-15.20%) of only using the coarse-scaled HNN model.

Endplates Changes Related to Age and Vertebral Segment

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Carlos Fernando P. S. Herrero

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Endplate separations are defined as the presence of a space between the hyaline cartilage and the cortical bone of the adjacent vertebral body. This study evaluates endplate separations from the vertebral body and intervertebral discs and verifies if endplate separation is related to age and the spinal level. Groups were formed based on age (20–40 and 41–85 years old and the vertebral segment (T7-T8 and L4-L5 segments. Histological analysis included assessment of the length of the vertebral endplates, the number and dimensions of the separations, and orientation of the collagen fibers, in the mid-sagittal slice. Two indexes were created: the separation index (number of separations/vertebral length and separation extension index (sum of all separations/vertebral length. The results of the study demonstrated a direct relationship between the density of separations in the endplate and two variables: age and spinal level.

Degenerate r-Stirling Numbers and r-Bell Polynomials

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Kim, T.; Yao, Y.; Kim, D. S.; Jang, G.-W.

2018-01-01

The purpose of this paper is to exploit umbral calculus in order to derive some properties, recurrence relations, and identities related to the degenerate r-Stirling numbers of the second kind and the degenerate r-Bell polynomials. Especially, we will express the degenerate r-Bell polynomials as linear combinations of many well-known families of special polynomials.

[Peripheral retinal degenerations--treatment recommendations].

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Joussen, A M; Kirchhof, B

2004-10-01

This report reviews the clinical appearance of degenerative diseases of the peripheral retina in relationship to the risk of developing a rhegmatogenous retinal detachment. We present recommendations for preventive treatment in eyes at increased risk of developing retinal detachment. Retinal degenerations are common lesions involving the peripheral retina but most of them are clinically insignificant. Lattice degeneration, degenerative retinoschisis, cystic retinal tufts, and very rarely zonular traction tufts can result in rhegmatogenous retinal detachment. Therefore, these lesions have been considered for prophylactic treatment; however, adequate studies have not been performed to date. Most of the peripheral retinal degenerations may not require treatment except in rare, high-risk situations. According to current knowledge there is no higher incidence of secondary pucker or other side effects after laser coagulation. Therefore, generous laser indication is recommended if risk factors apply.

Medium and large sized mammal assemblages in coastal dunes and adjacent marshes in southern Rio Grande do Sul State, Brazil - doi: 10.4025/actascibiolsci.v35i1.11705

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Eduardo Resende Secchi

2012-12-01

Full Text Available This paper presents data on species composition and use of habitat of medium and large sized mammal assemblages in a coastal dunes segment and adjacent marshes at Rio Grande municipality, southern Rio Grande do Sul State, Brazil. Records were obtained through visualization of living animals and identification of footprints, feces and remains. From November 2007 to September 2008, nine 600 m long and 5 m wide linear transects were settled on coastal dunes segment (frontal and intermediate dunes and adjacent marshes, parallel to ocean shore on a 23 km section at Cassino Beach. Transects were settled in areas under high, medium and low levels of anthropic occupancy (A1, A2 and A3, respectively, being three transects on each area. Fourteen species were recorded, distributed in five orders and 10 families. Lepus europaeus was the most frequent species (81.9% of the transect walks, present in all areas and seasons, followed by Lycalopex gimnocercus (23.5% and Conepatus chinga (10.3%.  Five species were present on A1, seven on A2 and fourteen on A3. Seven species were recorded on frontal dunes, nine on intermediate dunes and 13 on adjacent marshes.  

Scaling Relations for the Thermal Structure of Segmented Oceanic Transform Faults

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Wolfson-Schwehr, M.; Boettcher, M. S.; Behn, M. D.

2015-12-01

Mid-ocean ridge-transform faults (RTFs) are a natural laboratory for studying strike-slip earthquake behavior due to their relatively simple geometry, well-constrained slip rates, and quasi-periodic seismic cycles. However, deficiencies in our understanding of the limited size of the largest RTF earthquakes are due, in part, to not considering the effect of short intra-transform spreading centers (ITSCs) on fault thermal structure. We use COMSOL Multiphysics to run a series of 3D finite element simulations of segmented RTFs with visco-plastic rheology. The models test a range of RTF segment lengths (L = 10-150 km), ITSC offset lengths (O = 1-30 km), and spreading rates (V = 2-14 cm/yr). The lithosphere and upper mantle are approximated as steady-state, incompressible flow. Coulomb failure incorporates brittle processes in the lithosphere, and a temperature-dependent flow law for dislocation creep of olivine activates ductile deformation in the mantle. ITSC offsets as small as 2 km affect the thermal structure underlying many segmented RTFs, reducing the area above the 600˚C isotherm, A600, and thus the size of the largest expected earthquakes, Mc. We develop a scaling relation for the critical ITSC offset length, OC, which significantly reduces the thermal affect of adjacent fault segments of length L1 and L2. OC is defined as the ITSC offset that results in an area loss ratio of R = (Aunbroken - Acombined)/Aunbroken - Adecoupled) = 63%, where Aunbroken = C600(L1+L2)1.5V-0.6 is A600 for an RTF of length L1 + L2; Adecoupled = C600(L11.5+L21.5)V-0.6 is the combined A600 of RTFs of lengths L1 and L2, respectively; and Acombined = Aunbroken exp(-O/ OC) + Adecoupled (1-exp(-O/ OC)). C600 is a constant. We use OC and kinematic fault parameters (L1, L2, O, and V) to develop a scaling relation for the approximate seismogenic area, Aseg, for each segment of a RTF system composed of two fault segments. Finally, we estimate the size of Mc on a fault segment based on Aseg. We

Evaluation of soft segment modeling on a context independent phoneme classification system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Razzazi, F.; Sayadiyan, A.

2007-01-01

The geometric distribution of states duration is one of the main performance limiting assumptions of hidden Markov modeling of speech signals. Stochastic segment models, generally, and segmental HMM, specifically overcome this deficiency partly at the cost of more complexity in both training and recognition phases. In addition to this assumption, the gradual temporal changes of speech statistics has not been modeled in HMM. In this paper, a new duration modeling approach is presented. The main idea of the model is to consider the effect of adjacent segments on the probability density function estimation and evaluation of each acoustic segment. This idea not only makes the model robust against segmentation errors, but also it models gradual change from one segment to the next one with a minimum set of parameters. The proposed idea is analytically formulated and tested on a TIMIT based context independent phenomena classification system. During the test procedure, the phoneme classification of different phoneme classes was performed by applying various proposed recognition algorithms. The system was optimized and the results have been compared with a continuous density hidden Markov model (CDHMM) with similar computational complexity. The results show 8-10% improvement in phoneme recognition rate in comparison with standard continuous density hidden Markov model. This indicates improved compatibility of the proposed model with the speech nature. (author)

SINGLE-DEGENERATE TYPE Ia SUPERNOVAE ARE PREFERENTIALLY OVERLUMINOUS

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fisher, Robert; Jumper, Kevin

2015-01-01

Recent observational and theoretical progress has favored merging and helium-accreting sub-Chandrasekhar mass white dwarfs (WDs) in the double-degenerate and the double-detonation channels, respectively, as the most promising progenitors of normal Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia). Thus the fate of rapidly accreting Chandrasekhar mass WDs in the single-degenerate channel remains more mysterious then ever. In this paper, we clarify the nature of ignition in Chandrasekhar-mass single-degenerate SNe Ia by analytically deriving the existence of a characteristic length scale which establishes a transition from central ignitions to buoyancy-driven ignitions. Using this criterion, combined with data from three-dimensional simulations of convection and ignition, we demonstrate that the overwhelming majority of ignition events within Chandrasekhar-mass WDs in the single-degenerate channel are buoyancy-driven, and consequently lack a vigorous deflagration phase. We thus infer that single-degenerate SNe Ia are generally expected to lead to overluminous 1991T-like SNe Ia events. We establish that the rates predicted from both the population of supersoft X-ray sources (SSSs) and binary population synthesis models of the single-degenerate channel are broadly consistent with the observed rates of overluminous SNe Ia, and suggest that the population of SSSs are the dominant stellar progenitors of SNe 1991T-like events. We further demonstrate that the single-degenerate channel contribution to the normal and failed 2002cx-like rates is not likely to exceed 1% of the total SNe Ia rate. We conclude with a range of observational tests of overluminous SNe Ia which will either support or strongly constrain the single-degenerate scenario

[Lattice degeneration of the peripheral retina: ultrastructural study].

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Bec, P; Malecaze, F; Arne, J L; Mathis, A

1985-01-01

The ultrastructural study of a case of snail track degeneration shows the presence of lipid inclusions in both the glial and the macrophage cells in every layer of the retina, and the existence of intraretinal fibers different from collagen fibers appearing to be glial filaments similar to those found in astrocytic gliomes and to the Rosenthal fibers observed in senile nervous cells. Other features were thinning of the retina and absence of blood vessels in the retina. There are no abnormalities of the vitreo-retinal juncture. All the lesions are in agreement with those observed by Daicker [Ophthalmologica, Basel 165: 360-365, 1972; Klin. Mbl. Augenheilk. 172: 581-583, 1978] with some differences, however. They are different from those found in lattice degeneration. They show that snail track degeneration is a specific form of peripheral retinal degeneration which is quite different from lattice degeneration and must not be considered similar.

Interactive and scale invariant segmentation of the rectum/sigmoid via user-defined templates

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Lüddemann, Tobias; Egger, Jan

2016-03-01

Among all types of cancer, gynecological malignancies belong to the 4th most frequent type of cancer among women. Besides chemotherapy and external beam radiation, brachytherapy is the standard procedure for the treatment of these malignancies. In the progress of treatment planning, localization of the tumor as the target volume and adjacent organs of risks by segmentation is crucial to accomplish an optimal radiation distribution to the tumor while simultaneously preserving healthy tissue. Segmentation is performed manually and represents a time-consuming task in clinical daily routine. This study focuses on the segmentation of the rectum/sigmoid colon as an Organ-At-Risk in gynecological brachytherapy. The proposed segmentation method uses an interactive, graph-based segmentation scheme with a user-defined template. The scheme creates a directed two dimensional graph, followed by the minimal cost closed set computation on the graph, resulting in an outlining of the rectum. The graphs outline is dynamically adapted to the last calculated cut. Evaluation was performed by comparing manual segmentations of the rectum/sigmoid colon to results achieved with the proposed method. The comparison of the algorithmic to manual results yielded to a Dice Similarity Coefficient value of 83.85+/-4.08%, in comparison to 83.97+/-8.08% for the comparison of two manual segmentations of the same physician. Utilizing the proposed methodology resulted in a median time of 128 seconds per dataset, compared to 300 seconds needed for pure manual segmentation.

[Analysis of the results of total cervical disc arthroplasty using a M6-C prosthesis: a multicenter study].

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Byval'tsev, V A; Kalinin, A A; Stepanov, I A; Pestryakov, Yu Ya; Shepelev, V V

Cervical spondylosis and intervertebral disc (IVD) degeneration are the most common cause for compression of the spinal cord and/or its roots. Total IVD arthroplasty, as a modern alternative to surgical treatment of IVD degeneration, is gaining popularity in many neurosurgical clinics around the world. Aim - the study aim was to conduct a multicenter analysis of cervical spine arthroplasty with an IVD prosthesis M6-C ('Spinal Kinetics', USA). The study included 112 patients (77 males and 35 females). All patients underwent single-level discectomy with implantation of the artificial IVD prosthesis M6-C. The follow-up period was up to 36 months. Dynamic assessment of the prosthesis was based on clinical parameters (pain intensity in the cervical spine and upper extremities (visual analog scale - VAS); quality of life (Neck Disability Index - NDI)); and subjective satisfaction with the results of surgical treatment (Macnab scale) and instrumental data (range of motion in the operated spinal motion segment, degree of heterotopic ossification (McAfee-Suchomel classification), and time course of degenerative changes in the adjacent segments).

Watershed-based Image Segmentation with Region Merging and Edge Detection

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

无

2003-01-01

The clustering technique is used to examine each pixel in the image which assigned to one of the clusters depending on the minimum distance to obtain primary classified image into different intensity regions. A watershed transformation technique is then employes. This includes: gradient of the classified image, dividing the image into markers, checking the Marker Image to see if it has zero points (watershed lines). The watershed lines are then deleted in the Marker Image created by watershed algorithm. A Region Adjacency Graph (RAG) and Region Adjacency Boundary (RAB) are created between two regions from Marker Image. Finally region merging is done according to region average intensity and two edge strengths (T1, T2). The approach of the authors is tested on remote sensing and brain MR medical images. The final segmentation result is one closed boundary per actual region in the image.

Hyperspectral image segmentation using a cooperative nonparametric approach

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Taher, Akar; Chehdi, Kacem; Cariou, Claude

2013-10-01

In this paper a new unsupervised nonparametric cooperative and adaptive hyperspectral image segmentation approach is presented. The hyperspectral images are partitioned band by band in parallel and intermediate classification results are evaluated and fused, to get the final segmentation result. Two unsupervised nonparametric segmentation methods are used in parallel cooperation, namely the Fuzzy C-means (FCM) method, and the Linde-Buzo-Gray (LBG) algorithm, to segment each band of the image. The originality of the approach relies firstly on its local adaptation to the type of regions in an image (textured, non-textured), and secondly on the introduction of several levels of evaluation and validation of intermediate segmentation results before obtaining the final partitioning of the image. For the management of similar or conflicting results issued from the two classification methods, we gradually introduced various assessment steps that exploit the information of each spectral band and its adjacent bands, and finally the information of all the spectral bands. In our approach, the detected textured and non-textured regions are treated separately from feature extraction step, up to the final classification results. This approach was first evaluated on a large number of monocomponent images constructed from the Brodatz album. Then it was evaluated on two real applications using a respectively multispectral image for Cedar trees detection in the region of Baabdat (Lebanon) and a hyperspectral image for identification of invasive and non invasive vegetation in the region of Cieza (Spain). A correct classification rate (CCR) for the first application is over 97% and for the second application the average correct classification rate (ACCR) is over 99%.

Segmentation of the geographic atrophy in spectral-domain optical coherence tomography and fundus autofluorescence images.

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Hu, Zhihong; Medioni, Gerard G; Hernandez, Matthias; Hariri, Amirhossein; Wu, Xiaodong; Sadda, Srinivas R

2013-12-30

Geographic atrophy (GA) is the atrophic late-stage manifestation of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), which may result in severe vision loss and blindness. The purpose of this study was to develop a reliable, effective approach for GA segmentation in both spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) and fundus autofluorescence (FAF) images using a level set-based approach and to compare the segmentation performance in the two modalities. To identify GA regions in SD-OCT images, three retinal surfaces were first segmented in volumetric SD-OCT images using a double-surface graph search scheme. A two-dimensional (2-D) partial OCT projection image was created from the segmented choroid layer. A level set approach was applied to segment the GA in the partial OCT projection image. In addition, the algorithm was applied to FAF images for the GA segmentation. Twenty randomly chosen macular SD-OCT (Zeiss Cirrus) volumes and 20 corresponding FAF (Heidelberg Spectralis) images were obtained from 20 subjects with GA. The algorithm-defined GA region was compared with consensus manual delineation performed by certified graders. The mean Dice similarity coefficients (DSC) between the algorithm- and manually defined GA regions were 0.87 ± 0.09 in partial OCT projection images and 0.89 ± 0.07 in registered FAF images. The area correlations between them were 0.93 (P segment GA regions in both SD-OCT and FAF images. This approach demonstrated good agreement between the algorithm- and manually defined GA regions within each single modality. The GA segmentation in FAF images performed better than in partial OCT projection images. Across the two modalities, the GA segmentation presented reasonable agreement.

Involvement of Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress in TULP1 Induced Retinal Degeneration.

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Glenn P Lobo

Full Text Available Inherited retinal disorders (IRDs result in severe visual impairments in children and adults. A challenge in the field of retinal degenerations is identifying mechanisms of photoreceptor cell death related to specific genetic mutations. Mutations in the gene TULP1 have been associated with two forms of IRDs, early-onset retinitis pigmentosa (RP and Leber congenital amaurosis (LCA. TULP1 is a cytoplasmic, membrane-associated protein shown to be involved in transportation of newly synthesized proteins destined for the outer segment compartment of photoreceptor cells; however, how mutant TULP1 causes cell death is not understood. In this study, we provide evidence that common missense mutations in TULP1 express as misfolded protein products that accumulate within the endoplasmic reticulum (ER causing prolonged ER stress. In an effort to maintain protein homeostasis, photoreceptor cells then activate the unfolded protein response (UPR complex. Our results indicate that the two major apoptotic arms of the UPR pathway, PERK and IRE1, are activated. Additionally, we show that retinas expressing mutant TULP1 significantly upregulate the expression of CHOP, a UPR signaling protein promoting apoptosis, and undergo photoreceptor cell death. Our study demonstrates that the ER-UPR, a known mechanism of apoptosis secondary to an overwhelming accumulation of misfolded protein, is involved in photoreceptor degeneration caused by missense mutations in TULP1. These observations suggest that modulating the UPR pathways might be a strategy for therapeutic intervention.

Human disc degeneration is associated with increased MMP 7 expression.

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Le Maitre, C L; Freemont, A J; Hoyland, J A

2006-01-01

During intervertebral disc (IVD) degeneration, normal matrix synthesis decreases and degradation of disc matrix increases. A number of proteases that are increased during disc degeneration are thought to be involved in its pathogenesis. Matrix metalloproteinase 7 (MMP 7) (Matrilysin, PUMP-1) is known to cleave the major matrix molecules found within the IVD, i.e., the proteoglycan aggrecan and collagen type II. To date, however, it is not known how its expression changes with degeneration or its exact location. We investigated the localization of MMP 7 in human, histologically graded, nondegenerate, degenerated and prolapsed discs to ascertain whether MMP 7 is up-regulated during disc degeneration. Samples of human IVD tissue were fixed in neutral buffered formalin, embedded in paraffin, and sections stained with hematoxylin and eosin to score the degree of morphological degeneration. Immunohistochemistry was performed to localize MMP 7 in 41 human IVDs with varying degrees of degeneration. We found that the chondrocyte-like cells of the nucleus pulposus and inner annulus fibrosus were MMP 7 immunopositive; little immunopositivity was observed in the outer annulus. Nondegenerate discs showed few immunopositive cells. A significant increase in the proportion of MMP 7 immunopositive cells was seen in the nucleus pulposus of discs classified as showing intermediate levels of degeneration and a further increase was seen in discs with severe degeneration. Prolapsed discs showed more MMP 7 immunopositive cells compared to nondegenerated discs, but fewer than those seen in cases of severe degeneration.

Notochord Cells in Intervertebral Disc Development and Degeneration

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McCann, Matthew R.; Séguin, Cheryle A.

2016-01-01

The intervertebral disc is a complex structure responsible for flexibility, multi-axial motion, and load transmission throughout the spine. Importantly, degeneration of the intervertebral disc is thought to be an initiating factor for back pain. Due to a lack of understanding of the pathways that govern disc degeneration, there are currently no disease-modifying treatments to delay or prevent degenerative disc disease. This review presents an overview of our current understanding of the developmental processes that regulate intervertebral disc formation, with particular emphasis on the role of the notochord and notochord-derived cells in disc homeostasis and how their loss can result in degeneration. We then describe the role of small animal models in understanding the development of the disc and their use to interrogate disc degeneration and associated pathologies. Finally, we highlight essential development pathways that are associated with disc degeneration and/or implicated in the reparative response of the tissue that might serve as targets for future therapeutic approaches. PMID:27252900

Notochord Cells in Intervertebral Disc Development and Degeneration

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Matthew R. McCann

2016-01-01

Full Text Available The intervertebral disc is a complex structure responsible for flexibility, multi-axial motion, and load transmission throughout the spine. Importantly, degeneration of the intervertebral disc is thought to be an initiating factor for back pain. Due to a lack of understanding of the pathways that govern disc degeneration, there are currently no disease-modifying treatments to delay or prevent degenerative disc disease. This review presents an overview of our current understanding of the developmental processes that regulate intervertebral disc formation, with particular emphasis on the role of the notochord and notochord-derived cells in disc homeostasis and how their loss can result in degeneration. We then describe the role of small animal models in understanding the development of the disc and their use to interrogate disc degeneration and associated pathologies. Finally, we highlight essential development pathways that are associated with disc degeneration and/or implicated in the reparative response of the tissue that might serve as targets for future therapeutic approaches.

Mechanisms of Distal Axonal Degeneration in Peripheral Neuropathies

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Cashman, Christopher R.; Höke, Ahmet

2015-01-01

Peripheral neuropathy is a common complication of a variety of diseases and treatments, including diabetes, cancer chemotherapy, and infectious causes (HIV, hepatitis C, and Campylobacter jejuni). Despite the fundamental difference between these insults, peripheral neuropathy develops as a combination of just six primary mechanisms: altered metabolism, covalent modification, altered organelle function and reactive oxygen species formation, altered intracellular and inflammatory signaling, slowed axonal transport, and altered ion channel dynamics and expression. All of these pathways converge to lead to axon dysfunction and symptoms of neuropathy. The detailed mechanisms of axon degeneration itself have begun to be elucidated with studies of animal models with altered degeneration kinetics, including the slowed Wallerian degeneration (Wlds) and Sarmknockout animal models. These studies have shown axonal degeneration to occur througha programmed pathway of injury signaling and cytoskeletal degradation. Insights into the common disease insults that converge on the axonal degeneration pathway promise to facilitate the development of therapeutics that may be effective against other mechanisms of neurodegeneration. PMID:25617478

Image segmentation by hierarchial agglomeration of polygons using ecological statistics

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Prasad, Lakshman; Swaminarayan, Sriram

2013-04-23

A method for rapid hierarchical image segmentation based on perceptually driven contour completion and scene statistics is disclosed. The method begins with an initial fine-scale segmentation of an image, such as obtained by perceptual completion of partial contours into polygonal regions using region-contour correspondences established by Delaunay triangulation of edge pixels as implemented in VISTA. The resulting polygons are analyzed with respect to their size and color/intensity distributions and the structural properties of their boundaries. Statistical estimates of granularity of size, similarity of color, texture, and saliency of intervening boundaries are computed and formulated into logical (Boolean) predicates. The combined satisfiability of these Boolean predicates by a pair of adjacent polygons at a given segmentation level qualifies them for merging into a larger polygon representing a coarser, larger-scale feature of the pixel image and collectively obtains the next level of polygonal segments in a hierarchy of fine-to-coarse segmentations. The iterative application of this process precipitates textured regions as polygons with highly convolved boundaries and helps distinguish them from objects which typically have more regular boundaries. The method yields a multiscale decomposition of an image into constituent features that enjoy a hierarchical relationship with features at finer and coarser scales. This provides a traversable graph structure from which feature content and context in terms of other features can be derived, aiding in automated image understanding tasks. The method disclosed is highly efficient and can be used to decompose and analyze large images.

Computed tomography of Wallerian degeneration

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Uchino, Akira; Maeda, Fumihiko

1986-01-01

CT findings of wallerian degeneration of the pyramidal tract at the midbrain (atrophy of cerebral peduncle following cerebrovascular accident) were studied in 34 patients (44 CT scans) with old cerebrovascular accidents. Severe atrophy of cerebral peduncle was noted when the ipsilateral motor cortex was involved. However, when the posterior limb of the internal capsule was involved, atrophy of the ipsilateral cerebral peduncle was mild. In this series, the shortest interval between cerebrovascular accident and wallerian degeneration was 8 month. (author)

Arbitrary electron acoustic waves in degenerate dense plasmas

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Rahman, Ata-ur; Mushtaq, A.; Qamar, A.; Neelam, S.

2017-05-01

A theoretical investigation is carried out of the nonlinear dynamics of electron-acoustic waves in a collisionless and unmagnetized plasma whose constituents are non-degenerate cold electrons, ultra-relativistic degenerate electrons, and stationary ions. A dispersion relation is derived for linear EAWs. An energy integral equation involving the Sagdeev potential is derived, and basic properties of the large amplitude solitary structures are investigated in such a degenerate dense plasma. It is shown that only negative large amplitude EA solitary waves can exist in such a plasma system. The present analysis may be important to understand the collective interactions in degenerate dense plasmas, occurring in dense astrophysical environments as well as in laser-solid density plasma interaction experiments.

Holistic segmentation of the lung in cine MRI.

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Kovacs, William; Hsieh, Nathan; Roth, Holger; Nnamdi-Emeratom, Chioma; Bandettini, W Patricia; Arai, Andrew; Mankodi, Ami; Summers, Ronald M; Yao, Jianhua

2017-10-01

Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is a childhood-onset neuromuscular disease that results in the degeneration of muscle, starting in the extremities, before progressing to more vital areas, such as the lungs. Respiratory failure and pneumonia due to respiratory muscle weakness lead to hospitalization and early mortality. However, tracking the disease in this region can be difficult, as current methods are based on breathing tests and are incapable of distinguishing between muscle involvements. Cine MRI scans give insight into respiratory muscle movements, but the images suffer due to low spatial resolution and poor signal-to-noise ratio. Thus, a robust lung segmentation method is required for accurate analysis of the lung and respiratory muscle movement. We deployed a deep learning approach that utilizes sequence-specific prior information to assist the segmentation of lung in cine MRI. More specifically, we adopt a holistically nested network to conduct image-to-image holistic training and prediction. One frame of the cine MRI is used in the training and applied to the remainder of the sequence ([Formula: see text] frames). We applied this method to cine MRIs of the lung in the axial, sagittal, and coronal planes. Characteristic lung motion patterns during the breathing cycle were then derived from the segmentations and used for diagnosis. Our data set consisted of 31 young boys, age [Formula: see text] years, 15 of whom suffered from DMD. The remaining 16 subjects were age-matched healthy volunteers. For validation, slices from inspiratory and expiratory cycles were manually segmented and compared with results obtained from our method. The Dice similarity coefficient for the deep learning-based method was [Formula: see text] for the sagittal view, [Formula: see text] for the axial view, and [Formula: see text] for the coronal view. The holistic neural network approach was compared with an approach using Demon's registration and showed superior performance. These

Quantum degenerate systems

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Micheli, Fiorenza de [Centro de Estudios Cientificos, Arturo Prat 514, Valdivia (Chile); Instituto de Fisica, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Valparaiso, Casilla 4059, Valparaiso (Chile); Zanelli, Jorge [Centro de Estudios Cientificos, Arturo Prat 514, Valdivia (Chile); Universidad Andres Bello, Av. Republica 440, Santiago (Chile)

2012-10-15

A degenerate dynamical system is characterized by a symplectic structure whose rank is not constant throughout phase space. Its phase space is divided into causally disconnected, nonoverlapping regions in each of which the rank of the symplectic matrix is constant, and there are no classical orbits connecting two different regions. Here the question of whether this classical disconnectedness survives quantization is addressed. Our conclusion is that in irreducible degenerate systems-in which the degeneracy cannot be eliminated by redefining variables in the action-the disconnectedness is maintained in the quantum theory: there is no quantum tunnelling across degeneracy surfaces. This shows that the degeneracy surfaces are boundaries separating distinct physical systems, not only classically, but in the quantum realm as well. The relevance of this feature for gravitation and Chern-Simons theories in higher dimensions cannot be overstated.

Automated segmentation of geographic atrophy using deep convolutional neural networks

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Hu, Zhihong; Wang, Ziyuan; Sadda, SriniVas R.

2018-02-01

Geographic atrophy (GA) is an end-stage manifestation of the advanced age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the leading cause of blindness and visual impairment in developed nations. Techniques to rapidly and precisely detect and quantify GA would appear to be of critical importance in advancing the understanding of its pathogenesis. In this study, we develop an automated supervised classification system using deep convolutional neural networks (CNNs) for segmenting GA in fundus autofluorescene (FAF) images. More specifically, to enhance the contrast of GA relative to the background, we apply the contrast limited adaptive histogram equalization. Blood vessels may cause GA segmentation errors due to similar intensity level to GA. A tensor-voting technique is performed to identify the blood vessels and a vessel inpainting technique is applied to suppress the GA segmentation errors due to the blood vessels. To handle the large variation of GA lesion sizes, three deep CNNs with three varying sized input image patches are applied. Fifty randomly chosen FAF images are obtained from fifty subjects with GA. The algorithm-defined GA regions are compared with manual delineation by a certified grader. A two-fold cross-validation is applied to evaluate the algorithm performance. The mean segmentation accuracy, true positive rate (i.e. sensitivity), true negative rate (i.e. specificity), positive predictive value, false discovery rate, and overlap ratio, between the algorithm- and manually-defined GA regions are 0.97 +/- 0.02, 0.89 +/- 0.08, 0.98 +/- 0.02, 0.87 +/- 0.12, 0.13 +/- 0.12, and 0.79 +/- 0.12 respectively, demonstrating a high level of agreement.

Cell Identity Switching Regulated by Retinoic Acid Signaling Maintains Homogeneous Segments in the Hindbrain.

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Addison, Megan; Xu, Qiling; Cayuso, Jordi; Wilkinson, David G

2018-06-04

The patterning of tissues to form subdivisions with distinct and homogeneous regional identity is potentially disrupted by cell intermingling. Transplantation studies suggest that homogeneous segmental identity in the hindbrain is maintained by identity switching of cells that intermingle into another segment. We show that switching occurs during normal development and is mediated by feedback between segment identity and the retinoic acid degrading enzymes, cyp26b1 and cyp26c1. egr2, which specifies the segmental identity of rhombomeres r3 and r5, underlies the lower expression level of cyp26b1 and cyp26c1 in r3 and r5 compared with r2, r4, and r6. Consequently, r3 or r5 cells that intermingle into adjacent segments encounter cells with higher cyp26b1/c1 expression, which we find is required for downregulation of egr2b expression. Furthermore, egr2b expression is regulated in r2, r4, and r6 by non-autonomous mechanisms that depend upon the number of neighbors that express egr2b. These findings reveal that a community regulation of retinoid signaling maintains homogeneous segmental identity. Copyright © 2018 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Segmental translation after lumbar total disc replacement using Prodisc-L®: associated factors and relation to facet arthrosis.

Science.gov (United States)

Shin, Myung H; Ryu, Kyeong S; Rathi, Nitesh K; Park, Chun K

2017-02-01

Segmental translation after lumbar total disc replacement (TDR) with ProDisc-L® prosthesis frequently observed radiographic findings during follow-up period. However its precise pathomechanism and relation with facet arthrosis have not been investigated yet. This study was performed to evaluate possible factors that affect postoperative segmental translation and to identify its relation with facet joint degeneration after lumbar TDR using ProDisc-L® prosthesis. Thirty-five consecutive patients, who underwent lumbar TDR using ProDisc-L®, completed minimum 24 months follow-up. Segmental translation was assessed postoperatively at 1 month and at least at 24 months by using dynamic plain radiograph. Segmental translation was assessed in relation to patient age, sex, change of functional spinal unit (FSU) height, segmental range of motion (ROM), global lumbar ROM, implanted level, relative prosthesis size and prosthesis position. The comparison of segmental translation between progressive facet arthrosis (PFA) group and non-PFA group was also made. The mean segmental translation was 0.49±0.49 mm at 1 month after surgery and showed significant increase to 0.83±0.78 mm at last follow-up (P=0.014). Change of FSU height, segmental ROM, global lumbar ROM, implanted level and relative size of prosthesis were the significant factors among the variables related to segmental translation that authors assessed (P=0.032, P=0.000, P=0.001, P=0.046 and P=0.042, respectively). There was no significant intergroup difference of mean segmental translation between PFA group and non-PFA group (P=0.586). This study demonstrates that segmental translation after TDR using ProDisc-L® has significant relations with change of FSU height, segmental ROM, global lumbar ROM, implanted level and relative size of prosthesis. With the intergroup comparison, PFA group did not show significant higher segmental translation than non-PFA group.

Risk factors of age-related macular degeneration in Argentina

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María Eugenia Nano

2013-04-01

Full Text Available PURPOSES: To assess the risk factors of age-related macular degeneration in Argentina using a case-control study. METHODS: Surveys were used for subjects' antioxidant intake, age/gender, race, body mass index, hypertension, diabetes (and type of treatment, smoking, sunlight exposure, red meat consumption, fish consumption, presence of age-related macular degeneration and family history of age-related macular degeneration. Main effects models for logistic regression and ordinal logistic regression were used to analyze the results. RESULTS: There were 175 cases and 175 controls with a mean age of 75.4 years and 75.5 years, respectively, of whom 236 (67.4% were female. Of the cases with age-related macular degeneration, 159 (45.4% had age-related macular degeneration in their left eyes, 154 (44.0% in their right eyes, and 138 (39.4% in both eyes. Of the cases with age-related macular degeneration in their left eyes, 47.8% had the dry type, 40.3% had the wet type, and the type was unknown for 11.9%. The comparable figures for right eyes were: 51.9%, 34.4%, and 13.7%, respectively. The main effects model was dominated by higher sunlight exposure (OR [odds ratio]: 3.3 and a family history of age-related macular degeneration (OR: 4.3. Other factors included hypertension (OR: 2.1, smoking (OR: 2.2, and being of the Mestizo race, which lowered the risk of age-related macular degeneration (OR: 0.40. Red meat/fish consumption, body mass index, and iris color did not have an effect. Higher age was associated with progression to more severe age-related macular degeneration. CONCLUSION: Sunlight exposure, family history of age-related macular degeneration, and an older age were the significant risk factors. There may be other variables, as the risk was not explained very well by the existing factors. A larger sample may produce different and better results.

Magnetic resonance imaging of intervertebral disc degeneration

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Maeda, Hiroshi; Noguchi, Masao; Kira, Hideaki; Fujiki, Hiroshi; Shimokawa, Isao; Hinoue, Kaichi.

1993-01-01

The aim of this study was to correlate the degree of lumbar intervertebral disc degeneration with findings of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Seventeen autopsied (from 7 patients) and 21 surgical (from 20 patients) intervertebral discs were used as specimens for histopathological examination. In addition, 21 intervertebral discs were examined on T2-weighted images. Histopathological findings from both autopsied and surgical specimens were well correlated with MRI findings. In particular, T2-weighted images reflected increased collagen fibers and rupture within the fibrous ring accurately. However, when severely degenerated intervertebral discs and hernia protruding the posterior longitudinal ligament existed, histological findings were not concordant well with T2-weighted images. Morphological appearances of autopsy specimens, divided into four on T2-weighted images, were well consistent with histological degeneration. This morphological classification, as shown on T2-weighted images, could also be used in the evaluation of intervertebral disc degeneration. (N.K.)

Magnetic resonance imaging of intervertebral disc degeneration

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Maeda, Hiroshi; Noguchi, Masao (Kitakyushu City Yahata Hospital, Fukuoka (Japan)); Kira, Hideaki; Fujiki, Hiroshi; Shimokawa, Isao; Hinoue, Kaichi

1993-02-01

The aim of this study was to correlate the degree of lumbar intervertebral disc degeneration with findings of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Seventeen autopsied (from 7 patients) and 21 surgical (from 20 patients) intervertebral discs were used as specimens for histopathological examination. In addition, 21 intervertebral discs were examined on T2-weighted images. Histopathological findings from both autopsied and surgical specimens were well correlated with MRI findings. In particular, T2-weighted images reflected increased collagen fibers and rupture within the fibrous ring accurately. However, when severely degenerated intervertebral discs and hernia protruding the posterior longitudinal ligament existed, histological findings were not concordant well with T2-weighted images. Morphological appearances of autopsy specimens, divided into four on T2-weighted images, were well consistent with histological degeneration. This morphological classification, as shown on T2-weighted images, could also be used in the evaluation of intervertebral disc degeneration. (N.K.).

Risk of retinal detachment in patients with lattice degeneration.

Science.gov (United States)

Sasaki, K; Ideta, H; Yonemoto, J; Tanaka, S; Hirose, A; Oka, C

1998-01-01

To determine the risk of retinal detachment in patients with lattice degeneration of the retina, we statistically analyzed the incidence of retinal detachment in these patients. The data of hospital patients with retinal detachment associated with lattice degeneration in Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan, in 1990 were collected. The prevalence of lattice degeneration in Kumamoto was reported to be 9.5% in 1980. Based on population data from the 1990 census, the cumulative incidence of retinal detachment associated with lattice degeneration was calculated in this study. Among 1,840,000 residents in Kumamoto, there were 110 patients with retinal detachment associated with lattice degeneration; 72 with detachment resulting from tractional tears (tears), and 38 with detachment from atrophic holes. The cumulative incidence of retinal detachment from atrophic holes was 1.5% at the age of 40 years; from tears it was 3.6% at the age of 80 years. The cumulative incidence of detachment from both atrophic holes and tears was 5.3% at the age of 80 years. The results of this study are useful for clarifying the natural course of lattice degeneration.

OFD1, as a Ciliary Protein, Exhibits Neuroprotective Function in Photoreceptor Degeneration Models.

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Juan Wang

Full Text Available Ofd1 is a newly identified causative gene for Retinitis pigmentosa (RP, a photoreceptor degenerative disease. This study aimed to examine Ofd1 localization in retina and further to investigate its function in photoreceptor degeneration models. Ofd1 localization in rat retina was examined using immunofluorescence. N-methyl-N-nitrosourea (MNU-induced rats and Royal College of Surgeons (RCS rats were used as photoreceptor degeneration models. The expression pattern of Ofd1, other ciliary associated genes and Wnt signaling pathway genes were examined in rat models. Furthermore, pEGFP-Ofd1-CDS and pSUPER-Ofd1-shRNA were constructed to overexpress and knockdown the expression level in 661W and R28 cells. MNU was also used to induce cell death. Cilia formation was observed using immunocytochemistry (ICC. Reactive oxygen species (ROS were detected using the 2', 7'-Dichlorofluorescin diacetate (DCFH-DA assay. Apoptosis genes expression was examined using qRT-PCR, Western blotting and fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS. Ofd1 localized to outer segments of rat retina photoreceptors. Ofd1 and other ciliary proteins expression levels increased from the 1st and 4th postnatal weeks and decreased until the 6th week in the RCS rats, while their expression consistently decreased from the 1st and 7th day in the MNU rats. Moreover, Wnt signaling pathway proteins expression was significantly up-regulated in both rat models. Knockdown of Ofd1 expression resulted in a smaller population, shorter length of cell cilia, and lower cell viability. Ofd1 overexpression partially attenuated MNU toxic effects by reducing ROS levels and mitigating apoptosis. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study demonstrating Ofd1 localization and its function in rat retina and in retinal degeneration rat models. Ofd1 plays a role in controlling photoreceptor cilium length and number. Importantly, it demonstrates a neuroprotective function by protecting the photoreceptor

LIGHT-WEIGHT LOAD-BEARING STRUCTURES REINFORCED BY CORE ELEMENTS MADE OF SEGMENTS AND A METHOD OF CASTING SUCH STRUCTURES

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

2009-01-01

The invention relates to a light-weight load-bearing structure, reinforced by core elements (2) of a strong material constituting one or more compression or tension zones in the structure to be cast, which core (2) is surrounded by or adjacent to a material of less strength compared to the core (2......), where the core (2) is constructed from segments (1) of core elements (2) assembled by means of one or more prestressing elements (4). The invention further relates to a method of casting of light-weight load-bearing structures, reinforced by core elements (2) of a strong material constituting one...... or more compression or tension zones in the structure to be cast, which core (2) is surrounded by or adjacent to a material of less strength compared to the core (2), where the core (2) is constructed from segments (1) of core elements (2) assembled and hold together by means of one or more prestressing...

Physical linkage of a human immunoglobulin heavy chain variable region gene segment to diversity and joining region elements

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Schroeder, H.W. Jr.; Walter, M.A.; Hofker, M.H.; Ebens, A.; Van Dijk, K.W.; Liao, L.C.; Cox, D.W.; Milner, E.C.B.; Perlmutter, R.M.

1988-01-01

Antibody genes are assembled from a series of germ-line gene segments that are juxtaposed during the maturation of B lymphocytes. Although diversification of the adult antibody repertoire results in large part from the combinatorial joining of these gene segments, a restricted set of antibody heavy chain variable (V H ), diversity (D H ), and joining (J H ) region gene segments appears preferentially in the human fetal repertoire. The authors report here that one of these early-expressed V H elements (termed V H 6) is the most 3' V H gene segment, positioned 77 kilobases on the 5' side of the J H locus and immediately adjacent to a set of previously described D H sequences. In addition to providing a physical map linking human V H , D H , and J H elements, these results support the view that the programmed development of the antibody V H repertoire is determined in part by the chromosomal position of these gene segments

A Novel Histogram Region Merging Based Multithreshold Segmentation Algorithm for MR Brain Images

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Siyan Liu

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Multithreshold segmentation algorithm is time-consuming, and the time complexity will increase exponentially with the increase of thresholds. In order to reduce the time complexity, a novel multithreshold segmentation algorithm is proposed in this paper. First, all gray levels are used as thresholds, so the histogram of the original image is divided into 256 small regions, and each region corresponds to one gray level. Then, two adjacent regions are merged in each iteration by a new designed scheme, and a threshold is removed each time. To improve the accuracy of the merger operation, variance and probability are used as energy. No matter how many the thresholds are, the time complexity of the algorithm is stable at O(L. Finally, the experiment is conducted on many MR brain images to verify the performance of the proposed algorithm. Experiment results show that our method can reduce the running time effectively and obtain segmentation results with high accuracy.

Death Receptor 6 Promotes Wallerian Degeneration in Peripheral Axons.

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Gamage, Kanchana K; Cheng, Irene; Park, Rachel E; Karim, Mardeen S; Edamura, Kazusa; Hughes, Christopher; Spano, Anthony J; Erisir, Alev; Deppmann, Christopher D

2017-03-20

Axon degeneration during development is required to sculpt a functional nervous system and is also a hallmark of pathological insult, such as injury [1, 2]. Despite similar morphological characteristics, very little overlap in molecular mechanisms has been reported between pathological and developmental degeneration [3-5]. In the peripheral nervous system (PNS), developmental axon pruning relies on receptor-mediated extrinsic degeneration mechanisms to determine which axons are maintained or degenerated [5-7]. Receptors have not been implicated in Wallerian axon degeneration; instead, axon autonomous, intrinsic mechanisms are thought to be the primary driver for this type of axon disintegration [8-10]. Here we survey the role of neuronally expressed, paralogous tumor necrosis factor receptor super family (TNFRSF) members in Wallerian degeneration. We find that an orphan receptor, death receptor 6 (DR6), is required to drive axon degeneration after axotomy in sympathetic and sensory neurons cultured in microfluidic devices. We sought to validate these in vitro findings in vivo using a transected sciatic nerve model. Consistent with the in vitro findings, DR6 -/- animals displayed preserved axons up to 4 weeks after injury. In contrast to phenotypes observed in Wld s and Sarm1 -/- mice, preserved axons in DR6 -/- animals display profound myelin remodeling. This indicates that deterioration of axons and myelin after axotomy are mechanistically distinct processes. Finally, we find that JNK signaling after injury requires DR6, suggesting a link between this novel extrinsic pathway and the axon autonomous, intrinsic pathways that have become established for Wallerian degeneration. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Objective Ventricle Segmentation in Brain CT with Ischemic Stroke Based on Anatomical Knowledge

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Xiaohua Qian

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Ventricle segmentation is a challenging technique for the development of detection system of ischemic stroke in computed tomography (CT, as ischemic stroke regions are adjacent to the brain ventricle with similar intensity. To address this problem, we developed an objective segmentation system of brain ventricle in CT. The intensity distribution of the ventricle was estimated based on clustering technique, connectivity, and domain knowledge, and the initial ventricle segmentation results were then obtained. To exclude the stroke regions from initial segmentation, a combined segmentation strategy was proposed, which is composed of three different schemes: (1 the largest three-dimensional (3D connected component was considered as the ventricular region; (2 the big stroke areas were removed by the image difference methods based on searching optimal threshold values; (3 the small stroke regions were excluded by the adaptive template algorithm. The proposed method was evaluated on 50 cases of patients with ischemic stroke. The mean Dice, sensitivity, specificity, and root mean squared error were 0.9447, 0.969, 0.998, and 0.219 mm, respectively. This system can offer a desirable performance. Therefore, the proposed system is expected to bring insights into clinic research and the development of detection system of ischemic stroke in CT.

Marker-controlled watershed for lymphoma segmentation in sequential CT images

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yan Jiayong; Zhao Binsheng; Wang, Liang; Zelenetz, Andrew; Schwartz, Lawrence H.

2006-01-01

Segmentation of lymphoma containing lymph nodes is a difficult task because of multiple variables associated with the tumor's location, intensity distribution, and contrast to its surrounding tissues. In this paper, we present a reliable and practical marker-controlled watershed algorithm for semi-automated segmentation of lymphoma in sequential CT images. Robust determination of internal and external markers is the key to successful use of the marker-controlled watershed transform in the segmentation of lymphoma and is the focus of this work. The external marker in our algorithm is the circle enclosing the lymphoma in a single slice. The internal marker, however, is determined automatically by combining techniques including Canny edge detection, thresholding, morphological operation, and distance map estimation. To obtain tumor volume, the segmented lymphoma in the current slice needs to be propagated to the adjacent slice to help determine the external and internal markers for delineation of the lymphoma in that slice. The algorithm was applied to 29 lymphomas (size range, 9-53 mm in diameter; mean, 23 mm) in nine patients. A blinded radiologist manually delineated all lymphomas on all slices. The manual result served as the ''gold standard'' for comparison. Several quantitative methods were applied to objectively evaluate the performance of the segmentation algorithm. The algorithm received a mean overlap, overestimation, and underestimation ratios of 83.2%, 13.5%, and 5.5%, respectively. The mean average boundary distance and Hausdorff boundary distance were 0.7 and 3.7 mm. Preliminary results have shown the potential of this computer algorithm to allow reliable segmentation and quantification of lymphomas on sequential CT images

The prognosis of retinal detachment due to lattice degeneration.

Science.gov (United States)

Benson, W E; Morse, P H

1978-09-01

In a series of 553 consecutive retinal detachments, 29% (120) were due to lattice degeneration. Forty-five percent of these were due to atrophic holes in the lattice degeneration and 55% were due to tears caused by traction posterior to or at the end of a patch of lattice. In phakic patients, retinal detachments due to atrophic holes were most common in young myopes. Detachments due to traction tears were seen in older, less myopic patients. The incidence of massive periretinal proliferation was less (5%) in detachments due to lattice degeneration than in detachments not due to lattice degeneration (6.5%).

The Overexpression of TDP-43 Protein in the Neuron and Oligodendrocyte Cells Causes the Progressive Motor Neuron Degeneration in the SOD1 G93A Transgenic Mouse Model of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis.

Science.gov (United States)

Lu, Yi; Tang, Chunyan; Zhu, Lei; Li, Jiao; Liang, Huiting; Zhang, Jie; Xu, Renshi

2016-01-01

The recent investigation suggested that the TDP-43 protein was closely related to the motor neuron degeneration in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), but the pathogenesis contributed to motor neuron degeneration largely remained unknown. Therefore, we detected the alteration of TDP-43 expression and distribution in the adult spinal cord of the SOD1 G93A transgenic mouse model for searching the possible pathogenesis of ALS. We examined the TDP-43 expression and distribution in the different anatomic regions, segments and neural cells in the adult spinal cord at the different stages of the SOD1 wild-type and G93A transgenic model by the fluorescent immunohistochemical technology. We revealed that the amount of TDP-43 positive cell was cervical>lumbar>thoracic segment, that in the ventral horn was more than that in the dorsal horn, a few of TDP-43 protein sparsely expressed and distributed in the other regions, the TDP-43 protein weren't detected in the white matter and the central canal. The TDP-43 protein was mostly expressed and distributed in the nuclear of neuron cells and the cytoplasm of oligodendrocyte cells of the gray matter surrounding the central canal of spinal cord by the granular shape in the SOD1 wild-type and G93A transgenic mice. The amount of TDP-43 positive cell significantly increased at the onset and progression stages of ALS following with the increase of neuron death in spinal cord, particularly in the ventral horn of cervical segment at the progression stage. Our results suggested that the overexpression of TDP-43 protein in the neuron and oligodendrocyte cell causes the progressive motor neuron degeneration in the ALS-like mouse model.

Mutations in ABCR (ABCA4) in patients with Stargardt macular degeneration or cone-rod degeneration.

Science.gov (United States)

Briggs, C E; Rucinski, D; Rosenfeld, P J; Hirose, T; Berson, E L; Dryja, T P

2001-09-01

To determine the spectrum of ABCR mutations associated with Stargardt macular degeneration and cone-rod degeneration (CRD). One hundred eighteen unrelated patients with recessive Stargardt macular degeneration and eight with recessive CRD were screened for mutations in ABCR (ABCA4) by single-strand conformation polymorphism analysis. Variants were characterized by direct genomic sequencing. Segregation analysis was performed on the families of 20 patients in whom at least two or more likely pathogenic sequence changes were identified. The authors found 77 sequence changes likely to be pathogenic: 21 null mutations (15 novel), 55 missense changes (26 novel), and one deletion of a consensus glycosylation site (also novel). Fifty-two patients with Stargardt macular degeneration (44% of those screened) and five with CRD each had two of these sequence changes or were homozygous for one of them. Segregation analyses in the families of 19 of these patients were informative and revealed that the index cases and all available affected siblings were compound heterozygotes or homozygotes. The authors found one instance of an apparently de novo mutation, Ile824Thr, in a patient. Thirty-seven (31%) of the 118 patients with Stargardt disease and one with CRD had only one likely pathogenic sequence change. Twenty-nine patients with Stargardt disease (25%) and two with CRD had no identified sequence changes. This report of 42 novel mutations brings the growing number of identified likely pathogenic sequence changes in ABCR to approximately 250.

Disk degeneration in 14 year old children

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Erkintalo, M.; Salminen, J.J.; Paajanen, H.; Terho, P.; Kormano, M.

1989-01-01

This paper reports low back symptoms of 1,500 school children (14 years old) evaluated with a questionnaire and with a standardized clinical examination. Forty children who complained of recurrent and/or persistent low back pain and 40 matching symptomless controls were randomly chosen to undergo MR imaging of the lumbar spine. Premature disk degeneration was seen in 25.5% of asymptomatic children and in 40% of those with low back pain. The difference was statistically not significant. Disk degeneration is a surprisingly frequent MR finding in symptomless children. Premature disk degeneration may be the cause of low back pain in some children but is not always symptomatic in childhood

Progression of Fatty Muscle Degeneration in Atraumatic Rotator Cuff Tears.

Science.gov (United States)

Hebert-Davies, Jonah; Teefey, Sharlene A; Steger-May, Karen; Chamberlain, Aaron M; Middleton, William; Robinson, Kathryn; Yamaguchi, Ken; Keener, Jay D

2017-05-17

The purpose of this prospective study was to examine the progression of fatty muscle degeneration over time in asymptomatic shoulders with degenerative rotator cuff tears. Subjects with an asymptomatic rotator cuff tear in 1 shoulder and pain due to rotator cuff disease in the contralateral shoulder were enrolled in a prospective cohort. Subjects were followed annually with shoulder ultrasonography, which evaluated tear size, location, and fatty muscle degeneration. Tears that were either full-thickness at enrollment or progressed to a full-thickness defect during follow-up were examined. A minimum follow-up of 2 years was necessary for eligibility. One hundred and fifty-six shoulders with full-thickness rotator cuff tears were potentially eligible. Seventy shoulders had measurable fatty muscle degeneration of at least 1 rotator cuff muscle at some time point. Patients with fatty muscle degeneration in the shoulder were older than those without degeneration (mean, 65.8 years [95% confidence interval (CI), 64.0 to 67.6 years] compared with 61.0 years [95% CI, 59.1 to 62.9 years]; p tears at baseline was larger in shoulders with degeneration than in shoulders that did not develop degeneration (13 and 10 mm wide, respectively, and 13 and 10 mm long; p Tears with fatty muscle degeneration were more likely to have enlarged during follow-up than were tears that never developed muscle degeneration (79% compared with 58%; odds ratio, 2.64 [95% CI, 1.29 to 5.39]; p muscle degeneration occurred more frequently in shoulders with tears that had enlarged (43%; 45 of 105) than in shoulders with tears that had not enlarged (20%; 10 of 51; p tears with enlargement and progression of muscle degeneration were more likely to extend into the anterior supraspinatus than were those without progression (53% and 17%, respectively; p tear size (p = 0.56). The median time from tear enlargement to progression of fatty muscle degeneration was 1.0 year (range, -2.0 to 6.9 years) for the

A new smoothing procedure to reduce delivery segments for static MLC-based IMRT planning

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sun Xuepeng; Xia Ping

2004-01-01

In the application of pixel-based intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) using the step-and-shoot delivery method, one major difficulty is the prolonged delivery time. In this study, we present an integrated IMRT planning system that involves a simple smoothing method to reduce the complexity of the beam profiles. The system consists of three main steps: (a) an inverse planning process based on a least-square dose-based cost function; (b) smoothing of the intensity maps; (c) reoptimization of the segment weights. Step (a) obtains the best plan with the lowest cost value using a simulated annealing optimization algorithm with discrete intensity levels. Step (b) takes the intensity maps obtained from (a) and reduces the complexity of the maps by smoothing the adjacent beamlet intensities. During this process each beamlet is assigned a structure index based on anatomical information. A smoothing update is applied to average adjacent beamlets with the same index. To control the quality of the plan, a predefined clinical protocol is used as an acceptance criterion. The smoothing updates that violate the criterion are rejected. After the smoothing process, the segment weights are reoptimized in step (c) to further improve the plan quality. Three clinical cases were studied using this system: a medulloblastoma, a prostate cancer, and an oropharyngeal carcinoma. While the final plans demonstrate a degradation of the original plan quality, they still meet the plan acceptance criterion. On the other hand, the segment numbers or delivery times are reduced by 40%, 20%, and 20% for the three cases, respectively

[Clinical features and prognosis of retinal lattice degeneration].

Science.gov (United States)

Guo, X R

1990-07-01

110 cases (110 eyes) of retinal lattice degeneration were clinically observed and followed up for 3-8 years. Most lesions were located in the superotemporal quadrant, band-shaped, and parallel to the ora serrata. 80.9% of the lesions presented various degrees of pigmentation, 67.1% yellowish white spots, and 83.6% white lines. 32.9% of the eyes developed retinal holes. Most lattice degenerations were accompanied by vitreous degeneration and vitreoretinal traction. The disease progressed only slowly, though in a few cases it tended to expand.

Oxygen-induced retinopathy in mice with retinal photoreceptor cell degeneration.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Qian; Zhang, Zuo-Ming

2014-04-25

It is reported that retinal neovascularization seems to rarely co-exist with retinitis pigmentosa in patients and in some mouse models; however, it is not widely acknowledged as a universal phenomenon in all strains of all animal species. We aimed to further explore this phenomenon with an oxygen-induced retinopathy model in mice with retinal photoreceptor cell degeneration. Oxygen-induced retinopathy of colored and albino mice with rapid retinal degeneration were compared to homologous wild-type mice. The retinas were analyzed using high-molecular-weight FITC-dextran stained flat-mount preparation, hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) stained cross-sections, an immunohistochemical test for vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) distribution and Western blotting for VEGF expression after exposure to hyperoxia between postnatal days 17 (P17) and 21. Leakage and areas of non-perfusion of the retinal blood vessels were alleviated in the retinal degeneration mice. The number of preretinal vascular endothelial cell nuclei in the retinal degeneration mice was smaller than that in the homologous wild-type mice after exposure to hyperoxia (Poxygen-induced retinopathy was positively correlated with the VEGF expression level. However, the VEGF expression level was lower in the retinal degeneration mice. Proliferative retinopathy occurred in mice with rapid retinal degeneration, but retinal photoreceptor cell degeneration could partially restrain the retinal neovascularization in this rapid retinal degeneration mouse model. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Hamiltonization of theories with degenerate coordinates

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gitman, D.M.; Tyutin, I.V.

2002-01-01

We consider a class of Lagrangian theories where part of the coordinates does not have any time derivatives in the Lagrange function (we call such coordinates degenerate). We advocate that it is reasonable to reconsider the conventional definition of singularity based on the usual Hessian and, moreover, to simplify the conventional hamiltonization procedure. In particular, in such a procedure, it is not necessary to complete the degenerate coordinates with the corresponding conjugate momenta

Hamiltonization of theories with degenerate coordinates

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Gitman, D.M. E-mail: gitman@fma.if.usp.br; Tyutin, I.V. E-mail: tyutin@lpi.ru

2002-05-27

We consider a class of Lagrangian theories where part of the coordinates does not have any time derivatives in the Lagrange function (we call such coordinates degenerate). We advocate that it is reasonable to reconsider the conventional definition of singularity based on the usual Hessian and, moreover, to simplify the conventional hamiltonization procedure. In particular, in such a procedure, it is not necessary to complete the degenerate coordinates with the corresponding conjugate momenta.

Gradient-echo imaging of intervertebral disk degeneration and facet joint disease

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Berns, D.H.; Kormos, D.; Modic, M.T.; Carter, J.; Masaryk, T.J.; Ross, J.S.

1988-01-01

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the accuracy of gradient-echo, partial-flip angle images in the evaluation of components of degenerative spine disease. First, cadaveric spines were studied with plain radiographs, high-resolution CT, T1-weighted spin-echo (SE) MR images (repetition time msec/echo time msec=500/17). T2-weighted SE images (2,000/30-90), and fast low-angle shot (FLASH) images (200/10.50 0 ) before and after intradiskal injection of air (0.1-1cc). Second, lumbar spine MR images were retrospectively evaluated to compare gradient-echo and SE sequences. Results indicate that the signal intensity changes of the intervertebral disk related to degeneration were best appreciated on T2-weighted SE studies in both groups. Vacuum phenomenon and calcification were most accurately assessed with FLASH imaging (based on susceptibility changes) and CT images. SE images appeared more sensitive to adjacent marrow change. In the facet joints, CT was more accurate for changes in the subarticular bone, but FLASH images were more sensitive to change in the articular cartilage

Non-canonical ribosomal DNA segments in the human genome, and nucleoli functioning.

Science.gov (United States)

Kupriyanova, Natalia S; Netchvolodov, Kirill K; Sadova, Anastasia A; Cherepanova, Marina D; Ryskov, Alexei P

2015-11-10

Ribosomal DNA (rDNA) in the human genome is represented by tandem repeats of 43 kb nucleotide sequences that form nucleoli organizers (NORs) on each of five pairs of acrocentric chromosomes. RDNA-similar segments of different lengths are also present on (NOR)(-) chromosomes. Many of these segments contain nucleotide substitutions, supplementary microsatellite clusters, and extended deletions. Recently, it was shown that, in addition to ribosome biogenesis, nucleoli exhibit additional functions, such as cell-cycle regulation and response to stresses. In particular, several stress-inducible loci located in the ribosomal intergenic spacer (rIGS) produce stimuli-specific noncoding nucleolus RNAs. By mapping the 5'/3' ends of the rIGS segments scattered throughout (NOR)(-) chromosomes, we discovered that the bonds in the rIGS that were most often susceptible to disruption in the rIGS were adjacent to, or overlapped with stimuli-specific inducible loci. This suggests the interconnection of the two phenomena - nucleoli functioning and the scattering of rDNA-like sequences on (NOR)(-) chromosomes. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Essential roles for lines in mediating leg and antennal proximodistal patterning and generating a stable Notch signaling interface at segment borders.

Science.gov (United States)

Greenberg, Lina; Hatini, Victor

2009-06-01

The Drosophila leg imaginal disc provides a paradigm with which to understand the fundamental developmental mechanisms that generate an intricate appendage structure. Leg formation depends on the subdivision of the leg proximodistal (PD) axis into broad domains by the leg gap genes. The leg gap genes act combinatorially to initiate the expression of the Notch ligands Delta (Dl) and Serrate (Ser) in a segmental pattern. Dl and Ser induce the expression of a set of transcriptional regulators along the segment border, which mediate leg segment growth and joint morphogenesis. Here we show that Lines accumulates in nuclei in the presumptive tarsus and the inter-joints of proximal leg segments and governs the formation of these structures by destabilizing the nuclear protein Bowl. Across the presumptive tarsus, lines modulates the opposing expression landscapes of the leg gap gene dachshund (dac) and the tarsal PD genes, bric-a-brac 2 (bab), apterous (ap) and BarH1 (Bar). In this manner, lines inhibits proximal tarsal fates and promotes medial and distal tarsal fates. Across proximal leg segments, lines antagonizes bowl to promote Dl expression by relief-of-repression. In turn, Dl signals asymmetrically to stabilize Bowl in adjacent distal cells. Bowl, then, acts cell-autonomously, together with one or more redundant factors, to repress Dl expression. Together, lines and bowl act as a binary switch to generate a stable Notch signaling interface between Dl-expressing cells and adjacent distal cell. lines plays analogous roles in developing antennae, which are serially homologous to legs, suggesting evolutionarily conserved roles for lines in ventral appendage formation.

Posterior lattice degeneration characterized by spectral domain optical coherence tomography.

Science.gov (United States)

Manjunath, Varsha; Taha, Mohammed; Fujimoto, James G; Duker, Jay S

2011-03-01

The purpose of this study was to use high-resolution spectral domain optical coherence tomography in the characterization of retinal and vitreal morphological changes overlying posterior lattice degeneration. A cross-sectional retrospective analysis was performed on 13 eyes of 13 nonconsecutive subjects with posterior lattice degeneration seen at the New England Eye Center, Tufts Medical Center between October 2009 and January 2010. Spectral domain optical coherence tomography images taken through the region of lattice degeneration were qualitatively analyzed. Four characteristic changes of the retina and vitreous were seen in the 13 eyes with lattice degeneration: 1) anterior/posterior U-shaped vitreous traction; 2) retinal breaks; 3) focal retinal thinning; and 4) vitreous membrane formation. The morphologic appearance of vitreous traction and retinal breaks were found to be consistent with previous histologic reports. It is possible to image posterior lattice degeneration in many eyes using spectral domain optical coherence tomography and to visualize the spectrum of retinal and vitreous changes throughout the area of lattice degeneration.

Semiautomatic segmentation of aortic valve from sequenced ultrasound image using a novel shape-constraint GCV model

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Guo, Yiting [Multi-disciplinary Research Center, Hebei University, Baoding 071000 (China); Dong, Bin [Hebei University Affiliated Hospital, Hebei Baoding 071000 (China); Wang, Bing [College of Mathematics and Computer Science, Hebei University, Baoding 071000 (China); Xie, Hongzhi, E-mail: xiehongzhi@medmail.com.cn, E-mail: gulixu@sjtu.edu.cn; Zhang, Shuyang [Department of Cardiovascular, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Beijing 100005 (China); Gu, Lixu, E-mail: xiehongzhi@medmail.com.cn, E-mail: gulixu@sjtu.edu.cn [Multi-disciplinary Research Center, Hebei University, Baoding 071000, China and School of Biomedical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200030 (China)

2014-07-15

Purpose: Effective and accurate segmentation of the aortic valve (AV) from sequenced ultrasound (US) images remains a technical challenge because of intrinsic factors of ultrasound images that impact the quality and the continuous changes of shape and position of segmented objects. In this paper, a novel shape-constraint gradient Chan-Vese (GCV) model is proposed for segmenting the AV from time serial echocardiography. Methods: The GCV model is derived by incorporating the energy of the gradient vector flow into a CV model framework, where the gradient vector energy term is introduced by calculating the deviation angle between the inward normal force of the evolution contour and the gradient vector force. The flow force enlarges the capture range and enhances the blurred boundaries of objects. This is achieved by adding a circle-like contour (constructed using the AV structure region as a constraint shape) as an energy item to the GCV model through the shape comparison function. This shape-constrained energy can enhance the image constraint force by effectively connecting separate gaps of the object edge as well as driving the evolution contour to quickly approach the ideal object. Because of the slight movement of the AV in adjacent frames, the initial constraint shape is defined by users, with the other constraint shapes being derived from the segmentation results of adjacent sequence frames after morphological filtering. The AV is segmented from the US images by minimizing the proposed energy function. Results: To evaluate the performance of the proposed method, five assessment parameters were used to compare it with manual delineations performed by radiologists (gold standards). Three hundred and fifteen images acquired from nine groups were analyzed in the experiment. The area-metric overlap error rate was 6.89% ± 2.88%, the relative area difference rate 3.94% ± 2.63%, the average symmetric contour distance 1.08 ± 0.43 mm, the root mean square symmetric

Semiautomatic segmentation of aortic valve from sequenced ultrasound image using a novel shape-constraint GCV model

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Guo, Yiting; Dong, Bin; Wang, Bing; Xie, Hongzhi; Zhang, Shuyang; Gu, Lixu

2014-01-01

Purpose: Effective and accurate segmentation of the aortic valve (AV) from sequenced ultrasound (US) images remains a technical challenge because of intrinsic factors of ultrasound images that impact the quality and the continuous changes of shape and position of segmented objects. In this paper, a novel shape-constraint gradient Chan-Vese (GCV) model is proposed for segmenting the AV from time serial echocardiography. Methods: The GCV model is derived by incorporating the energy of the gradient vector flow into a CV model framework, where the gradient vector energy term is introduced by calculating the deviation angle between the inward normal force of the evolution contour and the gradient vector force. The flow force enlarges the capture range and enhances the blurred boundaries of objects. This is achieved by adding a circle-like contour (constructed using the AV structure region as a constraint shape) as an energy item to the GCV model through the shape comparison function. This shape-constrained energy can enhance the image constraint force by effectively connecting separate gaps of the object edge as well as driving the evolution contour to quickly approach the ideal object. Because of the slight movement of the AV in adjacent frames, the initial constraint shape is defined by users, with the other constraint shapes being derived from the segmentation results of adjacent sequence frames after morphological filtering. The AV is segmented from the US images by minimizing the proposed energy function. Results: To evaluate the performance of the proposed method, five assessment parameters were used to compare it with manual delineations performed by radiologists (gold standards). Three hundred and fifteen images acquired from nine groups were analyzed in the experiment. The area-metric overlap error rate was 6.89% ± 2.88%, the relative area difference rate 3.94% ± 2.63%, the average symmetric contour distance 1.08 ± 0.43 mm, the root mean square symmetric

Automatized spleen segmentation in non-contrast-enhanced MR volume data using subject-specific shape priors

Science.gov (United States)

Gloger, Oliver; Tönnies, Klaus; Bülow, Robin; Völzke, Henry

2017-07-01

To develop the first fully automated 3D spleen segmentation framework derived from T1-weighted magnetic resonance (MR) imaging data and to verify its performance for spleen delineation and volumetry. This approach considers the issue of low contrast between spleen and adjacent tissue in non-contrast-enhanced MR images. Native T1-weighted MR volume data was performed on a 1.5 T MR system in an epidemiological study. We analyzed random subsamples of MR examinations without pathologies to develop and verify the spleen segmentation framework. The framework is modularized to include different kinds of prior knowledge into the segmentation pipeline. Classification by support vector machines differentiates between five different shape types in computed foreground probability maps and recognizes characteristic spleen regions in axial slices of MR volume data. A spleen-shape space generated by training produces subject-specific prior shape knowledge that is then incorporated into a final 3D level set segmentation method. Individually adapted shape-driven forces as well as image-driven forces resulting from refined foreground probability maps steer the level set successfully to the segment the spleen. The framework achieves promising segmentation results with mean Dice coefficients of nearly 0.91 and low volumetric mean errors of 6.3%. The presented spleen segmentation approach can delineate spleen tissue in native MR volume data. Several kinds of prior shape knowledge including subject-specific 3D prior shape knowledge can be used to guide segmentation processes achieving promising results.

The Degeneration of Meniscus Roots Is Accompanied by Fibrocartilage Formation, Which May Precede Meniscus Root Tears in Osteoarthritic Knees.

Science.gov (United States)

Park, Do Young; Min, Byoung-Hyun; Choi, Byung Hyune; Kim, Young Jick; Kim, Mijin; Suh-Kim, Haeyoung; Kim, Joon Ho

2015-12-01

Fibrocartilage metaplasia in tendons and ligaments is an adaptation to compression as well as a pathological feature during degeneration. Medial meniscus posterior roots are unique ligaments that resist multidirectional forces, including compression. To characterize the degeneration of medial meniscus posterior root tears in osteoarthritic knees, with an emphasis on fibrocartilage and calcification. Cross-sectional study; Level of evidence, 3. Samples of medial meniscus posterior roots were harvested from cadaveric specimens and patients during knee replacement surgery and grouped as follows: normal reference, no tear, partial tear, and complete tear. Degeneration was analyzed with histology, immunohistochemistry, and real-time polymerase chain reaction. Uniaxial tensile tests were performed on specimens with and without fibrocartilage. Quantifiable data were statistically analyzed by the Kruskal-Wallis test with the Dunn comparison test. Thirty, 28, and 42 samples harvested from 99 patients were allocated into the no tear, partial tear, and complete tear groups, respectively. Mean modified Bonar tendinopathy scores for each group were 3.97, 9.31, and 14.15, respectively, showing a higher degree of degeneration associated with the extent of the tear (P fibrocartilage according to the extent of the tear. Tear margins revealed fibrocartilage in 59.3% of partial tear samples and 76.2% of complete tear samples, with a distinctive cleavage-like shape. Root tears with a similar shape were induced within fibrocartilaginous areas during uniaxial tensile testing. Even in the no tear group, 56.7% of samples showed fibrocartilage in the anterior margin of the root, adjacent to the meniscus. An increased stained area of calcification and expression of the ectonucleotide pyrophosphatase/phosphodiesterase 1 gene were observed in the complete tear group compared with the no tear group (P Fibrocartilage and calcification increased in medial meniscus posterior roots, associated

CERKL knockdown causes retinal degeneration in zebrafish.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marina Riera

Full Text Available The human CERKL gene is responsible for common and severe forms of retinal dystrophies. Despite intense in vitro studies at the molecular and cellular level and in vivo analyses of the retina of murine knockout models, CERKL function remains unknown. In this study, we aimed to approach the developmental and functional features of cerkl in Danio rerio within an Evo-Devo framework. We show that gene expression increases from early developmental stages until the formation of the retina in the optic cup. Unlike the high mRNA-CERKL isoform multiplicity shown in mammals, the moderate transcriptional complexity in fish facilitates phenotypic studies derived from gene silencing. Moreover, of relevance to pathogenicity, teleost CERKL shares the two main human protein isoforms. Morpholino injection has been used to generate a cerkl knockdown zebrafish model. The morphant phenotype results in abnormal eye development with lamination defects, failure to develop photoreceptor outer segments, increased apoptosis of retinal cells and small eyes. Our data support that zebrafish Cerkl does not interfere with proliferation and neural differentiation during early developmental stages but is relevant for survival and protection of the retinal tissue. Overall, we propose that this zebrafish model is a powerful tool to unveil CERKL contribution to human retinal degeneration.

Segmentation: Identification of consumer segments

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Høg, Esben

2005-01-01

It is very common to categorise people, especially in the advertising business. Also traditional marketing theory has taken in consumer segments as a favorite topic. Segmentation is closely related to the broader concept of classification. From a historical point of view, classification has its...... origin in other sciences as for example biology, anthropology etc. From an economic point of view, it is called segmentation when specific scientific techniques are used to classify consumers to different characteristic groupings. What is the purpose of segmentation? For example, to be able to obtain...... a basic understanding of grouping people. Advertising agencies may use segmentation totarget advertisements, while food companies may usesegmentation to develop products to various groups of consumers. MAPP has for example investigated the positioning of fish in relation to other food products...

A Higher-Order Neural Network Design for Improving Segmentation Performance in Medical Image Series

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Selvi, Eşref; Selver, M Alper; Güzeliş, Cüneyt; Dicle, Oǧuz

2014-01-01

Segmentation of anatomical structures from medical image series is an ongoing field of research. Although, organs of interest are three-dimensional in nature, slice-by-slice approaches are widely used in clinical applications because of their ease of integration with the current manual segmentation scheme. To be able to use slice-by-slice techniques effectively, adjacent slice information, which represents likelihood of a region to be the structure of interest, plays critical role. Recent studies focus on using distance transform directly as a feature or to increase the feature values at the vicinity of the search area. This study presents a novel approach by constructing a higher order neural network, the input layer of which receives features together with their multiplications with the distance transform. This allows higher-order interactions between features through the non-linearity introduced by the multiplication. The application of the proposed method to 9 CT datasets for segmentation of the liver shows higher performance than well-known higher order classification neural networks

Validated automatic segmentation of AMD pathology including drusen and geographic atrophy in SD-OCT images.

Science.gov (United States)

Chiu, Stephanie J; Izatt, Joseph A; O'Connell, Rachelle V; Winter, Katrina P; Toth, Cynthia A; Farsiu, Sina

2012-01-05

To automatically segment retinal spectral domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) images of eyes with age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and various levels of image quality to advance the study of retinal pigment epithelium (RPE)+drusen complex (RPEDC) volume changes indicative of AMD progression. A general segmentation framework based on graph theory and dynamic programming was used to segment three retinal boundaries in SD-OCT images of eyes with drusen and geographic atrophy (GA). A validation study for eyes with nonneovascular AMD was conducted, forming subgroups based on scan quality and presence of GA. To test for accuracy, the layer thickness results from two certified graders were compared against automatic segmentation results for 220 B-scans across 20 patients. For reproducibility, automatic layer volumes were compared that were generated from 0° versus 90° scans in five volumes with drusen. The mean differences in the measured thicknesses of the total retina and RPEDC layers were 4.2 ± 2.8 and 3.2 ± 2.6 μm for automatic versus manual segmentation. When the 0° and 90° datasets were compared, the mean differences in the calculated total retina and RPEDC volumes were 0.28% ± 0.28% and 1.60% ± 1.57%, respectively. The average segmentation time per image was 1.7 seconds automatically versus 3.5 minutes manually. The automatic algorithm accurately and reproducibly segmented three retinal boundaries in images containing drusen and GA. This automatic approach can reduce time and labor costs and yield objective measurements that potentially reveal quantitative RPE changes in longitudinal clinical AMD studies. (ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00734487.).

Macular degeneration - age-related

Science.gov (United States)

... AMD occurs when the blood vessels under the macula become thin and brittle. Small yellow deposits, called drusen, form. Almost all people with macular degeneration start with the dry form. Wet AMD occurs ...

Multi-object segmentation framework using deformable models for medical imaging analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Namías, Rafael; D'Amato, Juan Pablo; Del Fresno, Mariana; Vénere, Marcelo; Pirró, Nicola; Bellemare, Marc-Emmanuel

2016-08-01

Segmenting structures of interest in medical images is an important step in different tasks such as visualization, quantitative analysis, simulation, and image-guided surgery, among several other clinical applications. Numerous segmentation methods have been developed in the past three decades for extraction of anatomical or functional structures on medical imaging. Deformable models, which include the active contour models or snakes, are among the most popular methods for image segmentation combining several desirable features such as inherent connectivity and smoothness. Even though different approaches have been proposed and significant work has been dedicated to the improvement of such algorithms, there are still challenging research directions as the simultaneous extraction of multiple objects and the integration of individual techniques. This paper presents a novel open-source framework called deformable model array (DMA) for the segmentation of multiple and complex structures of interest in different imaging modalities. While most active contour algorithms can extract one region at a time, DMA allows integrating several deformable models to deal with multiple segmentation scenarios. Moreover, it is possible to consider any existing explicit deformable model formulation and even to incorporate new active contour methods, allowing to select a suitable combination in different conditions. The framework also introduces a control module that coordinates the cooperative evolution of the snakes and is able to solve interaction issues toward the segmentation goal. Thus, DMA can implement complex object and multi-object segmentations in both 2D and 3D using the contextual information derived from the model interaction. These are important features for several medical image analysis tasks in which different but related objects need to be simultaneously extracted. Experimental results on both computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging show that the proposed

The prevalence of sacroiliac joint degeneration in asymptomatic adults.

Science.gov (United States)

Eno, Jonathan-James T; Boone, Christopher R; Bellino, Michael J; Bishop, Julius A

2015-06-03

Degenerative changes of the sacroiliac joint have been implicated as a cause of lower back pain in adults. The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of sacroiliac joint degeneration in asymptomatic patients. Five hundred consecutive pelvic computed tomography (CT) scans, made at a tertiary-care medical center, of patients with no history of pain in the lower back or pelvic girdle were retrospectively reviewed and analyzed for degenerative changes of the sacroiliac joint. After exclusion criteria were applied, 373 CT scans (746 sacroiliac joints) were evaluated for degenerative changes. Regression analysis was used to determine the association between age and the degree of sacroiliac joint degeneration. The prevalence of sacroiliac joint degeneration was 65.1%, with substantial degeneration occurring in 30.5% of asymptomatic subjects. The prevalence steadily increased with age, with 91% of subjects in the ninth decade of life displaying degenerative changes. Radiographic evidence of sacroiliac joint degeneration is highly prevalent in the asymptomatic population and is associated with age. Caution must be exercised when attributing lower back or pelvic girdle pain to sacroiliac joint degeneration seen on imaging. Prognostic Level IV. See Instructions for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence. Copyright © 2015 by The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, Incorporated.

[Pharmacological therapy of age-related macular degeneration based on etiopathogenesis].

Science.gov (United States)

Fischer, Tamás

2015-11-15

It is of great therapeutic significance that disordered function of the vascular endothelium which supply the affected ocular structures plays a major role in the pathogenesis and development of age-related macular degeneration. Chronic inflammation is closely linked to diseases associated with endothelial dysfunction, and age-related macular degeneration is accompanied by a general inflammatory response. According to current concept, age-related macular degeneration is a local manifestation of systemic vascular disease. This recognition could have therapeutic implications because restoration of endothelial dysfunction can restabilize the condition of chronic vascular disease including age-related macular degeneration as well. Restoration of endothelial dysfunction by pharmaacological or non pharmacological interventions may prevent the development or improve endothelial dysfunction, which result in prevention or improvement of age related macular degeneration as well. Medicines including inhibitors of the renin-angiotensin system (converting enzyme inhibitors, angiotensin-receptor blockers and renin inhibitors), statins, acetylsalicylic acid, trimetazidin, third generation beta-blockers, peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma agonists, folate, vitamin D, melatonin, advanced glycation end-product crosslink breaker alagebrium, endothelin-receptor antagonist bosentan, coenzyme Q10; "causal" antioxidant vitamins, N-acetyl-cysteine, resveratrol, L-arginine, serotonin receptor agonists, tumor necrosis factor-alpha blockers, specific inhibitor of the complement alternative pathway, curcumin and doxycyclin all have beneficial effects on endothelial dysfunction. Restoration of endothelial dysfunction can restabilize chronic vascular disease including age-related macular degeneration as well. Considering that the human vascular system is consubstantial, medicines listed above should be given to patients (1) who have no macular degeneration but have risk factors

Laenderyggens degeneration og radiologi

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jacobsen, Steffen; Gosvig, Kasper Kjaerulf; Sonne-Holm, Stig

2006-01-01

Low back pain (LBP) is one of the most common conditions, and at the same time one of the most complex nosological entities. The lifetime prevalence is approximately 80%, and radiological features of lumbar degeneration are almost universal in adults. The individual risk factors for LBP and signi......Low back pain (LBP) is one of the most common conditions, and at the same time one of the most complex nosological entities. The lifetime prevalence is approximately 80%, and radiological features of lumbar degeneration are almost universal in adults. The individual risk factors for LBP...... and significant relationships between radiological findings and subjective symptoms have both been notoriously difficult to identify. The lack of consensus on clinical criteria and radiological definitions has hampered the undertaking of properly executed epidemiological studies. The natural history of LBP...

MRI and MR tractography in bilateral hypertrophic olivary degeneration.

Science.gov (United States)

Sen, Debraj; Gulati, Yoginder S; Malik, Virender; Mohimen, Aneesh; Sibi, Eranki; Reddy, Deepak Chandra

2014-10-01

Hypertrophic olivary degeneration is a trans-synaptic neuronal degeneration associated with hypertrophy of the inferior olivary nucleus due to a lesion in the triangle of Guillain-Mollaret. Familiarity with this entity on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is essential to avoid other erroneous ominous diagnoses. We present a case of bilateral hypertrophic olivary degeneration and discuss the etiopathogenesis and MRI findings in this entity. The contributory role of MR tractography in the diagnosis is also highlighted.

MRI and MR tractography in bilateral hypertrophic olivary degeneration

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sen, Debraj; Gulati, Yoginder S.; Malik, Virender; Mohimen, Aneesh; Sibi, Eranki; Reddy, Deepak Chandra

2014-01-01

Hypertrophic olivary degeneration is a trans-synaptic neuronal degeneration associated with hypertrophy of the inferior olivary nucleus due to a lesion in the triangle of Guillain-Mollaret. Familiarity with this entity on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is essential to avoid other erroneous ominous diagnoses. We present a case of bilateral hypertrophic olivary degeneration and discuss the etiopathogenesis and MRI findings in this entity. The contributory role of MR tractography in the diagnosis is also highlighted

Automated age-related macular degeneration classification in OCT using unsupervised feature learning

Science.gov (United States)

Venhuizen, Freerk G.; van Ginneken, Bram; Bloemen, Bart; van Grinsven, Mark J. J. P.; Philipsen, Rick; Hoyng, Carel; Theelen, Thomas; Sánchez, Clara I.

2015-03-01

Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD) is a common eye disorder with high prevalence in elderly people. The disease mainly affects the central part of the retina, and could ultimately lead to permanent vision loss. Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) is becoming the standard imaging modality in diagnosis of AMD and the assessment of its progression. However, the evaluation of the obtained volumetric scan is time consuming, expensive and the signs of early AMD are easy to miss. In this paper we propose a classification method to automatically distinguish AMD patients from healthy subjects with high accuracy. The method is based on an unsupervised feature learning approach, and processes the complete image without the need for an accurate pre-segmentation of the retina. The method can be divided in two steps: an unsupervised clustering stage that extracts a set of small descriptive image patches from the training data, and a supervised training stage that uses these patches to create a patch occurrence histogram for every image on which a random forest classifier is trained. Experiments using 384 volume scans show that the proposed method is capable of identifying AMD patients with high accuracy, obtaining an area under the Receiver Operating Curve of 0:984. Our method allows for a quick and reliable assessment of the presence of AMD pathology in OCT volume scans without the need for accurate layer segmentation algorithms.

Rapid glutamate receptor 2 trafficking during retinal degeneration

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lin Yanhua

2012-02-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Retinal degenerations, such as age-related macular degeneration (AMD and retinitis pigmentosa (RP, are characterized by photoreceptor loss and anomalous remodeling of the surviving retina that corrupts visual processing and poses a barrier to late-stage therapeutic interventions in particular. However, the molecular events associated with retinal remodeling remain largely unknown. Given our prior evidence of ionotropic glutamate receptor (iGluR reprogramming in retinal degenerations, we hypothesized that the edited glutamate receptor 2 (GluR2 subunit and its trafficking may be modulated in retinal degenerations. Results Adult albino Balb/C mice were exposed to intense light for 24 h to induce light-induced retinal degeneration (LIRD. We found that prior to the onset of photoreceptor loss, protein levels of GluR2 and related trafficking proteins, including glutamate receptor-interacting protein 1 (GRIP1 and postsynaptic density protein 95 (PSD-95, were rapidly increased. LIRD triggered neuritogenesis in photoreceptor survival regions, where GluR2 and its trafficking proteins were expressed in the anomalous dendrites. Immunoprecipitation analysis showed interaction between KIF3A and GRIP1 as well as PSD-95, suggesting that KIF3A may mediate transport of GluR2 and its trafficking proteins to the novel dendrites. However, in areas of photoreceptor loss, GluR2 along with its trafficking proteins nearly vanished in retracted retinal neurites. Conclusions All together, LIRD rapidly triggers GluR2 plasticity, which is a potential mechanism behind functionally phenotypic revisions of retinal neurons and neuritogenesis during retinal degenerations.

Intramuscular degeneration process in Duchenne muscular dystrophy

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hasegawa, Takeshi; Matsumra, Kiichiro; Hashimoto, Takahiro; Ikehira, Hiroo; Fukuda, Hiroshi; Tateno, Yukio.

1992-01-01

Intramuscular degeneration process of Duchenne dystrophy skeletal muscles was investigated by longitudinal skeletal muscle imaging with high-field-strength NMR-CT of 1.5 Tesla. Thigh muscles in 10 cases ranging in age from 4 to 19 years were examined by T 1 -weighted longitudinal images (TR=215∼505 ms, TE=19∼20 ms). The following results were obtained. Skeletal muscle degeneration was depicted as high signal intensity area reflecting its high fat contents. These high signal intensity areas had a longitudinally streaky appearance in parallel direction with myofibers. These findings were more prominent toward myotendon junction than muscle bellies. Skeletal muscle degeneration progressed rapidly between 7 to 10 years of age, and reached a plateau after that. (author)

New treatment strategies for canine intervertebral disc degeneration

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Smolders, L.A.

2013-01-01

Degeneration of the intervertebral disc (IVD) is a common problem in dogs and humans. IVD degeneration can lead to herniation of the IVD with subsequent compression of neural structures and various clinical signs, including back pain. Current treatment of IVD disease is conservative or surgical.

Acquired Nonpigmented Vitreous Cyst Associated With Lattice Degeneration.

Science.gov (United States)

Lu, Jing; Mai, Guiying; Liu, Ruyuan; Luo, Yan; Lu, Lin

2017-10-01

A 63-year-old male presented with a round-shaped floater and visual obscuration in the right eye. Clinical evaluation showed a nonpigmented vitreous cyst connected to a lattice degeneration by a stalk. Immunostaining of the vitreous cyst obtained from vitrectomy showed its origin of retinal neuroepithelium. The cyst was formed by continuous vitreous traction, which might tear up the disrupted retina at the area of lattice degeneration. This report added the lattice degeneration to the list of causes for the acquired vitreous cyst. [Ophthalmic Surg Lasers Imaging Retina. 2017;48:856-858.]. Copyright 2017, SLACK Incorporated.

Comprehensive comparing percutaneous endoscopic lumbar discectomy with posterior lumbar internal fixation for treatment of adjacent segment lumbar disc prolapse with stable retrolisthesis

Science.gov (United States)

Sun, Yapeng; Zhang, Wei; Qie, Suhui; Zhang, Nan; Ding, Wenyuan; Shen, Yong

2017-01-01

Abstract The study was to comprehensively compare the postoperative outcome and imaging parameter characters in a short/middle period between the percutaneous endoscopic lumbar discectomy (PELD) and the internal fixation of bone graft fusion (the most common form is posterior lumbar interbody fusion [PLIF]) for the treatment of adjacent segment lumbar disc prolapse with stable retrolisthesis after a previous lumbar internal fixation surgery. In this retrospective case-control study, we collected the medical records from 11 patients who received PELD operation (defined as PELD group) for and from 13 patients who received the internal fixation of bone graft fusion of lumbar posterior vertebral lamina decompression (defined as control group) for the treatment of the lumbar disc prolapse combined with stable retrolisthesis at Department of Spine Surgery, the Third Hospital of Hebei Medical University (Shijiazhuang, China) from May 2010 to December 2015. The operation time, the bleeding volume of perioperation, and the rehabilitation days of postoperation were compared between 2 groups. Before and after surgery at different time points, ODI, VAS index, and imaging parameters (including Taillard index, inter-vertebral height, sagittal dislocation, and forward bending angle of lumbar vertebrae) were compared. The average operation time, the blooding volume, and the rehabilitation days of postoperation were significantly less in PELD than in control group. The ODI and VAS index in PELD group showed a significantly immediate improving on the same day after the surgery. However, Taillard index, intervertebral height, sagittal dislocation in control group showed an immediate improving after surgery, but no changes in PELD group till 12-month after surgery. The forward bending angle of lumbar vertebrae was significantly increased and decreased in PELD and in control group, respectively. PELD operation was superior in terms of operation time, bleeding volume, recovery period

Determination of source terms in a degenerate parabolic equation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cannarsa, P; Tort, J; Yamamoto, M

2010-01-01

In this paper, we prove Lipschitz stability results for inverse source problems relative to parabolic equations. We use the method introduced by Imanuvilov and Yamamoto in 1998 based on Carleman estimates. What is new here is that we study a class of one-dimensional degenerate parabolic equations. In our model, the diffusion coefficient vanishes at one extreme point of the domain. Instead of the classical Carleman estimates obtained by Fursikov and Imanuvilov for non degenerate equations, we use and extend some recent Carleman estimates for degenerate equations obtained by Cannarsa, Martinez and Vancostenoble. Finally, we obtain Lipschitz stability results in inverse source problems for our class of degenerate parabolic equations both in the case of a boundary observation and in the case of a locally distributed observation

MRI and MR tractography in bilateral hypertrophic olivary degeneration

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Debraj Sen

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Hypertrophic olivary degeneration is a trans-synaptic neuronal degeneration associated with hypertrophy of the inferior olivary nucleus due to a lesion in the triangle of Guillain-Mollaret. Familiarity with this entity on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI is essential to avoid other erroneous ominous diagnoses. We present a case of bilateral hypertrophic olivary degeneration and discuss the etiopathogenesis and MRI findings in this entity. The contributory role of MR tractography in the diagnosis is also highlighted.

Degenerative Pathways of Lumbar Motion Segments

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jensen, Rikke K.; Kjaer, Per; Jensen, Tue S.

2016-01-01

pathways of degeneration based on scientific knowledge of disco-vertebral degeneration, and (iii) compare these clusters and degenerative pathways between samples. METHODS: We performed a secondary cross-sectional analysis on two dissimilar MRI samples collected in a hospital department: (1) data from...... pathways of degeneration. RESULTS: Six clusters of MRI findings were identified in each of the two samples. The content of the clusters in the two samples displayed some differences but had the same overall pattern of MRI findings. Although the hypothetical degenerative pathways identified in the two...... samples were not identical, the overall pattern of increasing degeneration within the pathways was the same. CONCLUSIONS: It was expected that different clusters could emerge from different samples, however, when organised into hypothetical pathways of degeneration, the overall pattern of increasing...

Multiple sclerosis and anterograde axonal degeneration study by magnetic resonance. Asociacion de esclerosis multiple y degeneracion Walleriana estudio por resonancia magnetica

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Martinez Pardo, P; Capdevila Cirera, A; Sanz Marin, P M; Gili Planas, J [Centro de Resonancia Magnetica de Barcelona (Spain)

1993-01-01

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a disease of the central nervous system that affects specifically the myelin. Its diagnosis by imaging techniques is, since the development of magnetic resonance (MR), relatively simple, and its occasional association with anterograde axonal degeneration (WD) has been reported. In both disorders, there is a lengthening of the T1 and T2 relaxation times. In the present report, 76 patients with MS with less than 4 plaques in the typical periventricular position were studied retrospectively, resulting in a rate of association with anterograde axonal degeneration of 8%. We consider that in spite of their same behavior in MR,MS and WD, with moreover represent completely different pathologies, are perfectly differential by MR. The S-E images with longer repetition and echo times in the axial and coronal planes have proved to be those most sensitive for this differentiation. Given that MS is specific pathology of then myelin, the axonal damages in delayed until several plaques adjacent to an axon affect it. We consider that this, added to the restriction of our study group (less than 4 plaques), is the cause of the pow percentage of the MS-WD association in our study. (Author).

Fine Mapping of a Degenerated Abdominal Legs Mutant (Edl in Silkworm, Bombyx mori.

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Honglei Wang

Full Text Available In insects, abdominal appendages, also called prolegs, vary due to adaptive evolution. Mutations on prolegs within species provide insights to better understand the mechanisms underlying appendage development and diversity. In silkworm Bombyx mori, extra-crescents and degenerated abdominal legs (Edl mutant, belonging to the E pseudoallele group, is a spontaneous mutation that adds crescents and degenerates prolegs on the third abdominal segment (A3. This mutation may be a homeotic transformation of A3 to A2. In this study, the Edl locus was mapped within approximately a 211 Kb region that is 10 Kb upstream of Bmabdominal-A (Bmabd-A. RT-quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR and Western blot analysis of Bmabd-A expression showed a slight but significant decrease, while the expression of BmUltrabithorax (BmUbx was up-regulated in the Edl mutant compared to wildtype (Dazao. Moreover, we also found that BmDistal-less (BmDll, which regulated the development of distal proleg structures, was missing at the tips of the A3 prolegs in the Edl mutant compared to BmDll expression in normally developed prolegs in both the wildtype and mutant. Collectively, we identified approximately a 211 Kb region in the Edl locus that regulates BmUbx and Bmabd-A expression and found that changes in BmUbx and Bmabd-A expression may lead to the loss of distal proleg structures in B. mori.

Progress toward the maintenance and repair of degenerating retinal circuitry.

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Vugler, Anthony A

2010-01-01

Retinal diseases such as age-related macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa remain major causes of severe vision loss in humans. Clinical trials for treatment of retinal degenerations are underway and advancements in our understanding of retinal biology in health/disease have implications for novel therapies. A review of retinal biology is used to inform a discussion of current strategies to maintain/repair neural circuitry in age-related macular degeneration, retinitis pigmentosa, and Type 2 Leber congenital amaurosis. In age-related macular degeneration/retinitis pigmentosa, a progressive loss of rods/cones results in corruption of bipolar cell circuitry, although retinal output neurons/photoreceptive melanopsin cells survive. Visual function can be stabilized/enhanced after treatment in age-related macular degeneration, but in advanced degenerations, reorganization of retinal circuitry may preclude attempts to restore cone function. In Type 2 Leber congenital amaurosis, useful vision can be restored by gene therapy where central cones survive. Remarkable progress has been made in restoring vision to rodents using light-responsive ion channels inserted into bipolar cells/retinal ganglion cells. Advances in genetic, cellular, and prosthetic therapies show varying degrees of promise for treating retinal degenerations. While functional benefits can be obtained after early therapeutic interventions, efforts should be made to minimize circuitry changes as soon as possible after rod/cone loss. Advances in retinal anatomy/physiology and genetic technologies should allow refinement of future reparative strategies.

Choroidal vasculature characteristics based choroid segmentation for enhanced depth imaging optical coherence tomography images

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Chen, Qiang; Niu, Sijie [School of Computer Science and Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing 210094 (China); Yuan, Songtao; Fan, Wen, E-mail: fanwen1029@163.com; Liu, Qinghuai [Department of Ophthalmology, The First Affiliated Hospital with Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing 210029 (China)

2016-04-15

Purpose: In clinical research, it is important to measure choroidal thickness when eyes are affected by various diseases. The main purpose is to automatically segment choroid for enhanced depth imaging optical coherence tomography (EDI-OCT) images with five B-scans averaging. Methods: The authors present an automated choroid segmentation method based on choroidal vasculature characteristics for EDI-OCT images with five B-scans averaging. By considering the large vascular of the Haller’s layer neighbor with the choroid-sclera junction (CSJ), the authors measured the intensity ascending distance and a maximum intensity image in the axial direction from a smoothed and normalized EDI-OCT image. Then, based on generated choroidal vessel image, the authors constructed the CSJ cost and constrain the CSJ search neighborhood. Finally, graph search with smooth constraints was utilized to obtain the CSJ boundary. Results: Experimental results with 49 images from 10 eyes in 8 normal persons and 270 images from 57 eyes in 44 patients with several stages of diabetic retinopathy and age-related macular degeneration demonstrate that the proposed method can accurately segment the choroid of EDI-OCT images with five B-scans averaging. The mean choroid thickness difference and overlap ratio between the authors’ proposed method and manual segmentation drawn by experts were −11.43 μm and 86.29%, respectively. Conclusions: Good performance was achieved for normal and pathologic eyes, which proves that the authors’ method is effective for the automated choroid segmentation of the EDI-OCT images with five B-scans averaging.

Choroidal vasculature characteristics based choroid segmentation for enhanced depth imaging optical coherence tomography images

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chen, Qiang; Niu, Sijie; Yuan, Songtao; Fan, Wen; Liu, Qinghuai

2016-01-01

Purpose: In clinical research, it is important to measure choroidal thickness when eyes are affected by various diseases. The main purpose is to automatically segment choroid for enhanced depth imaging optical coherence tomography (EDI-OCT) images with five B-scans averaging. Methods: The authors present an automated choroid segmentation method based on choroidal vasculature characteristics for EDI-OCT images with five B-scans averaging. By considering the large vascular of the Haller’s layer neighbor with the choroid-sclera junction (CSJ), the authors measured the intensity ascending distance and a maximum intensity image in the axial direction from a smoothed and normalized EDI-OCT image. Then, based on generated choroidal vessel image, the authors constructed the CSJ cost and constrain the CSJ search neighborhood. Finally, graph search with smooth constraints was utilized to obtain the CSJ boundary. Results: Experimental results with 49 images from 10 eyes in 8 normal persons and 270 images from 57 eyes in 44 patients with several stages of diabetic retinopathy and age-related macular degeneration demonstrate that the proposed method can accurately segment the choroid of EDI-OCT images with five B-scans averaging. The mean choroid thickness difference and overlap ratio between the authors’ proposed method and manual segmentation drawn by experts were −11.43 μm and 86.29%, respectively. Conclusions: Good performance was achieved for normal and pathologic eyes, which proves that the authors’ method is effective for the automated choroid segmentation of the EDI-OCT images with five B-scans averaging.

Changes in Fundus Autofluorescence after Anti-vascular Endothelial Growth Factor According to the Type of Choroidal Neovascularization in Age-related Macular Degeneration.

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Lee, Ji Young; Chung, Hyewon; Kim, Hyung Chan

2016-02-01

To describe the changes of fundus autofluorescence (FAF) in patients with age-related macular degeneration before and after intravitreal injection of anti-vascular endothelial growth factor according to the type of choroidal neovascularization (CNV) and to evaluate the correlation of FAF with spectral domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) parameters and vision. This was a retrospective study. Twenty-one treatment-naïve patients with neovascular age-related macular degeneration were included. Study eyes were divided into two groups according to the type of CNV. Fourteen eyes were type 1 CNV and seven eyes were type 2 CNV. All eyes underwent a complete ophthalmologic examination, including an assessment of best-corrected visual acuity, SD-OCT, fluorescein angiography, and FAF imaging, before and 3 months after intravitreal anti-vascular endothelial growth factor injection. Gray scales of FAF image for CNV areas, delineated as in fluorescein angiography, were analyzed using the ImageJ program, which were adjusted by comparison with normal background areas. Correlation of changes in FAF with changes in SD-OCT parameters, including CNV thickness, photoreceptor inner and outer segment junction disruption length, external limiting membrane disruption length, central macular thickness, subretinal fluid, and intraretinal fluid were analyzed. Eyes with both type 1 and type 2 CNV showed reduced FAF before treatment. The mean gray scales (%) of type 1 and type 2 CNV were 52.20% and 42.55%, respectively. The background values were 106.72 and 96.86. After treatment, the mean gray scales (%) of type 1 CNV and type 2 CNV were changed to 57.61% (p = 0.005) and 57.93% (p = 0.008), respectively. After treatment, CNV thickness, central macular thickness, and inner and outer segment junction disruption length were decreased while FAF increased. FAF was noted to be reduced in eyes with newly diagnosed wet age-related macular degeneration, but increased after anti

[Current concepts in pathogenesis of age-related macular degeneration].

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Kubicka-Trząska, Agnieszka; Karska-Basta, Izabella; Romanowska-Dixon, Bożena

2014-01-01

Age-related macular degeneration is the leading cause of central blindness in elderly population of the western world. The pathogenesis of this disease, likely multifactorial, is not well known, although a number of theories have been put forward, including oxidative stress, genetic interactions, hemodynamic imbalance, immune and inflammatory processes. The understanding of age-related macular degeneration pathogenesis will give rise to new approaches in prevention and treatment of the early and late stages of both atrophic and neovascular age-related macular degeneration.

MR findings of degenerating parenchymal neurocysticercosis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lee, Yul; Chung, Eun A; Yang, Ik; Park, Hae Jung; Chung, Soo Young

1996-01-01

To evaluate MR imaging findings of degenerating parenchymal neurocysticercosis and to determine the characteristics which distinguish it from other brain diseases. MR imagings of 19 patients (56 lesions) of degenerating parenchymal neurocysticercosis were retrospectively evaluated, focusing on the size and location of lesions signal intensity patterns of cyst fluid and wall, the extent of the surrounding edema and features of contrast enhancement. Degenerating parenchymal neurocysticercosis was located in gray or subcortical while matter in 89.3% of 56 lesions (50/56) ; most of these (98.2%) were smaller than 2 cm in diameter. Cyst fluid signal was hyperintense relative to CSF on T1 and proton density weighted images (92.9%). A hypointense signal rim of the cyst wall was noted in the lesions on proton density (92.9%) and T2 weighted (98.2%) images, Surrounding edema was mostly mild. Peripheral rim enhancement was noted in all lesions, and this was frequently irregular and lobulated (67.9%) with a focal defect in the enhancing rim(41.1%). Findings which could be helpful in distinguishing degenerating parencymal neurocysticercosis from other brain diseases are as follows : small, superficial lesions ; hyperintense signal of the cyst fluid on T1 and proton density weighted images ; hypointense signal of the cyst wall on proton density and T2 weighted images ; relatively mild extent of surrounding edema, and peripheral rim enhancement which is frequently irregular and lobulated with a focal defect in the enhancing rim

Genetic and functional dissection of HTRA1 and LOC387715 in age-related macular degeneration.

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Zhenglin Yang

2010-02-01

Full Text Available A common haplotype on 10q26 influences the risk of age-related macular degeneration (AMD and encompasses two genes, LOC387715 and HTRA1. Recent data have suggested that loss of LOC387715, mediated by an insertion/deletion (in/del that destabilizes its message, is causally related with the disorder. Here we show that loss of LOC387715 is insufficient to explain AMD susceptibility, since a nonsense mutation (R38X in this gene that leads to loss of its message resides in a protective haplotype. At the same time, the common disease haplotype tagged by the in/del and rs11200638 has an effect on the transcriptional upregulation of the adjacent gene, HTRA1. These data implicate increased HTRA1 expression in the pathogenesis of AMD and highlight the importance of exploring multiple functional consequences of alleles in haplotypes that confer susceptibility to complex traits.

CT of sarcomatous degeneration in neurofibromatosis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Coleman, B.G.; Arger, P.H.; Dalinka, M.K.; Obringer, A.C.; Raney, B.R.; Meadows, A.T.

1983-01-01

Neurofibromatosis is a relatively common disorder that often involves many organ systems. One of the least understood aspects of this malady is a well documented potential for sarcomatous degeneration of neurofibromas. The inability to identify patients at risk and the lack of noninvasive screening methods for symptomatic patients often leads to late diagnosis. In six of seven subsequently proven neurofibrosarcomas, CT demonstrated low-density areas that histopathologically appeared to be due to necrosis, hemorrhage, and/or cystic degeneration. The density differences within these sarcomas were enhanced by the intravenous adminstration of iodinated contrast agents

LONGITUDINAL STRUCTURAL CHANGES IN LATE-ONSET RETINAL DEGENERATION.

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Cukras, Catherine; Flamendorf, Jason; Wong, Wai T; Ayyagari, Radha; Cunningham, Denise; Sieving, Paul A

2016-12-01

To characterize longitudinal structural changes in early stages of late-onset retinal degeneration to investigate pathogenic mechanisms. Two affected siblings, both with a S163R missense mutation in the causative gene C1QTNF5, were followed for 8+ years. Color fundus photos, fundus autofluorescence images, near-infrared reflectance fundus images, and spectral domain optical coherence tomography scans were acquired during follow-up. Both patients, aged 45 and 50 years, had good visual acuities (>20/20) in the context of prolonged dark adaptation. Baseline color fundus photography demonstrated yellow-white, punctate lesions in the temporal macula that correlated with a reticular pattern on fundus autofluorescence and near-infrared reflectance imaging. Baseline spectral domain optical coherence tomography imaging revealed subretinal deposits that resemble reticular pseudodrusen described in age-related macular degeneration. During follow-up, these affected areas developed confluent thickening of the retinal pigment epithelial layer and disruption of the ellipsoid zone of photoreceptors before progressing to overt retinal pigment epithelium and outer retinal atrophy. Structural changes in early stages of late-onset retinal degeneration, revealed by multimodal imaging, resemble those of reticular pseudodrusen observed in age-related macular degeneration and other retinal diseases. Longitudinal follow-up of these lesions helps elucidate their progression to frank atrophy and may lend insight into the pathogenic mechanisms underlying diverse retinal degenerations.

MR imaging of patellar cartilage degeneration at 0.02 T

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Koskinen, S.K.; Komu, M.; Aho, H.J.; Kormano, M.; Turku University Hospital

1991-01-01

MR imaging with a 0.02 T resistive magnet was used to establish the correlation between the histologic grading of patellar cartilage degeneration and fat water separation images or T1- and T2-relaxation times. We examined 23 cadaveric patellae. There was a positive correlation between histologically graded cartilage degeneration and T1-relaxation time. Patellar cartilage was well differentiated from surrounding structures on chemical shift water proton images, and an evaluation of cartilage degeneration was possible. No correlation was found between cartilage degeneration damage and T2-relaxation time. Chemical shift imaging at 0.02 T is easy to perform and gives further information of cartilage disorders. (orig.)

ASSOCIATION OF DRUSEN VOLUME WITH CHOROIDAL PARAMETERS IN NONNEOVASCULAR AGE-RELATED MACULAR DEGENERATION.

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Balasubramanian, Siva; Lei, Jianqin; Nittala, Muneeswar G; Velaga, Swetha B; Haines, Jonathan; Pericak-Vance, Margaret A; Stambolian, Dwight; Sadda, SriniVas R

2017-10-01

The choroid is thought to be relevant to the pathogenesis of nonneovascular age-related macular degeneration, but its role has not yet been fully defined. In this study, we evaluate the relationship between the extent of macular drusen and specific choroidal parameters, including thickness and intensity. Spectral domain optical coherence tomography images were collected from two distinct, independent cohorts with nonneovascular age-related macular degeneration: Amish (53 eyes of 34 subjects) and non-Amish (40 eyes from 26 subjects). All spectral domain optical coherence tomography scans were obtained using the Cirrus HD-OCT with a 512 × 128 macular cube (6 × 6 mm) protocol. The Cirrus advanced retinal pigment epithelium analysis tool was used to automatically compute drusen volume within 3 mm (DV3) and 5 mm (DV5) circles centered on the fovea. The inner and outer borders of the choroid were manually segmented, and the mean choroidal thickness and choroidal intensity (i.e., brightness) were calculated. The choroidal intensity was normalized against the vitreous and nerve fiber layer reflectivity. The correlation between DV and these choroidal parameters was assessed using Pearson and linear regression analysis. A significant positive correlation was observed between normalized choroidal intensity and DV5 in the Amish (r = 0.42, P = 0.002) and non-Amish (r = 0.33, P = 0.03) cohorts. Also, DV3 showed a significant positive correlation with normalized choroidal intensity in both the groups (Amish: r = 0.30, P = 0.02; non-Amish: r = 0.32, P = 0.04). Choroidal thickness was negatively correlated with normalized choroidal intensity in both Amish (r = -0.71, P = 0.001) and non-Amish (r = -0.43, P = 0.01) groups. Normalized choroidal intensity was the most significant constant predictor of DV in both the Amish and non-Amish groups. Choroidal intensity, but not choroidal thickness, seems to be associated with drusen volume in Amish and non-Amish populations. These

Hierarchical Image Segmentation of Remotely Sensed Data using Massively Parallel GNU-LINUX Software

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Tilton, James C.

2003-01-01

A hierarchical set of image segmentations is a set of several image segmentations of the same image at different levels of detail in which the segmentations at coarser levels of detail can be produced from simple merges of regions at finer levels of detail. In [1], Tilton, et a1 describes an approach for producing hierarchical segmentations (called HSEG) and gave a progress report on exploiting these hierarchical segmentations for image information mining. The HSEG algorithm is a hybrid of region growing and constrained spectral clustering that produces a hierarchical set of image segmentations based on detected convergence points. In the main, HSEG employs the hierarchical stepwise optimization (HSWO) approach to region growing, which was described as early as 1989 by Beaulieu and Goldberg. The HSWO approach seeks to produce segmentations that are more optimized than those produced by more classic approaches to region growing (e.g. Horowitz and T. Pavlidis, [3]). In addition, HSEG optionally interjects between HSWO region growing iterations, merges between spatially non-adjacent regions (i.e., spectrally based merging or clustering) constrained by a threshold derived from the previous HSWO region growing iteration. While the addition of constrained spectral clustering improves the utility of the segmentation results, especially for larger images, it also significantly increases HSEG s computational requirements. To counteract this, a computationally efficient recursive, divide-and-conquer, implementation of HSEG (RHSEG) was devised, which includes special code to avoid processing artifacts caused by RHSEG s recursive subdivision of the image data. The recursive nature of RHSEG makes for a straightforward parallel implementation. This paper describes the HSEG algorithm, its recursive formulation (referred to as RHSEG), and the implementation of RHSEG using massively parallel GNU-LINUX software. Results with Landsat TM data are included comparing RHSEG with classic

Relationship of Tear Size and Location to Fatty Degeneration of the Rotator Cuff

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Kim, H. Mike; Dahiya, Nirvikar; Teefey, Sharlene A.; Keener, Jay D.; Galatz, Leesa M.; Yamaguchi, Ken

2010-01-01

Background: Fatty degeneration of the rotator cuff muscles may have detrimental effects on both anatomical and functional outcomes following shoulder surgery. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between tear geometry and muscle fatty degeneration in shoulders with a deficient rotator cuff. Methods: Ultrasonograms of both shoulders of 262 patients were reviewed to assess the type of rotator cuff tear and fatty degeneration in the supraspinatus and infraspinatus muscles. The 251 shoulders with a full-thickness tear underwent further evaluation for tear size and location. The relationship of tear size and location to fatty degeneration of the supraspinatus and infraspinatus muscles was investigated with use of statistical comparisons and regression models. Results: Fatty degeneration was found almost exclusively in shoulders with a full-thickness rotator cuff tear. Of the 251 shoulders with a full-thickness tear, eighty-seven (34.7%) had fatty degeneration in either the supraspinatus or infraspinatus, or both. Eighty-two (32.7%) of the 251 full-thickness tears had a distance of 0 mm between the biceps tendon and anterior margin of the tear. Ninety percent of the full-thickness tears with fatty degeneration in both muscles had a distance of 0 mm posterior from the biceps, whereas only 9% of those without fatty degeneration had a distance of 0 mm. Tears with fatty degeneration had significantly greater width and length than those without fatty degeneration (p Tears with fatty degeneration had a significantly shorter distance posterior from the biceps than those without fatty degeneration (p tear width and length were found to be the most important predictors for infraspinatus fatty degeneration. Conclusions: Fatty degeneration of the rotator cuff muscles is closely associated with tear size and location. The finding of this study suggests that the integrity of the anterior supraspinatus tendon is important to the development of fatty

Survey of roadside alien plants in Hawai`i Volcanoes National Park and adjacent residential areas 2001-2005

Science.gov (United States)

Bio, Keali'i F.; Pratt, Linda W.; Jacobi, James D.

2012-01-01

The sides of all paved roads of Hawai`i Volcanoes National Park (HAVO) were surveyed on foot in 2001 to 2005, and the roadside presence of 240 target invasive and potentially invasive alien plant species was recorded in mile-long increments. Buffer zones 5–10 miles (8–16 km) long along Highway 11 on either side of the Kīlauea and Kahuku Units of the park, as well as Wright Road that passed by the disjunct `Ōla`a Tract Unit, were included in the survey. Highway 11 is the primary road through the park and a major island thoroughfare. Three residential subdivisions adjacent to the park were similarly surveyed in 0.5–1 mile (0.8–1.6 km) intervals in 2003, and data were analyzed separately. Two roads to the east and northeast were also surveyed, but data from these disjunct areas were analyzed separately from park roads. In total, 174 of the target alien species were observed along HAVO roads and buffers, exclusive of residential areas, and the mean number of target aliens per mile surveyed was 20.6. Highway 11 and its buffer zones had the highest mean number of target alien plants per mile (26.7) of all park roads, and the Mauna Loa Strip Road had the lowest mean (11.7). Segments of Highway 11 adjacent to HAVO and Wright Road next to `Ōla`a Tract had mean numbers of target alien per mile (24–47) higher than those of any internal road. Alien plant frequencies were summarized for each road in HAVO. Fifteen new records of vascular plants for HAVO were observed and collected along park roads. An additional 28 alien plant species not known from HAVO were observed along the buffer segments of Highway 11 adjacent to the park. Within the adjacent residential subdivisions, 65 target alien plant species were sighted along roadsides. At least 15 potentially invasive species not currently found within HAVO were observed along residential roads, and several other species found there have been previously eliminated from the park or controlled to remnant populations

Ethanol Exposure Causes Muscle Degeneration in Zebrafish

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Elizabeth C. Coffey

2018-03-01

Full Text Available Alcoholic myopathies are characterized by neuromusculoskeletal symptoms such as compromised movement and weakness. Although these symptoms have been attributed to neurological damage, EtOH may also target skeletal muscle. EtOH exposure during zebrafish primary muscle development or adulthood results in smaller muscle fibers. However, the effects of EtOH exposure on skeletal muscle during the growth period that follows primary muscle development are not well understood. We determined the effects of EtOH exposure on muscle during this phase of development. Strikingly, muscle fibers at this stage are acutely sensitive to EtOH treatment: EtOH induces muscle degeneration. The severity of EtOH-induced muscle damage varies but muscle becomes more refractory to EtOH as muscle develops. NF-kB induction in muscle indicates that EtOH triggers a pro-inflammatory response. EtOH-induced muscle damage is p53-independent. Uptake of Evans blue dye shows that EtOH treatment causes sarcolemmal instability before muscle fiber detachment. Dystrophin-null sapje mutant zebrafish also exhibit sarcolemmal instability. We tested whether Trichostatin A (TSA, which reduces muscle degeneration in sapje mutants, would affect EtOH-treated zebrafish. We found that TSA and EtOH are a lethal combination. EtOH does, however, exacerbate muscle degeneration in sapje mutants. EtOH also disrupts adhesion of muscle fibers to their extracellular matrix at the myotendinous junction: some detached muscle fibers retain beta-Dystroglycan indicating failure of muscle end attachments. Overexpression of Paxillin, which reduces muscle degeneration in zebrafish deficient for beta-Dystroglycan, is not sufficient to rescue degeneration. Taken together, our results suggest that EtOH exposure has pleiotropic deleterious effects on skeletal muscle.

Status of the segment interconnect, cable segment ancillary logic, and the cable segment hybrid driver projects

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Swoboda, C.; Barsotti, E.; Chappa, S.; Downing, R.; Goeransson, G.; Lensy, D.; Moore, G.; Rotolo, C.; Urish, J.

1985-01-01

The FASTBUS Segment Interconnect (SI) provides a communication path between two otherwise independent, asynchronous bus segments. In particular, the Segment Interconnect links a backplane crate segment to a cable segment. All standard FASTBUS address and data transactions can be passed through the SI or any number of SIs and segments in a path. Thus systems of arbitrary connection complexity can be formed, allowing simultaneous independent processing, yet still permitting devices associated with one segment to be accessed from others. The model S1 Segment Interconnect and the Cable Segment Ancillary Logic covered in this report comply with all the mandatory features stated in the FASTBUS specification document DOE/ER-0189. A block diagram of the SI is shown

Prevalence of age-related macular degeneration in elderly Caucasians

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Erke, Maja G; Bertelsen, Geir; Peto, Tunde

2012-01-01

To describe the sex- and age-specific prevalence of drusen, geographic atrophy, and neovascular age-related macular degeneration (AMD).......To describe the sex- and age-specific prevalence of drusen, geographic atrophy, and neovascular age-related macular degeneration (AMD)....

Segmentation of organs at risk in CT volumes of head, thorax, abdomen, and pelvis

Science.gov (United States)

Han, Miaofei; Ma, Jinfeng; Li, Yan; Li, Meiling; Song, Yanli; Li, Qiang

2015-03-01

Accurate segmentation of organs at risk (OARs) is a key step in treatment planning system (TPS) of image guided radiation therapy. We are developing three classes of methods to segment 17 organs at risk throughout the whole body, including brain, brain stem, eyes, mandible, temporomandibular joints, parotid glands, spinal cord, lungs, trachea, heart, livers, kidneys, spleen, prostate, rectum, femoral heads, and skin. The three classes of segmentation methods include (1) threshold-based methods for organs of large contrast with adjacent structures such as lungs, trachea, and skin; (2) context-driven Generalized Hough Transform-based methods combined with graph cut algorithm for robust localization and segmentation of liver, kidneys and spleen; and (3) atlas and registration-based methods for segmentation of heart and all organs in CT volumes of head and pelvis. The segmentation accuracy for the seventeen organs was subjectively evaluated by two medical experts in three levels of score: 0, poor (unusable in clinical practice); 1, acceptable (minor revision needed); and 2, good (nearly no revision needed). A database was collected from Ruijin Hospital, Huashan Hospital, and Xuhui Central Hospital in Shanghai, China, including 127 head scans, 203 thoracic scans, 154 abdominal scans, and 73 pelvic scans. The percentages of "good" segmentation results were 97.6%, 92.9%, 81.1%, 87.4%, 85.0%, 78.7%, 94.1%, 91.1%, 81.3%, 86.7%, 82.5%, 86.4%, 79.9%, 72.6%, 68.5%, 93.2%, 96.9% for brain, brain stem, eyes, mandible, temporomandibular joints, parotid glands, spinal cord, lungs, trachea, heart, livers, kidneys, spleen, prostate, rectum, femoral heads, and skin, respectively. Various organs at risk can be reliably segmented from CT scans by use of the three classes of segmentation methods.

[Myopia: frequency of lattice degeneration and axial length].

Science.gov (United States)

Martín Sánchez, M D; Roldán Pallarés, M

2001-05-01

To evaluate the relationship between lattice retinal degeneration and axial length of the eye in different grades of myopia. A sample of 200 eyes from 124 myopic patients was collected by chance. The average age was 34.8 years (20-50 years) and the myopia was between 0.5 and 20 diopters (D). The eyes were grouped according to the degree of refraction defect, the mean axial length of each group (Scan A) and the frequency of lattice retinal degeneration and the relationship between these variables was studied. The possible influence of age on our results was also considered. For the statistical analysis, the SAS 6.07 program with the variance analysis for quantitative variables, and chi(2) test for qualitative variables with a 5% significance were used. A multivariable linear regression model was also adjusted. The highest frequency of lattice retinal degeneration occurred in those myopia patients having more than 15 D, and also in the group of myopia patients between 3 and 6 D, but this did not show statistical significance when compared with the other myopic groups. If the axial length is assessed, a greater frequency of lattice retinal degeneration is also found when the axial length is 25-27 mm and 29-30 mm, which correspond, respectively, to myopias between 3-10 D and more than 15 D. When the multivariable linear regression model was adjusted, the axial length showed the existence of lattice retinal degeneration (beta 0.41 mm; p=0.08) adjusted by the number of diopters (beta 0.38 mm; plattice retinal degeneration was found for myopias with axial eye length between 29-30 mm (more than 15 D), and 25-27 mm (between 3-10 D).

Cesare Lombroso: an anthropologist between evolution and degeneration.

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Mazzarello, Paolo

2011-01-01

Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909) was a prominent Italian medical doctor and intellectual in the second half of the nineteenth century. He became world famous for his theory that criminality, madness and genius were all sides of the same psychobiological condition: an expression of degeneration, a sort of regression along the phylogenetic scale, and an arrest at an early stage of evolution. Degeneration affected criminals especially, in particular the "born delinquent" whose development had stopped at an early stage, making them the most "atavistic" types of human being. Lombroso also advocated the theory that genius was closely linked with madness. A man of genius was a degenerate, an example of retrograde evolution in whom madness was a form of "biological compensation" for excessive intellectual development. To confirm this theory, in August 1897, Lombroso, while attending the Twelfth International Medical Congress in Moscow, decided to meet the great Russian writer Lev Tolstoy in order to directly verify, in him, his theory of degeneration in the genius. Lombroso's anthropological ideas fuelled a heated debate on the biological determinism of human behaviour.

Therapeutic Approaches to Histone Reprogramming in Retinal Degeneration.

Science.gov (United States)

Berner, Andre K; Kleinman, Mark E

2016-01-01

Recent data have revealed epigenetic derangements and subsequent chromatin remodeling as a potent biologic switch for chronic inflammation and cell survival which are important therapeutic targets in the pathogenesis of several retinal degenerations. Histone deacetylases (HDACs) are a major component of this system and serve as a unique control of the chromatin remodeling process. With a multitude of targeted HDAC inhibitors now available, their use in both basic science and clinical studies has widened substantially. In the field of ocular biology, there are data to suggest that HDAC inhibition may suppress neovascularization and may be a possible treatment for retinitis pigmentosa and dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD). However, the effects of these inhibitors on cell survival and chemokine expression in the chorioretinal tissues remain very unclear. Here, we review the multifaceted biology of HDAC activity and pharmacologic inhibition while offering further insight into the importance of this epigenetic pathway in retinal degenerations. Our laboratory investigations aim to open translational avenues to advance dry AMD therapeutics while exploring the role of acetylation on inflammatory gene expression in the aging and degenerating retina.

Hypersensitivity to DNA-damaging agents in primary degenerations of excitable tissue

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Robbins, J.H.

1983-01-01

Defects in DNA-repair mechanisms render xeroderma pigmentosum cells hypersensitive to killing by the uv-type of DNA-damaging agent. Some xeroderma pigmentosum patients develop a primary neuronal degeneration, and cell lines from patients with the earliest onset of neurodegeneration are the most sensitive to killing by uv radiation. These findings led to the neuronal DNA integrity theory which holds that when the integrity of neuronal DNA is destroyed by the accumulation of unrepaired DNA damaged spontaneously or by endogenous metabolites, the neurons will undergo a primary degeneration. Cells from patients with Cockayne syndrome, a demyelinating disorder with a primary retinal degeneration, are also hypersensitive to the uv-type of DNA-damaging agent. Cells from patients with the primary neuronal degeneration of ataxia telangiectasia are hypersensitive to the x-ray-type of DNA-damaging agent. Cells from other patients with primary degeneration of excitable tissue also have hypersensitivity to the x-ray-type of DNA-damaging agent. These disorders include (1) primary neuronal degenerations which are either genetic (e.g., Huntington disease, familial dysautonomia, Friedreich ataxia) or sporadic (e.g., Alzheimer disease, Parkinson disease), (2) primary muscle degenerations (e.g., Duchenne muscular dystrophy), and (3) a primary retinal degeneration (Usher syndrome). Death of excitable tissue in vivo in these radiosensitive diseases may result from unrepaired DNA. This hypersensitivity provides the basis for developing suitable presymptomatic and prenatal tests for these diseases, for elucidating their pathogenesis, and for developing future therapies. 119 references, 3 figures, 3 tables

Engineering of multi-segmented light tunnel and flattop focus with designed axial lengths and gaps

Science.gov (United States)

Yu, Yanzhong; Huang, Han; Zhou, Mianmian; Zhan, Qiwen

2018-01-01

Based on the radiation pattern from a sectional-uniform line source antenna, a three-dimensional (3D) focus engineering technique for the creation of multi-segmented light tunnel and flattop focus with designed axial lengths and gaps is proposed. Under a 4Pi focusing system, the fields radiated from sectional-uniform magnetic and electromagnetic current line source antennas are employed to generate multi-segmented optical tube and flattop focus, respectively. Numerical results demonstrate that the produced light tube and flattop focus remain homogeneous along the optical axis; and their lengths of the nth segment and the nth gap between consecutive segments can be easily adjusted and only depend on the sizes of the nth section and the nth blanking between adjacent sectional antennas. The optical tube is a pure azimuthally polarized field but for the flattop focus the longitudinal polarization is dominant on the optical axis. To obtain the required pupil plane illumination for constructing the above focal field with prescribed characteristics, the inverse problem of the antenna radiation field is solved. These peculiar focusing fields might find potential applications in multi-particle acceleration, multi-particle trapping and manipulation.

3T MR 3D-FIESTA demonstrating cranial nerves in cisternal segment and their relationship with adjacent lesions%3T MR三维稳态进动快速成像序列显示脑池段颅神经及其与周围病变的关系

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

惠毅毅; 王庆征; 李传亭; 刘传梅; 张红

2012-01-01

Objective To investigate the usefulness of 3T MR 3D-FIESTA in displaying the relationship between the nerves in posterior and middle fossa and rheir adjacent lesions. Methods 34 cases of intracranial lesions in posterior and middle fossa were study with FSE T1W1,FSE T2WI and 3D-FIESTA sequences in 3T MR. The relationship bctween the lesions and the cranial nerves in cisternal segment were confirmed with surgery. Results 34 patients mainly showed 48 lesions on MR imaging. 9 cranial nerves were embedded by its adjacent lesions. 51 were pushed. 25 nerves were involved, and lesions were adjacent to 10 nerves. 23 patients underwent surgery in all 34 cases. The accuracy of 3D-FIESTA imag-ings in demonstrating relationship between cranial nerves with adjacent lesions were 5/6. 26/28. 3/3. 12/13. Conclusion 3T MR 3D-FIESTA imaging could depict the relationship between the nerves in cisternal segment and its adjacent lesions correctly, and it is useful in preoperative evaluation and treatment of intracranial lesions.%目的 探讨3T MR三维稳态进动快速成像(3D-FIESTA)序列显示中、后颅窝颅神经及其与周围病变关系的价值.方法 对34例颅内脑外病变的患者行反转恢复SE T1WI、FSE T2 WI及3D-FIESTA序列扫描.脑池段颅神经与周围病变的关系情况与手术结果相对照.结果 34例患者中共48处病变,3D-FIESTA序列显示9条神经被周围病变包绕.51条颅神经被压迫.与病变相邻的颅神经有10条,病变累及其邻近25条神经;其中23例患者行手术治疗,手术与MR图像对照.3D-FIESTA显示颅神经与周围病变关系的准确性分别为5/6、26/28、3/3、12/13.结论 3T MR 3D-FI-ESTA序列可以正确显示脑池段颅神经及其与周围病变的关系.对治疗前评估及病变的治疗有重要的应用价值.

Quantitative analysis of retina layer elasticity based on automatic 3D segmentation (Conference Presentation)

Science.gov (United States)

He, Youmin; Qu, Yueqiao; Zhang, Yi; Ma, Teng; Zhu, Jiang; Miao, Yusi; Humayun, Mark; Zhou, Qifa; Chen, Zhongping

2017-02-01

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is an eye condition that is considered to be one of the leading causes of blindness among people over 50. Recent studies suggest that the mechanical properties in retina layers are affected during the early onset of disease. Therefore, it is necessary to identify such changes in the individual layers of the retina so as to provide useful information for disease diagnosis. In this study, we propose using an acoustic radiation force optical coherence elastography (ARF-OCE) system to dynamically excite the porcine retina and detect the vibrational displacement with phase resolved Doppler optical coherence tomography. Due to the vibrational mechanism of the tissue response, the image quality is compromised during elastogram acquisition. In order to properly analyze the images, all signals, including the trigger and control signals for excitation, as well as detection and scanning signals, are synchronized within the OCE software and are kept consistent between frames, making it possible for easy phase unwrapping and elasticity analysis. In addition, a combination of segmentation algorithms is used to accommodate the compromised image quality. An automatic 3D segmentation method has been developed to isolate and measure the relative elasticity of every individual retinal layer. Two different segmentation schemes based on random walker and dynamic programming are implemented. The algorithm has been validated using a 3D region of the porcine retina, where individual layers have been isolated and analyzed using statistical methods. The errors compared to manual segmentation will be calculated.

Relationship between full-thickness macular hole and retinal break/lattice degeneration.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Jinglin; Li, Yonghao; Zhao, Xiujuan; Cai, Yu; Yu, Xiling; Lu, Lin

2015-12-01

The purpose is to investigate the relationship between full-thickness macular hole (MH) and retinal break (RB) and/or lattice degeneration. Patients diagnosed as full-thickness MH and referred to Dr. Lin Lu from January 2009 to December 2013 were evaluated. All patients underwent general ophthalmologic examinations, fundus examination and optical coherence tomography (OCT). The RB and/or lattice degeneration were recorded. Totally 183 eyes of 167 patients were included. The sex ratio of men to women was 1:2.88. A total of 17 eyes were pseudophakic and 166 eyes were phakic. RB and/or lattice degeneration were found in 62 eyes (33.88%). The prevalence of RB and/or lattice degeneration was similar between men and women (P = 0.344 > 0.05). There was no statistical difference between the pseudophakic eyes and phakic eyes (P = 0.138 > 0.05). All of the RB and/or lattice degeneration were located near or anterior to the equator. The inferior quadrants and the vertical meridian were affected more often than the superior quadrants and the horizontal meridian. We identified a high incidence of RB/lattice degeneration in cases of full-thickness MH. Carefully examination of the peripheral retina and prophylactic treatment of RB and/or lattice degeneration are critical.

An Unusual Case of Extensive Lattice Degeneration and Retinal Detachment

OpenAIRE

Mathew, David J.; Sarma, Saurabh Kumar; Basaiawmoit, Jennifer V.

2016-01-01

Lattice degeneration of the retina is not infrequently encountered on a dilated retinal examination and many of them do not need any intervention. We report a case of atypical lattice degeneration variant with peripheral retinal detachment. An asymptomatic 35-year-old lady with minimal refractive error was found to have extensive lattice degeneration, peripheral retinal detachment and fibrotic changes peripherally with elevation of retinal vessels on dilated retinal examination. There were al...

Comparison of fish assemblages in two disjoined segments of an oxbow lake in relation to connectivity

Science.gov (United States)

Dembkowski, Daniel J.; Miranda, Leandro E.

2011-01-01

Disconnection between adjacent habitat patches is one of the most notable factors contributing to the decreased biotic integrity of global ecosystems. Connectivity is especially threatened in river–floodplain ecosystems in which channel modifications have disrupted the lateral links between the main river channel and floodplain lakes. In this study, we examined the interaction between the interconnectedness of floodplain lakes and main river channels and fish assemblage descriptors. Fish assemblages in two segments of an oxbow lake, one connected to and the other isolated from the Yazoo River, Mississippi, were estimated with daytime boat electrofishing during 2007–2010. The frequency of connection for the connected segment ranged from zero to seven individual events per year (mean, ∼2). The timing of most connection events reflected regional precipitation patterns. Greater species richness, diversity, and evenness were observed in the connected segment. Additionally, the connected segment had a greater abundance of piscivores and periodic life history strategists. All fishes collected solely in the connected segment were typically riverine in nature, whereas fishes collected only in the disconnected segment were more lacustrine adapted. These results suggest that periodic connection and the associated habitat heterogeneity that it provides are important for maintaining fish species richness and diversity in large-river floodplain lakes. We suggest that maintenance or restoration of connection be an integral part of fluvial ecosystem management plans.

Plantar fascia segmentation and thickness estimation in ultrasound images.

Science.gov (United States)

Boussouar, Abdelhafid; Meziane, Farid; Crofts, Gillian

2017-03-01

Ultrasound (US) imaging offers significant potential in diagnosis of plantar fascia (PF) injury and monitoring treatment. In particular US imaging has been shown to be reliable in foot and ankle assessment and offers a real-time effective imaging technique that is able to reliably confirm structural changes, such as thickening, and identify changes in the internal echo structure associated with diseased or damaged tissue. Despite the advantages of US imaging, images are difficult to interpret during medical assessment. This is partly due to the size and position of the PF in relation to the adjacent tissues. It is therefore a requirement to devise a system that allows better and easier interpretation of PF ultrasound images during diagnosis. This study proposes an automatic segmentation approach which for the first time extracts ultrasound data to estimate size across three sections of the PF (rearfoot, midfoot and forefoot). This segmentation method uses artificial neural network module (ANN) in order to classify small overlapping patches as belonging or not-belonging to the region of interest (ROI) of the PF tissue. Features ranking and selection techniques were performed as a post-processing step for features extraction to reduce the dimension and number of the extracted features. The trained ANN classifies the image overlapping patches into PF and non-PF tissue, and then it is used to segment the desired PF region. The PF thickness was calculated using two different methods: distance transformation and area-length calculation algorithms. This new approach is capable of accurately segmenting the PF region, differentiating it from surrounding tissues and estimating its thickness. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Retinal Cell Degeneration in Animal Models

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Masayuki Niwa

2016-01-01

Full Text Available The aim of this review is to provide an overview of various retinal cell degeneration models in animal induced by chemicals (N-methyl-d-aspartate- and CoCl2-induced, autoimmune (experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis, mechanical stress (optic nerve crush-induced, light-induced and ischemia (transient retinal ischemia-induced. The target regions, pathology and proposed mechanism of each model are described in a comparative fashion. Animal models of retinal cell degeneration provide insight into the underlying mechanisms of the disease, and will facilitate the development of novel effective therapeutic drugs to treat retinal cell damage.

Mesiodistal tooth angulation to segmental occlusal plane in panoramic radiography

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kim, Jae Duk; Kim, Jin Soo; You, Choong Hyun

2005-01-01

To evaluate the stability of the segmental occlusal plane and anatomical line as the reference line for measuring the mesiodistal tooth angulation in panoramic radiography and to determine the mean angle and the range of the mesiodistal tooth angulation in Korean population with normal occlusions. Twenty nine subjects (15 men, 14 women) with normal occlusion were selected. A total of 29 panoramic radiograms were taken at normal head position and then 10 images of 5 subjects selected were repeatedly taken with repositioning 2 times at each of the head down (V-shaped occlusion) and up (horizontal occulsion) for evaluation of stability of adopted reference lines by using PM2002CC (Planmeca, Finland). The images were traced with adoption of two test reference lines and the long axes of the teeth. The mesial angles formed by each reference line and the long axes of the teeth were measured and analyzed. With anatomical reference line, the mesiodistal tooth angulations of the molars showed the significant difference by over 5 degree between the normal and each changed head position. With segmented occlusal reference line, deviations of mesiodistal tooth angulations by the two changed head positions were less than 1 degree. The means, standard deviations, and maximum and minimum values of mesiodistal tooth angulations to segmental occlusal reference line on panoramic radiography were determined. It would appear that mesiodistal tooth angulations to segmental occlusal plane as reference line in panograms are predictable as standards of normal occlusion and useful for evaluation of tooth arrangement between adjacent teeth.

Mesiodistal tooth angulation to segmental occlusal plane in panoramic radiography

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kim, Jae Duk; Kim, Jin Soo; You, Choong Hyun [Chosun University College of Medicine, Kwangju (Korea, Republic of)

2005-03-15

To evaluate the stability of the segmental occlusal plane and anatomical line as the reference line for measuring the mesiodistal tooth angulation in panoramic radiography and to determine the mean angle and the range of the mesiodistal tooth angulation in Korean population with normal occlusions. Twenty nine subjects (15 men, 14 women) with normal occlusion were selected. A total of 29 panoramic radiograms were taken at normal head position and then 10 images of 5 subjects selected were repeatedly taken with repositioning 2 times at each of the head down (V-shaped occlusion) and up (horizontal occulsion) for evaluation of stability of adopted reference lines by using PM2002CC (Planmeca, Finland). The images were traced with adoption of two test reference lines and the long axes of the teeth. The mesial angles formed by each reference line and the long axes of the teeth were measured and analyzed. With anatomical reference line, the mesiodistal tooth angulations of the molars showed the significant difference by over 5 degree between the normal and each changed head position. With segmented occlusal reference line, deviations of mesiodistal tooth angulations by the two changed head positions were less than 1 degree. The means, standard deviations, and maximum and minimum values of mesiodistal tooth angulations to segmental occlusal reference line on panoramic radiography were determined. It would appear that mesiodistal tooth angulations to segmental occlusal plane as reference line in panograms are predictable as standards of normal occlusion and useful for evaluation of tooth arrangement between adjacent teeth.

Families and degenerations of conformal field theories

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Roggenkamp, D.

2004-09-01

In this work, moduli spaces of conformal field theories are investigated. In the first part, moduli spaces corresponding to current-current deformation of conformal field theories are constructed explicitly. For WZW models, they are described in detail, and sigma model realizations of the deformed WZW models are presented. The second part is devoted to the study of boundaries of moduli spaces of conformal field theories. For this purpose a notion of convergence of families of conformal field theories is introduced, which admits certain degenerated conformal field theories to occur as limits. To such a degeneration of conformal field theories, a degeneration of metric spaces together with additional geometric structures can be associated, which give rise to a geometric interpretation. Boundaries of moduli spaces of toroidal conformal field theories, orbifolds thereof and WZW models are analyzed. Furthermore, also the limit of the discrete family of Virasoro minimal models is investigated. (orig.)

Impact of preoperative diagnosis on patient satisfaction following lumbar spine surgery.

Science.gov (United States)

Crawford, Charles H; Carreon, Leah Y; Bydon, Mohamad; Asher, Anthony L; Glassman, Steven D

2017-06-01

OBJECTIVE Patient satisfaction is a commonly used metric in the current health care environment. While factors that affect patient satisfaction following spine surgery are complex, the authors of this study hypothesized that specific diagnostic groups of patients are more likely to be satisfied after spine surgery and that this is reflected in patient-reported outcome measures. The purpose of this study was to determine if the preoperative diagnosis-disc herniation, stenosis, spondylolisthesis, adjacent segment degeneration, or mechanical disc collapse-would impact patient satisfaction following surgery. METHODS Patients enrolled in the Quality Outcomes Database, formerly known as the National Neurosurgery Quality and Outcomes Database (N 2 QOD), completed patient-reported outcome measures, including the Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) and Numeric Rating Scale (NRS) for back pain (NRS-BP) and leg pain (NRS-LP) preoperatively and 1-year postoperatively. Patients were stratified by diagnosis and by their response to the satisfaction question: 1) surgery met my expectations; 2) I did not improve as much as I hoped, but I would undergo the same operation for the same results; 3) surgery helped, but I would not undergo the same operation for the same results; or 4) I am the same or worse as compared with before surgery. RESULTS A greater proportion of patients with primary disc herniation or spondylolisthesis reported that surgery met expectations (66% and 67%, respectively), followed by recurrent disc herniation and stenosis (59% and 60%, respectively). A smaller proportion of patients who underwent surgery for adjacent segment degeneration or mechanical disc collapse had their expectations met (48% and 41%, respectively). The percentage of patients that would undergo the same surgery again, by diagnostic group, was as follows: disc herniation 88%, recurrent disc herniation 79%, spondylolisthesis 86%, stenosis 82%, adjacent segment disease 75%, and mechanical collapse

Segmented-spectrum detection mechanism for medical x-ray in CdTe

Science.gov (United States)

Shi, Zaifeng; Meng, Qingzhen; Cao, Qingjie; Yao, Suying

2016-01-01

This paper presents a segmented X-ray spectrum detection method based on a layered X-ray detector in Cadmium Telluride (CdTe) substrate. We describe the three-dimensional structure of proposed detector pixel and investigate the matched spectrum-resolving method. Polychromatic X-ray beam enter the CdTe substrate edge on and will be absorbed completely in different thickness varying with photon energy. Discrete potential wells are formed under external controlling voltage to collect the photo-electrons generated in different layers, and segmented X-ray spectrum can be deduced from the quantity of photo-electrons. In this work, we verify the feasibility of the segmented-spectrum detection mechanism by simulating the absorption of monochromatic X-ray in a CdTe substrate. Experiments in simulation show that the number of photo-electrons grow exponentially with the increase of incident thickness, and photons with different energy will be absorbed in various thickness. The charges generated in different layers are collected into adjacent potential wells, and collection efficiency is estimated to be about 87% for different incident intensity under the 40000V/cm electric field. Errors caused by charge sharing between neighboring layers are also analyzed, and it can be considered negligible by setting appropriate size of electrodes.

Modelling and Optimization of Four-Segment Shielding Coils of Current Transformers.

Science.gov (United States)

Gao, Yucheng; Zhao, Wei; Wang, Qing; Qu, Kaifeng; Li, He; Shao, Haiming; Huang, Songling

2017-05-26

Applying shielding coils is a practical way to protect current transformers (CTs) for large-capacity generators from the intensive magnetic interference produced by adjacent bus-bars. The aim of this study is to build a simple analytical model for the shielding coils, from which the optimization of the shielding coils can be calculated effectively. Based on an existing stray flux model, a new analytical model for the leakage flux of partial coils is presented, and finite element method-based simulations are carried out to develop empirical equations for the core-pickup factors of the models. Using the flux models, a model of the common four-segment shielding coils is derived. Furthermore, a theoretical analysis is carried out on the optimal performance of the four-segment shielding coils in a typical six-bus-bars scenario. It turns out that the "all parallel" shielding coils with a 45° starting position have the best shielding performance, whereas the "separated loop" shielding coils with a 0° starting position feature the lowest heating value. Physical experiments were performed, which verified all the models and the conclusions proposed in the paper. In addition, for shielding coils with other than the four-segment configuration, the analysis process will generally be the same.

Segmented block copolymers with monodisperse aramide end-segments

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Araichimani, A.; Gaymans, R.J.

2008-01-01

Segmented block copolymers were synthesized using monodisperse diaramide (TT) as hard segments and PTMO with a molecular weight of 2 900 g · mol-1 as soft segments. The aramide: PTMO segment ratio was increased from 1:1 to 2:1 thereby changing the structure from a high molecular weight multi-block

A dam for retrograde axonal degeneration in multiple sclerosis?

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Balk, L.J.; Twisk, J.W.R.; Steenwijk, M.D.; Daams, M.; Tewarie, P.; Killestein, J.; Uitdehaag, B.M.J.; Polman, C.H.; Petzold, A.F.S.

2014-01-01

Objective: Trans-synaptic axonal degeneration is a mechanism by which neurodegeneration can spread from a sick to a healthy neuron in the central nervous system. This study investigated to what extent trans-synaptic axonal degeneration takes place within the visual pathway in multiple sclerosis

Segmentation of consumer's markets and evaluation of market's segments

OpenAIRE

ŠVECOVÁ, Iveta

2013-01-01

The goal of this bachelor thesis was to explain a possibly segmentation of consumer´s markets for a chosen company, and to present a suitable goods offer, so it would be suitable to the needs of selected segments. The work is divided into theoretical and practical part. First part describes marketing, segmentation, segmentation of consumer's markets, consumer's market, market's segments a other terms. Second part describes an evaluation of questionnaire survey, discovering of market's segment...

Hybrid dynamic stabilization: a biomechanical assessment of adjacent and supraadjacent levels of the lumbar spine.

Science.gov (United States)

Mageswaran, Prasath; Techy, Fernando; Colbrunn, Robb W; Bonner, Tara F; McLain, Robert F

2012-09-01

The object of this study was to evaluate the effect of hybrid dynamic stabilization on adjacent levels of the lumbar spine. Seven human spine specimens from T-12 to the sacrum were used. The following conditions were implemented: 1) intact spine; 2) fusion of L4-5 with bilateral pedicle screws and titanium rods; and 3) supplementation of the L4-5 fusion with pedicle screw dynamic stabilization constructs at L3-4, with the purpose of protecting the L3-4 level from excessive range of motion (ROM) and to create a smoother motion transition to the rest of the lumbar spine. An industrial robot was used to apply continuous pure moment (± 2 Nm) in flexion-extension with and without a follower load, lateral bending, and axial rotation. Intersegmental rotations of the fused, dynamically stabilized, and adjacent levels were measured and compared. In flexion-extension only, the rigid instrumentation at L4-5 caused a 78% decrease in the segment's ROM when compared with the intact specimen. To compensate, it caused an increase in motion at adjacent levels L1-2 (45.6%) and L2-3 (23.2%) only. The placement of the dynamic construct at L3-4 decreased the operated level's ROM by 80.4% (similar stability as the fusion at L4-5), when compared with the intact specimen, and caused a significant increase in motion at all tested adjacent levels. In flexion-extension with a follower load, instrumentation at L4-5 affected only a subadjacent level, L5-sacrum (52.0%), while causing a reduction in motion at the operated level (L4-5, -76.4%). The dynamic construct caused a significant increase in motion at the adjacent levels T12-L1 (44.9%), L1-2 (57.3%), and L5-sacrum (83.9%), while motion at the operated level (L3-4) was reduced by 76.7%. In lateral bending, instrumentation at L4-5 increased motion at only T12-L1 (22.8%). The dynamic construct at L3-4 caused an increase in motion at T12-L1 (69.9%), L1-2 (59.4%), L2-3 (44.7%), and L5-sacrum (43.7%). In axial rotation, only the placement of

Ecological transition predictably associated with gene degeneration.

Science.gov (United States)

Wessinger, Carolyn A; Rausher, Mark D

2015-02-01

Gene degeneration or loss can significantly contribute to phenotypic diversification, but may generate genetic constraints on future evolutionary trajectories, potentially restricting phenotypic reversal. Such constraints may manifest as directional evolutionary trends when parallel phenotypic shifts consistently involve gene degeneration or loss. Here, we demonstrate that widespread parallel evolution in Penstemon from blue to red flowers predictably involves the functional inactivation and degeneration of the enzyme flavonoid 3',5'-hydroxylase (F3'5'H), an anthocyanin pathway enzyme required for the production of blue floral pigments. Other types of genetic mutations do not consistently accompany this phenotypic shift. This pattern may be driven by the relatively large mutational target size of degenerative mutations to this locus and the apparent lack of associated pleiotropic effects. The consistent degeneration of F3'5'H may provide a mechanistic explanation for the observed asymmetry in the direction of flower color evolution in Penstemon: Blue to red transitions are common, but reverse transitions have not been observed. Although phenotypic shifts in this system are likely driven by natural selection, internal constraints may generate predictable genetic outcomes and may restrict future evolutionary trajectories. © The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Cryopreserved embryo transfer: adjacent or non-adjacent to failed fresh long GnRH-agonist protocol IVF cycle.

Science.gov (United States)

Volodarsky-Perel, Alexander; Eldar-Geva, Talia; Holzer, Hananel E G; Schonberger, Oshrat; Reichman, Orna; Gal, Michael

2017-03-01

The optimal time to perform cryopreserved embryo transfer (CET) after a failed oocyte retrieval-embryo transfer (OR-ET) cycle is unknown. Similar clinical pregnancy rates were recently reported in immediate and delayed CET, performed after failed fresh OR-ET, in cycles with the gonadotrophin-releasing hormone (GnRH) antagonist protocol. This study compared outcomes of CET performed adjacently (<50 days, n = 67) and non-adjacently (≥50 to 120 days, n = 62) to the last OR-day of cycles with the GnRH agonist down-regulation protocol. Additional inclusion criteria were patients' age 20-38 years, the transfer of only 1-2 cryopreserved embryos, one treatment cycle per patient and artificial preparation for CET. Significantly higher implantation, clinical pregnancy and live birth rates were found in the non-adjacent group than in the adjacent group: 30.5% versus 11.3% (P = 0.001), 41.9% versus 17.9% (P = 0.003) and 32.3% versus 13.4% (P = 0.01), respectively. These results support the postponement of CET after a failed OR-ET for at least one menstrual cycle, when a preceding long GnRH-agonist protocol is used. Copyright © 2016 Reproductive Healthcare Ltd. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Qualitative and quantitative assessment of degeneration of cervical intervertebral discs and facet joints.

Science.gov (United States)

Walraevens, Joris; Liu, Baoge; Meersschaert, Joke; Demaerel, Philippe; Delye, Hans; Depreitere, Bart; Vander Sloten, Jos; Goffin, Jan

2009-03-01

Degeneration of intervertebral discs and facet joints is one of the most frequently encountered spinal disorders. In order to describe and quantify degeneration and evaluate a possible relationship between degeneration and biomechanical parameters, e.g., the intervertebral range of motion and intradiscal pressure, a scoring system for degeneration is mandatory. However, few scoring systems for the assessment of degeneration of the cervical spine exist. Therefore, two separate objective scoring systems to qualitatively and quantitatively assess the degree of cervical intervertebral disc and facet joint degeneration were developed and validated. The scoring system for cervical disc degeneration consists of three variables which are individually scored on neutral lateral radiographs: "height loss" (0-4 points), "anterior osteophytes" (0-3 points) and "endplate sclerosis" (0-2 points). The scoring system for facet joint degeneration consists of four variables which are individually scored on neutral computed tomography scans: "hypertrophy" (0-2 points), "osteophytes" (0-1 point), "irregularity" on the articular surface (0-1 point) and "joint space narrowing" (0-1 point). Each variable contributes with varying importance to the overall degeneration score (max 9 points for the scoring system of cervical disc degeneration and max 5 points for facet joint degeneration). Degeneration of 20 discs and facet joints of 20 patients was blindly assessed by four raters: two neurosurgeons (one senior and one junior) and two radiologists (one senior and one junior), firstly based on first subjective impression and secondly using the scoring systems. Measurement errors and inter- and intra-rater agreement were determined. The measurement error of the scoring system for cervical disc degeneration was 11.1 versus 17.9% of the subjective impression results. This scoring system showed excellent intra-rater agreement (ICC = 0.86, 0.75-0.93) and excellent inter-rater agreement (ICC = 0

Axonal degeneration in association with carpal tunnel syndrome Degeneração axonal na síndrome do túnel do carpo

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marcelo Ribeiro Caetano

2003-03-01

Full Text Available Median nerve entrapment in the palm to wrist segment is known as carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS. Electromyography is the best evaluation test to confirm the disease, as it shows a median reduced conduction velocity and/or conduction block; however, the usual CTS electrodiagnostic tests do not separate segmental demyelination alone from segmental demyelination plus secondary axonal degeneration. We studied 100 hands from CTS patients (classified as mild, moderate, and severe, and 50 hands from normal subjects. The median palmar sensory nerve action potential (SNAP amplitude was measured and compared between the two groups. It would be expected that SNAP was normal if no axonal degeneration had occurred. The results showed that in mild CTS group and part of moderate CTS group SNAP amplitude was normal, whereas in severe CTS group, and part of moderate group SNAP amplitude was reduced, proving that axonal degeneration was involved. As it is well stated that axonal lesions have worse prognosis than segmental demyelinating ones, this simple test may help to preditic the CTS outcome and treatment.A compressão do nervo mediano no segmento punho-palma produz uma entidade clínica conhecida como síndrome do túnel do carpo (STC. A eletroneuromiografia é o exame de escolha para o diagnóstico da STC, através da identificação de diminuição de velocidade e/ou bloqueio de condução quando estudamos a neurocondução do nervo mediano, no trecho do punho. Entretanto, as técnicas comumente usadas não conseguem separar a lesão em mielínica focal com ou sem degeneração axonal secundária. Avaliamos 100 mãos de pacientes com STC e comparamos com 50 mãos de um grupo controle. Medimos a amplitude do potencial de ação do nervo sensitivo do mediano, com estímulo na palma e captação no dedo, e comparamos entre os grupos controle e de pacientes (o grupo de STC foi subdividido em leve, moderado e grave. Era esperado que a amplitude do potencial

Self-reported optometric practise patterns in age-related macular degeneration.

Science.gov (United States)

Ly, Angelica; Nivison-Smith, Lisa; Zangerl, Barbara; Assaad, Nagi; Kalloniatis, Michael

2017-11-01

The use of advanced imaging in clinical practice is emerging and the use of this technology by optometrists in assessing patients with age-related macular degeneration is of interest. Therefore, this study explored contemporary, self-reported patterns of practice regarding age-related macular degeneration diagnosis and management using a cross-sectional survey of optometrists in Australia and New Zealand. Practising optometrists were surveyed on four key areas, namely, demographics, clinical skills and experience, assessment and management of age-related macular degeneration. Questions pertaining to self-rated competency, knowledge and attitudes used a five-point Likert scale. Completed responses were received from 127 and 87 practising optometrists in Australia and New Zealand, respectively. Advanced imaging showed greater variation in service delivery than traditional techniques (such as slitlamp funduscopy) and trended toward optical coherence tomography, which was routinely performed in age-related macular degeneration by 49 per cent of respondents. Optical coherence tomography was also associated with higher self-rated competency, knowledge and perceived relevance to practice than other modalities. Most respondents (93 per cent) indicated that they regularly applied patient symptoms, case history, visual function results and signs from traditional testing, when queried about their management of patients with age-related macular degeneration. Over half (63 per cent) also considered advanced imaging, while 31 per cent additionally considered all of these as well as the disease stage and clinical guidelines. Contrary to the evidence base, 68 and 34 per cent rated nutritional supplements as highly relevant or relevant in early age-related macular degeneration and normal aging changes, respectively. These results highlight the emergence of multimodal and advanced imaging (especially optical coherence tomography) in the assessment of age-related macular degeneration

Electromagnetic solitons in degenerate relativistic electron–positron plasma

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Berezhiani, V I; Shatashvili, N L; Tsintsadze, N L

2015-01-01

The existence of soliton-like electromagnetic (EM) distributions in a fully degenerate electron–positron plasma is studied applying relativistic hydrodynamic and Maxwell equations. For a circularly polarized wave it is found that the soliton solutions exist both in relativistic as well as nonrelativistic degenerate plasmas. Plasma density in the region of soliton pulse localization is reduced considerably. The possibility of plasma cavitation is also shown. (invited comment)

An efficient global energy optimization approach for robust 3D plane segmentation of point clouds

Science.gov (United States)

Dong, Zhen; Yang, Bisheng; Hu, Pingbo; Scherer, Sebastian

2018-03-01

Automatic 3D plane segmentation is necessary for many applications including point cloud registration, building information model (BIM) reconstruction, simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM), and point cloud compression. However, most of the existing 3D plane segmentation methods still suffer from low precision and recall, and inaccurate and incomplete boundaries, especially for low-quality point clouds collected by RGB-D sensors. To overcome these challenges, this paper formulates the plane segmentation problem as a global energy optimization because it is robust to high levels of noise and clutter. First, the proposed method divides the raw point cloud into multiscale supervoxels, and considers planar supervoxels and individual points corresponding to nonplanar supervoxels as basic units. Then, an efficient hybrid region growing algorithm is utilized to generate initial plane set by incrementally merging adjacent basic units with similar features. Next, the initial plane set is further enriched and refined in a mutually reinforcing manner under the framework of global energy optimization. Finally, the performances of the proposed method are evaluated with respect to six metrics (i.e., plane precision, plane recall, under-segmentation rate, over-segmentation rate, boundary precision, and boundary recall) on two benchmark datasets. Comprehensive experiments demonstrate that the proposed method obtained good performances both in high-quality TLS point clouds (i.e., http://SEMANTIC3D.NET)

Smarandachely Adjacent-Vertex-Distinguishing Proper Edge Chromatic Number of Cm∨Kn

OpenAIRE

Shunqin Liu

2016-01-01

According to different conditions, researchers have defined a great deal of coloring problems and the corresponding chromatic numbers. Such as, adjacent-vertex-distinguishing total chromatic number, adjacent-vertex-distinguishing proper edge chromatic number, smarandachely-adjacent-vertex-distinguishing proper edge chromatic number, smarandachely-adjacent-vertex-distinguishing proper total chromatic number. And we focus on the smarandachely adjacent-vertex-distinguishing proper edge chromatic...

Segment polarity gene expression in a myriapod reveals conserved and diverged aspects of early head patterning in arthropods.

Science.gov (United States)

Janssen, Ralf

2012-09-01

Arthropods show two kinds of developmental mode. In the so-called long germ developmental mode (as exemplified by the fly Drosophila), all segments are formed almost simultaneously from a preexisting field of cells. In contrast, in the so-called short germ developmental mode (as exemplified by the vast majority of arthropods), only the anterior segments are patterned similarly as in Drosophila, and posterior segments are added in a single or double segmental periodicity from a posterior segment addition zone (SAZ). The addition of segments from the SAZ is controlled by dynamic waves of gene activity. Recent studies on a spider have revealed that a similar dynamic process, involving expression of the segment polarity gene (SPG) hedgehog (hh), is involved in the formation of the anterior head segments. The present study shows that in the myriapod Glomeris marginata the early expression of hh is also in a broad anterior domain, but this domain corresponds only to the ocular and antennal segment. It does not, like in spiders, represent expression in the posterior adjacent segment. In contrast, the anterior hh pattern is conserved in Glomeris and insects. All investigated myriapod SPGs and associated factors are expressed with delay in the premandibular (tritocerebral) segment. This delay is exclusively found in insects and myriapods, but not in chelicerates, crustaceans and onychophorans. Therefore, it may represent a synapomorphy uniting insects and myriapods (Atelocerata hypothesis), contradicting the leading opinion that suggests a sister relationship of crustaceans and insects (Pancrustacea hypothesis). In Glomeris embryos, the SPG engrailed is first expressed in the mandibular segment. This feature is conserved in representatives of all arthropod classes suggesting that the mandibular segment may have a special function in anterior patterning.

Localized thermonuclear runaways and volcanoes on degenerate dwarf stars

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Shara, M.M.

1982-10-15

Practically all studies to date of thermonuclear runaways on degenerate dwarf stars in binary systems have considered only spherically symmetric eruptions. We emphasize that even slightly non-spherically symmetric accretion leads to transverse temperature gradients in the dwarfs' accreted envelopes. Over a rather broad range of parameter space, thermalization time scales in accreted envelopes are much longer than thermonuclear runaway time scales. Thus localized thermonuclear runaways (i.e., runaways much smaller than the host degenerate star) rather than spherically symmetric global eruptions are likely to occur on many degenerate dwarfs. Localized runaways are more likely to occur on more massive and/or hotter dwarfs.

[Depression in Patients with Age-Related Macular Degeneration].

Science.gov (United States)

Narváez, Yamile Reveiz; Gómez-Restrepo, Carlos

2012-09-01

Age-related macular degeneration is a cause for disability in the elderly since it greatly affects their quality of life and increases depression likelihood. This article discusses the negative effect depression has on patients with age-related macular degeneration and summarizes the interventions available for decreasing their depression index. Copyright © 2012 Asociación Colombiana de Psiquiatría. Publicado por Elsevier España. All rights reserved.

Age-Related Macular Degeneration.

Science.gov (United States)

Mehta, Sonia

2015-09-01

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of vision loss in the elderly. AMD is diagnosed based on characteristic retinal findings in individuals older than 50. Early detection and treatment are critical in increasing the likelihood of retaining good and functional vision. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Sea-floor drainage features of Cascadia Basin and the adjacent continental slope, northeast Pacific Ocean

Science.gov (United States)

Hampton, M.A.; Karl, Herman A.; Kenyon, Neil H.

1989-01-01

Sea-floor drainage features of Cascadia Basin and the adjacent continental slope include canyons, primary fan valleys, deep-sea valleys, and remnant valley segments. Long-range sidescan sonographs and associated seismic-reflection profiles indicate that the canyons may originate along a mid-slope escarpment and grow upslope by mass wasting and downslope by valley erosion or aggradation. Most canyons are partly filled with sediment, and Quillayute Canyon is almost completely filled. Under normal growth conditions, the larger canyons connect with primary fan valleys or deep-sea valleys in Cascadia Basin, but development of accretionary ridges blocks or re-routes most canyons, forcing abandonment of the associated valleys in the basin. Astoria Fan has a primary fan valley that connects with Astoria Canyon at the fan apex. The fan valley is bordered by parallel levees on the upper fan but becomes obscure on the lower fan, where a few valley segments appear on the sonographs. Apparently, Nitinat Fan does not presently have a primary fan valley; none of the numerous valleys on the fan connect with a canyon. The Willapa-Cascadia-Vancouver-Juan de Fuca deep-sea valley system bypasses the submarine fans and includes deeply incised valleys to broad shallow swales, as well as within-valley terraces and hanging-valley confluences. ?? 1989.

Structure of stable degeneration of K3 surfaces into pairs of rational elliptic surfaces

OpenAIRE

Kimura, Yusuke

2018-01-01

F-theory/heterotic duality is formulated in the stable degeneration limit of a K3 fibration on the F-theory side. In this note, we analyze the structure of the stable degeneration limit. We discuss whether stable degeneration exists for pairs of rational elliptic surfaces. We demonstrate that, when two rational elliptic surfaces have an identical complex structure, stable degeneration always exists. We provide an equation that systematically describes the stable degeneration of a K3 surface i...

Assessing the scale of tumor heterogeneity by complete hierarchical segmentation of MRI.

Science.gov (United States)

Gensheimer, Michael F; Hawkins, Douglas S; Ermoian, Ralph P; Trister, Andrew D

2015-02-07

In many cancers, intratumoral heterogeneity has been found in histology, genetic variation and vascular structure. We developed an algorithm to interrogate different scales of heterogeneity using clinical imaging. We hypothesize that heterogeneity of perfusion at coarse scale may correlate with treatment resistance and propensity for disease recurrence. The algorithm recursively segments the tumor image into increasingly smaller regions. Each dividing line is chosen so as to maximize signal intensity difference between the two regions. This process continues until the tumor has been divided into single voxels, resulting in segments at multiple scales. For each scale, heterogeneity is measured by comparing each segmented region to the adjacent region and calculating the difference in signal intensity histograms. Using digital phantom images, we showed that the algorithm is robust to image artifacts and various tumor shapes. We then measured the primary tumor scales of contrast enhancement heterogeneity in MRI of 18 rhabdomyosarcoma patients. Using Cox proportional hazards regression, we explored the influence of heterogeneity parameters on relapse-free survival. Coarser scale of maximum signal intensity heterogeneity was prognostic of shorter survival (p = 0.05). By contrast, two fractal parameters and three Haralick texture features were not prognostic. In summary, our algorithm produces a biologically motivated segmentation of tumor regions and reports the amount of heterogeneity at various distance scales. If validated on a larger dataset, this prognostic imaging biomarker could be useful to identify patients at higher risk for recurrence and candidates for alternative treatment.

Degeneration of Bethe subalgebras in the Yangian of gl_n

Science.gov (United States)

Ilin, Aleksei; Rybnikov, Leonid

2018-04-01

We study degenerations of Bethe subalgebras B( C) in the Yangian Y(gl_n), where C is a regular diagonal matrix. We show that closure of the parameter space of the family of Bethe subalgebras, which parameterizes all possible degenerations, is the Deligne-Mumford moduli space of stable rational curves \\overline{M_{0,n+2}}. All subalgebras corresponding to the points of \\overline{M_{0,n+2}} are free and maximal commutative. We describe explicitly the "simplest" degenerations and show that every degeneration is the composition of the simplest ones. The Deligne-Mumford space \\overline{M_{0,n+2}} generalizes to other root systems as some De Concini-Procesi resolution of some toric variety. We state a conjecture generalizing our results to Bethe subalgebras in the Yangian of arbitrary simple Lie algebra in terms of this De Concini-Procesi resolution.

Genetics of lattice degeneration of the retina.

Science.gov (United States)

Murakami, F; Ohba, N

1982-01-01

First-degree relatives of proband patients with lattice degeneration of the retina revealed a significantly higher prevalence of the disease than the prevalence in the general population: the former had the disease about three times as frequently as the latter. The observed data were analyzed in terms of their accordance with recognized genetic models. The inheritance pattern did not fit well to a monogenic mode of inheritance, and it was hypothesized that a polygenic or multifactorial mode of inheritance is the most likely for lattice degeneration of the retina.

PATTERNS OF FUNDUS AUTOFLUORESCENCE DEFECTS IN NEOVASCULAR AGE-RELATED MACULAR DEGENERATION SUBTYPES.

Science.gov (United States)

Ozkok, Ahmet; Sigford, Douglas K; Tezel, Tongalp H

2016-11-01

To test define characteristic fundus autofluorescence patterns of different exudative age-related macular degeneration subtypes. Cross-sectional study. Fifty-two patients with choroidal neovascularization because of three different neovascular age-related macular degeneration subtypes were included in the study. Macular and peripheral fundus autofluorescence patterns of study subjects were compared in a masked fashion. Fundus autofluorescence patterns of all three neovascular age-related macular degeneration subtypes revealed similar patterns. However, peripapillary hypo-autofluorescence was more common among patients with polypoidal choroidal vasculopathy (88.2%) compared with patients with retinal angiomatous proliferation (12.5%) and patients without retinal angiomatous proliferation and polypoidal choroidal vasculopathy (21.1%) (P autofluorescence defects in neovascular age-related macular degeneration maybe suggestive of polypoidal choroidal vasculopathy as a variant of neovascular age-related macular degeneration.

The impact of policy guidelines on hospital antibiotic use over a decade: a segmented time series analysis.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sujith J Chandy

Full Text Available Antibiotic pressure contributes to rising antibiotic resistance. Policy guidelines encourage rational prescribing behavior, but effectiveness in containing antibiotic use needs further assessment. This study therefore assessed the patterns of antibiotic use over a decade and analyzed the impact of different modes of guideline development and dissemination on inpatient antibiotic use.Antibiotic use was calculated monthly as defined daily doses (DDD per 100 bed days for nine antibiotic groups and overall. This time series compared trends in antibiotic use in five adjacent time periods identified as 'Segments,' divided based on differing modes of guideline development and implementation: Segment 1--Baseline prior to antibiotic guidelines development; Segment 2--During preparation of guidelines and booklet dissemination; Segment 3--Dormant period with no guidelines dissemination; Segment 4--Booklet dissemination of revised guidelines; Segment 5--Booklet dissemination of revised guidelines with intranet access. Regression analysis adapted for segmented time series and adjusted for seasonality assessed changes in antibiotic use trend.Overall antibiotic use increased at a monthly rate of 0.95 (SE = 0.18, 0.21 (SE = 0.08 and 0.31 (SE = 0.06 for Segments 1, 2 and 3, stabilized in Segment 4 (0.05; SE = 0.10 and declined in Segment 5 (-0.37; SE = 0.11. Segments 1, 2 and 4 exhibited seasonal fluctuations. Pairwise segmented regression adjusted for seasonality revealed a significant drop in monthly antibiotic use of 0.401 (SE = 0.089; p<0.001 for Segment 5 compared to Segment 4. Most antibiotic groups showed similar trends to overall use.Use of overall and specific antibiotic groups showed varied patterns and seasonal fluctuations. Containment of rising overall antibiotic use was possible during periods of active guideline dissemination. Wider access through intranet facilitated significant decline in use. Stakeholders and policy

Sequential changes in MR imaging of human wallerian degeneration

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Orita, Tetsuji; Tsurutani, Tohru; Izumihara, Akifumi; Kajiwara, Koji (Shuto General Hospital, Yamaguchi (Japan)); Matsunaga, Tokio

1994-05-01

MRI of wallerian degeneration of the pyramidal tract in the brainstem was repeatedly performed on the same coronal slice in 10 patients, who had infarction or hemorrhage of the basal ganglia and had the exact onset of hemiparesis. The processes of wallerian degeneration were divided into four stages by proton-density weighted images. In stage 1, the axon began to degenerate and was destroyed. It occurred during the first 0.7 month and resulted in no signal intensity abnormality. In stage 2, axon debris disappeared from degenerating tracts. Myelin structure was preserved and myelin lipid remained intact. The lipid water ratio in the tissue became large and the tissue was more hydrophobic. From 0.7 to 2.0 months, low signal intensity was observed. In stage 3, subsequent myelin lipid breakdown began and the lipid/water ratio in the tissue tended to be small. There was no abnormal signal intensity. In stage 4, lipid began to be removed from the tissue. The lipid/water ratio became smaller and the tissue became hydrophilic. Gliosis was more prominent. High signal intensity was observed. (author).

Sequential changes in MR imaging of human wallerian degeneration

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Orita, Tetsuji; Tsurutani, Tohru; Izumihara, Akifumi; Kajiwara, Koji; Matsunaga, Tokio.

1994-01-01

MRI of wallerian degeneration of the pyramidal tract in the brainstem was repeatedly performed on the same coronal slice in 10 patients, who had infarction or hemorrhage of the basal ganglia and had the exact onset of hemiparesis. The processes of wallerian degeneration were divided into four stages by proton-density weighted images. In stage 1, the axon began to degenerate and was destroyed. It occurred during the first 0.7 month and resulted in no signal intensity abnormality. In stage 2, axon debris disappeared from degenerating tracts. Myelin structure was preserved and myelin lipid remained intact. The lipid water ratio in the tissue became large and the tissue was more hydrophobic. From 0.7 to 2.0 months, low signal intensity was observed. In stage 3, subsequent myelin lipid breakdown began and the lipid/water ratio in the tissue tended to be small. There was no abnormal signal intensity. In stage 4, lipid began to be removed from the tissue. The lipid/water ratio became smaller and the tissue became hydrophilic. Gliosis was more prominent. High signal intensity was observed. (author)

Pedicle marrow signal intensity changes in the lumbar spine: a manifestation of facet degenerative joint disease

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Morrison, J.L.; Kaplan, P.A.; Dussault, R.G.; Anderson, M.W.

2000-01-01

Objective. Signal intensity changes in lumbar pedicles, similar to those described in vertebral body endplates adjacent to degenerated discs, have been described as an ancillary sign of spondylolysis on MRI. The purpose of this study was to determine whether pedicle marrow signal intensity changes also occur in association with facet degenerative joint disease.Design. Eighty-nine lumbar spine MRI examinations without spondylolysis were reviewed for marrow signal intensity changes in pedicles and vertebral bodies as well as for facet degenerative joint disease.Results. Five percent (46/890) of lumbar pedicles in 23 patients had marrow signal intensity changes. Ninety-one percent (42/46) of the abnormal pedicles had adjacent degenerative joint disease of the facets, while only 21% (189/890) of normal pedicles had adjacent facet degenerative joint disease (p<0.001). Eighty-nine percent (41/46) of the pedicles with marrow signal intensity changes had adjacent degenerative disc disease.Conclusions. Pedicle marrow signal intensity changes are not a specific sign of spondylolysis; they are commonly seen with adjacent facet degenerative joint disease in the absence of spondylolysis. Pedicle marrow signal intensity changes are probably a response to abnormal stresses related to abnormal motion or loading caused by the degenerative changes in the spinal segment. (orig.)

Pedicle marrow signal intensity changes in the lumbar spine: a manifestation of facet degenerative joint disease

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Morrison, J.L.; Kaplan, P.A.; Dussault, R.G.; Anderson, M.W. [Dept. of Radiology, Univ. of Virginia Health System, Charlottesville, VA (United States)

2000-12-01

Objective. Signal intensity changes in lumbar pedicles, similar to those described in vertebral body endplates adjacent to degenerated discs, have been described as an ancillary sign of spondylolysis on MRI. The purpose of this study was to determine whether pedicle marrow signal intensity changes also occur in association with facet degenerative joint disease.Design. Eighty-nine lumbar spine MRI examinations without spondylolysis were reviewed for marrow signal intensity changes in pedicles and vertebral bodies as well as for facet degenerative joint disease.Results. Five percent (46/890) of lumbar pedicles in 23 patients had marrow signal intensity changes. Ninety-one percent (42/46) of the abnormal pedicles had adjacent degenerative joint disease of the facets, while only 21% (189/890) of normal pedicles had adjacent facet degenerative joint disease (p<0.001). Eighty-nine percent (41/46) of the pedicles with marrow signal intensity changes had adjacent degenerative disc disease.Conclusions. Pedicle marrow signal intensity changes are not a specific sign of spondylolysis; they are commonly seen with adjacent facet degenerative joint disease in the absence of spondylolysis. Pedicle marrow signal intensity changes are probably a response to abnormal stresses related to abnormal motion or loading caused by the degenerative changes in the spinal segment. (orig.)

Quantization with maximally degenerate Poisson brackets: the harmonic oscillator!

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nutku, Yavuz

2003-01-01

Nambu's construction of multi-linear brackets for super-integrable systems can be thought of as degenerate Poisson brackets with a maximal set of Casimirs in their kernel. By introducing privileged coordinates in phase space these degenerate Poisson brackets are brought to the form of Heisenberg's equations. We propose a definition for constructing quantum operators for classical functions, which enables us to turn the maximally degenerate Poisson brackets into operators. They pose a set of eigenvalue problems for a new state vector. The requirement of the single-valuedness of this eigenfunction leads to quantization. The example of the harmonic oscillator is used to illustrate this general procedure for quantizing a class of maximally super-integrable systems

Natural history of seminiferous tubule degeneration in Klinefelter syndrome

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Aksglaede, Lise; Wikström, Anne M; Rajpert-De Meyts, Ewa

2006-01-01

Klinefelter syndrome (47,XXY) is characterized by small, firm testis, gynaecomastia, azoospermia and hypergonadotropic hypogonadism. Degeneration of the seminiferous tubules in 47,XXY males is a well-described phenomenon. It begins in the fetus, progresses through infancy and accelerates dramatic......Klinefelter syndrome (47,XXY) is characterized by small, firm testis, gynaecomastia, azoospermia and hypergonadotropic hypogonadism. Degeneration of the seminiferous tubules in 47,XXY males is a well-described phenomenon. It begins in the fetus, progresses through infancy and accelerates...... summarize current knowledge on the development of the classical endocrinological and histological features of 47,XXY males from fetus to adulthood and review the literature concerning the degeneration of the seminiferous tubules in this syndrome....

Suppressing thyroid hormone signaling preserves cone photoreceptors in mouse models of retinal degeneration

OpenAIRE

Ma, Hongwei; Thapa, Arjun; Morris, Lynsie; Redmond, T. Michael; Baehr, Wolfgang; Ding, Xi-Qin

2014-01-01

Photoreceptors degenerate in a wide array of hereditary retinal diseases and age-related macular degeneration. There is currently no treatment available for retinal degenerations. While outnumbered roughly 20:1 by rods in the human retina, it is the cones that mediate color vision and visual acuity, and their survival is critical for vision. In this communication, we investigate whether thyroid hormone (TH) signaling affects cone viability in retinal degeneration mouse models. TH signaling is...

Learning a constrained conditional random field for enhanced segmentation of fallen trees in ALS point clouds

Science.gov (United States)

Polewski, Przemyslaw; Yao, Wei; Heurich, Marco; Krzystek, Peter; Stilla, Uwe

2018-06-01

In this study, we present a method for improving the quality of automatic single fallen tree stem segmentation in ALS data by applying a specialized constrained conditional random field (CRF). The entire processing pipeline is composed of two steps. First, short stem segments of equal length are detected and a subset of them is selected for further processing, while in the second step the chosen segments are merged to form entire trees. The first step is accomplished using the specialized CRF defined on the space of segment labelings, capable of finding segment candidates which are easier to merge subsequently. To achieve this, the CRF considers not only the features of every candidate individually, but incorporates pairwise spatial interactions between adjacent segments into the model. In particular, pairwise interactions include a collinearity/angular deviation probability which is learned from training data as well as the ratio of spatial overlap, whereas unary potentials encode a learned probabilistic model of the laser point distribution around each segment. Each of these components enters the CRF energy with its own balance factor. To process previously unseen data, we first calculate the subset of segments for merging on a grid of balance factors by minimizing the CRF energy. Then, we perform the merging and rank the balance configurations according to the quality of their resulting merged trees, obtained from a learned tree appearance model. The final result is derived from the top-ranked configuration. We tested our approach on 5 plots from the Bavarian Forest National Park using reference data acquired in a field inventory. Compared to our previous segment selection method without pairwise interactions, an increase in detection correctness and completeness of up to 7 and 9 percentage points, respectively, was observed.

Two-year outcomes of transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion.

Science.gov (United States)

Poh, Seng Yew; Yue, Wai Mun; Chen, Li-Tat John; Guo, Chang-Ming; Yeo, William; Tan, Seang-Beng

2011-08-01

To evaluate the outcomes, fusion rates, complications, and adjacent segment degeneration associated with transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion (TLIF). 32 men and 80 women aged 15 to 85 (mean, 57) years underwent 141 fusions (84 one-level, 27 2-level, and one 3-level) and were followed up for 24 to 76 (mean, 33) months. 92% of the patients had degenerative lumbar disease, 15 of whom had had previous lumbar surgery. Radiographic and clinical outcomes were assessed at 2 years. The short-form 36 (SF-36) health survey, visual analogue scale (VAS) for pain, and the modified North American Spine Society (NASS) Low Back Pain Outcome Instrument were used. Of the 141 levels fused, 110 (78%) were fused with remodelling and trabeculae (grade I), and 31 (22%) had intact grafts but were not fully incorporated (grade II). No patient had pseudoarthroses (grade III or IV). For one-level fusions, poorer radiological fusion grades correlated with higher VAS scores for pain (p<0.01). All components of the SF-36, the VAS scores for pain, and the NASS scores improved significantly after TLIF (p<0.01), except for general health in the SF-36 (p=0.59). Improvement from postoperative 6 months to 2 years was not significant, except for physical function (p<0.01) and role function (physical) [p=0.01] in the SF-36. Two years after TLIF, 50% of the patients reported returning to full function, whereas 72% were satisfied. 26 (23%) of the patients had adjacent segment degeneration, but only 4 of them were symptomatic. TLIF is a safe and effective treatment for degenerative lumbar diseases.

Association of suprascapular neuropathy with rotator cuff tendon tears and fatty degeneration.

Science.gov (United States)

Shi, Lewis L; Boykin, Robert E; Lin, Albert; Warner, Jon J P

2014-03-01

The mutual influence of suprascapular neuropathy (SSN) and rotator cuff tendon tears on muscle pathology is unclear. Debate continues as to how retracted cuff tears can lead to SSN and whether SSN or tendon retraction causes muscle fatty degeneration. A cohort of 87 patients suspected of having SSN was identified from a prospectively collected registry. All underwent electromyography/nerve conduction velocity study (EMG/NCV) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of their shoulders. EMG/NCVs were performed and interpreted by electrodiagnosticians, and MRI cuff tendon quality and muscle fatty degeneration were interpreted by two surgeons. Out of 87 patients, 32 patients had SSN on EMG/NCV, and 55 patients had normal suprascapular nerve. MRI showed that 59 of 87 supraspinatus had no fatty degeneration or mild fatty streaks (Goutallier grades 0 and 1), and 28 patients had significant fatty degeneration (grades 2-4); infraspinatus fatty degeneration was similar. Review of supraspinatus tendon showed 41 patients with intact tendons or partial tears, and 46 with full tears. Infraspinatus tendons pathology was similar. Tendon pathology and fatty degeneration were related (P-valuetears were associated with SSN (P = .01), but SSN was not related to fatty degeneration of either supraspinatus or infraspinatus (P-values .65, .54). The exact association and etiology of SSN in patients with rotator cuff pathology remain unclear. SSN is correlated to tendon tear size, but it does not have significant influence on fatty degeneration of either supraspinatus or infraspinatus. Copyright © 2014 Journal of Shoulder and Elbow Surgery Board of Trustees. Published by Mosby, Inc. All rights reserved.

A Split-and-Merge-Based Uterine Fibroid Ultrasound Image Segmentation Method in HIFU Therapy.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Menglong Xu

Full Text Available High-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU therapy has been used to treat uterine fibroids widely and successfully. Uterine fibroid segmentation plays an important role in positioning the target region for HIFU therapy. Presently, it is completed by physicians manually, reducing the efficiency of therapy. Thus, computer-aided segmentation of uterine fibroids benefits the improvement of therapy efficiency. Recently, most computer-aided ultrasound segmentation methods have been based on the framework of contour evolution, such as snakes and level sets. These methods can achieve good performance, although they need an initial contour that influences segmentation results. It is difficult to obtain the initial contour automatically; thus, the initial contour is always obtained manually in many segmentation methods. A split-and-merge-based uterine fibroid segmentation method, which needs no initial contour to ensure less manual intervention, is proposed in this paper. The method first splits the image into many small homogeneous regions called superpixels. A new feature representation method based on texture histogram is employed to characterize each superpixel. Next, the superpixels are merged according to their similarities, which are measured by integrating their Quadratic-Chi texture histogram distances with their space adjacency. Multi-way Ncut is used as the merging criterion, and an adaptive scheme is incorporated to decrease manual intervention further. The method is implemented using Matlab on a personal computer (PC platform with Intel Pentium Dual-Core CPU E5700. The method is validated on forty-two ultrasound images acquired from HIFU therapy. The average running time is 9.54 s. Statistical results showed that SI reaches a value as high as 87.58%, and normHD is 5.18% on average. It has been demonstrated that the proposed method is appropriate for segmentation of uterine fibroids in HIFU pre-treatment imaging and planning.

Genetic association of apolipoprotein E with age-related macular degeneration

NARCIS (Netherlands)

M. Kliffen (Mike); C.M. van Duijn (Cornelia); M. Cruts (Marc); D.E. Grobbee (Diederick); P.T.V.M. de Jong (Paulus); C.C.W. Klaver (Caroline); C. van Broeckhoven (Christine); A. Hofman (Albert)

1998-01-01

textabstractAge-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the most common geriatric eye disorder leading to blindness and is characterized by degeneration of the neuroepithelium in the macular area of the eye. Apolipoprotein E (apoE), the major apolipoprotein of the CNS and an

Subretinally transplanted embryonic stem cells rescue photoreceptor cells from degeneration in the RCS rats.

Science.gov (United States)

Schraermeyer, U; Thumann, G; Luther, T; Kociok, N; Armhold, S; Kruttwig, K; Andressen, C; Addicks, K; Bartz-Schmidt, K U

2001-01-01

The Royal College of Surgeons (RCS) rat is an animal model for retinal degeneration such as the age-related macular degeneration. The RCS rat undergoes a progressive retinal degeneration during the early postnatal period. A potential treatment to prevent this retinal degeneration is the transplantation into the subretinal space of cells that would replace functions of the degenerating retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cells or may form neurotrophic factors. In this study we have investigated the potential of subretinally transplanted embryonic stem cells to prevent the genetically determined photoreceptor cell degeneration in the RCS rat. Embryonic stem cells from the inner cell mass of the mouse blastocyst were allowed to differentiate to neural precursor cells in vitro and were then transplanted into the subretinal space of 20-day-old RCS rats. Transplanted and sham-operated rats were sacrificed 2 months following cell transplantation. The eyes were enucleated and photoreceptor degeneration was quantified by analyzing and determining the thickness of the outer nuclear layer by light and electron microscopy. In the eyes transplanted with embryonic cells up to 8 rows of photoreceptor cell nuclei were observed, whereas in nontreated control eyes the outer nuclear layer had degenerated completely. Transplantation of embryonic stem cells appears to delay photoreceptor cell degeneration in RCS rats.

Fully automated segmentation of left ventricle using dual dynamic programming in cardiac cine MR images

Science.gov (United States)

Jiang, Luan; Ling, Shan; Li, Qiang

2016-03-01

Cardiovascular diseases are becoming a leading cause of death all over the world. The cardiac function could be evaluated by global and regional parameters of left ventricle (LV) of the heart. The purpose of this study is to develop and evaluate a fully automated scheme for segmentation of LV in short axis cardiac cine MR images. Our fully automated method consists of three major steps, i.e., LV localization, LV segmentation at end-diastolic phase, and LV segmentation propagation to the other phases. First, the maximum intensity projection image along the time phases of the midventricular slice, located at the center of the image, was calculated to locate the region of interest of LV. Based on the mean intensity of the roughly segmented blood pool in the midventricular slice at each phase, end-diastolic (ED) and end-systolic (ES) phases were determined. Second, the endocardial and epicardial boundaries of LV of each slice at ED phase were synchronously delineated by use of a dual dynamic programming technique. The external costs of the endocardial and epicardial boundaries were defined with the gradient values obtained from the original and enhanced images, respectively. Finally, with the advantages of the continuity of the boundaries of LV across adjacent phases, we propagated the LV segmentation from the ED phase to the other phases by use of dual dynamic programming technique. The preliminary results on 9 clinical cardiac cine MR cases show that the proposed method can obtain accurate segmentation of LV based on subjective evaluation.

Multi-surface segmentation of OCT images with AMD using sparse high order potentials.

Science.gov (United States)

Oliveira, Jorge; Pereira, Sérgio; Gonçalves, Luís; Ferreira, Manuel; Silva, Carlos A

2017-01-01

In age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the quantification of drusen is important because it is correlated with the evolution of the disease to an advanced stage. Therefore, we propose an algorithm based on a multi-surface framework for the segmentation of the limiting boundaries of drusen: the inner boundary of the retinal pigment epithelium + drusen complex (IRPEDC) and the Bruch's membrane (BM). Several segmentation methods have been considerably successful in segmenting retinal layers of healthy retinas in optical coherence tomography (OCT) images. These methods are successful because they incorporate prior information and regularization. Nonetheless, these factors tend to hinder the segmentation for diseased retinas. The proposed algorithm takes into account the presence of drusen and geographic atrophy (GA) related to AMD by excluding prior information and regularization just valid for healthy regions. However, even with this algorithm, prior information and regularization still cause the oversmoothing of drusen in some locations. Thus, we propose the integration of local shape prior in the form of a sparse high order potentials (SHOPs) into the algorithm to reduce the oversmoothing of drusen. The proposed algorithm was evaluated in a public database. The mean unsigned errors, relative to the average of two experts, for the inner limiting membrane (ILM), IRPEDC and BM were 2.94±2.69, 5.53±5.66 and 4.00±4.00 µ m, respectively. Drusen areas measurements were evaluated, relative to the average of two expert graders, by the mean absolute area difference and overlap ratio, which were 1579.7 ± 2106.8 µ m 2 and 0.78 ± 0.11, respectively.

Aag-initiated base excision repair drives alkylation-induced retinal degeneration in mice.

Science.gov (United States)

Meira, Lisiane B; Moroski-Erkul, Catherine A; Green, Stephanie L; Calvo, Jennifer A; Bronson, Roderick T; Shah, Dharini; Samson, Leona D

2009-01-20

Vision loss affects >3 million Americans and many more people worldwide. Although predisposing genes have been identified their link to known environmental factors is unclear. In wild-type animals DNA alkylating agents induce photoreceptor apoptosis and severe retinal degeneration. Alkylation-induced retinal degeneration is totally suppressed in the absence of the DNA repair protein alkyladenine DNA glycosylase (Aag) in both differentiating and postmitotic retinas. Moreover, transgenic expression of Aag activity restores the alkylation sensitivity of photoreceptors in Aag null animals. Aag heterozygotes display an intermediate level of retinal degeneration, demonstrating haploinsufficiency and underscoring that Aag expression confers a dominant retinal degeneration phenotype.

Some Remarks on Space-Time Decompositions, and Degenerate Metrics, in General Relativity

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Bengtsson, Ingemar

Space-time decomposition of the Hilbert-Palatini action, written in a form which admits degenerate metrics, is considered. Simple numerology shows why D = 3 and 4 are singled out as admitting a simple phase space. The canonical structure of the degenerate sector turns out to be awkward. However, the real degenerate metrics obtained as solutions are the same as those that occur in Ashtekar's formulation of complex general relativity. An exact solution of Ashtekar's equations, with degenerate metric, shows that the manifestly four-dimensional form of the action, and its 3 + 1 form, are not quite equivalent.

Unsupervised motion-based object segmentation refined by color

Science.gov (United States)

Piek, Matthijs C.; Braspenning, Ralph; Varekamp, Chris

2003-06-01

. The presented method has no problems with bifurcations. For the pixel resolution segmentation itself we reclassify pixels such that we optimize an error norm which favour similarly coloured regions and straight edges. SEGMENTATION MEASURE To assist in the evaluation of the proposed algorithm we developed a quality metric. Because the problem does not have an exact specification, we decided to define a ground truth output which we find desirable for a given input. We define the measure for the segmentation quality as being how different the segmentation is from the ground truth. Our measure enables us to evaluate oversegmentation and undersegmentation seperately. Also, it allows us to evaluate which parts of a frame suffer from oversegmentation or undersegmentation. The proposed algorithm has been tested on several typical sequences. CONCLUSIONS In this abstract we presented a new video segmentation method which performs well in the segmentation of multiple independently moving foreground objects from each other and the background. It combines the strong points of both colour and motion segmentation in the way we expected. One of the weak points is that the segmentation method suffers from undersegmentation when adjacent objects display similar motion. In sequences with detailed backgrounds the segmentation will sometimes display noisy edges. Apart from these results, we think that some of the techniques, and in particular the K-regions technique, may be useful for other two-dimensional data segmentation problems.

Retinal Structure Measurements as Inclusion Criteria for Stem Cell-Based Therapies of Retinal Degenerations.

Science.gov (United States)

Jacobson, Samuel G; Matsui, Rodrigo; Sumaroka, Alexander; Cideciyan, Artur V

2016-04-01

We reviewed and illustrated the most optimal retinal structural measurements to make in stem cell clinical trials. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) and autofluorescence (AF) imaging were used to evaluate patients with severe visual loss from nonsyndromic and syndromic retinitis pigmentosa (RP), ABCA4-Stargardt disease, and nonneovascular age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Outer nuclear layer (ONL), rod outer segment (ROS) layer, inner retina, ganglion cell layer (GCL), and nerve fiber layer (NFL) thicknesses were quantified. All patients had severely reduced visual acuities. Retinitis pigmentosa patients had limited visual fields; maculopathy patients had central scotomas with retained peripheral function. For the forms of RP illustrated, there was detectable albeit severely reduced ONL across the scanned retina, and normal or hyperthick GCL and NFL. Maculopathy patients had no measurable ONL centrally; it became detectable with eccentricity. Some maculopathy patients showed unexpected GCL losses. Autofluorescence imaging illustrated central losses of RPE integrity. A hypothetical scheme to relate patient data with different phases of retinal remodeling in animal models of retinal degeneration was presented. Stem cell science is advancing, but it is not too early to open the discussion of criteria for patient selection and monitoring. Available clinical tools, such as OCT and AF imaging, can provide inclusion/exclusion criteria and robust objective outcomes. Accepting that early trials may not lead to miraculous cures, we should be prepared to know why-scientifically and clinically-so we can improve subsequent trials. We also must determine if retinal remodeling is an impediment to efficacy.

Treatment of tailgut cysts by extended distal rectal segmental resection with rectoanal anastomosis.

Science.gov (United States)

Volk, Andreas; Plodeck, Verena; Toma, Marieta; Saeger, Hans-Detlev; Pistorius, Steffen

2017-04-01

Complete surgical resection is the treatment of choice for tailgut cysts, because of their malignant potential and tendency to regrow if incompletely resected. We report our experience of treating patients with tailgut cysts, and discuss diagnostics, surgical approaches, and follow-up. We performed extended distal rectal segmental resection of the tailgut cyst, with rectoanal anastomosis. We report the clinical, radiological, pathological, and surgical findings, describe the procedures performed, and summarize follow-up data. Two patients underwent en-bloc resection of a tailgut cyst, the adjacent part of the levator muscle, and the distal rectal segment, followed by an end-to-end rectoanal anastomosis. There was no evidence of anastomotic leakage postoperatively. At the time of writing, our patients were relapse-free with no, or non-limiting, symptoms of anal incontinence, respectively. This surgical approach appears to have a low complication rate and good recovery outcomes. Moreover, as the sphincter is preserved, so is the postoperative anorectal function. This approach could result in a low recurrence rate.

Genetics Home Reference: Stargardt macular degeneration

Science.gov (United States)

... recognizing faces. In most people with Stargardt macular degeneration , a fatty yellow pigment (lipofuscin) builds up in cells underlying the macula. Over time, the abnormal accumulation of this substance ...

Interstitial telomere-like repeats in the Arabidopsis thaliana genome.

Science.gov (United States)

Uchida, Wakana; Matsunaga, Sachihiro; Sugiyama, Ryuji; Kawano, Shigeyuki

2002-02-01

Eukaryotic chromosomal ends are protected by telomeres, which are thought to play an important role in ensuring the complete replication of chromosomes. On the other hand, non-functional telomere-like repeats in the interchromosomal regions (interstitial telomeric repeats; ITRs) have been reported in several eukaryotes. In this study, we identified eight ITRs in the Arabidopsis thaliana genome, each consisting of complete and degenerate 300- to 1200-bp sequences. The ITRs were grouped into three classes (class IA-B, class II, and class IIIA-E) based on the degeneracy of the telomeric repeats in ITRs. The telomeric repeats of the two ITRs in class I were conserved for the most part, whereas the single ITR in class II, and the five ITRs in class III were relatively degenerated. In addition, degenerate ITRs were surrounded by common sequences that shared 70-100% homology to each other; these are named ITR-adjacent sequences (IAS). Although the genomic regions around ITRs in class I lacked IAS, those around ITRs in class II contained IAS (IASa), and those around five ITRs in class III had nine types of IAS (IASb, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, and j). Ten IAS types in classes II and III showed no significant homology to each other. The chromosomal locations of ITRs and IAS were not category-related, but most of them were adjacent to, or part of, a centromere. These results show that the A. thaliana genome has undergone chromosomal rearrangements, such as end-fusions and segmental duplications.

K-causality and degenerate spacetimes

Science.gov (United States)

Dowker, H. F.; Garcia, R. S.; Surya, S.

2000-11-01

The causal relation K+ was introduced by Sorkin and Woolgar to extend the standard causal analysis of C2 spacetimes to those that are only C0. Most of their results also hold true in the case of metrics with degeneracies which are C0 but vanish at isolated points. In this paper we seek to examine K+ explicitly in the case of topology-changing `Morse histories' which contain degeneracies. We first demonstrate some interesting features of this relation in globally Lorentzian spacetimes. In particular, we show that K+ is robust and the Hawking and Sachs characterization of causal continuity translates into a natural condition in terms of K+. We then examine K+ in topology-changing Morse spacetimes with the degenerate points excised and then for the Morse histories in which the degenerate points are reinstated. We find further characterizations of causal continuity in these cases.

Late complications following cryotherapy of lattice degeneration.

Science.gov (United States)

Benson, W E; Morse, P H; Nantawan, P

1977-10-01

We observed 341 patients who had received cryotherapy for lattice degeneration in order to identify possible late complications. Sequelae such as retinal tears posterior to an operculum or flap tears within treated areas showed that treatment did not necessarily prevent subsequent vitreous traction. Moreover, the newly created flap tears may extend beyond the treated area and can cause retinal detachment. Even scleral buckling did not necesserily prevent further traction. Therefore, we concluded that when cryotherapy is used to treat lattice degeneration, an adequate margin of surrounding retina should be treated and the treatment should extend to the ora serrata.

Degenerate Fermi gas in a combined harmonic-lattice potential

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Blakie, P. B.; Bezett, A.; Buonsante, P.

2007-01-01

In this paper we derive an analytic approximation to the density of states for atoms in a combined optical lattice and harmonic trap potential as used in current experiments with quantum degenerate gases. We compare this analytic density of states to numerical solutions and demonstrate its validity regime. Our work explicitly considers the role of higher bands and when they are important in quantitative analysis of this system. Applying our density of states to a degenerate Fermi gas, we consider how adiabatic loading from a harmonic trap into the combined harmonic-lattice potential affects the degeneracy temperature. Our results suggest that occupation of excited bands during loading should lead to more favorable conditions for realizing degenerate Fermi gases in optical lattices

Wallerian degeneration: the innate-immune response to traumatic nerve injury

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rotshenker Shlomo

2011-08-01

Full Text Available Abstract Traumatic injury to peripheral nerves results in the loss of neural functions. Recovery by regeneration depends on the cellular and molecular events of Wallerian degeneration that injury induces distal to the lesion site, the domain through which severed axons regenerate back to their target tissues. Innate-immunity is central to Wallerian degeneration since innate-immune cells, functions and molecules that are produced by immune and non-immune cells are involved. The innate-immune response helps to turn the peripheral nerve tissue into an environment that supports regeneration by removing inhibitory myelin and by upregulating neurotrophic properties. The characteristics of an efficient innate-immune response are rapid onset and conclusion, and the orchestrated interplay between Schwann cells, fibroblasts, macrophages, endothelial cells, and molecules they produce. Wallerian degeneration serves as a prelude for successful repair when these requirements are met. In contrast, functional recovery is poor when injury fails to produce the efficient innate-immune response of Wallerian degeneration.

An Unusual Case of Extensive Lattice Degeneration and Retinal Detachment.

Science.gov (United States)

Mathew, David J; Sarma, Saurabh Kumar; Basaiawmoit, Jennifer V

2016-07-01

Lattice degeneration of the retina is not infrequently encountered on a dilated retinal examination and many of them do not need any intervention. We report a case of atypical lattice degeneration variant with peripheral retinal detachment. An asymptomatic 35-year-old lady with minimal refractive error was found to have extensive lattice degeneration, peripheral retinal detachment and fibrotic changes peripherally with elevation of retinal vessels on dilated retinal examination. There were also areas of white without pressure, chorioretinal scarring and retinal breaks. All the changes were limited to beyond the equator but were found to span 360 degrees. She was treated with barrage laser all around to prevent extension of the retinal detachment posteriorly. She remained stable till her latest follow-up two years after the barrage laser. This case is reported for its rarity with a discussion of the probable differential diagnoses. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of such findings in lattice degeneration.

Degree of tendon degeneration and stage of rotator cuff disease.

Science.gov (United States)

Jo, Chris Hyunchul; Shin, Won Hyoung; Park, Ji Wan; Shin, Ji Sun; Kim, Ji Eun

2017-07-01

While tendon degeneration has been known to be an important cause of rotator cuff disease, few studies have objectively proven the association of tendon degeneration and rotator cuff disease. The purpose of this study was to investigate changes of tendon degeneration with respect to the stage of rotator cuff disease. A total of 48 patients were included in the study: 12 with tendinopathy, 12 with a partial-thickness tear (pRCT), 12 with a full-thickness tear (fRCT), and 12 as the control. A full-thickness supraspinatus tendon sample was harvested en bloc from the middle portion between the lateral edge and the musculotendinous junction of the tendon using a biopsy punch with a diameter of 3 mm. Harvested samples were evaluated using a semi-quantitative grading scale with 7 parameters after haematoxylin and eosin staining. There was no significant difference in age, gender, symptom duration, and Kellgren-Lawrence grade between the groups except for the global fatty degeneration index. All of the seven parameters were significantly different between the groups and could be categorized as follows: early responders (fibre structure and arrangement), gradual responder (rounding of the nuclei), after-tear responders (cellularity, vascularity, and stainability), and late responder (hyalinization). The total degeneration scores were not significantly different between the control (6.08 ± 1.16) and tendinopathy (6.67 ± 1.83) (n.s.). However, the score of pRCT group (10.42 ± 1.31) was greater than that of tendinopathy (P rotator cuff disease progresses from tendinopathy to pRCT, and then to fRCT. The degree of degeneration of tendinopathy was not different from that of normal but aged tendons, and significant tendon degeneration began from the stage of pRCT. The clinical relevance of the study is that strategies and goals of the treatment for rotator cuff disease should be specific to its stage, in order to prevent disease progression for tendinopathy and pRCT, as

Relativistic many-body XMCD theory including core degenerate effects

Science.gov (United States)

Fujikawa, Takashi

2009-11-01

A many-body relativistic theory to analyze X-ray Magnetic Circular Dichroism (XMCD) spectra has been developed on the basis of relativistic quantum electrodynamic (QED) Keldysh Green's function approach. This theoretical framework enables us to handle relativistic many-body effects in terms of correlated nonrelativistic Green's function and relativistic correction operator Q, which naturally incorporates radiation field screening and other optical field effects in addition to electron-electron interactions. The former can describe the intensity ratio of L2/L3 which deviates from the statistical weight (branching ratio) 1/2. In addition to these effects, we consider the degenerate or nearly degenerate effects of core levels from which photoelectrons are excited. In XPS spectra, for example in Rh 3d sub level excitations, their peak shapes are quite different: This interesting behavior is explained by core-hole moving after the core excitation. We discuss similar problems in X-ray absorption spectra in particular excitation from deep 2p sub levels which are degenerate in each sub levels and nearly degenerate to each other in light elements: The hole left behind is not frozen there. We derive practical multiple scattering formulas which incorporate all those effects.

Identification of Age-Related Macular Degeneration Using OCT Images

Science.gov (United States)

Arabi, Punal M., Dr; Krishna, Nanditha; Ashwini, V.; Prathibha, H. M.

2018-02-01

Age-related Macular Degeneration is the most leading retinal disease in the recent years. Macular degeneration occurs when the central portion of the retina, called macula deteriorates. As the deterioration occurs with the age, it is commonly referred as Age-related Macular Degeneration. This disease can be visualized by several imaging modalities such as Fundus imaging technique, Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) technique and many other. Optical Coherence Tomography is the widely used technique for screening the Age-related Macular Degeneration disease, because it has an ability to detect the very minute changes in the retina. The Healthy and AMD affected OCT images are classified by extracting the Retinal Pigmented Epithelium (RPE) layer of the images using the image processing technique. The extracted layer is sampled, the no. of white pixels in each of the sample is counted and the mean value of the no. of pixels is calculated. The average mean value is calculated for both the Healthy and the AMD affected images and a threshold value is fixed and a decision rule is framed to classify the images of interest. The proposed method showed an accuracy of 75%.

Ataxias and Cerebellar or Spinocerebellar Degeneration

Science.gov (United States)

... and conducts a broad range of basic and clinical research on cerebellar and spinocerebellar degeneration, including work aimed at finding the cause(s) of ataxias and ways to ... Publications Definition Ataxia ...

The effects of wallerian degeneration of the optic radiations demonstrated by MRI

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Savoiardo, M.; Grisoli, M.; Forester, M.; D' Incerti, L.; Farina, L. (Dept. of Neuroradiology, Ist. Nazionale Neurologico C. Besta, Milan (Italy)); Pareyson, D. (Dept. of Neurology, Ist. Nazionale Neurologico C. Besta, Milan (Italy))

1992-08-01

The effects of wallerian degeneration can be demonstrated by MRI as abnormal signal along the course of the degenerate fibres; they have previously been reported in the corticospinal tract. We report two cases of wallerian degeneration of the right optic radiations due to lesions of the right lateral geniculate body. The anatomy and the MRI visibility of the normal optic radiations are briefly discussed. (orig.).

The effects of wallerian degeneration of the optic radiations demonstrated by MRI

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Savoiardo, M.; Grisoli, M.; Forester, M.; D'Incerti, L.; Farina, L.; Pareyson, D.

1992-01-01

The effects of wallerian degeneration can be demonstrated by MRI as abnormal signal along the course of the degenerate fibres; they have previously been reported in the corticospinal tract. We report two cases of wallerian degeneration of the right optic radiations due to lesions of the right lateral geniculate body. The anatomy and the MRI visibility of the normal optic radiations are briefly discussed. (orig.)

Assessing the scale of tumor heterogeneity by complete hierarchical segmentation of MRI

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gensheimer, Michael F; Ermoian, Ralph P; Hawkins, Douglas S; Trister, Andrew D

2015-01-01

In many cancers, intratumoral heterogeneity has been found in histology, genetic variation and vascular structure. We developed an algorithm to interrogate different scales of heterogeneity using clinical imaging. We hypothesize that heterogeneity of perfusion at coarse scale may correlate with treatment resistance and propensity for disease recurrence. The algorithm recursively segments the tumor image into increasingly smaller regions. Each dividing line is chosen so as to maximize signal intensity difference between the two regions. This process continues until the tumor has been divided into single voxels, resulting in segments at multiple scales. For each scale, heterogeneity is measured by comparing each segmented region to the adjacent region and calculating the difference in signal intensity histograms. Using digital phantom images, we showed that the algorithm is robust to image artifacts and various tumor shapes. We then measured the primary tumor scales of contrast enhancement heterogeneity in MRI of 18 rhabdomyosarcoma patients. Using Cox proportional hazards regression, we explored the influence of heterogeneity parameters on relapse-free survival. Coarser scale of maximum signal intensity heterogeneity was prognostic of shorter survival (p = 0.05). By contrast, two fractal parameters and three Haralick texture features were not prognostic. In summary, our algorithm produces a biologically motivated segmentation of tumor regions and reports the amount of heterogeneity at various distance scales. If validated on a larger dataset, this prognostic imaging biomarker could be useful to identify patients at higher risk for recurrence and candidates for alternative treatment. (paper)

Spin-dependent Hall effect in degenerate semiconductors: a theoretical study

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Idrish Miah, M [Nanoscale Science and Technology Centre, Griffith University, Nathan, Brisbane, QLD 4111 (Australia)], E-mail: m.miah@griffith.edu.au

2008-10-15

The spin-dependent Hall (SDH) effect in degenerate semiconductors is investigated theoretically. Starting from a two-component drift-diffusion equation, an expression for SDH voltage (V{sub SDH}) is derived, and drift and diffusive contributions to V{sub SDH} are studied. For the possible enhancement of the diffusive part, degenerate and nondegenerate cases are examined. We find that due to an increase in the diffusion coefficient V{sub SDH} increases in a degenerate semiconductor, consistent with the experimental observations. The expression for V{sub SDH} is reduced in three limiting cases, namely diffusive, drift-diffusion crossover and drift, and is analysed. The results agree with those obtained in recent theoretical investigations.

Spin-dependent Hall effect in degenerate semiconductors: a theoretical study

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Idrish Miah, M

2008-01-01

The spin-dependent Hall (SDH) effect in degenerate semiconductors is investigated theoretically. Starting from a two-component drift-diffusion equation, an expression for SDH voltage (V SDH ) is derived, and drift and diffusive contributions to V SDH are studied. For the possible enhancement of the diffusive part, degenerate and nondegenerate cases are examined. We find that due to an increase in the diffusion coefficient V SDH increases in a degenerate semiconductor, consistent with the experimental observations. The expression for V SDH is reduced in three limiting cases, namely diffusive, drift-diffusion crossover and drift, and is analysed. The results agree with those obtained in recent theoretical investigations.

Simultaneous macula detection and optic disc boundary segmentation in retinal fundus images

Science.gov (United States)

Girard, Fantin; Kavalec, Conrad; Grenier, Sébastien; Ben Tahar, Houssem; Cheriet, Farida

2016-03-01

The optic disc (OD) and the macula are important structures in automatic diagnosis of most retinal diseases inducing vision defects such as glaucoma, diabetic or hypertensive retinopathy and age-related macular degeneration. We propose a new method to detect simultaneously the macula and the OD boundary. First, the color fundus images are processed to compute several maps highlighting the different anatomical structures such as vessels, the macula and the OD. Then, macula candidates and OD candidates are found simultaneously and independently using seed detectors identified on the corresponding maps. After selecting a set of macula/OD pairs, the top candidates are sent to the OD segmentation method. The segmentation method is based on local K-means applied to color coordinates in polar space followed by a polynomial fitting regularization step. Pair scores are updated, resulting in the final best macula/OD pair. The method was evaluated on two public image databases: ONHSD and MESSIDOR. The results show an overlapping area of 0.84 on ONHSD and 0.90 on MESSIDOR, which is better than recent state of the art methods. Our segmentation method is robust to contrast and illumination problems and outputs the exact boundary of the OD, not just a circular or elliptical model. The macula detection has an accuracy of 94%, which again outperforms other macula detection methods. This shows that combining the OD and macula detections improves the overall accuracy. The computation time for the whole process is 6.4 seconds, which is faster than other methods in the literature.

Extended Hellmann-Feynman theorem for degenerate eigenstates

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, G. P.; George, Thomas F.

2004-04-01

In a previous paper, we reported a failure of the traditional Hellmann-Feynman theorem (HFT) for degenerate eigenstates. This has generated enormous interest among different groups. In four independent papers by Fernandez, by Balawender, Hola, and March, by Vatsya, and by Alon and Cederbaum, an elegant method to solve the problem was devised. The main idea is that one has to construct and diagonalize the force matrix for the degenerate case, and only the eigenforces are well defined. We believe this is an important extension to HFT. Using our previous example for an energy level of fivefold degeneracy, we find that those eigenforces correctly reflect the symmetry of the molecule.

Kinematic control of robot with degenerate wrist

Science.gov (United States)

Barker, L. K.; Moore, M. C.

1984-01-01

Kinematic resolved rate equations allow an operator with visual feedback to dynamically control a robot hand. When the robot wrist is degenerate, the computed joint angle rates exceed operational limits, and unwanted hand movements can result. The generalized matrix inverse solution can also produce unwanted responses. A method is introduced to control the robot hand in the region of the degenerate robot wrist. The method uses a coordinated movement of the first and third joints of the robot wrist to locate the second wrist joint axis for movement of the robot hand in the commanded direction. The method does not entail infinite joint angle rates.

Brookhaven segment interconnect

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Morse, W.M.; Benenson, G.; Leipuner, L.B.

1983-01-01

We have performed a high energy physics experiment using a multisegment Brookhaven FASTBUS system. The system was composed of three crate segments and two cable segments. We discuss the segment interconnect module which permits communication between the various segments

Prevalence of lattice degeneration and its relation to axial length in severe myopia.

Science.gov (United States)

Celorio, J M; Pruett, R C

1991-01-15

We studied 436 eyes of 218 patients with myopia of -6.00 diopters or more in both eyes. Of 218 patients, 72 (33.0%) had lattice degeneration of the retina. Among these 72 patients, lattice lesions were uniocular in 39 (54.2%) and binocular in 33 (45.8%). Of 105 males, 33 (31.4%) had lattice degeneration; of 113 females, 39 (34.5%) had lattice degeneration. Contrary to previously published data, we found an inverse relationship between axial length and the prevalence of lattice degeneration in severely myopic eyes. The greatest prevalence of lattice degeneration (63 of 154 eyes, 40.9%) was found in eyes with an axial length of 26.0 to 26.9 mm (-6.00 to -8.70 diopters), and the least prevalence of lattice degeneration (five of 71 eyes, 7.0%) was found in eyes with an axial length of 32.0 mm (-24.00 diopters) or greater. This may explain the observation that retinal detachment after cataract surgery has been noted more commonly among patients with moderate than severe myopia.

Optical Coherence Tomography Predictors of Risk for Progression to Non-Neovascular Atrophic Age-Related Macular Degeneration.

Science.gov (United States)

Sleiman, Karim; Veerappan, Malini; Winter, Katrina P; McCall, Michelle N; Yiu, Glenn; Farsiu, Sina; Chew, Emily Y; Clemons, Traci; Toth, Cynthia A

2017-12-01

Appearance of geographic atrophy (GA) on color photography (CP) is preceded by specific features on spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SD OCT). We aimed to build SD OCT-based risk assessment models for 5-year new onset of GA and central GA on CP. Prospective, longitudinal study. Age-Related Eye Disease Study 2 Ancillary SD OCT study participants with age-related macular degeneration (AMD) with bilateral large drusen or noncentral GA and at least 1 eye without advanced disease (n = 317). For 1 eye per participant, qualitative and quantitative SD OCT variables were derived from standardized grading and semiautomated segmentation, respectively, at baseline. Up to 7 years later, annual outcomes were extracted and analyzed to fit multivariate logistic regression models and build a risk calculator. New onset of CP-visible GA and central GA. Over a follow-up median of 4.0 years and among 292 AMD eyes (without advanced disease at baseline) with complete outcome data, 46 (15.8%) developed central GA. Among 265 eyes without any GA on baseline CP, 70 (26.4%) developed CP-visible GA. Final multivariate models were adjusted for age. In the model for GA, the independent predicting SD OCT factors (P segment loss, RPE drusen complex volume, and RPE drusen complex abnormal thinning volume. For central GA, the factors (P segmentation, drusen characteristics, and retinal pathology-for progression to CP-visible GA over up to 5 years. This calculator may simplify SD OCT grading and with future validation has a promising role as a clinical prognostic tool. Copyright © 2017 American Academy of Ophthalmology. All rights reserved.

Posterior Lattice Degeneration Characterized by Spectral Domain Optical Tomography

OpenAIRE

Manjunath, Varsha; Taha, Mohammed; Fujimoto, James G.; Duker, Jay S.

2011-01-01

PURPOSE: To utilize high-resolution spectral domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) in the characterization of retinal and vitreal morphological changes overlying posterior lattice degeneration. METHODS: A cross-sectional, retrospective analysis was performed on 13 eyes of 13 nonconsecutive subjects with posterior lattice degeneration seen at the New England Eye Center, Tufts Medical Center between October 2009 and January 2010. SD-OCT images taken through the region of latti...

Segmented inner plexiform layer thickness as a potential biomarker to evaluate open-angle glaucoma: Dendritic degeneration of retinal ganglion cell.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Eun Kyoung Kim

Full Text Available To evaluate the changes of retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL, ganglion cell layer (GCL, inner plexiform layer (IPL, and ganglion cell-inner plexiform layer (GCIPL thicknesses and compare structure-function relationships of 4 retinal layers using spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT in macular region of glaucoma patients.In cross-sectional study, a total of 85 eyes with pre-perimetric to advanced glaucoma and 26 normal controls were enrolled. The glaucomatous eyes were subdivided into three groups according to the severity of visual field defect: a preperimetric glaucoma group, an early glaucoma group, and a moderate to advanced glaucoma group. RNFL, GCL, IPL, and GCIPL thicknesses were measured at the level of the macula by the Spectralis (Heidelberg Engineering, Heidelberg, Germany SD-OCT with automated segmentation software. For functional evaluation, corresponding mean sensitivity (MS values were measured using 24-2 standard automated perimetry (SAP.RNFL, GCL, IPL, and GCIPL thicknesses were significantly different among 4 groups (P < .001. Macular structure losses were positively correlated with the MS values of the 24-2 SAP for RNFL, GCL, IPL, and GCIPL (R = 0.553, 0.636, 0.648 and 0.646, respectively, P < .001. In regression analysis, IPL and GCIPL thicknesses showed stronger association with the corresponding MS values of 24-2 SAP compared with RNFL and GCL thicknesses (R2 = 0.420, P < .001 for IPL; R2 = 0.417, P< .001 for GCIPL thickness.Segmented IPL thickness was significantly associated with the degree of glaucoma. Segmental analysis of the inner retinal layer including the IPL in macular region may provide valuable information for evaluating glaucoma.

Segmented inner plexiform layer thickness as a potential biomarker to evaluate open-angle glaucoma: Dendritic degeneration of retinal ganglion cell.

Science.gov (United States)

Kim, Eun Kyoung; Park, Hae-Young Lopilly; Park, Chan Kee

2017-01-01

To evaluate the changes of retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL), ganglion cell layer (GCL), inner plexiform layer (IPL), and ganglion cell-inner plexiform layer (GCIPL) thicknesses and compare structure-function relationships of 4 retinal layers using spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) in macular region of glaucoma patients. In cross-sectional study, a total of 85 eyes with pre-perimetric to advanced glaucoma and 26 normal controls were enrolled. The glaucomatous eyes were subdivided into three groups according to the severity of visual field defect: a preperimetric glaucoma group, an early glaucoma group, and a moderate to advanced glaucoma group. RNFL, GCL, IPL, and GCIPL thicknesses were measured at the level of the macula by the Spectralis (Heidelberg Engineering, Heidelberg, Germany) SD-OCT with automated segmentation software. For functional evaluation, corresponding mean sensitivity (MS) values were measured using 24-2 standard automated perimetry (SAP). RNFL, GCL, IPL, and GCIPL thicknesses were significantly different among 4 groups (P < .001). Macular structure losses were positively correlated with the MS values of the 24-2 SAP for RNFL, GCL, IPL, and GCIPL (R = 0.553, 0.636, 0.648 and 0.646, respectively, P < .001). In regression analysis, IPL and GCIPL thicknesses showed stronger association with the corresponding MS values of 24-2 SAP compared with RNFL and GCL thicknesses (R2 = 0.420, P < .001 for IPL; R2 = 0.417, P< .001 for GCIPL thickness). Segmented IPL thickness was significantly associated with the degree of glaucoma. Segmental analysis of the inner retinal layer including the IPL in macular region may provide valuable information for evaluating glaucoma.

Circummandibular Wires for Treatment of Dentoalveolar Fractures Adjacent to Edentulous Areas: A Report of Two Cases.

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Maloney, Karl

2015-09-01

In general, dentoalveolar fractures are a common injury seen in emergency departments, dental offices, and oral and maxillofacial surgery practices. These injuries can be the result of direct trauma or indirect trauma. Direct trauma more often causes trauma to the maxillary dentition due to the exposure of the maxillary anterior teeth. Indirect trauma is usually the result of forced occlusion secondary to a blow to the chin or from a whiplash injury. Falls are the most common mechanism of injury seen in the pediatric group. In adolescents, many of these fractures are sustained during sporting activities. However, the use of mouth guards and other protective equipment has decreased this number. Most adult injuries are caused by motor vehicle accidents, contact sports, falls, bicycles, interpersonal violence, medical/dental mishaps, and industrial accidents. Early intervention to reduce and stabilize the fracture is required to establish a bony union and ensure correct function. Most dentoalveolar fractures have bilateral stable adjacent dentition and are treated with a closed technique utilizing an acid-etch/resin splint followed by splint removal at 4 weeks. Other inferior stabilization treatments used are arch bars and other wiring techniques. It is widely accepted that semirigid stabilization techniques, such as an acid-etch/resin splint or wiring procedures, are adequate to treat dentoalveolar fractures. This is in contrast to the treatment of mandible fractures where AO principles of rigid fixation are often followed. Fractures that are unable to be reduced sometimes necessitate an open reduction followed by internal fixation, sometimes using a secondary splint for mobile teeth. In those rare cases when there are not stable adjacent teeth bilaterally other modalities must be considered. In the present report, two cases are presented where circummandibular wires were used to treat fractured mandibular dentoalveolar segments adjacent to edentulous areas.

Biobjective Optimization and Evaluation for Transit Signal Priority Strategies at Bus Stop-to-Stop Segment

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rui Li

2016-01-01

Full Text Available This paper proposes a new optimization framework for the transit signal priority strategies in terms of green extension, red truncation, and phase insertion at the stop-to-stop segment of bus lines. The optimization objective is to minimize both passenger delay and the deviation from bus schedule simultaneously. The objective functions are defined with respect to the segment between bus stops, which can include the adjacent signalized intersections and downstream bus stops. The transit priority signal timing is optimized by using a biobjective optimization framework considering both the total delay at a segment and the delay deviation from the arrival schedules at bus stops. The proposed framework is evaluated using a VISSIM model calibrated with field traffic volume and traffic signal data of Caochangmen Boulevard in Nanjing, China. The optimized TSP-based phasing plans result in the reduced delay and improved reliability, compared with the non-TSP scenario under the different traffic flow conditions in the morning peak hour. The evaluation results indicate the promising performance of the proposed optimization framework in reducing the passenger delay and improving the bus schedule adherence for the urban transit system.

Active Segmentation.

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Mishra, Ajay; Aloimonos, Yiannis

2009-01-01

The human visual system observes and understands a scene/image by making a series of fixations. Every fixation point lies inside a particular region of arbitrary shape and size in the scene which can either be an object or just a part of it. We define as a basic segmentation problem the task of segmenting that region containing the fixation point. Segmenting the region containing the fixation is equivalent to finding the enclosing contour- a connected set of boundary edge fragments in the edge map of the scene - around the fixation. This enclosing contour should be a depth boundary.We present here a novel algorithm that finds this bounding contour and achieves the segmentation of one object, given the fixation. The proposed segmentation framework combines monocular cues (color/intensity/texture) with stereo and/or motion, in a cue independent manner. The semantic robots of the immediate future will be able to use this algorithm to automatically find objects in any environment. The capability of automatically segmenting objects in their visual field can bring the visual processing to the next level. Our approach is different from current approaches. While existing work attempts to segment the whole scene at once into many areas, we segment only one image region, specifically the one containing the fixation point. Experiments with real imagery collected by our active robot and from the known databases 1 demonstrate the promise of the approach.

Differential charge-transfer cross sections for systems with energetically degenerate or near-degenerate channels

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nguyen, H.; Bredy, R.; Camp, H.A.; DePaola, B.D.; Awata, T.

2004-01-01

Resolution plays a vital role in spectroscopic studies. In the usual recoil-ion momentum spectroscopy (RIMS), Q-value resolution is relied upon to distinguish between different collision channels: The better the Q-value resolution, the better one is able to resolve energetically similar channels. Although traditional COLTRIMS greatly improves Q-value resolution by cooling the target and thus greatly reducing the initial target momentum spread, the resolution of the technique is still limited by target temperature. However, with the recent development in RIMS, namely, magneto-optical trap recoil ion momentum spectroscopy (MOTRIMS) superior recoil ion momentum resolution as well as charge transfer measurements with laser excited targets have become possible. Through MOTRIMS, methods for the measurements of target excited state fraction and kinematically complete relative charge transfer cross sections have been developed, even for some systems having energetically degenerate or nearly degenerate channels. In the present work, the systems of interest having energy degeneracies or near degeneracies are Rb + , K + , and Li + colliding with trapped Rb(5l), where l=s and p

Relationship between facet tropism and facet joint degeneration in the sub-axial cervical spine

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xin Rong

2017-02-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Facet tropism is the angular asymmetry between the left and right facet joint orientation. Although debatable, facet tropism was suggested to be associated with disc degeneration, facet degeneration and degenerative spondylolisthesis in the lumbar spine. The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between facet tropism and facet degeneration in the sub-axial cervical spine. Methods A total of 200 patients with cervical spondylosis were retrospectively analyzed. Facet degeneration was categorized into 4 grade: grade I, normal; grade II, degenerative changes including joint space narrowing, cyst formation, small osteophytes (3 mm without fusion of the joint; grade IV, bony fusion of the facet joints. Facet orientations and facet tropisms with respect to the transverse, sagittal and coronal plane were calculated from the reconstructed cervical spine, which was based on the axial CT scan images. The paired facet joints were then categorized into three types: symmetric, moderated tropism and severe tropism. Univariate and multivariate analysis were performed to evaluate the relationship between any demographic and anatomical factor and facet degeneration. Results The mean age of enrolled patients was 46.23 years old (ranging from 30 to 64 years old. There were 114 males and 86 females. The degrees of facet degeneration varied according to cervical levels and ages. Degenerated facet joints were most common at C2-C3 level and more common in patients above 50 years old. The facet orientations were also different from level to level. By univariate analysis, genders, ages, cervical levels, facet orientations and facet tropisms were all significantly different between the normal facets and degenerated facets. However, results from multivariate logistic regression suggested only age and facet tropism with respect to the sagittal plane were related to facet degeneration. Conclusion Facet degeneration were more common at

Sideband cooling and coherent dynamics in a microchip multi-segmented ion trap

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Schulz, Stephan A; Poschinger, Ulrich; Ziesel, Frank; Schmidt-Kaler, Ferdinand [Universitaet Ulm, Institut fuer Quanteninformationsverarbeitung, Albert-Einstein-Allee 11, D-89069 Ulm (Germany)], E-mail: stephan.schulz@uni-ulm.de

2008-04-15

Miniaturized ion trap arrays with many trap segments present a promising architecture for scalable quantum information processing. The miniaturization of segmented linear Paul traps allows partitioning the microtrap into different storage and processing zones. The individual position control of many ions-each of them carrying qubit information in its long-lived electronic levels-by the external trap control voltages is important for the implementation of next generation large-scale quantum algorithms. We present a novel scalable microchip multi-segmented ion trap with two different adjacent zones, one for the storage and another dedicated to the processing of quantum information using single ions and linear ion crystals. A pair of radio-frequency-driven electrodes and 62 independently controlled dc electrodes allows shuttling of single ions or linear ion crystals with numerically designed axial potentials at axial and radial trap frequencies of a few megahertz. We characterize and optimize the microtrap using sideband spectroscopy on the narrow S{sub 1/2}{r_reversible}D{sub 5/2} qubit transition of the {sup 40}Ca{sup +} ion, and demonstrate coherent single-qubit Rabi rotations and optical cooling methods. We determine the heating rate using sideband cooling measurements to the vibrational ground state, which is necessary for subsequent two-qubit quantum logic operations. The applicability for scalable quantum information processing is proved.

Urocortin 2 treatment is protective in excitotoxic retinal degeneration.

Science.gov (United States)

Szabadfi, K; Kiss, P; Reglodi, D; Fekete, E M; Tamas, A; Danyadi, B; Atlasz, T; Gabriel, R

2014-03-01

Urocortin 2 (Ucn 2) is a corticotrop releasing factor paralog peptide with many physiological functions and it has widespread distribution. There are some data on the cytoprotective effects of Ucn 2, but less is known about its neuro- and retinoprotective actions. We have previously shown that Ucn 2 is protective in ischemia-induced retinal degeneration. The aim of the present study was to examine the protective potential of Ucn 2 in monosodium-glutamate (MSG)-induced retinal degeneration by routine histology and to investigate cell-type specific effects by immunohistochemistry. Rat pups received MSG applied on postnatal days 1, 5 and 9 and Ucn 2 was injected intravitreally into one eye. Retinas were processed for histology and immunocytochemistry after 3 weeks. Immunolabeling was determined for glial fibrillary acidic protein, vesicular glutamate transporter 1, protein kinase Cα, calbindin, parvalbumin and calretinin. Retinal tissue from animals treated with MSG showed severe degeneration compared to normal retinas, but intravitreal Ucn 2 treatment resulted in a retained retinal structure both at histological and neurochemical levels: distinct inner retinal layers and rescued inner retinal cells (different types of amacrine and rod bipolar cells) could be observed. These findings support the neuroprotective function of Ucn 2 in MSG-induced retinal degeneration.

The Rate of Vitamin A Dimerization in Lipofuscinogenesis, Fundus Autofluorescence, Retinal Senescence and Degeneration.

Science.gov (United States)

Washington, Ilyas; Saad, Leonide

2016-01-01

One of the earliest events preceding several forms of retinal degeneration is the formation and accumulation of vitamin A dimers in the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) and underlying Bruch's membrane (BM). Such degenerations include Stargardt disease, Best disease, forms of retinitis pigmentosa, and age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Since their discovery in the 1990's, dimers of vitamin A, have been postulated as chemical triggers driving retinal senescence and degeneration. There is evidence to suggest that the rate at which vitamin A dimerizes and the eye's response to the dimerization products may dictate the retina's lifespan. Here, we present outstanding questions, finding the answers to which may help to elucidate the role of vitamin A dimerization in retinal degeneration.

Peripheral retinal degenerations and the risk of retinal detachment.

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Lewis, Hilel

2003-07-01

To review the degenerative diseases of the peripheral retina in relationship with the risk to develop a rhegmatogenous retinal detachment and to present recommendations for use in eyes at increased risk of developing a retinal detachment. Focused literature review and author's clinical experience. Retinal degenerations are common lesions involving the peripheral retina, and most of them are clinically insignificant. Lattice degeneration, degenerative retinoschisis, cystic retinal tufts, and, rarely, zonular traction tufts, can result in a rhegmatogenous retinal detachment. Therefore, these lesions have been considered for prophylactic therapy; however, adequate studies have not been performed to date. Well-designed, prospective, randomized clinical studies are necessary to determine the benefit-risk ratio of prophylactic treatment. In the meantime, the evidence available suggests that most of the peripheral retinal degenerations should not be treated except in rare, high-risk situations.

GeoSegmenter: A statistically learned Chinese word segmenter for the geoscience domain

Science.gov (United States)

Huang, Lan; Du, Youfu; Chen, Gongyang

2015-03-01

Unlike English, the Chinese language has no space between words. Segmenting texts into words, known as the Chinese word segmentation (CWS) problem, thus becomes a fundamental issue for processing Chinese documents and the first step in many text mining applications, including information retrieval, machine translation and knowledge acquisition. However, for the geoscience subject domain, the CWS problem remains unsolved. Although a generic segmenter can be applied to process geoscience documents, they lack the domain specific knowledge and consequently their segmentation accuracy drops dramatically. This motivated us to develop a segmenter specifically for the geoscience subject domain: the GeoSegmenter. We first proposed a generic two-step framework for domain specific CWS. Following this framework, we built GeoSegmenter using conditional random fields, a principled statistical framework for sequence learning. Specifically, GeoSegmenter first identifies general terms by using a generic baseline segmenter. Then it recognises geoscience terms by learning and applying a model that can transform the initial segmentation into the goal segmentation. Empirical experimental results on geoscience documents and benchmark datasets showed that GeoSegmenter could effectively recognise both geoscience terms and general terms.

Current strategies for the restoration of adequate lordosis during lumbar fusion

Science.gov (United States)

Barrey, Cédric; Darnis, Alice

2015-01-01

Not restoring the adequate lumbar lordosis during lumbar fusion surgery may result in mechanical low back pain, sagittal unbalance and adjacent segment degeneration. The objective of this work is to describe the current strategies and concepts for restoration of adequate lordosis during fusion surgery. Theoretical lordosis can be evaluated from the measurement of the pelvic incidence and from the analysis of spatial organization of the lumbar spine with 2/3 of the lordosis given by the L4-S1 segment and 85% by the L3-S1 segment. Technical aspects involve patient positioning on the operating table, release maneuvers, type of instrumentation used (rod, screw-rod connection, interbody cages), surgical sequence and the overall surgical strategy. Spinal osteotomies may be required in case of fixed kyphotic spine. AP combined surgery is particularly efficient in restoring lordosis at L5-S1 level and should be recommended. Finally, not one but several strategies may be used to achieve the need for restoration of adequate lordosis during fusion surgery. PMID:25621216

Acquired degenerative changes of the intervertebral segments at and suprajacent to the lumbosacral junction. A radioanatomic analysis of the nondiskal structures of the spinal column and perispinal soft tissues.

Science.gov (United States)

Jinkins, J R

2001-01-01

In earlier evolutionary times, mammals were primarily quadrupeds. However, other bipeds have also been represented during the course of the Earth's several billion year history. In many cases, either the bipedal stance yielded a large tail and hypoplastic upper extremities (e.g., Tyrannosaurus rex and the kangaroo), or it culminated in hypoplasia of the tail and further development and specialization of the upper extremities (e.g., nonhuman primates and human beings). In the human species this relatively recently acquired posture resulted in a more or less pronounced lumbosacral kyphosis. In turn, certain compensatory anatomic features have since occurred. These include the normal characteristic posteriorly directed wedge-shape of the L5 vertebral body and the L5-S1 intervertebral disk; the L4 vertebral body and the L4-L5 disk may be similarly visibly affected. These compensatory mechanisms, however, have proved to be functionally inadequate over the long term of the human life span. Upright posture also leads to increased weight bearing in humans that progressively causes excess stresses at and suprajacent to the lumbosacral junction. These combined factors result in accelerated aging and degenerative changes and a predisposition to frank biomechanical failure of the subcomponents of the spinal column in these spinal segments. One other specific problem that occurs at the lumbosacral junction that predisposes toward premature degeneration is the singular relationship that exists between a normally mobile segment of spine (i.e., the lumbar spine) and a normally immobile one (i.e., the sacrum). It is well known that mobile spinal segments adjacent to congenitally or acquired fused segments have a predilection toward accelerated degenerative changes. The only segment of the spine in which this is invariably normally true is at the lumbosacral junction (i.e., the unfused lumbar spine adjoining the fused sacrum). Nevertheless, biomechanical failures of the human spine

Single-segment and double-segment INTACS for post-LASIK ectasia.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hassan Hashemi

2014-09-01

Full Text Available The objective of the present study was to compare single segment and double segment INTACS rings in the treatment of post-LASIK ectasia. In this interventional study, 26 eyes with post-LASIK ectasia were assessed. Ectasia was defined as progressive myopia regardless of astigmatism, along with topographic evidence of inferior steepening of the cornea after LASIK. We excluded those with a history of intraocular surgery, certain eye conditions, and immune disorders, as well as monocular, pregnant and lactating patients. A total of 11 eyes had double ring and 15 eyes had single ring implantation. Visual and refractive outcomes were compared with preoperative values based on the number of implanted INTACS rings. Pre and postoperative spherical equivalent were -3.92 and -2.29 diopter (P=0.007. The spherical equivalent decreased by 1 ± 3.2 diopter in the single-segment group and 2.56 ± 1.58 diopter in the double-segment group (P=0.165. Mean preoperative astigmatism was 2.38 ± 1.93 diopter which decreased to 2.14 ± 1.1 diopter after surgery (P=0.508; 0.87 ± 1.98 diopter decrease in the single-segment group and 0.67 ± 1.2 diopter increase in the double-segment group (P=0.025. Nineteen patients (75% gained one or two lines, and only three, who were all in the double-segment group, lost one or two lines of best corrected visual acuity. The spherical equivalent and vision significantly decreased in all patients. In these post-LASIK ectasia patients, the spherical equivalent was corrected better with two segments compared to single segment implantation; nonetheless, the level of astigmatism in the single-segment group was significantly better than that in the double-segment group.

Deficiency of adaptive immunity does not interfere with Wallerian degeneration.

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Christopher R Cashman

Full Text Available Following injury, distal axons undergo the process of Wallerian degeneration, and then cell debris is cleared to create a permissive environment for axon regeneration. The innate and adaptive immune systems are believed to be critical for facilitating the clearance of myelin and axonal debris during this process. However, immunodeficient animal models are regularly used in transplantation studies investigating cell therapies to modulate the degenerative/regenerative response. Given the importance of the immune system in preparing a permissive environment for regeneration by clearing debris, animals lacking, in part or in full, a functional immune system may have an impaired ability to regenerate due to poor myelin clearance, and may, thus, be poor hosts to study modulators of regeneration and degeneration. To study this hypothesis, three different mouse models with impaired adaptive immunity were compared to wild type animals in their ability to degenerate axons and clear myelin debris one week following sciatic nerve transection. Immunofluorescent staining for axons and quantitation of axon density with nerve histomorphometry of the distal stump showed no consistent discrepancy between immunodeficient and wild type animals, suggesting axons tended to degenerate equally between the two groups. Debris clearance was assessed by macrophage density and relative myelin basic protein expression within the denervated nerve stump, and no consistent impairment of debris clearance was found. These data suggested deficiency of the adaptive immune system does not have a substantial effect on axon degeneration one week following axonal injury.

''Dural tail'' adjacent to a giant posterior cerebral artery aneurysm: case report and review of the literature

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Good, C.D.; Kingsley, D.P.E.; Taylor, W.J.; Harkness, W.F.

1997-01-01

The ''dural tail'' sign on gadolinium (Gd-DTPA)-enhanced MRI has been described in association with meningiomas. Various series with histopathological correlation have shown that in some cases there is tumour invasion into the dura mater, but in the majority of cases it represents a hypervascular, non-neoplastic reaction. While this sign was originally thought to be specific for meningioma, subsequent case reports have described the presence of a dural tail in other intra- and extra-axial lesions. We present a patient with a giant aneurysm arising from the P2 segment of the right posterior cerebral artery, adjacent to the tentorium, with a prominent dural tail on Gd-DTPA-enhanced MRI. In this location, differentiation of an aneurysm from a meningioma was critical. (orig.). With 2 figs

Three dimensional electrostatic solitary waves in a dense magnetoplasma with relativistically degenerate electrons

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ata-ur-Rahman,; Qamar, A. [Institute of Physics and Electronics, University of Peshawar, Peshawar 25000 (Pakistan); National Centre for Physics, QAU Campus, Shahdrah Valley Road, Islamabad 44000 (Pakistan); Masood, W. [National Centre for Physics, QAU Campus, Shahdrah Valley Road, Islamabad 44000 (Pakistan); COMSATS, Institute of Information Technology, Park Road, Chak Shahzad, Islamabad 44000 (Pakistan); Eliasson, B. [Physics Department, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow G4 0NG, Scotland (United Kingdom)

2013-09-15

In this paper, small but finite amplitude electrostatic solitary waves in a relativistic degenerate magnetoplasma, consisting of relativistically degenerate electrons and non-degenerate cold ions, are investigated. The Zakharov-Kuznetsov equation is derived employing the reductive perturbation technique and its solitary wave solution is analyzed. It is shown that only compressive electrostatic solitary structures can propagate in such a degenerate plasma system. The effects of plasma number density, ion cyclotron frequency, and direction cosines on the profiles of ion acoustic solitary waves are investigated and discussed at length. The relevance of the present investigation vis-a-vis pulsating white dwarfs is also pointed out.

Is Preexisting Cervical Disk Degeneration a Prognostic Factor in Whiplash-associated Disorders?

Science.gov (United States)

Chung, Nam-Su; Jeon, Chang-Hoon; Lee, Yu-Sang; Park, Jang-Ho; Lee, Han-Dong

2017-11-01

This is a retrospective control study. We aimed to determine whether preexisting cervical disk degeneration is a prognostic factor in Whiplash-associated disorder (WAD). WAD is a common injury of traffic accident and has a broad range of prognoses. Although numerous studies have investigated prognostic factors in WAD, few have evaluated the effect of preexisting disk degeneration. This study involved 45 consecutive patients with grade I or II WAD having advanced disk degeneration (at least 1 disk of Miyazaki grade≥III on magnetic resonance imaging) and a control cohort of 52 patients with no or mild disk degeneration (all disks having Miyazaki grades≤II). Clinical assessment included pain severity (assessed by the visual analog scale), neck pain-related disability (assessed by the neck disability index), and physical and mental health condition [assessed by the short-form 36 (SF-36) physical composite score and SF-36 mental composite score, respectively]. Changes in each parameter were evaluated at baseline and at 3-month, 6-month, and 1-year follow-ups and compared between the 2 groups. There were no differences between the 2 groups regarding demographics and baseline outcome parameters (all P>0.05). There were also no differences in improvement in visual analog scale for neck pain, neck disability index, SF-36 physical composite score, or SF-36 mental composite score between the 2 groups (all P>0.05) for each visit. The number of claim closures was significantly lower among patients with advanced degeneration than among controls at 6-month and 1-year follow-ups (P=0.004 and 0.006, respectively). In the present study, the clinical presentation and prognosis of WAD were not affected by preexisting disk degeneration. However, claim closure was delayed in patients with preexisting disk degeneration. These results suggest that misunderstanding of disk degeneration on magnetic resonance imaging may create persistent illness and lead to continued compensation in WAD.

HUMAN CAPSULE EPITHELIAL-CELL DEGENERATION A LM, SEM AND TEM INVESTIGATION

NARCIS (Netherlands)

JONGEBLOED, WL; KALICHARAN, D; WORST, JGF

1993-01-01

The degeneration of the capsule epithelium of cataractous lenses has been studied with LM, SEM on TEM with emphases on TEM. The observed degeneration of the epithelial cells can be described as follows: The cell nucleus becomes picnotic and desintegrates as result of change of the chromatin.

Phonon emission in a degenerate semiconductor at low lattice temperatures

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Midday, S.; Nag, S.; Bhattacharya, D.P.

2015-01-01

The characteristics of phonon growth in a degenerate semiconductor at low lattice temperatures have been studied for inelastic interaction of non-equilibrium electrons with the intravalley acoustic phonons. The energy of the phonon and the full form of the phonon distribution are taken into account. The results reveal significant changes in the growth characteristics compared to the same for a non-degenerate material

New approaches and potential treatments for dry age-related macular degeneration

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Francisco Max Damico

2012-02-01

Full Text Available Emerging treatments for dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD and geographi c atrophy focus on two strategies that target components involved in physiopathological pathways: prevention of photoreceptors and retinal pigment epithelium loss (neuroprotection induction, oxidative damage prevention, and visual cycle modification and suppression of inflammation. Neuroprotective drugs, such as ciliary neurotrophic factor, brimonidine tartrate, tandospirone, and anti-amyloid β antibodies, aim to prevent apoptosis of retinal cells. Oxidative stress and depletion of essential micronutrients are targeted by the Age-Related Eye Disease Study (AREDS formulation. Visual cycle modulators reduce the activity of the photoreceptors and retinal accumulation of toxic fluorophores and lipofuscin. Eyes with dry age-related macular degeneration present chronic inflammation and potential treatments include corticosteroid and complement inhibition. We review the current concepts and rationale of dry age-related macular degeneration treatment that will most likely include a combination of drugs targeting different pathways involved in the development and progression of age-related macular degeneration.

Objectifying the adjacent and opposite angles: a cultural historical analysis

Science.gov (United States)

Daher, Wajeeh; Musallam, Nadera

2018-02-01

The angle topic is central to the development of geometric knowledge. Two of the basic concepts associated with this topic are the adjacent and opposite angles. It is the goal of the present study to analyze, based on the cultural historical semiotics framework, how high-achieving seventh grade students objectify the adjacent and opposite angles' concepts. We videoed the learning of a group of three high-achieving students who used technology, specifically GeoGebra, to explore geometric relations related to the adjacent and opposite angles' concepts. To analyze students' objectification of these concepts, we used the categories of objectification of knowledge (attention and awareness) and the categories of generalization (factual, contextual and symbolic), developed by Radford. The research results indicate that teacher's and students' verbal and visual signs, together with the software dynamic tools, mediated the students' objectification of the adjacent and opposite angles' concepts. Specifically, eye and gestures perceiving were part of the semiosis cycles in which the participating students were engaged and which related to the mathematical signs that signified the adjacent and the opposite angles. Moreover, the teacher's suggestions/requests/questions included/suggested semiotic signs/tools, including verbal signs that helped the students pay attention, be aware of and objectify the adjacent and opposite angles' concepts.

Natural history of seminiferous tubule degeneration in Klinefelter syndrome

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Aksglaede, Lise; Wikström, Anne M; Rajpert-De Meyts, Ewa

2006-01-01

Klinefelter syndrome (47,XXY) is characterized by small, firm testis, gynaecomastia, azoospermia and hypergonadotropic hypogonadism. Degeneration of the seminiferous tubules in 47,XXY males is a well-described phenomenon. It begins in the fetus, progresses through infancy and accelerates dramatic......Klinefelter syndrome (47,XXY) is characterized by small, firm testis, gynaecomastia, azoospermia and hypergonadotropic hypogonadism. Degeneration of the seminiferous tubules in 47,XXY males is a well-described phenomenon. It begins in the fetus, progresses through infancy and accelerates...

An Accurate liver segmentation method using parallel computing algorithm

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Elbasher, Eiman Mohammed Khalied

2014-12-01

Computed Tomography (CT or CAT scan) is a noninvasive diagnostic imaging procedure that uses a combination of X-rays and computer technology to produce horizontal, or axial, images (often called slices) of the body. A CT scan shows detailed images of any part of the body, including the bones muscles, fat and organs CT scans are more detailed than standard x-rays. CT scans may be done with or without "contrast Contrast refers to a substance taken by mouth and/ or injected into an intravenous (IV) line that causes the particular organ or tissue under study to be seen more clearly. CT scan of the liver and biliary tract are used in the diagnosis of many diseases in the abdomen structures, particularly when another type of examination, such as X-rays, physical examination, and ultra sound is not conclusive. Unfortunately, the presence of noise and artifact in the edges and fine details in the CT images limit the contrast resolution and make diagnostic procedure more difficult. This experimental study was conducted at the College of Medical Radiological Science, Sudan University of Science and Technology and Fidel Specialist Hospital. The sample of study was included 50 patients. The main objective of this research was to study an accurate liver segmentation method using a parallel computing algorithm, and to segment liver and adjacent organs using image processing technique. The main technique of segmentation used in this study was watershed transform. The scope of image processing and analysis applied to medical application is to improve the quality of the acquired image and extract quantitative information from medical image data in an efficient and accurate way. The results of this technique agreed wit the results of Jarritt et al, (2010), Kratchwil et al, (2010), Jover et al, (2011), Yomamoto et al, (1996), Cai et al (1999), Saudha and Jayashree (2010) who used different segmentation filtering based on the methods of enhancing the computed tomography images. Anther

Single reference Coupled Cluster treatment of nearly degenerate problems: Cohesive energy of antiferromagnetic lattices of spin 1 centers

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Malrieu, Jean-Paul

2012-01-01

Lattices of antiferromagnetically coupled spins, ruled by Heisenberg Hamiltonians, are intrinsically highly degenerate systems. The present work tries to estimate the ground state energy of regular bipartite spin lattices of S = 1 sites from a single reference Coupled Cluster expansion starting from a Néel function, taken as reference. The simultaneous changes of spin momentum on adjacent sites play the role of the double excitations in molecular electronic problems. Propagation of the spin changes plays the same role as the triple excitations. The treatment takes care of the deviation of multiple excitation energies from additivity. Specific difficulties appear for 1D chains, which are not due to a near degeneracy between the reference and the vectors which directly interact with it but to the complexity of the processes which lead to the low energy configurations where a consistent reversed-Néel domain is created inside the Néel starting spin wave. Despite these difficulties a reasonable value of the cohesive energy is obtained.

Single reference Coupled Cluster treatment of nearly degenerate problems: Cohesive energy of antiferromagnetic lattices of spin 1 centers

Science.gov (United States)

Malrieu, Jean-Paul

2012-06-01

Lattices of antiferromagnetically coupled spins, ruled by Heisenberg Hamiltonians, are intrinsically highly degenerate systems. The present work tries to estimate the ground state energy of regular bipartite spin lattices of S = 1 sites from a single reference Coupled Cluster expansion starting from a Néel function, taken as reference. The simultaneous changes of spin momentum on adjacent sites play the role of the double excitations in molecular electronic problems. Propagation of the spin changes plays the same role as the triple excitations. The treatment takes care of the deviation of multiple excitation energies from additivity. Specific difficulties appear for 1D chains, which are not due to a near degeneracy between the reference and the vectors which directly interact with it but to the complexity of the processes which lead to the low energy configurations where a consistent reversed-Néel domain is created inside the Néel starting spin wave. Despite these difficulties a reasonable value of the cohesive energy is obtained.

An iterative method for selecting degenerate multiplex PCR primers.

Science.gov (United States)

Souvenir, Richard; Buhler, Jeremy; Stormo, Gary; Zhang, Weixiong

2007-01-01

Single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotyping is an important molecular genetics process, which can produce results that will be useful in the medical field. Because of inherent complexities in DNA manipulation and analysis, many different methods have been proposed for a standard assay. One of the proposed techniques for performing SNP genotyping requires amplifying regions of DNA surrounding a large number of SNP loci. To automate a portion of this particular method, it is necessary to select a set of primers for the experiment. Selecting these primers can be formulated as the Multiple Degenerate Primer Design (MDPD) problem. The Multiple, Iterative Primer Selector (MIPS) is an iterative beam-search algorithm for MDPD. Theoretical and experimental analyses show that this algorithm performs well compared with the limits of degenerate primer design. Furthermore, MIPS outperforms an existing algorithm that was designed for a related degenerate primer selection problem.

[Influence of patellofemoral joint degeneration on outcome of medial unicompartmental knee arthroplasty].

Science.gov (United States)

Xu, B Y; Ji, B C; Guo, W T; Mu, W B; Cao, L

2017-06-01

Objective: To evaluate the influence of patellofemoral joint degeneration and pre-operative pain location on the outcome of medial Oxford unicompartmental knee arthroplasty (UKA). Methods: A total of 58 patients (58 knees) with medial Oxford UKA had been performed for medial osteoarthritis from March 2013 to July 2014 in Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at First Teaching Hospital of Xinjiang Medical University were retrospective reviewed. There were 24 males and 34 females, the age from 43 to 87 years with the mean age was 68.5 years. The mean body mass index was 25.2 kg/m(2) ranging from 19.7 to 31.5 kg/m(2). Patients were divided into anterior-medial pain group (35 knees), anterior knee pain group (17 knees) and general knee pain group (6 knees) according to pre-operative pain location. Pre-operative radiological statuses of the patellefemoral joint were defined by Ahlback system and divided into patellofemoral joint degeneration group (16 knees) and normal group (42 knees). Patients were also divided into medial patellofemoral degeneration group (20 knees), lateral patellofemoral degeneration group (12 knees) and normal group (26 knees) according to Altman scoring system. Outerbridge system was used intraoperatively and the patients were divided into patellofemoral joint degeneration group (21 knees) and normal group (37 knees). Pre- and post-operative outcomes were evaluated with Oxford Knee Score (OKS), Western Ontario and MacMaster (WOMAC) and patellofemoral score system of Lonner. T test and ANOVA were used to analyze the data. Results: The average duration of follow-up was 33 months (from 26 to 42 months). There were no patients had complications of infection, deep vein thrombosis, dislocation or loosing at the last follow-up. Compared to pre-operation, OKS (18.9±3.5 vs . 38.9±4.7, 19.3±4.2 vs . 39.6±4.6, 18.1±3.2 vs . 38.1±3.7)( t =5.64 to 7.08, all P patellofemoral joint degeneration group and normal group, the outcomes were the same according to

Semiautomated segmentation of head and neck cancers in 18F-FDG PET scans: A just-enough-interaction approach.

Science.gov (United States)

Beichel, Reinhard R; Van Tol, Markus; Ulrich, Ethan J; Bauer, Christian; Chang, Tangel; Plichta, Kristin A; Smith, Brian J; Sunderland, John J; Graham, Michael M; Sonka, Milan; Buatti, John M

2016-06-01

The purpose of this work was to develop, validate, and compare a highly computer-aided method for the segmentation of hot lesions in head and neck 18F-FDG PET scans. A semiautomated segmentation method was developed, which transforms the segmentation problem into a graph-based optimization problem. For this purpose, a graph structure around a user-provided approximate lesion centerpoint is constructed and a suitable cost function is derived based on local image statistics. To handle frequently occurring situations that are ambiguous (e.g., lesions adjacent to each other versus lesion with inhomogeneous uptake), several segmentation modes are introduced that adapt the behavior of the base algorithm accordingly. In addition, the authors present approaches for the efficient interactive local and global refinement of initial segmentations that are based on the "just-enough-interaction" principle. For method validation, 60 PET/CT scans from 59 different subjects with 230 head and neck lesions were utilized. All patients had squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck. A detailed comparison with the current clinically relevant standard manual segmentation approach was performed based on 2760 segmentations produced by three experts. Segmentation accuracy measured by the Dice coefficient of the proposed semiautomated and standard manual segmentation approach was 0.766 and 0.764, respectively. This difference was not statistically significant (p = 0.2145). However, the intra- and interoperator standard deviations were significantly lower for the semiautomated method. In addition, the proposed method was found to be significantly faster and resulted in significantly higher intra- and interoperator segmentation agreement when compared to the manual segmentation approach. Lack of consistency in tumor definition is a critical barrier for radiation treatment targeting as well as for response assessment in clinical trials and in clinical oncology decision-making. The properties

Semiautomated segmentation of head and neck cancers in 18F-FDG PET scans: A just-enough-interaction approach

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Beichel, Reinhard R., E-mail: reinhard-beichel@uiowa.edu [Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242 (United States); Iowa Institute for Biomedical Imaging, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242 (United States); Department of Internal Medicine, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242 (United States); Van Tol, Markus; Ulrich, Ethan J.; Bauer, Christian [Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242 (United States); Iowa Institute for Biomedical Imaging, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242 (United States); Chang, Tangel; Plichta, Kristin A. [Department of Radiation Oncology, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242 (United States); Smith, Brian J. [Department of Biostatistics, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242 (United States); Sunderland, John J.; Graham, Michael M. [Department of Radiology, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242 (United States); Sonka, Milan [Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242 (United States); Department of Radiation Oncology, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242 (United States); Iowa Institute for Biomedical Imaging, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242 (United States); Buatti, John M. [Department of Radiation Oncology, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242 (United States); Iowa Institute for Biomedical Imaging, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242 (United States)

2016-06-15

Purpose: The purpose of this work was to develop, validate, and compare a highly computer-aided method for the segmentation of hot lesions in head and neck 18F-FDG PET scans. Methods: A semiautomated segmentation method was developed, which transforms the segmentation problem into a graph-based optimization problem. For this purpose, a graph structure around a user-provided approximate lesion centerpoint is constructed and a suitable cost function is derived based on local image statistics. To handle frequently occurring situations that are ambiguous (e.g., lesions adjacent to each other versus lesion with inhomogeneous uptake), several segmentation modes are introduced that adapt the behavior of the base algorithm accordingly. In addition, the authors present approaches for the efficient interactive local and global refinement of initial segmentations that are based on the “just-enough-interaction” principle. For method validation, 60 PET/CT scans from 59 different subjects with 230 head and neck lesions were utilized. All patients had squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck. A detailed comparison with the current clinically relevant standard manual segmentation approach was performed based on 2760 segmentations produced by three experts. Results: Segmentation accuracy measured by the Dice coefficient of the proposed semiautomated and standard manual segmentation approach was 0.766 and 0.764, respectively. This difference was not statistically significant (p = 0.2145). However, the intra- and interoperator standard deviations were significantly lower for the semiautomated method. In addition, the proposed method was found to be significantly faster and resulted in significantly higher intra- and interoperator segmentation agreement when compared to the manual segmentation approach. Conclusions: Lack of consistency in tumor definition is a critical barrier for radiation treatment targeting as well as for response assessment in clinical trials and in

Effect of intervertebral disk degeneration on spinal stenosis during magnetic resonance imaging with axial loading

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ahn, Tae-Joon; Lee, Sang-Ho; Choi, Gun; Ahn, Yong; Liu, Wei-Chiang; Kim, Ho-Jin; Lee, Ho-Yeon

2009-01-01

Magnetic resonance (MR) imaging with axial loading can simulate the physiological standing state and disclose spinal stenosis undetected or underestimated in the conventional position. Intervertebral disk degeneration may be an important factor in spinal stenosis. This study investigated whether intervertebral disk degeneration increases spinal stenosis during axial loading. MR imaging with and without axial loading was obtained in 51 patients with neurogenic intermittent claudication and/or sciatica and reviewed retrospectively. The grade of disk degeneration was rated in four disk spaces from L2-3 to L5-S1. The dural sac cross-sectional area (DCSA) was measured on MR images taken in both conventional and axial loading positions, and the change in the DCSA was calculated. The effect of disk degeneration on the DCSA was statistically analyzed. Significant decreases in the DCSA occurred with grade 4 disk degeneration (mean±standard deviation, 20.1±14.1 mm 2 ), followed by grade 3 (18.3±15.1 mm 2 ) and grade 2 (8.9±13.1 mm 2 ). DCSA decreased considerably with increased severity of disk degeneration with axial loading, except for grade 5 disk degeneration. More accurate diagnosis of stenosis can be achieved using MR imaging with axial loading, especially if grade 2 to 4 disk degeneration is present. (author)

Three Studies Point to Same Risk Gene for Age-Related Macular Degeneration

Science.gov (United States)

... point to same risk gene for age-related macular degeneration NIH-funded research helps unravel the biology of ... rare, but powerful risk factor for age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a common cause of vision loss in ...

Quantitative OCT and MRI biomarkers for the differentiation of cartilage degeneration

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nebelung, Sven; Brill, Nicolai; Tingart, Markus; Jahr, Holger; Pufe, Thomas; Kuhl, Christiane; Truhn, Daniel

2016-01-01

To evaluate the usefulness of quantitative parameters obtained by optical coherence tomography (OCT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in the comprehensive assessment of human articular cartilage degeneration. Human osteochondral samples of variable degeneration (n = 45) were obtained from total knee replacements and assessed by MRI sequences measuring T1, T1ρ, T2 and T2* relaxivity and by OCT-based quantification of irregularity (OII, optical irregularity index), homogeneity (OHI, optical homogeneity index) and attenuation (OAI, optical attenuation index). Samples were also assessed macroscopically (Outerbridge classification) and histologically (Mankin classification) as grade-0 (Mankin scores 0-4)/grade-I (scores 5-8)/grade-II (scores 9-10)/grade-III (score 11-14). After data normalisation, differences between Mankin grades and correlations between imaging parameters were assessed using ANOVA and Tukey's post-hoc test and Spearman's correlation coefficients, respectively. Sensitivities and specificities in the detection of Mankin grade-0 were calculated. Significant degeneration-related increases were found for T2 and OII and decreases for OAI, while T1, T1ρ, T2* or OHI did not reveal significant changes in relation to degeneration. A number of significant correlations between imaging parameters and histological (sub)scores were found, in particular for T2 and OII. Sensitivities and specificities in the detection of Mankin grade-0 were highest for OHI/T1 and OII/T1ρ, respectively. Quantitative OCT and MRI techniques seem to complement each other in the comprehensive assessment of cartilage degeneration. Sufficiently large structural and compositional changes in the extracellular matrix may thus be parameterized and quantified, while the detection of early degeneration remains challenging. (orig.)

Quantitative OCT and MRI biomarkers for the differentiation of cartilage degeneration

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Nebelung, Sven [Aachen University Hospital, Department of Orthopaedics, Aachen (Germany); Institute of Anatomy and Cell Biology, RWTH, Aachen (Germany); Brill, Nicolai [Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology, Aachen (Germany); Tingart, Markus; Jahr, Holger [Aachen University Hospital, Department of Orthopaedics, Aachen (Germany); Pufe, Thomas [Institute of Anatomy and Cell Biology, RWTH, Aachen (Germany); Kuhl, Christiane; Truhn, Daniel [Aachen University Hospital, Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, Aachen (Germany)

2016-04-15

To evaluate the usefulness of quantitative parameters obtained by optical coherence tomography (OCT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in the comprehensive assessment of human articular cartilage degeneration. Human osteochondral samples of variable degeneration (n = 45) were obtained from total knee replacements and assessed by MRI sequences measuring T1, T1ρ, T2 and T2* relaxivity and by OCT-based quantification of irregularity (OII, optical irregularity index), homogeneity (OHI, optical homogeneity index) and attenuation (OAI, optical attenuation index). Samples were also assessed macroscopically (Outerbridge classification) and histologically (Mankin classification) as grade-0 (Mankin scores 0-4)/grade-I (scores 5-8)/grade-II (scores 9-10)/grade-III (score 11-14). After data normalisation, differences between Mankin grades and correlations between imaging parameters were assessed using ANOVA and Tukey's post-hoc test and Spearman's correlation coefficients, respectively. Sensitivities and specificities in the detection of Mankin grade-0 were calculated. Significant degeneration-related increases were found for T2 and OII and decreases for OAI, while T1, T1ρ, T2* or OHI did not reveal significant changes in relation to degeneration. A number of significant correlations between imaging parameters and histological (sub)scores were found, in particular for T2 and OII. Sensitivities and specificities in the detection of Mankin grade-0 were highest for OHI/T1 and OII/T1ρ, respectively. Quantitative OCT and MRI techniques seem to complement each other in the comprehensive assessment of cartilage degeneration. Sufficiently large structural and compositional changes in the extracellular matrix may thus be parameterized and quantified, while the detection of early degeneration remains challenging. (orig.)

Variable length adjacent partitioning for PTS based PAPR reduction of OFDM signal

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ibraheem, Zeyid T.; Rahman, Md. Mijanur; Yaakob, S. N.; Razalli, Mohammad Shahrazel; Kadhim, Rasim A.

2015-01-01

Peak-to-Average power ratio (PAPR) is a major drawback in OFDM communication. It leads the power amplifier into nonlinear region operation resulting into loss of data integrity. As such, there is a strong motivation to find techniques to reduce PAPR. Partial Transmit Sequence (PTS) is an attractive scheme for this purpose. Judicious partitioning the OFDM data frame into disjoint subsets is a pivotal component of any PTS scheme. Out of the existing partitioning techniques, adjacent partitioning is characterized by an attractive trade-off between cost and performance. With an aim of determining effects of length variability of adjacent partitions, we performed an investigation into the performances of a variable length adjacent partitioning (VL-AP) and fixed length adjacent partitioning in comparison with other partitioning schemes such as pseudorandom partitioning. Simulation results with different modulation and partitioning scenarios showed that fixed length adjacent partition had better performance compared to variable length adjacent partitioning. As expected, simulation results showed a slightly better performance of pseudorandom partitioning technique compared to fixed and variable adjacent partitioning schemes. However, as the pseudorandom technique incurs high computational complexities, adjacent partitioning schemes were still seen as favorable candidates for PAPR reduction

Variable length adjacent partitioning for PTS based PAPR reduction of OFDM signal

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ibraheem, Zeyid T.; Rahman, Md. Mijanur; Yaakob, S. N.; Razalli, Mohammad Shahrazel; Kadhim, Rasim A. [School of Computer and Communication Engineering, Universiti Malaysia Perlis, 02600 Arau, Perlis (Malaysia)

2015-05-15

Peak-to-Average power ratio (PAPR) is a major drawback in OFDM communication. It leads the power amplifier into nonlinear region operation resulting into loss of data integrity. As such, there is a strong motivation to find techniques to reduce PAPR. Partial Transmit Sequence (PTS) is an attractive scheme for this purpose. Judicious partitioning the OFDM data frame into disjoint subsets is a pivotal component of any PTS scheme. Out of the existing partitioning techniques, adjacent partitioning is characterized by an attractive trade-off between cost and performance. With an aim of determining effects of length variability of adjacent partitions, we performed an investigation into the performances of a variable length adjacent partitioning (VL-AP) and fixed length adjacent partitioning in comparison with other partitioning schemes such as pseudorandom partitioning. Simulation results with different modulation and partitioning scenarios showed that fixed length adjacent partition had better performance compared to variable length adjacent partitioning. As expected, simulation results showed a slightly better performance of pseudorandom partitioning technique compared to fixed and variable adjacent partitioning schemes. However, as the pseudorandom technique incurs high computational complexities, adjacent partitioning schemes were still seen as favorable candidates for PAPR reduction.

Role of syllable segmentation processes in peripheral word recognition.

Science.gov (United States)

Bernard, Jean-Baptiste; Calabrèse, Aurélie; Castet, Eric

2014-12-01

Previous studies of foveal visual word recognition provide evidence for a low-level syllable decomposition mechanism occurring during the recognition of a word. We investigated if such a decomposition mechanism also exists in peripheral word recognition. Single words were visually presented to subjects in the peripheral field using a 6° square gaze-contingent simulated central scotoma. In the first experiment, words were either unicolor or had their adjacent syllables segmented with two different colors (color/syllable congruent condition). Reaction times for correct word identification were measured for the two different conditions and for two different print sizes. Results show a significant decrease in reaction time for the color/syllable congruent condition compared with the unicolor condition. A second experiment suggests that this effect is specific to syllable decomposition and results from strategic, presumably involving attentional factors, rather than stimulus-driven control.

An αII Spectrin-Based Cytoskeleton Protects Large-Diameter Myelinated Axons from Degeneration.

Science.gov (United States)

Huang, Claire Yu-Mei; Zhang, Chuansheng; Zollinger, Daniel R; Leterrier, Christophe; Rasband, Matthew N

2017-11-22

Axons must withstand mechanical forces, including tension, torsion, and compression. Spectrins and actin form a periodic cytoskeleton proposed to protect axons against these forces. However, because spectrins also participate in assembly of axon initial segments (AISs) and nodes of Ranvier, it is difficult to uncouple their roles in maintaining axon integrity from their functions at AIS and nodes. To overcome this problem and to determine the importance of spectrin cytoskeletons for axon integrity, we generated mice with αII spectrin-deficient peripheral sensory neurons. The axons of these neurons are very long and exposed to the mechanical forces associated with limb movement; most lack an AIS, and some are unmyelinated and have no nodes. We analyzed αII spectrin-deficient mice of both sexes and found that, in myelinated axons, αII spectrin forms a periodic cytoskeleton with βIV and βII spectrin at nodes of Ranvier and paranodes, respectively, but that loss of αII spectrin disrupts this organization. Avil-cre;Sptan1 f/f mice have reduced numbers of nodes, disrupted paranodal junctions, and mislocalized Kv1 K + channels. We show that the density of nodal βIV spectrin is constant among axons, but the density of nodal αII spectrin increases with axon diameter. Remarkably, Avil-cre;Sptan1 f/f mice have intact nociception and small-diameter axons, but severe ataxia due to preferential degeneration of large-diameter myelinated axons. Our results suggest that nodal αII spectrin helps resist the mechanical forces experienced by large-diameter axons, and that αII spectrin-dependent cytoskeletons are also required for assembly of nodes of Ranvier. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT A periodic axonal cytoskeleton consisting of actin and spectrin has been proposed to help axons resist the mechanical forces to which they are exposed (e.g., compression, torsion, and stretch). However, until now, no vertebrate animal model has tested the requirement of the spectrin cytoskeleton in

Experimental model of intervertebral disc degeneration by needle puncture in Wistar rats

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Issy, A.C.; Castania, V.; Castania, M.; Salmon, C.E.G.; Nogueira-Barbosa, M.H.; Bel, E. Del; Defino, H.L.A.

2013-01-01

Animal models of intervertebral disc degeneration play an important role in clarifying the physiopathological mechanisms and testing novel therapeutic strategies. The objective of the present study is to describe a simple animal model of disc degeneration involving Wistar rats to be used for research studies. Disc degeneration was confirmed and classified by radiography, magnetic resonance and histological evaluation. Adult male Wistar rats were anesthetized and submitted to percutaneous disc puncture with a 20-gauge needle on levels 6-7 and 8-9 of the coccygeal vertebrae. The needle was inserted into the discs guided by fluoroscopy and its tip was positioned crossing the nucleus pulposus up to the contralateral annulus fibrosus, rotated 360° twice, and held for 30 s. To grade the severity of intervertebral disc degeneration, we measured the intervertebral disc height from radiographic images 7 and 30 days after the injury, and the signal intensity T2-weighted magnetic resonance imaging. Histological analysis was performed with hematoxylin-eosin and collagen fiber orientation using picrosirius red staining and polarized light microscopy. Imaging and histological score analyses revealed significant disc degeneration both 7 and 30 days after the lesion, without deaths or systemic complications. Interobserver histological evaluation showed significant agreement. There was a significant positive correlation between histological score and intervertebral disc height 7 and 30 days after the lesion. We conclude that the tail disc puncture method using Wistar rats is a simple, cost-effective and reproducible model for inducing disc degeneration

Experimental model of intervertebral disc degeneration by needle puncture in Wistar rats

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Issy, A.C.; Castania, V.; Castania, M. [Departamento de Morfologia, Fisiologia e Patologia Básica, Faculdade de Odontologia de Ribeirão Preto, Universidade de São Paulo, Ribeirão Preto, SP (Brazil); Salmon, C.E.G. [Departamento de Física, Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto, Universidade de São Paulo, Ribeirão Preto, SP (Brazil); Nogueira-Barbosa, M.H. [Divisão de Radiologia, Departamento de Clínica Médica, Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto, Universidade de São Paulo, Ribeirão Preto, SP (Brazil); Bel, E. Del [Departamento de Morfologia, Fisiologia e Patologia Básica, Faculdade de Odontologia de Ribeirão Preto, Universidade de São Paulo, Ribeirão Preto, SP (Brazil); Defino, H.L.A. [Departamento de Biomecânica, Medicina e Reabilitação do Sistema Locomotor, Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto, Universidade de São Paulo, Ribeirão Preto, SP (Brazil)

2013-03-15

Animal models of intervertebral disc degeneration play an important role in clarifying the physiopathological mechanisms and testing novel therapeutic strategies. The objective of the present study is to describe a simple animal model of disc degeneration involving Wistar rats to be used for research studies. Disc degeneration was confirmed and classified by radiography, magnetic resonance and histological evaluation. Adult male Wistar rats were anesthetized and submitted to percutaneous disc puncture with a 20-gauge needle on levels 6-7 and 8-9 of the coccygeal vertebrae. The needle was inserted into the discs guided by fluoroscopy and its tip was positioned crossing the nucleus pulposus up to the contralateral annulus fibrosus, rotated 360° twice, and held for 30 s. To grade the severity of intervertebral disc degeneration, we measured the intervertebral disc height from radiographic images 7 and 30 days after the injury, and the signal intensity T2-weighted magnetic resonance imaging. Histological analysis was performed with hematoxylin-eosin and collagen fiber orientation using picrosirius red staining and polarized light microscopy. Imaging and histological score analyses revealed significant disc degeneration both 7 and 30 days after the lesion, without deaths or systemic complications. Interobserver histological evaluation showed significant agreement. There was a significant positive correlation between histological score and intervertebral disc height 7 and 30 days after the lesion. We conclude that the tail disc puncture method using Wistar rats is a simple, cost-effective and reproducible model for inducing disc degeneration.

Accounting for segment correlations in segmented gamma-ray scans

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sheppard, G.A.; Prettyman, T.H.; Piquette, E.C.

1994-01-01

In a typical segmented gamma-ray scanner (SGS), the detector's field of view is collimated so that a complete horizontal slice or segment of the desired thickness is visible. Ordinarily, the collimator is not deep enough to exclude gamma rays emitted from sample volumes above and below the segment aligned with the collimator. This can lead to assay biases, particularly for certain radioactive-material distributions. Another consequence of the collimator's low aspect ratio is that segment assays at the top and bottom of the sample are biased low because the detector's field of view is not filled. This effect is ordinarily countered by placing the sample on a low-Z pedestal and scanning one or more segment thicknesses below and above the sample. This takes extra time, however, We have investigated a number of techniques that both account for correlated segments and correct for end effects in SGS assays. Also, we have developed an algorithm that facilitates estimates of assay precision. Six calculation methods have been compared by evaluating the results of thousands of simulated, assays for three types of gamma-ray source distribution and ten masses. We will report on these computational studies and their experimental verification

A hybrid method for airway segmentation and automated measurement of bronchial wall thickness on CT.

Science.gov (United States)

Xu, Ziyue; Bagci, Ulas; Foster, Brent; Mansoor, Awais; Udupa, Jayaram K; Mollura, Daniel J

2015-08-01

Inflammatory and infectious lung diseases commonly involve bronchial airway structures and morphology, and these abnormalities are often analyzed non-invasively through high resolution computed tomography (CT) scans. Assessing airway wall surfaces and the lumen are of great importance for diagnosing pulmonary diseases. However, obtaining high accuracy from a complete 3-D airway tree structure can be quite challenging. The airway tree structure has spiculated shapes with multiple branches and bifurcation points as opposed to solid single organ or tumor segmentation tasks in other applications, hence, it is complex for manual segmentation as compared with other tasks. For computerized methods, a fundamental challenge in airway tree segmentation is the highly variable intensity levels in the lumen area, which often causes a segmentation method to leak into adjacent lung parenchyma through blurred airway walls or soft boundaries. Moreover, outer wall definition can be difficult due to similar intensities of the airway walls and nearby structures such as vessels. In this paper, we propose a computational framework to accurately quantify airways through (i) a novel hybrid approach for precise segmentation of the lumen, and (ii) two novel methods (a spatially constrained Markov random walk method (pseudo 3-D) and a relative fuzzy connectedness method (3-D)) to estimate the airway wall thickness. We evaluate the performance of our proposed methods in comparison with mostly used algorithms using human chest CT images. Our results demonstrate that, on publicly available data sets and using standard evaluation criteria, the proposed airway segmentation method is accurate and efficient as compared with the state-of-the-art methods, and the airway wall estimation algorithms identified the inner and outer airway surfaces more accurately than the most widely applied methods, namely full width at half maximum and phase congruency. Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Prescreening whole exome sequencing results from patients with retinal degeneration for variants in genes associated with retinal degeneration

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Bryant L

2017-12-01

Full Text Available Laura Bryant,1 Olga Lozynska,1 Albert M Maguire,1–3 Tomas S Aleman,1–3 Jean Bennett1–3 1Center for Advanced Retinal and Ocular Therapeutics (CAROT, FM Kirby Center for Molecular Ophthalmology, Scheie Eye Institute, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA; 2Department of Ophthalmology, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA; 3Department of Ophthalmology, Scheie Eye Institute, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA Background: Accurate clinical diagnosis and prognosis of retinal degeneration can be aided by the identification of the disease-causing genetic variant. It can confirm the clinical diagnosis as well as inform the clinician of the risk for potential involvement of other organs such as kidneys. It also aids in genetic counseling for affected individuals who want to have a child. Finally, knowledge of disease-causing variants informs laboratory investigators involved in translational research. With the advent of next-generation sequencing, identifying pathogenic mutations is becoming easier, especially the identification of novel pathogenic variants.Methods: We used whole exome sequencing on a cohort of 69 patients with various forms of retinal degeneration and in whom screens for previously identified disease-causing variants had been inconclusive. All potential pathogenic variants were verified by Sanger sequencing and, when possible, segregation analysis of immediate relatives. Potential variants were identified by using a semi-masked approach in which rare variants in candidate genes were identified without knowledge of the clinical diagnosis (beyond “retinal degeneration” or inheritance pattern. After the initial list of genes was prioritized, genetic diagnosis and inheritance pattern were taken into account.Results: We identified the likely pathogenic variants in 64% of the subjects. Seven percent had a single

Glial degeneration with oxidative damage drives neuronal demise in MPSII disease.

Science.gov (United States)

Zalfa, Cristina; Verpelli, Chiara; D'Avanzo, Francesca; Tomanin, Rosella; Vicidomini, Cinzia; Cajola, Laura; Manara, Renzo; Sala, Carlo; Scarpa, Maurizio; Vescovi, Angelo Luigi; De Filippis, Lidia

2016-08-11

Mucopolysaccharidosis type II (MPSII) is a lysosomal storage disorder due to the deficit of the iduronate 2-sulfatase (IDS) enzyme, causing progressive neurodegeneration in patients. Neural stem cells (NSCs) derived from the IDS-ko mouse can recapitulate MPSII pathogenesis in vitro. In differentiating IDS-ko NSCs and in the aging IDS-ko mouse brain, glial degeneration precedes neuronal degeneration. Here we show that pure IDS-ko NSC-derived astrocytes are selectively able to drive neuronal degeneration when cocultured with healthy neurons. This phenotype suggests concurrent oxidative damage with metabolic dysfunction. Similar patterns were observed in murine IDS-ko animals and in human MPSII brains. Most importantly, the mutant phenotype of IDS-ko astrocytes was reversed by low oxygen conditions and treatment with vitamin E, which also reversed the toxic effect on cocultured neurons. Moreover, at very early stages of disease we detected in vivo the development of a neuroinflammatory background that precedes astroglial degeneration, thus suggesting a novel model of MPSII pathogenesis, with neuroinflammation preceding glial degeneration, which is finally followed by neuronal death. This hypothesis is also consistent with the progression of white matter abnormalities in MPSII patients. Our study represents a novel breakthrough in the elucidation of MPSII brain pathogenesis and suggests the antioxidant molecules as potential therapeutic tools to delay MPSII onset and progression.

Automated design of degenerate codon libraries.

Science.gov (United States)

Mena, Marco A; Daugherty, Patrick S

2005-12-01

Degenerate codon libraries are frequently used in protein engineering and evolution studies but are often limited to targeting a small number of positions to adequately limit the search space. To mitigate this, codon degeneracy can be limited using heuristics or previous knowledge of the targeted positions. To automate design of libraries given a set of amino acid sequences, an algorithm (LibDesign) was developed that generates a set of possible degenerate codon libraries, their resulting size, and their score relative to a user-defined scoring function. A gene library of a specified size can then be constructed that is representative of the given amino acid distribution or that includes specific sequences or combinations thereof. LibDesign provides a new tool for automated design of high-quality protein libraries that more effectively harness existing sequence-structure information derived from multiple sequence alignment or computational protein design data.

Identification of degenerate nuclei and development of a SCAR marker for Flammulina velutipes.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sun Young Kim

Full Text Available Flammulina velutipes is one of the major edible mushrooms in the world. Recently, abnormalities that have a negative impact on crop production have been reported in this mushroom. These symptoms include slow vegetative growth, a compact mycelial mat, and few or even no fruiting bodies. The morphologies and fruiting capabilities of monokaryons of wild-type and degenerate strains that arose through arthrospore formation were investigated through test crossing. Only one monokaryotic group of the degenerate strains and its hybrid strains showed abnormal phenotypes. Because the monokaryotic arthrospore has the same nucleus as the parent strain, these results indicated that only one aberrant nucleus of the two nuclei in the degenerate strain was responsible for the degeneracy. A sequence-characterized amplified region marker that is linked to the degenerate monokaryon was identified based on a polymorphic sequence that was generated using random primers. Comparative analyses revealed the presence of a degenerate-specific genomic region in a telomere, which arose via the transfer of a genomic fragment harboring a putative helicase gene. Our findings have narrowed down the potential molecular targets responsible for this phenotype for future studies and have provided a marker for the detection of degenerate strains.

Magnetization transfer and spin lock MR imaging of patellar cartilage degeneration at 0.1 T

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Koskinen, S.K.; Ylae-Outinen, H.; Komu, M.E.S.; Aho, H.J.

1997-01-01

Purpose: To investigate magnetization transfer (MT) parameters and rotating frame relaxation time T1ρ in patellar cartilage at different levels of degeneration. Material and Methods: Thirty cadaveric patellae were examined at 0.1 T using the time-dependent saturation-transfer MT technique and the spin lock (SL) technique. In an SL experiment, nuclear spins are locked with a radiofrequency (RF) field, and the locked nuclear magnetization relaxes along the magnetic component of the locking RF field. The specimens were divided into three groups according to the level of cartilage degeneration. MT parameters and T1ρ were measured. Results: The MT effect was greater in degenerated cartilage than in normal cartilage. T1ρ was longer in advanced cartilage degeneration than in intermediate cartilage degeneration. Conculsion: The results suggest that more studies are needed to fully establish the value of SL imaging in cartilage degeneration. (orig.)

33 CFR 80.1395 - Puget Sound and adjacent waters.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... 33 Navigation and Navigable Waters 1 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Puget Sound and adjacent waters. 80.1395 Section 80.1395 Navigation and Navigable Waters COAST GUARD, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY... waters. The 72 COLREGS shall apply on all waters of Puget Sound and adjacent waters, including Lake Union...

Polyetheretherketone (PEEK) rods: short-term results in lumbar spine degenerative disease.

Science.gov (United States)

Colangeli, S; Barbanti Brodàno, G; Gasbarrini, A; Bandiera, S; Mesfin, A; Griffoni, C; Boriani, S

2015-06-01

Pedicle screw and rod instrumentation has become the preferred technique for performing stabilization and fusion in the surgical treatment of lumbar spine degenerative disease. Rigid fixation leads to high fusion rates but may also contribute to stress shielding and adjacent segment degeneration. Thus, the use of semirigid rods made of polyetheretherketone (PEEK) has been proposed. Although the PEEK rods biomechanical properties, such as anterior load sharing properties, have been shown, there are few clinical studies evaluating their application in the lumbar spine surgical treatment. This study examined a retrospective cohort of patients who underwent posterior lumbar fusion for degenerative disease using PEEK rods, in order to evaluate the clinical and radiological outcomes and the incidence of complications.

Template-based automatic breast segmentation on MRI by excluding the chest region

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lin, Muqing; Chen, Jeon-Hor; Wang, Xiaoyong; Su, Min-Ying; Chan, Siwa; Chen, Siping

2013-01-01

Purpose: Methods for quantification of breast density on MRI using semiautomatic approaches are commonly used. In this study, the authors report on a fully automatic chest template-based method. Methods: Nonfat-suppressed breast MR images from 31 healthy women were analyzed. Among them, one case was randomly selected and used as the template, and the remaining 30 cases were used for testing. Unlike most model-based breast segmentation methods that use the breast region as the template, the chest body region on a middle slice was used as the template. Within the chest template, three body landmarks (thoracic spine and bilateral boundary of the pectoral muscle) were identified for performing the initial V-shape cut to determine the posterior lateral boundary of the breast. The chest template was mapped to each subject's image space to obtain a subject-specific chest model for exclusion. On the remaining image, the chest wall muscle was identified and excluded to obtain clean breast segmentation. The chest and muscle boundaries determined on the middle slice were used as the reference for the segmentation of adjacent slices, and the process continued superiorly and inferiorly until all 3D slices were segmented. The segmentation results were evaluated by an experienced radiologist to mark voxels that were wrongly included or excluded for error analysis. Results: The breast volumes measured by the proposed algorithm were very close to the radiologist's corrected volumes, showing a % difference ranging from 0.01% to 3.04% in 30 tested subjects with a mean of 0.86% ± 0.72%. The total error was calculated by adding the inclusion and the exclusion errors (so they did not cancel each other out), which ranged from 0.05% to 6.75% with a mean of 3.05% ± 1.93%. The fibroglandular tissue segmented within the breast region determined by the algorithm and the radiologist were also very close, showing a % difference ranging from 0.02% to 2.52% with a mean of 1.03% ± 1.03%. The

Template-based automatic breast segmentation on MRI by excluding the chest region

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lin, Muqing [Tu and Yuen Center for Functional Onco-Imaging, Department of Radiological Sciences, University of California, Irvine, California 92697-5020 and National-Regional Key Technology Engineering Laboratory for Medical Ultrasound, Guangdong Key Laboratory for Biomedical Measurements and Ultrasound Imaging, Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Medicine, Shenzhen University, 518060 China (China); Chen, Jeon-Hor [Tu and Yuen Center for Functional Onco-Imaging, Department of Radiological Sciences, University of California, Irvine, California 92697-5020 and Department of Radiology, E-Da Hospital and I-Shou University, Kaohsiung 82445, Taiwan (China); Wang, Xiaoyong; Su, Min-Ying, E-mail: msu@uci.edu [Tu and Yuen Center for Functional Onco-Imaging, Department of Radiological Sciences, University of California, Irvine, California 92697-5020 (United States); Chan, Siwa [Department of Radiology, Taichung Veterans General Hospital, Taichung 40407, Taiwan (China); Chen, Siping [National-Regional Key Technology Engineering Laboratory for Medical Ultrasound, Guangdong Key Laboratory for Biomedical Measurements and Ultrasound Imaging, Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Medicine, Shenzhen University, 518060 China (China)

2013-12-15

Purpose: Methods for quantification of breast density on MRI using semiautomatic approaches are commonly used. In this study, the authors report on a fully automatic chest template-based method. Methods: Nonfat-suppressed breast MR images from 31 healthy women were analyzed. Among them, one case was randomly selected and used as the template, and the remaining 30 cases were used for testing. Unlike most model-based breast segmentation methods that use the breast region as the template, the chest body region on a middle slice was used as the template. Within the chest template, three body landmarks (thoracic spine and bilateral boundary of the pectoral muscle) were identified for performing the initial V-shape cut to determine the posterior lateral boundary of the breast. The chest template was mapped to each subject's image space to obtain a subject-specific chest model for exclusion. On the remaining image, the chest wall muscle was identified and excluded to obtain clean breast segmentation. The chest and muscle boundaries determined on the middle slice were used as the reference for the segmentation of adjacent slices, and the process continued superiorly and inferiorly until all 3D slices were segmented. The segmentation results were evaluated by an experienced radiologist to mark voxels that were wrongly included or excluded for error analysis. Results: The breast volumes measured by the proposed algorithm were very close to the radiologist's corrected volumes, showing a % difference ranging from 0.01% to 3.04% in 30 tested subjects with a mean of 0.86% ± 0.72%. The total error was calculated by adding the inclusion and the exclusion errors (so they did not cancel each other out), which ranged from 0.05% to 6.75% with a mean of 3.05% ± 1.93%. The fibroglandular tissue segmented within the breast region determined by the algorithm and the radiologist were also very close, showing a % difference ranging from 0.02% to 2.52% with a mean of 1.03% ± 1

Relationship between retinal lattice degeneration and open angle glaucoma.

Science.gov (United States)

Rahimi, Mansour

2005-01-01

Patients with retinal disorders may develop glaucoma of both a primary and secondary type. Pigment may contribute to trabecular obstruction in some patients with open-angle glaucoma. Lattice degeneration of the retina in its typical form is a sharply demarcated, circumferentially oriented, degenerative process with significant alterations of retinal pigmentation. The association between myopia, open angle glaucoma and pigment dispersion is striking. Therefore, it could be postulated that there is significant prevalence of open angle glaucoma in patients with retinal lattice degeneration, especially in combination with myopia.

Maximum principles for boundary-degenerate linear parabolic differential operators

OpenAIRE

Feehan, Paul M. N.

2013-01-01

We develop weak and strong maximum principles for boundary-degenerate, linear, parabolic, second-order partial differential operators, $Lu := -u_t-\\tr(aD^2u)-\\langle b, Du\\rangle + cu$, with \\emph{partial} Dirichlet boundary conditions. The coefficient, $a(t,x)$, is assumed to vanish along a non-empty open subset, $\\mydirac_0!\\sQ$, called the \\emph{degenerate boundary portion}, of the parabolic boundary, $\\mydirac!\\sQ$, of the domain $\\sQ\\subset\\RR^{d+1}$, while $a(t,x)$ may be non-zero at po...

The effect of the X-Stop implantation on intervertebral foramen, segmental spinal canal length and disc space in elderly patients with lumbar spinal stenosis.

Science.gov (United States)

Wan, Zongmiao; Wang, Shaobai; Kozanek, Michal; Xia, Qun; Mansfield, Frederick L; Lü, Guohua; Wood, Kirkham B; Li, Guoan

2012-03-01

To evaluate the biomechanical effect of the X-Stop device on the intervertebral foramen (IVF) and segmental spinal canal length (SSCL), as well as the intervertebral disc space at the implanted and the adjacent segments in patients with lumbar spinal stenosis (LSS). Eight elderly patients with LSS, scheduled for X-stop implantation, were CT or MRI scanned to construct 3D vertebral models (L2-S1). Before and after the surgery, each patient was also imaged using a dual-fluoroscopic image system during weight-bearing standing and maximum extension-flexion. The positions of the vertebrae were then determined using an established 2D-3D model matching method. The data revealed that the postoperative IVF area was significantly increased by 32.9% (or 32 mm2) (pspace of the implanted level was significantly decreased from 8.0 to 6.6 mm during standing. The X-Stop implantation efficiently enlarged the IVF area in the elderly patients with LSS at the operated level with little biomechanical effect immediately on the superior and inferior adjacent levels. However, it reduced the anterior disc space at the implanted level.

Association between CT-evaluated lumbar lordosis and features of spinal degeneration, evaluated in supine position

Science.gov (United States)

Kalichman, Leonid; Li, Ling; Hunter, David; Been, Ella

2013-01-01

Background Context Few studies have directly evaluated the association of lumbar lordosis and segmental wedging of the vertebral bodies and intervertebral disks with prevalence of spinal degenerative features. Purpose To evaluate the association of CT-evaluated lumbar lordosis, segmental wedging of the vertebral bodies and that of the intervertebral disks with various spinal degeneration features. Study design This cross-sectional study was a nested project to the Framingham Heart Study. Sample A random consecutive subset of 191 participants chosen from the 3590 participants enrolled in the Framingham Heart Study who underwent multi-detector CT to assess aortic calcification. Outcome Measures Physiologic Measures Dichotomous variables indicating the presence of intervertebral disc narrowing, facet joint osteoarthritis, spondylolysis, spondylolisthesis and spinal stenosis and density (in Hounsfield units) of multifidus and erector spinae muscles were evaluated on supine CT, as well as the lordosis angle (LA) and the wedging of the vertebral bodies and intervertebral disks. Sum of vertebral bodies wedging (ΣB) and sum of intervertebral discs wedging (ΣD) were used in analyses. Methods Mean values (±SD) of LA, ΣB and ΣD were calculated in males and females and compared using the t-test. Mean values (±SD) of LA, ΣB and ΣD in 4 age groups: 0.05) with increasing age. LA showed statistically significant association with presence of spondylolysis (OR(95%CI): 1.08(1.02–1.14)) and with density of multifidus (1.06 (1.01–1.11). as well as a marginally significant association with isthmic spondylolisthesis (1.07(1.00–1.14). ΣB showed a positive association with degenerative spondylolisthesis and disc narrowing ((1.14(1.06–1.23) and 1.04 (1.00–1.08), correspondingly), whereas ΣD showed negative one (0.93(0.87–0.98) and (0.93(0.89–0.97), correspondingly). Conclusions Significant associations were found between lumbar lordosis evaluated in supine position

Axon degeneration: make the Schwann cell great again

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Keit Men Wong

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Axonal degeneration is a pivotal feature of many neurodegenerative conditions and substantially accounts for neurological morbidity. A widely used experimental model to study the mechanisms of axonal degeneration is Wallerian degeneration (WD, which occurs after acute axonal injury. In the peripheral nervous system (PNS, WD is characterized by swift dismantling and clearance of injured axons with their myelin sheaths. This is a prerequisite for successful axonal regeneration. In the central nervous system (CNS, WD is much slower, which significantly contributes to failed axonal regeneration. Although it is well-documented that Schwann cells (SCs have a critical role in the regenerative potential of the PNS, to date we have only scarce knowledge as to how SCs 'sense' axonal injury and immediately respond to it. In this regard, it remains unknown as to whether SCs play the role of a passive bystander or an active director during the execution of the highly orchestrated disintegration program of axons. Older reports, together with more recent studies, suggest that SCs mount dynamic injury responses minutes after axonal injury, long before axonal breakdown occurs. The swift SC response to axonal injury could play either a pro-degenerative role, or alternatively a supportive role, to the integrity of distressed axons that have not yet committed to degenerate. Indeed, supporting the latter concept, recent findings in a chronic PNS neurodegeneration model indicate that deactivation of a key molecule promoting SC injury responses exacerbates axonal loss. If this holds true in a broader spectrum of conditions, it may provide the grounds for the development of new glia-centric therapeutic approaches to counteract axonal loss.

Verteporfin plus ranibizumab for choroidal neovascularization in age-related macular degeneration

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Larsen, Michael; Schmidt-Erfurth, Ursula; Lanzetta, Paolo

2012-01-01

To compare the efficacy and safety of same-day verteporfin photodynamic therapy (PDT) and intravitreal ranibizumab combination treatment versus ranibizumab monotherapy in neovascular age-related macular degeneration.......To compare the efficacy and safety of same-day verteporfin photodynamic therapy (PDT) and intravitreal ranibizumab combination treatment versus ranibizumab monotherapy in neovascular age-related macular degeneration....

Hydrophilic segmented block copolymers based on poly(ethylene oxide) and monodisperse amide segments

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Husken, D.; Feijen, Jan; Gaymans, R.J.

2007-01-01

Segmented block copolymers based on poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) flexible segments and monodisperse crystallizable bisester tetra-amide segments were made via a polycondensation reaction. The molecular weight of the PEO segments varied from 600 to 4600 g/mol and a bisester tetra-amide segment (T6T6T)

Degeneration and height of cervical discs classified from MRI compared with precise height measurements from radiographs

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kolstad, Frode; Myhr, Gunnar; Kvistad, Kjell Arne; Nygaard, Oystein P.; Leivseth, Gunnar

2005-01-01

Study design: Descriptive study comparing MRI classifications with measurements from radiographs. Objectives: 1.Define the relationship between MRI classified cervical disc degeneration and objectively measured disc height. 2.Assess the level of inter- and intra-observer errors using MRI in defining cervical disc degeneration. Summary of background data: Cervical spine degeneration has been defined radiologically by loss of disc height, decreased disc and bone marrow signal intensity and disc protrusion/herniation on MRI. The intra- and inter-observer error using MRI in defining cervical degeneration influences data interpretation. Few previous studies have addressed this source of error. The relation and time sequence between cervical disc degeneration classified by MRI and cervical disc height decrease measured from radiographs is unclear. Methods: The MRI classification of degeneration was based on nucleus signal, prolaps identification and bone marrow signal. Two neuro-radiologists evaluated the MR-images independently in a blinded fashion. The radiographic disc height measurements were done by a new computer-assisted method compensating for image distortion and permitting comparison with normal level-, age- and gender-appropriate disc height. Results/conclusions: 1.Progressing disc degeneration classified from MRI is on average significantly associated with a decrease of disc height as measured from radiographs. Within each MRI defined category of degeneration measured disc heights, however, scatter in a wide range. 2.The inter-observer agreement between two neuro-radiologists in both defining degeneration and disc height by MRI was only moderate. Studies addressing questions related to cervical disc degeneration should take this into consideration

Degeneration and height of cervical discs classified from MRI compared with precise height measurements from radiographs

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kolstad, Frode [National Centre of Spinal Disorders, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, University Hospital of Trondheim, 7006 Trondheim (Norway)]. E-mail: frode.kolstad@medisin.ntnu.no; Myhr, Gunnar [Department of Radiology, University Hospital of Trondheim, 7006 Trondheim (Norway); Kvistad, Kjell Arne [Department of Radiology, University Hospital of Trondheim, 7006 Trondheim (Norway); Nygaard, Oystein P. [National Centre of Spinal Disorders, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, University Hospital of Trondheim, 7006 Trondheim (Norway); Leivseth, Gunnar [Department of Neuromedicine, Faculty of Medicine, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, University Hospital of Trondheim, 7006 Trondheim (Norway)

2005-09-01

Study design: Descriptive study comparing MRI classifications with measurements from radiographs. Objectives: 1.Define the relationship between MRI classified cervical disc degeneration and objectively measured disc height. 2.Assess the level of inter- and intra-observer errors using MRI in defining cervical disc degeneration. Summary of background data: Cervical spine degeneration has been defined radiologically by loss of disc height, decreased disc and bone marrow signal intensity and disc protrusion/herniation on MRI. The intra- and inter-observer error using MRI in defining cervical degeneration influences data interpretation. Few previous studies have addressed this source of error. The relation and time sequence between cervical disc degeneration classified by MRI and cervical disc height decrease measured from radiographs is unclear. Methods: The MRI classification of degeneration was based on nucleus signal, prolaps identification and bone marrow signal. Two neuro-radiologists evaluated the MR-images independently in a blinded fashion. The radiographic disc height measurements were done by a new computer-assisted method compensating for image distortion and permitting comparison with normal level-, age- and gender-appropriate disc height. Results/conclusions: 1.Progressing disc degeneration classified from MRI is on average significantly associated with a decrease of disc height as measured from radiographs. Within each MRI defined category of degeneration measured disc heights, however, scatter in a wide range. 2.The inter-observer agreement between two neuro-radiologists in both defining degeneration and disc height by MRI was only moderate. Studies addressing questions related to cervical disc degeneration should take this into consideration.

Spinal segmental dysgenesis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

N Mahomed

2009-06-01

Full Text Available Spinal segmental dysgenesis is a rare congenital spinal abnormality , seen in neonates and infants in which a segment of the spine and spinal cord fails to develop normally . The condition is segmental with normal vertebrae above and below the malformation. This condition is commonly associated with various abnormalities that affect the heart, genitourinary, gastrointestinal tract and skeletal system. We report two cases of spinal segmental dysgenesis and the associated abnormalities.

Planar and non-planar nucleus-acoustic shock structures in self-gravitating degenerate quantum plasma systems

Science.gov (United States)

Zaman, D. M. S.; Amina, M.; Dip, P. R.; Mamun, A. A.

2017-11-01

The basic properties of planar and non-planar (spherical and cylindrical) nucleus-acoustic (NA) shock structures (SSs) in a strongly coupled self-gravitating degenerate quantum plasma system (containing strongly coupled non-relativistically degenerate heavy nuclear species, weakly coupled non-relativistically degenerate light nuclear species, and inertialess non-/ultra-relativistically degenerate electrons) have been investigated. The generalized quantum hydrodynamic model and the reductive perturbation method have been used to derive the modified Burgers equation. It is shown that the strong correlation among heavy nuclear species acts as the source of dissipation and is responsible for the formation of the NA SSs with positive (negative) electrostatic (self-gravitational) potential. It is also observed that the effects of non-/ultra-relativistically degenerate electron pressure, dynamics of non-relativistically degenerate light nuclear species, spherical geometry, etc., significantly modify the basic features of the NA SSs. The applications of our results in astrophysical compact objects like white dwarfs and neutron stars are briefly discussed.

Transsynaptic neuronal degeneration of optic nerves associated with bilateral occipital lesions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sachdev Mahipal

1990-01-01

Full Text Available A case is reported of a 9-year old male who presented with abnormal behaviour and progressive diminution of vision. Pupils were middilated in both eyes but the pupillary reflexes were preserved. Fundus examination revealed a bilateral optic atrophy and radiological investigations showed a bilateral occipital calcification. We hereby document a case of retrograde transsynaptic neuronal degeneration of the visual system secondary to bilateral occipital lesions. Transsynapptic neuronal degeneration of optic nerves consequent to occipital lobe lesions is a rare phenomenon. Experimentally occipital lobe ablation in non-human primates has been shown to result in optic atrophy. Herein, we document a case of retrograde transsynaptic neuronal degeneration of the visual system secondary to bilateral occipital lesions.

Lipids, lipid genes, and incident age-related macular degeneration: the three continent age-related macular degeneration consortium

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Klein, Ronald; Myers, Chelsea E.; Buitendijk, Gabriëlle H. S.; Rochtchina, Elena; Gao, Xiaoyi; de Jong, Paulus T. V. M.; Sivakumaran, Theru A.; Burlutsky, George; McKean-Cowdin, Roberta; Hofman, Albert; Iyengar, Sudha K.; Lee, Kristine E.; Stricker, Bruno H.; Vingerling, Johannes R.; Mitchell, Paul; Klein, Barbara E. K.; Klaver, Caroline C. W.; Wang, Jie Jin

2014-01-01

To describe associations of serum lipid levels and lipid pathway genes to the incidence of age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Meta-analysis. setting: Three population-based cohorts. population: A total of 6950 participants from the Beaver Dam Eye Study (BDES), Blue Mountains Eye Study (BMES),

A mouse model for degeneration of the spiral ligament.

Science.gov (United States)

Kada, Shinpei; Nakagawa, Takayuki; Ito, Juichi

2009-06-01

Previous studies have indicated the importance of the spiral ligament (SL) in the pathogenesis of sensorineural hearing loss. The aim of this study was to establish a mouse model for SL degeneration as the basis for the development of new strategies for SL regeneration. We injected 3-nitropropionic acid (3-NP), an inhibitor of succinate dehydrogenase, at various concentrations into the posterior semicircular canal of adult C57BL/6 mice. Saline-injected animals were used as controls. Auditory function was monitored by measurements of auditory brain stem responses (ABRs). On postoperative day 14, cochlear specimens were obtained after the measurement of the endocochlear potential (EP). Animals that were injected with 5 or 10 mM 3-NP showed a massive elevation of ABR thresholds along with extensive degeneration of the cochleae. Cochleae injected with 1 mM 3-NP exhibited selective degeneration of the SL fibrocytes but alterations in EP levels and ABR thresholds were not of sufficient magnitude to allow for testing functional recovery after therapeutic interventions. Animals injected with 3 mM 3-NP showed a reduction of around 50% in the EP along with a significant loss of SL fibrocytes, although degeneration of spiral ganglion neurons and hair cells was still present in certain regions. These findings indicate that cochleae injected with 3 mM 3-NP may be useful in investigations designed to test the feasibility of new therapeutic manipulations for functional SL regeneration.

Matrix units and Schur elements for the degenerate cyclotomic Hecke algebras

OpenAIRE

Zhao, Deke

2011-01-01

The paper uses the cellular basis of the (semi-simple) degenerate cyclotomic Hecke algebras to investigate these algebras exhaustively. As a consequence, we describe explicitly the "Young's seminormal form" and a orthogonal bases for Specht modules and determine explicitly the closed formula for the natural bilinear form on Specht modules and Schur elements for the degenerate cyclotomic Hekce algebras.

Exploring Nonconvex, Crossed and Degenerate Polygons

Science.gov (United States)

Contreras, Jose N.

2004-01-01

An exploration of nonconvex, crossed, and degenerate polygons (NCCDPs) are described with the help of examples with pedagogical tips and recommendations that are found useful when teaching the mathematical process of extending geometric patterns to NCCDPs. The study concludes that investigating such extensions with interactive geometry software…

Geometry of non-degenerate Susskind fermions

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mitra, P.

1983-01-01

The Dirac-Kaehler equation on the lattice is known to describe the degenerate ''flavours'' appering in Susskind's approach to lattice fermions. We study the modification that has to be made in this equation in order to lift the degeneracy and give the flavours arbitrary different masses. (orig.)

Degenerated human intervertebral discs contain autoantibodies against extracellular matrix proteins

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

S Capossela

2014-04-01

Full Text Available Degeneration of intervertebral discs (IVDs is associated with back pain and elevated levels of inflammatory cells. It has been hypothesised that discogenic pain is a direct result of vascular and neural ingrowth along annulus fissures, which may expose the avascular nucleus pulposus (NP to the systemic circulation and induce an autoimmune reaction. In this study, we confirmed our previous observation of antibodies in human degenerated and post-traumatic IVDs cultured in vitro. We hypothesised that the presence of antibodies was due to an autoimmune reaction against specific proteins of the disc. Furthermore we identified antigens which possibly trigger an autoimmune response in degenerative disc diseases. We demonstrated that degenerated and post-traumatic IVDs contain IgG antibodies against typical extracellular proteins of the disc, particularly proteins of the NP. We identified IgGs against collagen type II and aggrecan, confirming an autoimmune reaction against the normally immune privileged NP. We also found specific IgGs against collagens types I and V, but not against collagen type III. In conclusion, this study confirmed the association between disc degeneration and autoimmunity, and may open the avenue for future studies on developing prognostic, diagnostic and therapy-monitoring markers for degenerative disc diseases.

Automated vessel shadow segmentation of fovea-centered spectral-domain images from multiple OCT devices

Science.gov (United States)

Wu, Jing; Gerendas, Bianca S.; Waldstein, Sebastian M.; Simader, Christian; Schmidt-Erfurth, Ursula

2014-03-01

Spectral-domain Optical Coherence Tomography (SD-OCT) is a non-invasive modality for acquiring high reso- lution, three-dimensional (3D) cross sectional volumetric images of the retina and the subretinal layers. SD-OCT also allows the detailed imaging of retinal pathology, aiding clinicians in the diagnosis of sight degrading diseases such as age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and glaucoma.1 Disease diagnosis, assessment, and treatment requires a patient to undergo multiple OCT scans, possibly using different scanning devices, to accurately and precisely gauge disease activity, progression and treatment success. However, the use of OCT imaging devices from different vendors, combined with patient movement may result in poor scan spatial correlation, potentially leading to incorrect patient diagnosis or treatment analysis. Image registration can be used to precisely compare disease states by registering differing 3D scans to one another. In order to align 3D scans from different time- points and vendors using registration, landmarks are required, the most obvious being the retinal vasculature. Presented here is a fully automated cross-vendor method to acquire retina vessel locations for OCT registration from fovea centred 3D SD-OCT scans based on vessel shadows. Noise filtered OCT scans are flattened based on vendor retinal layer segmentation, to extract the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) layer of the retina. Voxel based layer profile analysis and k-means clustering is used to extract candidate vessel shadow regions from the RPE layer. In conjunction, the extracted RPE layers are combined to generate a projection image featuring all candidate vessel shadows. Image processing methods for vessel segmentation of the OCT constructed projection image are then applied to optimize the accuracy of OCT vessel shadow segmentation through the removal of false positive shadow regions such as those caused by exudates and cysts. Validation of segmented vessel shadows uses

Degenerate band edge laser

Science.gov (United States)

Veysi, Mehdi; Othman, Mohamed A. K.; Figotin, Alexander; Capolino, Filippo

2018-05-01

We propose a class of lasers based on a fourth-order exceptional point of degeneracy (EPD) referred to as the degenerate band edge (DBE). EPDs have been found in parity-time-symmetric photonic structures that require loss and/or gain; here we show that the DBE is a different kind of EPD since it occurs in periodic structures that are lossless and gainless. Because of this property, a small level of gain is sufficient to induce single-frequency lasing based on a synchronous operation of four degenerate Floquet-Bloch eigenwaves. This lasing scheme constitutes a light-matter interaction mechanism that leads also to a unique scaling law of the laser threshold with the inverse of the fifth power of the laser-cavity length. The DBE laser has the lowest lasing threshold in comparison to a regular band edge laser and to a conventional laser in cavities with the same loaded quality (Q ) factor and length. In particular, even without mirror reflectors the DBE laser exhibits a lasing threshold which is an order of magnitude lower than that of a uniform cavity laser of the same length and with very high mirror reflectivity. Importantly, this novel DBE lasing regime enforces mode selectivity and coherent single-frequency operation even for pumping rates well beyond the lasing threshold, in contrast to the multifrequency nature of conventional uniform cavity lasers.

Observable consequences of partially degenerate leptogenesis

CERN Document Server

Ellis, Jonathan Richard; Yanagida, T; Ellis, John; Raidal, Martti

2002-01-01

In the context of the seesaw mechanism, it is natural that the large solar and atmospheric neutrino mixing angles originate separately from large 2 by 2 mixings in the neutrino and charged-lepton sectors, respectively, and large mixing in the neutrino couplings is in turn more plausible if two of the heavy singlet neutrinos are nearly degenerate. We study the phenomenology of this scenario, calculating leptogenesis by solving numerically the set of coupled Boltzmann equations for out-of-equilibrium heavy singlet neutrino decays in the minimal supersymmetric seesaw model. The near-degenerate neutrinos may weigh < 10^8 GeV, avoiding the cosmological gravitino problem. This scenario predicts that Br(mu to e gamma) should be strongly suppressed, because of the small singlet neutrino masses, whilst Br(tau to mu gamma) may be large enough to be observable in B-factory or LHC experiments. If the light neutrino masses are hierarchical, we predict that the neutrinoless double-beta decay parameter m_{ee} is approxim...

Atomic rate coefficients in a degenerate plasma

Science.gov (United States)

Aslanyan, Valentin; Tallents, Greg

2015-11-01

The electrons in a dense, degenerate plasma follow Fermi-Dirac statistics, which deviate significantly in this regime from the usual Maxwell-Boltzmann approach used by many models. We present methods to calculate the atomic rate coefficients for the Fermi-Dirac distribution and present a comparison of the ionization fraction of carbon calculated using both models. We have found that for densities close to solid, although the discrepancy is small for LTE conditions, there is a large divergence from the ionization fraction by using classical rate coefficients in the presence of strong photoionizing radiation. We have found that using these modified rates and the degenerate heat capacity may affect the time evolution of a plasma subject to extreme ultraviolet and x-ray radiation such as produced in free electron laser irradiation of solid targets.

Design of the Advanced Virgo non-degenerate recycling cavities

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Granata, M; Barsuglia, M; Flaminio, R; Freise, A; Hild, S; Marque, J

2010-01-01

Advanced Virgo is the project to upgrade the interferometric gravitational wave detector Virgo, and it foresees the implementation of power and signal non-degenerate recycling cavities. Such cavities suppress the build-up of high order modes of the resonating sidebands, with some advantage for the commissioning of the detector and the build-up of the gravitational signal. Here we present the baseline design of the Advanced Virgo non-degenerate recycling cavities, giving some preliminary results of simulations about the tolerances of this design to astigmatism, mirror figure errors and thermal lensing.

Automated imaging dark adaptometer for investigating hereditary retinal degenerations

Science.gov (United States)

Azevedo, Dario F. G.; Cideciyan, Artur V.; Regunath, Gopalakrishnan; Jacobson, Samuel G.

1995-05-01

We designed and built an automated imaging dark adaptometer (AIDA) to increase accuracy, reliability, versatility and speed of dark adaptation testing in patients with hereditary retinal degenerations. AIDA increases test accuracy by imaging the ocular fundus for precise positioning of bleaching and stimulus lights. It improves test reliability by permitting continuous monitoring of patient fixation. Software control of stimulus presentation provides broad testing versatility without sacrificing speed. AIDA promises to facilitate the measurement of dark adaptation in studies of the pathophysiology of retinal degenerations and in future treatment trials of these diseases.

Transneuronal degeneration in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy: evaluation by MR imaging

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kodama, Fumiko; Ogawa, Toshihide; Sugihara, Shuji; Kamba, Masayuki; Kinoshita, Toshibumi [Department of Radiology, Faculty of Medicine' ' Tottori University, 36-1 Nishi-cho, 683-8504, Yonago, Tottori (Japan); Kohaya, Norimasa; Kondo, Shinji [Department of Neurosurgery, Faculty of Medicine' ' Tottori University, 36-1 Nishi-cho, 683-8504, Yonago, Tottori (Japan)

2003-09-01

The aim of this study was to assess the MR imaging findings of transneuronal degeneration of limbic system in the patients with temporal lobe epilepsy, and to detect the influence of surgery on the anatomy of the limbic system. Axial and coronal T1- and T2-weighted MR images were retrospectively analyzed in 34 patients with temporal lobe epilepsy, focusing on transneuronal degeneration. In 17 of the 34 patients, MR images were also analyzed after selective amygdalo-hippocampectomy. Atrophy of the fornix, mamillary body, mamillothalamic tract (MTT), and thalamus ipsilateral to the epileptic focus was demonstrated on MR images in 14.7, 17.6, 8.8, and 11.8% of the 34 patients, respectively. Focal hyperintensity of the thalamus was found on T2-weighted images in 8.8% of the 34 patients. In 17 patients who were evaluated before and after surgery, transneuronal degeneration was seen more frequently after surgery: fornix (11.8 vs 29.4%), mamillary body (11.8 vs 52.9%), MTT (5.9 vs 11.8%), and thalamus (11.8 vs 11.8%). Transneuronal degeneration of the limbic system is clearly demonstrated by MR imaging in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy, and surgical intervention induces transneuronal degeneration more frequently. (orig.)

[Vitreomacular adhesion in HD-OCT images in the age-related macular degeneration].

Science.gov (United States)

Latalska, Małgorzata; Swiech-Zubilewicz, Anna; Mackiewicz, Jerzy

2013-01-01

The aim of this study was to evaluate an incidence of the vitreomacular adhesion in patients with age-related macular degeneration. We examined 472 eyes in 241 patients (136 W/ 105 M) in age of 54-92 years (mean 62.6 years +/- 8.5) with dry or wet age-related macular degeneration using Cirrus HD-OCT (Zeiss) macular cube 512x128 program or 5-line pro-gram. Vitreomacular adhesion was observed in 139 eyes with dry age-related macular degeneration (29.4%, p=0.000*), in 101 eyes with drusen (21.4%, p=0.000*), in 38 eyes with retinal pigment epithelium alterations (8%, p=0.202), in 278 eyes with wet age-related macular degeneration (58.9%, p=0.001*), in 21 eyes with pigment epithelial detachment (4.4%, p=0.303), in 161 eyes with choroidal neovascularzation (34. 1%, p=0.031*/ and in 96 eyes with scar (20.4%, p=0.040*). Probably, vitreomacular adhesion alone is not able to induce age-related macular degeneration, but it may be associated with choroidal neovascularization development, it can contribute to exudate formation and choroidal neovascularization, it may induces or sustains a chronic low-grade inflammation in the macula region.

Transneuronal degeneration in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy: evaluation by MR imaging

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kodama, Fumiko; Ogawa, Toshihide; Sugihara, Shuji; Kamba, Masayuki; Kinoshita, Toshibumi; Kohaya, Norimasa; Kondo, Shinji

2003-01-01

The aim of this study was to assess the MR imaging findings of transneuronal degeneration of limbic system in the patients with temporal lobe epilepsy, and to detect the influence of surgery on the anatomy of the limbic system. Axial and coronal T1- and T2-weighted MR images were retrospectively analyzed in 34 patients with temporal lobe epilepsy, focusing on transneuronal degeneration. In 17 of the 34 patients, MR images were also analyzed after selective amygdalo-hippocampectomy. Atrophy of the fornix, mamillary body, mamillothalamic tract (MTT), and thalamus ipsilateral to the epileptic focus was demonstrated on MR images in 14.7, 17.6, 8.8, and 11.8% of the 34 patients, respectively. Focal hyperintensity of the thalamus was found on T2-weighted images in 8.8% of the 34 patients. In 17 patients who were evaluated before and after surgery, transneuronal degeneration was seen more frequently after surgery: fornix (11.8 vs 29.4%), mamillary body (11.8 vs 52.9%), MTT (5.9 vs 11.8%), and thalamus (11.8 vs 11.8%). Transneuronal degeneration of the limbic system is clearly demonstrated by MR imaging in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy, and surgical intervention induces transneuronal degeneration more frequently. (orig.)

Degenerated uterine leiomyomas mimicking malignant bilateral ovarian surface epithelial tumors

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Hwang, Yi Boem Ha; Lee, Hae Kyung; Lee, Min Hee; Choi, Seo Youn; Chung, Soo Ho [Bucheon Hospital, Soonchunhyang University College of Medicine, Bucheon (Korea, Republic of)

2017-07-15

Uterine leiomyomas are the most common benign uterine neoplasms. Undegenerated uterine leiomyomas are easily recognizable by the typical imaging findings on radiologic studies. However, degenerated fibroids can have unusual and variable appearances. The atypical appearances due to degenerative changes may cause confusion in diagnosis of leiomyomas. In this article, we report a case of a patient with extensive cystic and myxoid degeneration of uterine leiomyoma, mimicking malignant bilateral ovarian surface epithelial tumors.

The brain basis of musicophilia: evidence from frontotemporal lobar degeneration

OpenAIRE

Phillip David Fletcher; Laura eDowney; Pirada eWitoonpanich; Jason eWarren

2013-01-01

Musicophilia, or abnormal craving for music, is a poorly understood phenomenon that has been associated in particular with focal degeneration of the temporal lobes. Here we addressed the brain basis of musicophilia using voxel-based morphometry (VBM) on MR volumetric brain images in a retrospectively ascertained cohort of patients meeting clinical consensus criteria for frontotemporal lobar degeneration: of 37 cases ascertained, 12 had musicophilia and 25 did not exhibit the phenomenon. The s...

Automatic Melody Segmentation

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Rodríguez López, Marcelo

2016-01-01

The work presented in this dissertation investigates music segmentation. In the field of Musicology, segmentation refers to a score analysis technique, whereby notated pieces or passages of these pieces are divided into “units” referred to as sections, periods, phrases, and so on. Segmentation

Loss of ift122, a Retrograde Intraflagellar Transport (IFT) Complex Component, Leads to Slow, Progressive Photoreceptor Degeneration Due to Inefficient Opsin Transport*

Science.gov (United States)

Boubakri, Meriam; Chaya, Taro; Hirata, Hiromi; Kajimura, Naoko; Kuwahara, Ryusuke; Ueno, Akiko; Malicki, Jarema; Furukawa, Takahisa; Omori, Yoshihiro

2016-01-01

In the retina, aberrant opsin transport from cell bodies to outer segments leads to retinal degenerative diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa. Opsin transport is facilitated by the intraflagellar transport (IFT) system that mediates the bidirectional movement of proteins within cilia. In contrast to functions of the anterograde transport executed by IFT complex B (IFT-B), the precise functions of the retrograde transport mediated by IFT complex A (IFT-A) have not been well studied in photoreceptor cilia. Here, we analyzed developing zebrafish larvae carrying a null mutation in ift122 encoding a component of IFT-A. ift122 mutant larvae show unexpectedly mild phenotypes, compared with those of mutants defective in IFT-B. ift122 mutants exhibit a slow onset of progressive photoreceptor degeneration mainly after 7 days post-fertilization. ift122 mutant larvae also develop cystic kidney but not curly body, both of which are typically observed in various ciliary mutants. ift122 mutants display a loss of cilia in the inner ear hair cells and nasal pit epithelia. Loss of ift122 causes disorganization of outer segment discs. Ectopic accumulation of an IFT-B component, ift88, is observed in the ift122 mutant photoreceptor cilia. In addition, pulse-chase experiments using GFP-opsin fusion proteins revealed that ift122 is required for the efficient transport of opsin and the distal elongation of outer segments. These results show that IFT-A is essential for the efficient transport of outer segment proteins, including opsin, and for the survival of retinal photoreceptor cells, rendering the ift122 mutant a unique model for human retinal degenerative diseases. PMID:27681595

Laenderyggens degeneration og radiologi

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jacobsen, Steffen; Gosvig, Kasper Kjaerulf; Sonne-Holm, Stig

2006-01-01

and significant relationships between radiological findings and subjective symptoms have both been notoriously difficult to identify. The lack of consensus on clinical criteria and radiological definitions has hampered the undertaking of properly executed epidemiological studies. The natural history of LBP...... is cyclic: exacerbations relieved by asymptomatic periods. New imaging modalities, including the combination of MR imaging and multiplanar 3-D CT scans, have broadened our awareness of possible pain-generating degenerative processes of the lumbar spine other than disc degeneration....

A segment of 97 amino acids within the translocation domain of Clostridium difficile toxin B is essential for toxicity.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yongrong Zhang

Full Text Available Clostridium difficile toxin B (TcdB intoxicates target cells by glucosylating Rho GTPases. TcdB (269 kDa consists of at least 4 functional domains including a glucosyltransferase domain (GTD, a cysteine protease domain (CPD, a translocation domain (TD, and a receptor binding domain (RBD. The function and molecular mode of action of the TD, which is the largest segment of TcdB and comprises nearly 50% of the protein, remain largely unknown. Here we show that a 97-amino-acid segment (AA1756 - 1852, designated as ?97 or D97, located in the C-terminus of the TD and adjacent to the RBD, is essential for the cellular activity of TcdB. Deletion of this segment in TcdB (designated as TxB-D97, did not adversely alter toxin enzymatic activities or its cellular binding and uptake capacity. TxB-D97 bound to and entered cells in a manner similar to TcdB holotoxin. Both wild type and mutant toxins released their GTDs similarly in the presence of inositol hexakisphosphate (InsP6, and showed a similar glucosyltransferase activity in a cell-free glucosylating assay. Despite these similarities, the cytotoxic activity of TxB-D97 was reduced by more than 5 logs compared to wild type toxin, supported by the inability of TxB-D97 to glucosylate Rac1 of target cells. Moreover, the mutant toxin failed to elicit tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α in macrophages, a process dependent on the glucosyltransferase activity of the toxin. Cellular fractionation of toxin-exposed cells revealed that TxB-D97 was unable to efficiently release the GTD into cytosol. Thereby, we conclude the 97-amino-acid region of the TD C-terminus of TcdB adjacent to the RBD, is essential for the toxicity of TcdB.

Fully automated chest wall line segmentation in breast MRI by using context information

Science.gov (United States)

Wu, Shandong; Weinstein, Susan P.; Conant, Emily F.; Localio, A. Russell; Schnall, Mitchell D.; Kontos, Despina

2012-03-01

Breast MRI has emerged as an effective modality for the clinical management of breast cancer. Evidence suggests that computer-aided applications can further improve the diagnostic accuracy of breast MRI. A critical and challenging first step for automated breast MRI analysis, is to separate the breast as an organ from the chest wall. Manual segmentation or user-assisted interactive tools are inefficient, tedious, and error-prone, which is prohibitively impractical for processing large amounts of data from clinical trials. To address this challenge, we developed a fully automated and robust computerized segmentation method that intensively utilizes context information of breast MR imaging and the breast tissue's morphological characteristics to accurately delineate the breast and chest wall boundary. A critical component is the joint application of anisotropic diffusion and bilateral image filtering to enhance the edge that corresponds to the chest wall line (CWL) and to reduce the effect of adjacent non-CWL tissues. A CWL voting algorithm is proposed based on CWL candidates yielded from multiple sequential MRI slices, in which a CWL representative is generated and used through a dynamic time warping (DTW) algorithm to filter out inferior candidates, leaving the optimal one. Our method is validated by a representative dataset of 20 3D unilateral breast MRI scans that span the full range of the American College of Radiology (ACR) Breast Imaging Reporting and Data System (BI-RADS) fibroglandular density categorization. A promising performance (average overlay percentage of 89.33%) is observed when the automated segmentation is compared to manually segmented ground truth obtained by an experienced breast imaging radiologist. The automated method runs time-efficiently at ~3 minutes for each breast MR image set (28 slices).

Local adjacency metric dimension of sun graph and stacked book graph

Science.gov (United States)

Yulisda Badri, Alifiah; Darmaji

2018-03-01

A graph is a mathematical system consisting of a non-empty set of nodes and a set of empty sides. One of the topics to be studied in graph theory is the metric dimension. Application in the metric dimension is the navigation robot system on a path. Robot moves from one vertex to another vertex in the field by minimizing the errors that occur in translating the instructions (code) obtained from the vertices of that location. To move the robot must give different instructions (code). In order for the robot to move efficiently, the robot must be fast to translate the code of the nodes of the location it passes. so that the location vertex has a minimum distance. However, if the robot must move with the vertex location on a very large field, so the robot can not detect because the distance is too far.[6] In this case, the robot can determine its position by utilizing location vertices based on adjacency. The problem is to find the minimum cardinality of the required location vertex, and where to put, so that the robot can determine its location. The solution to this problem is the dimension of adjacency metric and adjacency metric bases. Rodrguez-Velzquez and Fernau combine the adjacency metric dimensions with local metric dimensions, thus becoming the local adjacency metric dimension. In the local adjacency metric dimension each vertex in the graph may have the same adjacency representation as the terms of the vertices. To obtain the local metric dimension of values in the graph of the Sun and the stacked book graph is used the construction method by considering the representation of each adjacent vertex of the graph.

On Mathematical Optimization for the Visualization of Frequencies and Adjacencies as Rectangular Maps

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Carrizosa, Emilio; Guerrero, Vanesa; Morales, Dolores Romero

2018-01-01

individuals as adjacent rectangular portions as possible and adding as few false adjacencies, i.e., adjacencies between rectangular portions corresponding to non-adjacent individuals, as possible. We formulate this visualization problem as a Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) model. We propose......In this paper we address the problem of visualizing a frequency distribution and an adjacency relation attached to a set of individuals. We represent this information using a rectangular map, i.e., a subdivision of a rectangle into rectangular portions so that each portion is associated with one...

Segmented trapped vortex cavity

Science.gov (United States)

Grammel, Jr., Leonard Paul (Inventor); Pennekamp, David Lance (Inventor); Winslow, Jr., Ralph Henry (Inventor)

2010-01-01

An annular trapped vortex cavity assembly segment comprising includes a cavity forward wall, a cavity aft wall, and a cavity radially outer wall there between defining a cavity segment therein. A cavity opening extends between the forward and aft walls at a radially inner end of the assembly segment. Radially spaced apart pluralities of air injection first and second holes extend through the forward and aft walls respectively. The segment may include first and second expansion joint features at distal first and second ends respectively of the segment. The segment may include a forward subcomponent including the cavity forward wall attached to an aft subcomponent including the cavity aft wall. The forward and aft subcomponents include forward and aft portions of the cavity radially outer wall respectively. A ring of the segments may be circumferentially disposed about an axis to form an annular segmented vortex cavity assembly.

Performance Analysis of Segmentation of Hyperspectral Images Based on Color Image Segmentation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Praveen Agarwal

2017-06-01

Full Text Available Image segmentation is a fundamental approach in the field of image processing and based on user’s application .This paper propose an original and simple segmentation strategy based on the EM approach that resolves many informatics problems about hyperspectral images which are observed by airborne sensors. In a first step, to simplify the input color textured image into a color image without texture. The final segmentation is simply achieved by a spatially color segmentation using feature vector with the set of color values contained around the pixel to be classified with some mathematical equations. The spatial constraint allows taking into account the inherent spatial relationships of any image and its color. This approach provides effective PSNR for the segmented image. These results have the better performance as the segmented images are compared with Watershed & Region Growing Algorithm and provide effective segmentation for the Spectral Images & Medical Images.

On Pathos Adjacency Cut Vertex Jump Graph of a Tree

OpenAIRE

Nagesh.H.M; R.Chandrasekhar

2014-01-01

In this paper the concept of pathos adjacency cut vertex jump graph PJC(T) of a tree T is introduced. We also present a characterization of graphs whose pathos adjacency cut vertex jump graphs are planar, outerplanar, minimally non-outerplanar, Eulerian and Hamiltonian.

An adaptive segment method for smoothing lidar signal based on noise estimation

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Yuzhao; Luo, Pingping

2014-10-01

An adaptive segmentation smoothing method (ASSM) is introduced in the paper to smooth the signal and suppress the noise. In the ASSM, the noise is defined as the 3σ of the background signal. An integer number N is defined for finding the changing positions in the signal curve. If the difference of adjacent two points is greater than 3Nσ, the position is recorded as an end point of the smoothing segment. All the end points detected as above are recorded and the curves between them will be smoothed separately. In the traditional method, the end points of the smoothing windows in the signals are fixed. The ASSM creates changing end points in different signals and the smoothing windows could be set adaptively. The windows are always set as the half of the segmentations and then the average smoothing method will be applied in the segmentations. The Iterative process is required for reducing the end-point aberration effect in the average smoothing method and two or three times are enough. In ASSM, the signals are smoothed in the spacial area nor frequent area, that means the frequent disturbance will be avoided. A lidar echo was simulated in the experimental work. The echo was supposed to be created by a space-born lidar (e.g. CALIOP). And white Gaussian noise was added to the echo to act as the random noise resulted from environment and the detector. The novel method, ASSM, was applied to the noisy echo to filter the noise. In the test, N was set to 3 and the Iteration time is two. The results show that, the signal could be smoothed adaptively by the ASSM, but the N and the Iteration time might be optimized when the ASSM is applied in a different lidar.

Transgenic Mice Over-Expressing RBP4 Have RBP4-Dependent and Light-Independent Retinal Degeneration.

Science.gov (United States)

Du, Mei; Phelps, Eric; Balangue, Michael J; Dockins, Aaron; Moiseyev, Gennadiy; Shin, Younghwa; Kane, Shelley; Otalora, Laura; Ma, Jian-Xing; Farjo, Rafal; Farjo, Krysten M

2017-08-01

Transgenic mice overexpressing serum retinol-binding protein (RBP4-Tg) develop progressive retinal degeneration, characterized by microglia activation, yet the precise mechanisms underlying retinal degeneration are unclear. Previous studies showed RBP4-Tg mice have normal ocular retinoid levels, suggesting that degeneration is independent of the retinoid visual cycle or light exposure. The present study addresses whether retinal degeneration is light-dependent and RBP4-dependent by testing the effects of dark-rearing and pharmacological lowering of serum RBP4 levels, respectively. RBP4-Tg mice reared on normal mouse chow in normal cyclic light conditions were directly compared to RBP4-Tg mice exposed to chow supplemented with the RBP4-lowering compound A1120 or dark-rearing conditions. Quantitative retinal histological analysis was conducted to assess retinal degeneration, and electroretinography (ERG) and optokinetic tracking (OKT) tests were performed to assess retinal and visual function. Ocular retinoids and bis-retinoid A2E were quantified. Dark-rearing RBP4-Tg mice effectively reduced ocular bis-retinoid A2E levels, but had no significant effect on retinal degeneration or dysfunction in RBP4-Tg mice, demonstrating that retinal degeneration is light-independent. A1120 treatment lowered serum RBP4 levels similar to wild-type mice, and prevented structural retinal degeneration. However, A1120 treatment did not prevent retinal dysfunction in RBP4-Tg mice. Moreover, RBP4-Tg mice on A1120 diet had significant worsening of OKT response and loss of cone photoreceptors compared to RBP4-Tg mice on normal chow. This may be related to the very significant reduction in retinyl ester levels in the retina of mice on A1120-supplemented diet. Retinal degeneration in RBP4-Tg mice is RBP4-dependent and light-independent.

Analysis of a kinetic multi-segment foot model part II: kinetics and clinical implications.

Science.gov (United States)

Bruening, Dustin A; Cooney, Kevin M; Buczek, Frank L

2012-04-01

Kinematic multi-segment foot models have seen increased use in clinical and research settings, but the addition of kinetics has been limited and hampered by measurement limitations and modeling assumptions. In this second of two companion papers, we complete the presentation and analysis of a three segment kinetic foot model by incorporating kinetic parameters and calculating joint moments and powers. The model was tested on 17 pediatric subjects (ages 7-18 years) during normal gait. Ground reaction forces were measured using two adjacent force platforms, requiring targeted walking and the creation of two sub-models to analyze ankle, midtarsal, and 1st metatarsophalangeal joints. Targeted walking resulted in only minimal kinematic and kinetic differences compared with walking at self selected speeds. Joint moments and powers were calculated and ensemble averages are presented as a normative database for comparison purposes. Ankle joint powers are shown to be overestimated when using a traditional single-segment foot model, as substantial angular velocities are attributed to the mid-tarsal joint. Power transfer is apparent between the 1st metatarsophalangeal and mid-tarsal joints in terminal stance/pre-swing. While the measurement approach presented here is limited to clinical populations with only minimal impairments, some elements of the model can also be incorporated into routine clinical gait analysis. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Cystic degeneration of liver malignancies. Study by US and CT

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kumada, Takashi; Nakano, Satoshi; Kitamura, Kimio; Watahiki, Hajime; Takeda, Isao

1983-03-01

CT and US were carried out on 81 patients with hepatocellular carcinoma, 20 patients with cholangiocellular carcinoma and 94 patients with metastatic liver cancer. 1) Cystic degeneration was observed in one with hepatocellular carcinoma (1.2%), one with cholangiocellular carcinoma (5.0%) and 12 with metastatic liver cancer (12.8%) by US, but this change was observed in only 5 by CT (1,0,4, respectively). Metastatic liver cancer showed the highest incidence among these tumors. 2) The characteristics of cystic degeneration of the liver tumors were thickened wall and irregularity of the inner surface of the wall. 3) Judging from macroscopic and histopathological findings, liquefactive necrosis in the tumors was shown as ''echoluent'' area. We concluded that cystic degeneration was one of the important findings in metastatic liver cancer and that careful observation by US and CT avoided the confusion with other hepatic cystic diseases.

Live Imaging of Calcium Dynamics during Axon Degeneration Reveals Two Functionally Distinct Phases of Calcium Influx

Science.gov (United States)

Yamagishi, Yuya; Tessier-Lavigne, Marc

2015-01-01

Calcium is a key regulator of axon degeneration caused by trauma and disease, but its specific spatial and temporal dynamics in injured axons remain unclear. To clarify the function of calcium in axon degeneration, we observed calcium dynamics in single injured neurons in live zebrafish larvae and tested the temporal requirement for calcium in zebrafish neurons and cultured mouse DRG neurons. Using laser axotomy to induce Wallerian degeneration (WD) in zebrafish peripheral sensory axons, we monitored calcium dynamics from injury to fragmentation, revealing two stereotyped phases of axonal calcium influx. First, axotomy triggered a transient local calcium wave originating at the injury site. This initial calcium wave only disrupted mitochondria near the injury site and was not altered by expression of the protective WD slow (WldS) protein. Inducing multiple waves with additional axotomies did not change the kinetics of degeneration. In contrast, a second phase of calcium influx occurring minutes before fragmentation spread as a wave throughout the axon, entered mitochondria, and was abolished by WldS expression. In live zebrafish, chelating calcium after the first wave, but before the second wave, delayed the progress of fragmentation. In cultured DRG neurons, chelating calcium early in the process of WD did not alter degeneration, but chelating calcium late in WD delayed fragmentation. We propose that a terminal calcium wave is a key instructive component of the axon degeneration program. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Axon degeneration resulting from trauma or neurodegenerative disease can cause devastating deficits in neural function. Understanding the molecular and cellular events that execute axon degeneration is essential for developing treatments to address these conditions. Calcium is known to contribute to axon degeneration, but its temporal requirements in this process have been unclear. Live calcium imaging in severed zebrafish neurons and temporally controlled

Emission of pesticides during drilling and deposition in adjacent areas

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Heimbach, Udo

2014-02-01

Full Text Available In seven experiments seeds of maize, oil seed rape and barley, treated with neonicotinoids, were sown using pneumatic drilling equipment with deflectors attached in case of pneumatic suction systems. Directly adjacent to the drilled area of usually about 50 m width were replicated areas with bare soil as well as with crops. During maize (Zea mays drilling flowering oil seed rape (Brassica napus and during drilling of barley (Hordeum vulgare and oil seed rape flowering white mustard (Sinapis alba was adjacent. The amount of residues in the adjacent non crop areas in Petri dishes being distributed on the bare soil declined only slowly from 1 to 20 m distance from the area drilled. Seed batches with more abrasion and higher content of active substances in the dust resulted in higher residues off crop. After drilling of maize in four experiments in Petri dishes in adjacent non crop areas in 1-5 m distance between 0.02 and 0.40 g a.s./ha of neonicotinoids and in the adjacent oil seed rape a total of 0.05–0.80 g a.s./ha were detected. After drilling oil seed rape or barley these values were only 0.02–0.06 g a.s./ha in Petri dishes in non crop areas and 0.03-0.08 g a.s./ha in total in adjacent white mustard. In gauze net samplers installed vertically in 3 m distance in non crop areas up to seven times higher values were detected compared to Petri dishes.

Segmental Vitiligo.

Science.gov (United States)

van Geel, Nanja; Speeckaert, Reinhart

2017-04-01

Segmental vitiligo is characterized by its early onset, rapid stabilization, and unilateral distribution. Recent evidence suggests that segmental and nonsegmental vitiligo could represent variants of the same disease spectrum. Observational studies with respect to its distribution pattern point to a possible role of cutaneous mosaicism, whereas the original stated dermatomal distribution seems to be a misnomer. Although the exact pathogenic mechanism behind the melanocyte destruction is still unknown, increasing evidence has been published on the autoimmune/inflammatory theory of segmental vitiligo. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Segmental vitiligo with segmental morphea: An autoimmune link?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Pravesh Yadav

2014-01-01

Full Text Available An 18-year old girl with segmental vitiligo involving the left side of the trunk and left upper limb with segmental morphea involving the right side of trunk and right upper limb without any deeper involvement is illustrated. There was no history of preceding drug intake, vaccination, trauma, radiation therapy, infection, or hormonal therapy. Family history of stable vitiligo in her brother and a history of type II diabetes mellitus in the father were elicited. Screening for autoimmune diseases and antithyroid antibody was negative. An autoimmune link explaining the co-occurrence has been proposed. Cutaneous mosiacism could explain the presence of both the pathologies in a segmental distribution.

Digoxin-induced retinal degeneration depends on rhodopsin.

Science.gov (United States)

Landfried, Britta; Samardzija, Marijana; Barben, Maya; Schori, Christian; Klee, Katrin; Storti, Federica; Grimm, Christian

2017-03-16

Na,K-ATPases are energy consuming ion pumps that are required for maintaining ion homeostasis in most cells. In the retina, Na,K-ATPases are especially important to sustain the dark current in photoreceptor cells needed for rapid hyperpolarization of rods and cones in light. Cardiac glycosides like digoxin inhibit the activity of Na,K-ATPases by targeting their catalytic alpha subunits. This leads to a disturbed ion balance, which can affect cellular function and survival. Here we show that the treatment of wild-type mice with digoxin leads to severe retinal degeneration and loss of vision. Digoxin induced cell death specifically in photoreceptor cells with no or only minor effects in other retinal cell types. Photoreceptor-specific cytotoxicity depended on the presence of bleachable rhodopsin. Photoreceptors of Rpe65 knockouts, which have no measurable rhodopsin and photoreceptors of Rpe65 R91W mice that have treatment. Similarly, cones in the all-cone retina of Nrl knockout mice were also not affected. Digoxin induced expression of several genes involved in stress signaling and inflammation. It also activated proteins such as ERK1/2, AKT, STAT1, STAT3 and CASP1 during a period of up to 10 days after treatment. Activation of signaling genes and proteins, as well as the dependency on bleachable rhodopsin resembles mechanisms of light-induced photoreceptor degeneration. Digoxin-mediated photoreceptor cell death may thus be used as an inducible model system to study molecular mechanisms of retinal degeneration.

Age-related macular degeneration

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)