Abstract: Design of experiments made for correlated the hormonal activity of steroids and their effect on the vaginal structure properties. Vaginal wall consists of distinct layers of cells which strongly differ regarding growth in answer to steroid hormones. The presence study carried out for functional evaluation and sustained replacement effect of the reproductive hormones on the vaginal morphometry in the rabbit. Rabbits were maintained control (Co) or ovariectomized (Ovz) and continuously treated with estradiol (Ovz E) and estradiol mixture with testosterone (Ovz ET). Relative to control rabbits with the distinct tissue distribution pattern, ovariectomized animals displayed declined epithelial thickness and atrophy of the muscularis layer that cause the vaginal wall thinning. Estradiol treatment of Orz rabbits inverted these changes to status of the preovariectomy. Histometric measurements in Ovz ET group completely including of thickness of the epithelial and muscular layers was greater in comparison to that of control animals.
Abstract: With the advance of multimedia and diagnostic
images technologies, the number of radiographic images is increasing
constantly. The medical field demands sophisticated systems for
search and retrieval of the produced multimedia document. This
paper presents an ongoing research that focuses on the semantic
content of radiographic image documents to facilitate semantic-based
radiographic image indexing and a retrieval system. The proposed
model would divide a radiographic image document, based on its
semantic content, and would be converted into a logical structure or
a semantic structure. The logical structure represents the overall
organization of information. The semantic structure, which is bound
to logical structure, is composed of semantic objects with
interrelationships in the various spaces in the radiographic image.
Abstract: This paper presents the application of a signal intensity
independent similarity criterion for rigid and non-rigid body
registration of binary objects. The criterion is defined as the
weighted ratio image of two images. The ratio is computed on a
voxel per voxel basis and weighting is performed by setting the raios
between signal and background voxels to a standard high value. The
mean squared value of the weighted ratio is computed over the union
of the signal areas of the two images and it is minimized using the
Chebyshev polynomial approximation.
Abstract: This research proposed a new design of helmet-shaped
array transcranial magnetic stimulation coil system. It was constructed
using several sagittal directional wires and several coronal directional
wires. By varying the current direction and strength on each wire, this
array coil system could be constructed into the circular coil and
figure-eight coil of different size. Also, this proposed coil system can
flexibly not only change the stimulation location, range, type and
strength, but also change the shape and the channel number of coil
dynamically.
Abstract: Transpedicular screw fixation in spinal fractures,
degenerative changes, or deformities is a well-established procedure.
However, important rate of fixation failure due to screw bending,
loosening, or pullout are still reported particularly in weak bone stock
in osteoporosis. To overcome the problem, mechanism of failure has
to be fully investigated in vitro. Post-mortem human subjects are less
accessible and animal cadavers comprise limitations due to different
geometry and mechanical properties. Therefore, the development of a
synthetic model mimicking the realistic human vertebra is highly
demanded. A bone surrogate, composed of Polyurethane (PU) foam
analogous to cancellous bone porous structure, was tested for 3
different densities in this study. The mechanical properties were
investigated under uniaxial compression test by minimizing the end
artifacts on specimens. The results indicated that PU foam of 0.32
g.cm-3 density has comparable mechanical properties to human
cancellous bone in terms of young-s modulus and yield strength.
Therefore, the obtained information can be considered as primary
step for developing a realistic cancellous bone of human vertebral
body. Further evaluations are also recommended for other density
groups.
Abstract: In this study, three strains of Vibrio parahaemolyticus
(690, BCRC 13023 and BCRC 13025) were subjected to acid
adaptation at pH 5.5 for 90 min. The survival of acid-adapted and
non-adapted V. parahaemolyticus strains under simulated gastric
condition and their protein expression profiles were investigated.
Results showed that acid adaptation increased the survival of the test
V. parahaemolyticus strains after exposure to simulated gastric juice
(pH 3). Additionally, acid adaptation also affected the protein
expression in these V. parahaemolyticus strains. Nine proteins,
identified as atpA, atpB, DnaK, GroEL, OmpU, enolase,
fructose-bisphosphate aldolase, phosphoglycerate kinase and
triosephosphate isomerase, were induced by acid adaptation in two or
three of the test strains. These acid-adaptive proteins may play
important regulatory roles in the acid tolerance response (ATR) of V.
parahaemolyticus.
Abstract: Recently, there has been a considerable increase in the
number of procedures carried out under regional anesthesia.
However, percutaneous nephrolithotomy (PCNL) procedures are
usually performed under general anesthesia. The aim of this study
was to assess the safety and efficacy of PCNL under spinal anesthesia
in patients with renal calculi. We describe our 9 years experience of
performing PCNL under spinal anesthesia for 387 patients with large
stones of the upper urinary tract, with regard to the effectiveness and
side effects. All patients received spinal anesthetics (Lidocain 5%, or
Bupivacaine 0.75%) and underwent PCNL in prone position. The
success rate was 94.1%. The incidence of complications was 11.6%.
PCNL under spinal anesthesia is feasible, safe, and well-tolerated in
management of patients with renal stones.
Abstract: To distinguish small retinal hemorrhages in early
diabetic retinopathy from dust artifacts, we analyzed hue, lightness,
and saturation (HLS) color spaces. The fundus of 5 patients with
diabetic retinopathy was photographed. For the initial experiment, we
placed 4 different colored papers on the ceiling of a darkroom. Using
each color, 10 fragments of house dust particles on a magnifier were
photographed. The colored papers were removed, and 3 different
colored light bulbs were suspended from the ceiling. Ten fragments of
house dust particles on the camera-s object lens were photographed.
We then constructed an experimental device that can photograph
artificial eyes. Five fragments of house dust particles under the ocher
fundus of the artificial eye were photographed. On analyzing HLS
color space of the dust artifact, lightness and saturation were found to
be highly sensitive. However, hue was not highly sensitive.
Abstract: The focal spot of a high intensity focused ultrasound
transducer is small. To heat a large target volume, multiple treatment spots are required. If the power of each treatment spot is fixed, it could
results in insufficient heating of initial spots and over-heating of later ones, which is caused by the thermal diffusion. Hence, to produce a
uniform heated volume, the delivered energy of each treatment spot
should be properly adjusted. In this study, we proposed an iterative, extrapolation technique to adjust the required ultrasound energy of
each treatment spot. Three different scanning pathways were used to evaluate the performance of this technique. Results indicate that by using the proposed technique, uniform heating volume could be obtained.
Abstract: In this paper, a novel and fast algorithm for segmental
and subsegmental lung vessel segmentation is introduced using
Computed Tomography Angiography images. This process is quite
important especially at the detection of pulmonary embolism, lung
nodule, and interstitial lung disease. The applied method has been
realized at five steps. At the first step, lung segmentation is achieved.
At the second one, images are threshold and differences between the
images are detected. At the third one, left and right lungs are gathered
with the differences which are attained in the second step and Exact
Lung Image (ELI) is achieved. At the fourth one, image, which is
threshold for vessel, is gathered with the ELI. Lastly, identifying and
segmentation of segmental and subsegmental lung vessel have been
carried out thanks to image which is obtained in the fourth step. The
performance of the applied method is found quite well for
radiologists and it gives enough results to the surgeries medically.
Abstract: The posteroanterior manipulation technique is usually include in the procedure of the lumbar spine to evaluate the intervertebral motion according to mechanical resistance. The mechanical device with visual feedback was proposed that allows one to analysis the lumbar segments mobility “in vivo" facilitating for the therapist to take its treatment evolution. The measuring system uses load cell and displacement sensor to estimate spine stiffness. In this work, the device was tested by 2 therapists, female, applying posteroanterior force techniques to 5 volunteers, female, with frequency of approximately 1.2-1.8 Hz. A test-retest procedure was used for 2 periods of day. The visual feedback results small variation of forces and cycle time during 6 cycles rhythmic application. The stiffness values showed good agreement between test-retest procedures when used same order of maximum forces.
Abstract: Bleeding in the digestive duct is an important diagnostic parameter for patients. Blood in the endoscopic image can be determined by investigating the color tone of blood due to the degree of oxygenation, under- or over- illumination, food debris and secretions, etc. However, we found that how to pre-process raw images obtained from the capsule detectors was very important. We applied various image process methods suitable for the capsule endoscopic image in order to remove noises and unbalanced sensitivities for the image pixels. The results showed that much improvement was achieved by additional pre-processing techniques on the algorithm of determining bleeding areas.
Abstract: Capacitive electrocardiogram (ECG) measurement is an attractive approach for long-term health monitoring. However, there is little literature available on its implementation, especially for multichannel system in standard ECG leads. This paper begins from the design criteria for capacitive ECG measurement and presents a multichannel limb-lead capacitive ECG system with conductive fabric tapes pasted on a double layer PCB as the capacitive sensors. The proposed prototype system incorporates a capacitive driven-body (CDB) circuit to reduce the common-mode power-line interference (PLI). The presented prototype system has been verified to be stable by theoretic analysis and practical long-term experiments. The signal quality is competitive to that acquired by commercial ECG machines. The feasible size and distance of capacitive sensor have also been evaluated by a series of tests. From the test results, it is suggested to be greater than 60 cm2 in sensor size and be smaller than 1.5 mm in distance for capacitive ECG measurement.
Abstract: CT assessment of postoperative spine is challenging in the presence of metal streak artifacts that could deteriorate the
quality of CT images. In this paper, we studied the influence of different acquisition parameters on the magnitude of metal streaking.
A water-bath phantom was constructed with metal insertion similar with postoperative spine assessment. The phantom was scanned with
different acquisition settings and acquired data were reconstructed
using various reconstruction settings. Standardized ROIs were defined within streaking region for image analysis. The result shows
increased kVp and mAs enhanced SNR values by reducing image
noise. Sharper kernel enhanced image quality compared to smooth
kernel, but produced more noise in the images with higher CT fluctuation. The noise between both kernels were significantly
different (P
Abstract: In this study, the forty Thai medicinal plants were
used to screen the antibacterial activity against Campylobacter jejuni.
Crude 95% ethanolic extracts of each plant were prepared.
Antibacterial activity was investigated by the disc diffusion assay,
and MICs and MBCs were determined by broth microdilution. The
results of antibacterial screening showed that five plants have activity
against C.jejuni including Adenanthera pavonina L., Moringa
oleifera Lam., Annona squamosa L., Hibiscus sabdariffa L. and
Eupotorium odortum L. The extraction of A. pavonina L. and A.
squamosa L. produced an outstanding against C. jejuni, inhibiting
growth at 62.5-125 and 250-500 μg/mL, respectively. The MBCs of
two extracts were just 4-fold higher than MICs against C. jejuni,
suggesting the extracts are bactericidal against this species. These
results indicate that A. pavonina and A. squamosa could potentially
be used in modern applications aimed at treatment or prevention of
foodborne disease from C. jejuni.
Abstract: The need of high frame-rate imaging has been triggered by the new applications of ultrasound imaging to transient elastography and real-time 3D ultrasound. Using plane wave excitation (PWE) is one of the methods to achieve very high frame-rate imaging since an image can be formed with a single insonification. However, due to the lack of transmit focusing, the image quality with PWE is lower compared with those using conventional focused transmission. To solve this problem, we propose a filter-retrieved transmit focusing (FRF) technique combined with cross-correlation weighting (FRF+CC weighting) for high frame-rate imaging with PWE. A restrospective focusing filter is designed to simultaneously minimize the predefined sidelobe energy associated with single PWE and the filter energy related to the signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR). This filter attempts to maintain the mainlobe signals and to reduce the sidelobe ones, which gives similar mainlobe signals and different sidelobes between the original PWE and the FRF baseband data. Normalized cross-correlation coefficient at zero lag is calculated to quantify the degree of similarity at each imaging point and used as a weighting matrix to the FRF baseband data to further suppress sidelobes, thus improving the filter-retrieved focusing quality.
Abstract: The paper presents the optimization problem for the
multi-element synthetic transmit aperture method (MSTA) in
ultrasound imaging applications. The optimal choice of the transmit
aperture size is performed as a trade-off between the lateral
resolution, penetration depth and the frame rate. Results of the
analysis obtained by a developed optimization algorithm are
presented. Maximum penetration depth and the best lateral resolution
at given depths are chosen as the optimization criteria. The
optimization algorithm was tested using synthetic aperture data of
point reflectors simulated by Filed II program for Matlab® for the
case of 5MHz 128-element linear transducer array with 0.48 mm
pitch are presented. The visualization of experimentally obtained
synthetic aperture data of a tissue mimicking phantom and in vitro
measurements of the beef liver are also shown. The data were
obtained using the SonixTOUCH Research systemequipped with a
linear 4MHz 128 element transducerwith 0.3 mm element pitch, 0.28
mm element width and 70% fractional bandwidth was excited by one
sine cycle pulse burst of transducer's center frequency.
Abstract: In this study, a new and fast algorithm for Ascending
Aorta (AscA) and Descending Aorta (DesA) segmentation is
presented using Computed Tomography Angiography images. This
process is quite important especially at the detection of aortic
plaques, aneurysms, calcification or stenosis. The applied method has
been carried out at four steps. At first step, lung segmentation is
achieved. At the second one, Mediastinum Region (MR) is detected
to use in the segmentation. At the third one, images have been
applied optimal threshold and components which are outside of the
MR were removed. Lastly, identifying and segmentation of AscA and
DesA have been carried out. The performance of the applied method
is found quite well for radiologists and it gives enough results to the
surgeries medically.