Atlas-based fuzzy connectedness segmentation and intensity nonuniformity correction applied to brain MRI

A framework that combines atlas registration, fuzzy connectedness (FC) segmentation, and parametric bias field correction (PABIC) is proposed for the automatic segmentation of brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). First, the atlas is registered onto the MRI to initialize the following FC segmentation. Original techniques are proposed to estimate necessary initial parameters of FC segmentation. Further, the result of the FC segmentation is utilized to initialize a following PABIC algorithm. Finally, we re-apply the FC technique on the PABIC corrected MRI to get the final segmentation. Thus, we avoid expert human intervention and provide a fully automatic method for brain MRI segmentation. Experiments on both simulated and real MRI images demonstrate the validity of the method, as well as the limitation of the method. Being a fully automatic method, it is expected to find wide applications, such as three-dimensional visualization, radiation therapy planning, and medical database construction     

Physical properties of sprayed antimony doped tin oxide thin films:The role of thickness

Transparent conducting antimony doped tin oxide（Sb:SnO₂） thin films have been deposited onto preheated glass substrates using a spray pyrolysis technique by varying the quantity of spraying solution.The structural, morphological,X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy,optical,photoluminescence and electrical properties of these films have been studied.It is found that the films are polycrystalline in nature with a tetragonal crystal structure having orientation along the（211） and（112） planes.Polyhedrons like grains appear in the FE-SEM images. The average grain size increases with increasing spraying quantity.The compositional analysis and electronic behaviour of Sb:SnO₂ thin films were studied using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy.The binding energy of Sn3d_5/2 for all samples shows the Sn⁴⁺ bonding state from SnO₂.An intensive violet luminescence peak near 395 nm is observed at room temperature due to oxygen vacancies or donor levels formed by Sb⁵⁺ ions.The film deposited with 20 cc solution shows 70%transmittance at 550 nm leading to the highest figure of merit(2.11×10^-3Ω^-1). The resistivity and carrier concentration vary over 1.22×10^-3 to 0.89×10^-3Ω·cm and 5.19×10²⁰ to 8.52×10²⁰ cm^-3,respectively.     

QUANTUM MECHANICAL MODEL AND SIMULATION OF GaAs/AlGaAs QUANTUM WELL INFRARED PHOTO- DETECTOR-Ⅰ OPTICAL ASPECTS

ＩｎｔｒｏｄｕｃｔｉｏｎＩｎｆｒａｒｅｄｄｅｔｅｃｔｏｒｔｅｃｈｎｉｑｕｅｈａｓｂｅｅｎａｋｅｙｆａｃｔｏｒｉｎｔｈｅｄｅｖｅｌｏｐｍｅｎｔｏｆｔｈｅｉｎｆｒａｒｅｄｔｅｃｈｎｏｌｏｇｙｆｏｒｍｏｒｅｔｈａｎ 4 0 ｙｅａｒｓ .Ｓｉｎｃｅ 1970 ,ｓｅｍｉｃｏｎｄｕｃｔｏｒｓｌｉｋｅＩｎＳｂａｎｄＨｇＣｄＴｅｈａｖｅｂｅｅｎｔｈｅｐｒｉｎｃｉｐａｌｍａｔｅｒｉａｌｓｆｏｒｖａｒｉｏｕｓｉｎｆｒａｒｅｄｄｅｔｅｃｔｏｒａｐｐｌｉｃａｔｉｏｎｓ .Ｔｈｅｆｏｒｍａｔｏｆｔｈｅｉｎｆｒａｒｅｄｄｅｔｅｃｔｏｒｍｏｔｉｖａｔｅｄｂｙｓｍａｒｔｔｈｅｒｍａｌｉｍａｇｉｎｇｓｙｓｔｅｍｃｈａｎｇｅｄｆｒｏｍｓｉｎｇｌｅｅｌｅｍｅｎｔｄｅｖｉｃｅｔｏｆｏｃａｌｐｌａｎａｒｒａｙｓ(ＦＰＡｓ)ｉｎｔｈｅｍｉｄｄｌｅｏｆ 80’ｓ [1].Ｔｏｄａｙ’ｓｔｅｃｈｎｏｌｏｇｙｏｆｉｎｆｒａｒｅｄｄｅｔｅｃｔｏｒｃｏｎｃｅｎｔｒａｔｅｓｌａｒｇｅｌｙｏｎｆｏｃａｌｐｌａｎａｒｒａｙｓ ,ｅｘｐｅｃｉａｌｌｙｆｏｒｓｅｎｓｉｔｉｖｅ ,ｈｏｍｏｇｅｎｅｏｕｓａｎｄｌａｒｇｅｆｏｒｍａｔｓｃａｌｅｄｅｖｉｃｅｓ .ＨｇＣｄＴｅ...     

用于工业的具有高频开关性能的1200V IGBT模块

带有平面门极和场止结构的新型IGBT器件已应用到最新研发的1200V模块上。与沟槽门极IGBT模块降低大约20%的功率损耗。     

Half-time image reconstruction in thermoacoustic tomography

Thermoacoustic tomography (TAT) is an emerging imaging technique with great potential for a wide range of biomedical imaging applications. In this paper, we propose and investigate reconstruction approaches for TAT that are based on the half-time reflectivity tomography paradigm. We reveal that half-time reconstruction approaches permit for the explicit control of statistically complementary information that can result in the optimal reduction of image variances. We also show that half-time reconstruction approaches can mitigate image artifacts due to heterogeneous acoustic properties of an object. Reconstructed images and numerical results produced from simulated and experimental TAT measurement data are employed to demonstrate these effects.     

Extraction of a plasma time-activity curve from dynamic brain PET images based on independent component analysis

A compartment model has been used for kinetic analysis of dynamic positron emission tomography (PET) data [e.g., 2-deoxy-2-18F-fluoro-D-glucose (FDG)]. The input function of the model [the plasma time-activity curve (pTAC)] was obtained by serial arterial blood sampling. It is of clinical interest to develop a method for PET studies that estimates the pTAC without needing serial arterial blood sampling. For this purpose, we propose a new method to extract the pTAC from the dynamic brain PET images using a modified independent component analysis [extraction of the pTAC using independent component analysis (EPICA). Source codes of EPICA are freely available at http://www5f.biglobe.ne.jp/?kimura/Software/top.html]. EPICA performs the appropriate preprocessing and independent component analysis (ICA) using an objective function that takes the various properties of the pTAC into account. After validation of EPICA by computer simulation, EPICA was applied to human brain FDG-PET studies. The results imply that the EPICA-estimated pTAC was similar to the actual measured pTAC, and that the estimated blood volume image was highly correlated with the blood volume image measured using 15O-CO inhalation. These results demonstrated that EPICA is useful for extracting the pTAC from dynamic PET images without the necessity of serial arterial blood sampling.     

Functional imaging in small animals using X-ray computed tomography--study of physiologic measurement reproducibility

X-ray computed tomography (CT) has been traditionally used for morphologic analysis and in the recent past has been used for physiology imaging. This paper seeks to demonstrate functional CT as an effective tool for monitoring changes in tissue physiology associated with disease processes and cellular and molecular level therapeutic processes. We investigated the effect of noise and sampling time on the uncertainty of tissue physiologic parameters. A whole body compartmental model of mouse was formulated to simulate tissue time density curves and study the deviation of tissue physiologic parameters from their true values. These results were then used to determine the appropriate scanning protocols for the experimental studies. Dynamic contrast enhanced CT (DCE-CT) was performed in mice following the injection of hydrophilic iodinated contrast agent (CA) at three different injection rates, namely 0.5 ml/min, 1 ml/min, and 2.0 ml/min. These experiments probed the Nyquist sampling limit for reproducibility of tissue physiologic parameters. Separate experiments were performed with three mice at four different X-ray tube currents corresponding to different image noise values. A two-compartment model (2CM) model was formulated to describe the contrast kinematics in the kidney cortex. Three different 2CMs were implemented namely the 4-parameter (4P), 5-parameter (5P), and the 6-parameter (6P) model. The tissue kinematics is fitted to the models by using the Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm implemented in IDL (RSI Inc.) programming language to minimize the weighted sum of squares. The relevant tissue physiologic parameters extracted from the models are the renal blood flow (RBF), glomerular filtration rate (GFR), fractional plasma volume, fractional tubular volumes and urine formation rates. The experimental results indicate that the deviation of the tissue physiologic parameters is within the limits required for tracking disease physiology in vivo and thus small animal functional X-ray CT would be able to determine changes in tissue physiology in vivo.     

电致发光谱测量β-FeSi2-Si异质结载流子限制

设计了一种将β-FeSi2颗粒埋入非故意掺杂Si中的Si p-π-n二极管来确定β-FeSi2-Si异质结的能隙差.当二极管处于正向偏置时,通过Si n-p-结注入的电子扩散到β-FeSi2并由于Si与β-FeSi2之间的能隙差而受到限制,电荷在异质结的积累反过来阻挡了电子的继续扩散,将电子局域化在靠近Si n-p-结的p--Si区.少子的局域化减少了非辐射复合的途径,Si和β-FeSi2的发光增强,淬灭速率变慢,在室温低电流下仍可得到Si和β-FeSi2电致发光.Si和β-FeSi2发光强度的比率对温度的依存性表明同型异质结对电子限制能力的减弱符合热发射模型,由此确定出Si和β-FeSi2异质结导带带阶差为0.2eV.     

Morphological changes of Candida albicans induced by micafungin (FK463), a water-soluble echinocandin-like lipopeptide

Micafungin (FK463), a novel water-soluble echinocandin-like lipopeptide, exerted fungicidal action toward growing cells of Candida albicans at concentrations of 0.1 microg ml(-1) or above. The drug at these levels induced osmotically fragile cells and the resulting fungicidal effect was partially reversed when cultures were grown in the presence of an osmotic stabilizer. Candida cells incubated with fungicidal concentrations of micafungin gradually increased in size and/or became deformed. An electron microscopic study of such micafungin-treated cells revealed morphological alterations in the cell wall; deformation in contour, abnormal septum formation and decrease in thickness of the intermediate layer of the cell wall were prominent. In addition, the structure of cell membranes as well as of membranous cytoplasmic organelles was slightly impaired. These data suggest that micafungin principally affects the normal formation of the cell wall in growing Candida cells.     

用于先进PCB制造工艺的叠层封装

在20世纪90年代,球栅阵列封装(BGA)和芯片尺寸封装(CSP)在封装材料和加工工艺方面达到了极限。这2种技术如同20世纪80年代的表面安装器件(SMD)和70年代通孔安装器件(THD)一样,在电学、机械、热性能、尺寸、质量和可靠性方面达到最大值。目前,三维封装正在成为用于未来采用的先进印制板(PCB)制造工艺的下一个阶段。它们可以分为圆片级封装、芯片级封装、和封装面。叠层封装(PoP)是一种封装面叠层封装类型的三维封装技术[15]。