Recent advances in image reconstruction, coil sensitivity calibration, and coil array design for SMASH and generalized parallel MRI.

Parallel magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques use spatial information from arrays of radiofrequency (RF) detector coils to accelerate imaging. A number of parallel MRI techniques have been described in recent years, and numerous clinical applications are currently being explored. The advent of practical parallel imaging presents various challenges for image reconstruction and RF system design. Recent advances in tailored SiMultaneous Acquisition of Spatial Harmonics (SMASH) image reconstructions are summarized. These advances enable robust SMASH imaging in arbitrary image planes with a wide range of coil array geometries. A generalized formalism is described which may be used to understand the relations between SMASH and SENSE, to derive typical implementations of each as special cases, and to form hybrid techniques combining some of the advantages of both. Accurate knowledge of coil sensitivities is crucial for parallel MRI, and errors in calibration represent one of the most common and the most pernicious sources of error in parallel image reconstructions. As one example, motion of the patient and/or the coil array between the sensitivity reference scan and the accelerated acquisition can lead to calibration errors and reconstruction artifacts. Self-calibrating parallel MRI approaches that address this problem by eliminating the need for external sensitivity references are reviewed. The ultimate achievable signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for parallel MRI studies is closely tied to the geometry and sensitivity patterns of the coil arrays used for spatial encoding. Several parallel imaging array designs that depart from the traditional model of overlapped adjacent loop elements are described.     

3D true-phase polarity recovery with independent phase estimation using three-tier stacks based region growing (3D-TRIPS)

Objectives

A postprocessing technique termed 3D true-phase polarity recovery with independent phase estimation using three-tier stacks based region growing (3D-TRIPS) was developed, which directly reconstructs phase-sensitive inversion-recovery images without acquisition of phase-reference images. The utility of this technique is demonstrated in myocardial late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) imaging.

Materials and methods

A data structure with three tiers of stacks was used for 3D-TRIPS to directly achieve reliable region growing for successful background-phase estimation. Fifteen patients undergoing postgadolinium 3D phase-sensitive inversion recovery (PSIR) cardiac LGE magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) were recruited, and 3D-TRIPS LGE reconstructions were compared with standard PSIR. Objective voxel-by-voxel comparison was performed. Additionally, blinded review by two radiologists compared scar visibility, clinical acceptability, voxel polarity error, or groups and blurring.

Results

3D-TRIPS efficiently reconstructed postcontrast phase-sensitive myocardial LGE images. Objective analysis showed an average 95% voxel-by-voxel agreement between 3D-TRIPS and PSIR images. Blinded radiologist review demonstrated similar image quality between 3D-TRIPS and PSIR reconstruction.

Conclusion

3D-TRIPS provided similar image quality to PSIR for phase-sensitive myocardial LGE MRI reconstruction. 3D-TRIPS does not require acquisition of a reference image and can therefore be used to accelerate phase-sensitive LGE imaging.

     

Decentralized adaptive command following and disturbance rejection for subsystems with local full‐state feedback

We present a decentralized model reference adaptive control method, where each local controller uses full‐state feedback from the local subsystem. The controller is strictly decentralized, meaning that no information (including reference‐model trajectories) is shared between local controllers. This decentralized controller achieves stabilization, command following, and disturbance rejection provided that the reference‐model commands and the disturbances are sinusoidal with known spectrum. The controller is effective for multi‐input subsystems with arbitrarily large subsystem interconnections. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Features of the motion of gel particles in a three-phase bubble column under foaming and non-foaming conditions

Features of the motion of gel particles in a three-phase bubble column with non-foaming and foaming gas–liquid systems,determined by using experiments of radioactive particle tracking(RPT),have been compared.The tracer used is a gel particle which resembles typical immobilized biocatalyst.The tracer trajectory is analyzed to extract relevant information for design purposes.The solid velocity field,turbulence parameters,dispersion coefficients,mixing times and flow transitions are determined and compared.The presence of foam significantly affects many quantified parameters,especially within the heterogeneous flow regime.The hydrodynamic stresses are reduced in the presence of foam,especially close to the disengagement.The dispersion coefficients also decrease,and the solid mixing time is only slightly affected by the presence of foam.Gas holdup,inferred both from RPT experiments and from gamma ray scanning,is higher for foaming systems and leads to a shift in the transition gas velocity towards higher values.     

Capture rate consequences of multispherule aggregate formation in gases—combined roles of direct interception and interspherule momentum “shielding”

Our recent work on the consequences of multispherule cluster aggregate (CA) formation and deposition-rates on much larger solid targets has emphasized the decisive role of “momentum-shielding” in determining aggregate “mobility” compared to N isolated spherules in the same gaseous environment—an effect analogous to the drag-reduction advantages experienced by birds electing to move “in formation.” The extent of “momentum shielding” is conveniently quantified via a dimensionless function: S_mom(N;Kn₁, aggregate structure), which facilitates predicting the deposition-rate consequences of aggregation in aerosol flow systems when the cluster deposition mechanism is dominated by either: (i) isothermal convective-diffusion (C-D), (ii) thermophoresis (T-P) or: (iii) inertial impaction (I-I). Significantly, isothermal C-D was found to be the only transport-mechanism leading to aggregation-induced reductions in spherule deposition rates on large targets (cf. isolated spherules present at the same mainstream spherule volume fraction). However, we demonstrate here that, for aggregate deposition on sufficiently small solid targets—e.g., fibrous filter elements with diameters of O(10 μm)—even these reductions, which exceed one decade for N = O(10³), can be overcome by the mechanism of “direct-interception” (D-I) associated with nonzero effective aggregate size, without the need to invoke either inertial impaction or thermophoresis. This is especially true for Diffusion-Limited (i.e., “open”) CAs (with D_f = 1.8) at gas pressures such that the constituent spherules are near the continuum (Kn₁ << 1) limit. Our present analysis and numerical illustrations exploit the fact that direct-interception is expected to play a negligible role for the capture of individual (dense) nanospherules (perhaps comparable in size to the prevailing gas molecule mean-free-path) but the underlying theory, exploited, extended, and illustrated here, was developed with the help of initial capture rate experimental data for much larger diameter (but unaggregated) aerosols on single filter fibers in low Re crossflow. With such small diameter targets, we demonstrate that this “interception” augmentation for large CAs can occur even for the limiting case of rcp D_f = 3 aggregates, before the expected onset of CA-inertial effects–i.e., Stk_N << Stk_crit, where, for Re = O(1), Stk_crit is also O(1). A simple method is also presented for predicting interception-modified spherule deposition rates in the presence of log-normal type aggregate size distributions.

Copyright © 2018 American Association for Aerosol Research     

The electrochemical generation of ferrate at pressed iron powder electrodes: effect of various operating parameters

The effect of various parameters on the yield for the electrochemical generation of ferrate was investigated for pressed pellet iron electrodes. An optimum yield was observed for a NaOH concentration of 14-16 M of the anolyte. The rate of iron dissolution and generation of ferrate increased when the temperature of the electrochemical cell is raised from room temperature to 50 °C. The pressure applied to the iron powder during the formation of the pellet electrode did not have a strong influence on ferrate generation, at least in the range investigated in this work (5-8 ton/cm²). On the other hand, the purity, particle size and packing density of the powders are important factors in determining the current yield for ferrate generation and the maximum yield was not obtained with the smallest particles investigated (<10 μm). An optimum yield for ferrate generation of 60% was observed for a 2 h electrolysis. The surface of the pressed pellet iron electrode was also analyzed following the electrolysis in 14 M NaOH by X-ray diffraction and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopies. The electrogenerated ferrate was not detected at the electrode surface but the presence of various iron oxides and sodium carbonate was evidenced by these techniques.