Surface-constrained volumetric brain registration using harmonic mappings

In order to compare anatomical and functional brain imaging data across subjects, the images must first be registered to a common coordinate system in which anatomical features are aligned. Intensity-based volume registration methods can align subcortical structures well, but the variability in sulcal folding patterns typically results in misalignment of the cortical surface. Conversely, surface-based registration using sulcal features can produce excellent cortical alignment but the mapping between brains is restricted to the cortical surface. Here we describe a method for volumetric registration that also produces an accurate one-to-one point correspondence between cortical surfaces. This is achieved by first parameterizing and aligning the cortical surfaces using sulcal landmarks. We then use a constrained harmonic mapping to extend this surface correspondence to the entire cortical volume. Finally, this mapping is refined using an intensity-based warp. We demonstrate the utility of the method by applying it to T1-weighted magnetic resonance images (MRIs). We evaluate the performance of our proposed method relative to existing methods that use only intensity information; for this comparison we compute the intersubject alignment of expert-labeled subcortical structures after registration.     

应用于暂时粘结、基片保护和MOEMS封装的新型材料

随着微电子制造商持续缩小晶体管基极和其他元件的尺寸,集成电路的密度不断增大,电路连接工艺中开始使用低k介电质和铜导电体。为了进一步提高电路整体性能与射电频率性能、缩小体积、降低电源损耗、提高散热效率,承载电路的基片的厚度正在持续变薄。常规的工艺已经无法加工先进的超薄基片。为了解决这个工艺中的难题,BrewerScience利用自己先进的材料、工艺、机械设备的研究开发水平,正在开发一套崭新的超薄基片的加工操作流程。介绍用于将超薄基片暂时粘结到另一载体的系列材料和流程,完成加工以后,基片和载体可以很容易地分离。另外,对用于保护基片的新型涂料也进行了介绍。在对基片进行薄化和切割的时候,这种涂料可以对基片提供有效的保护。最后,介绍了高透明高折射材料,这些材料用在高亮度发光二极管(HB-LED)和微光电机械系统(MOEMS)中,可以降低由封装引起的光损耗。     

Macroinvertebrate assemblages of littoral habitats in the Macquarie and Mersey rivers,Tasmania: Implications for the management of regulated rivers

Littoral habitats in large rivers are influenced to varying degrees by changes in discharge. Irrigation abstractions can increase the amount of habitat that would naturally be dewatered during low flow periods and therefore it is important to have some knowledge of the potential impact this may have on riverine macroinvertebrates. The macroinvertebrate assemblages of common littoral habitats in riffles, pools and runs in two reaches each of the Macquarie and Mersey Rivers, northern Tasmania, Australia were compared from samples collected during the low flow and irrigation season, between December 1991 and April 1992. The area under water of these habitats, riffle substrata, macrophyte beds and coarse woody debris, responded differently to changes in discharge. Within a reach, the same taxonomic groups often dominated the total number of macroinvertebrates for all habitats, but there were differences in the proportions contributed by these taxa to the different habitats. In general, taxa characteristic of slow-flowing or lentic habitats, such as ostracods and amphipods, were dominant in macrophyte beds in pools and runs, whereas taxa such as larval elmid beetles and hydropsychid caddisflies were dominant in riffles. A substantial component of the fauna from each habitat within a reach was unique to that habitat, but there was always a similar number of taxa common to all habitats. Classification and ordination grouped samples from both rivers firstly by habitat and secondly by month and reach. Total density and family richness of invertebrates differed by reach, habitat and month in both rivers, except for richness in the Mersey River where habitat was not significant. Differences in densities and numbers of invertebrate families among habitats were not consistent between reaches for each river. This study has highlighted the differences in macroinvertebrate assemblages of several littoral habitats in two lowland rivers in Tasmania. Differences in taxonomic composition, density and richness among habitats within reaches strongly imply the uniqueness of these habitats in terms of the invertebrate faunas that occupy them. We suggest that if maintenance of biotic diversity is an aim of instream flow management, water allocations that address low flows should place a high priority on the maintenance of a diversity of habitats.     

A thermal monitoring sheet with low influence from adjacent waterbolus for tissue surface thermometry during clinical hyperthermia

This paper presents a complete thermal analysis of a novel conformal surface thermometer design with directional sensitivity for real-time temperature monitoring during hyperthermia treatments of large superficial cancer. The thermal monitoring sheet (TMS) discussed in this paper consists of a 2-D array of fiberoptic sensors embedded between two layers of flexible, low-loss, and thermally conductive printed circuit board (PCB) film. Heat transfer across all interfaces from the tissue surface through multiple layers of insulating dielectrics surrounding the small buried temperature sensor and into an adjacent temperature-regulated water coupling bolus was studied using 3-D thermal simulation software. Theoretical analyses were carried out to identify the most effective differential TMS probe configuration possible with commercially available flexible PCB materials and to compare their thermal responses with omnidirectional probes commonly used in clinical hyperthermia. A TMS sensor design that employs 0.0508-mm Kapton MTB and 0.2032-mm Kapton HN flexible polyimide films is proposed for tissue surface thermometry with low influence from the adjacent waterbolus. Comparison of the thermal simulations with clinical probes indicates the new differential TMS probe design to outperform in terms of both transient response and steady-state accuracy in selectively reading the tissue surface temperature, while decreasing the overall thermal barrier of the probe between the coupling waterbolus and tissue surface.      

Normal and pathological NCAT image and phantom data based on physiologically realistic left ventricle finite-element models

The four-dimensional (4-D) NURBS-based cardiac-torso (NCAT) phantom, which provides a realistic model of the normal human anatomy and cardiac and respiratory motions, is used in medical imaging research to evaluate and improve imaging devices and techniques, especially dynamic cardiac applications. One limitation of the phantom is that it lacks the ability to accurately simulate altered functions of the heart that result from cardiac pathologies such as coronary artery disease (CAD). The goal of this work was to enhance the 4-D NCAT phantom by incorporating a physiologically based, finite-element (FE) mechanical model of the left ventricle (LV) to simulate both normal and abnormal cardiac motions. The geometry of the FE mechanical model was based on gated high-resolution X-ray multislice computed tomography (MSCT) data of a healthy male subject. The myocardial wall was represented as a transversely isotropic hyperelastic material, with the fiber angle varying from -90 degrees at the epicardial surface, through 0 degrees at the midwall, to 90 degrees at the endocardial surface. A time-varying elastance model was used to simulate fiber contraction, and physiological intraventricular systolic pressure-time curves were applied to simulate the cardiac motion over the entire cardiac cycle. To demonstrate the ability of the FE mechanical model to accurately simulate the normal cardiac motion as well as the abnormal motions indicative of CAD, a normal case and two pathologic cases were simulated and analyzed. In the first pathologic model, a subendocardial anterior ischemic region was defined. A second model was created with a transmural ischemic region defined in the same location. The FE-based deformations were incorporated into the 4-D NCAT cardiac model through the control points that define the cardiac structures in the phantom which were set to move according to the predictions of the mechanical model. A simulation study was performed using the FE-NCAT combination to investigate how the differences in contractile function between the subendocardial and transmural infarcts manifest themselves in myocardial Single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) images. The normal FE model produced strain distributions that were consistent with those reported in the literature and a motion consistent with that defined in the normal 4-D NCAT beating heart model based on tagged magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data. The addition of a subendocardial ischemic region changed the average transmural circumferential strain from a contractile value of -0.09 to a tensile value of 0.02. The addition of a transmural ischemic region changed average circumferential strain to a value of 0.13, which is consistent with data reported in the literature. Model results demonstrated differences in contractile function between subendocardial and transmural infarcts and how these differences in function are documented in simulated myocardial SPECT images produced using the 4-D NCAT phantom. Compared with the original NCAT beating heart model, the FE mechanical model produced a more accurate simulation for the cardiac motion abnormalities. Such a model, when incorporated into the 4-D NCAT phantom, has great potential for use in cardiac imaging research. With its enhanced physiologically based cardiac model, the 4-D NCAT phantom can be used to simulate realistic, predictive imaging data of a patient population with varying whole-body anatomy and with varying healthy and diseased states of the heart that will provide a known truth from which to evaluate and improve existing and emerging 4-D imaging techniques used in the diagnosis of cardiac disease.     

Exploiting Macrodiversity with Distributed Antennas in Micro-Cellular CDMA Systems

We consider the use of distributed antennas to increase the capacity and peak data rate achievable in a microcellular CDMA system with limited bandwidth. In additon to the diversity against Rayleigh fading achievable by use of microdiversity among nearly co-located transmit or receive antennas, we exploit macrodiversity against shadow fading that more widely separated antennas permit. We report on antenna configurations for both directional and omni-directional antennas that provide the most uniform signal-to-interference ratio coverage, averaged over a large number of position vectors drawn from a spatially uniform distribution of mobiles. Call capacities and peak transmission rates are determined for an integrated system carrying traffic at different constant rates, where processing gain and the transmission rate are selected to satisfy a common chip rate. For the downlink a 5.5 dB capacity gain can be achieved for 64 kb/s calls using four antennas located on the diagonals of each square cell. A bandwidth of 5 MHz allows two or more calls to be simultaneously supported at data rates up to 512 kb/s, as opposed to only 128 kb/s for three co-located antennas. On the uplink we distinguish between the computationally simpler equal-gain combining of the antenna signals and the possibly more complex maximum-ratio combining. With equal gain combining we achieve a peak data rate of 128 kb/s and a capacity gain of 2.5 dB relative to equal gain combining of three nearly co-located antenna signals. With maximum ratio combining the peak uplink rate can be as high as 512 kb/s and the capacity is increased by 2.0 dB relative to the maximum-ratio combining of three co-located antennas.     

Thermionic Emission as a Tool to Study Transport in Undoped nFinFETs

Thermally activated subthreshold transport has been investigated in undoped triple-gate MOSFETs. The evolution of the barrier height and of the active cross-sectional area of the channel as a function of gate voltage has been determined. The results of our experiments and of the tight-binding simulations we have developed are both in good agreement with previous analytical calculations, confirming the validity of the thermionic approach to investigate transport in FETs. This method provides an important tool for the improvement of device characteristics.      

Learning contextual relationships in mammograms using a hierarchical pyramid neural network

This paper describes a pattern recognition architecture, which we term hierarchical pyramid/neural network (HPNN), that learns to exploit image structure at multiple resolutions for detecting clinically significant features in digital/digitized mammograms. The HPNN architecture consists of a hierarchy of neural networks, each network receiving feature inputs at a given scale as well as features constructed by networks lower in the hierarchy. Networks are trained using a novel error function for the supervised learning of image search/detection tasks when the position of the objects to be found is uncertain or ill defined. We have evaluated the HPNN's ability to eliminate false positive (FP) regions of interest generated by the University of Chicago's (UofC) Computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) systems for microcalcification and mass detection. Results show that the HPNN architecture, trained using the uncertain object position (UOP) error function, reduces the FP rate of a mammographic CAD system by approximately 50% without significant loss in sensitivity. Investigation into the types of FPs that the HPNN eliminates suggests that the pattern recognizer is automatically learning and exploiting contextual information. Clinical utility is demonstrated through the evaluation of an integrated system in a clinical reader study. We conclude that the HPNN architecture learns contextual relationships between features at multiple scales and integrates these features for detecting microcalcifications and breast masses.     

Influence of metal gate and capping film stress on TANOS cell performance

In this work it is shown that film stress in the gate stack of TANOS NAND memories plays an important role for cell device performance and reliability. Tensile stress induced by a TiN metal gate deteriorates TANOS cell retention compared to TaN gate material. However, the erase saturation level as well as cell endurance is improved by the use of a TiN gate. This trade-off between retention and erase saturation for TANOS cells is elaborated in detail.     

Nth order current mode universal filter using MOCCCIIs

This article presents a new current mode single-input-multiple-output nth order universal filter. The proposed circuit employs (n + 1) number multiple output second generation current conveyors and n number grounded capacitors only. Presented circuits can realize current mode low pass, high pass, band pass, notch and all pass responses simultaneously at different high output impedance terminals. The current mode filter circuit provides low input impedance by selecting the proper value of bias current and also has high output impedance, which is suitable for cascading. The circuit offers some important features such as resistor less realization, no passive component matching constraints, low sensitivity, electronic tunability and active-C realization. The functionality of the proposed filter circuit is tested with the PSPICE simulation, which is found to agree well with the proposed theory.