Search

At present, lane line detection is still one of the unsolved problems in the field of computer vision. The realization of automatic driving perception technology cannot lack lane line detection. However, most of the lane line detection algorithms proposed at present cannot meet the accuracy and real-time performance at the same time.[1] as a newly proposed polynomial regression lane line detection algorithm, has reached an excellent level in terms of accuracy and speed. This paper further explores on the basis of this paper and proposes a method that does not share Top-y. Experiments show that the newly proposed method is also very effective for lane line detection.

ObjectiveDue to common practice of hypofractionated radiotherapy in pancreatic cancer and heterogeneous chemotherapy regimens in previous studies, modified nomograms are required. Therefore, we aim to develop and validate prognostic nomograms for locally advanced pancreatic cancer (LAPC) after stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) and chemotherapy.MethodsThe development cohort comprised 925 patients with LAPC receiving SBRT and gemcitabine-based chemotherapy in our center, while 297 patients from another two centers formed the validation cohort. Nomograms were created from COX models and internally validated by bootstrap. Model discriminations were evaluated by calibration plots and concordance index (C-index). A decision curve analysis (DCA) was performed to evaluate clinical benefits of nomograms. Additionally, recursive partitioning analysis (RPA) was used for stratifications of survival probability based on the total score of each patient calculated by nomograms.ResultsWeight loss, tumor diameter, radiation dose, CA19-9 kinetics after treatment and surgical resection were included in the nomogram for overall survival (OS), while the five factors plus performance status formed the nomogram for progression free survival (PFS). The corrected C-indexes for estimated 1-year and 2-year OS of the development cohort were 0.88 (95% CI: 0.85-0.91) and 0.86 (95% CI: 0.83-0.90). For those of the validation cohort, it was 0.88 (95% CI: 0.82-0.94) and 0.83 (95% CI: 0.74-0.91). Additionally, the corrected C-index for predicted 1-year PFS in the development and validation cohort was 0.83 (95% CI: 0.81-0.86) and 0.82 (95% CI: 0.78-0.87), respectively. The calibration plots showed good agreement of 1- and 2-year OS and 1-year PFS between the estimations and actual observations. Potential clinical benefits were demonstrated with DCA. Additionally, for 1- and 2-year OS and 1-year PFS, patients were stratified into four groups with different survival probability by RPA.ConclusionThe validated nomograms provided useful predictions of OS and PFS for LAPC with chemoradiotherapy.

A two-stage methane enrichment process with initial vacuum, temperature and final vacuum swing adsorption (VTVSA) was applied to enrich simulated ventilation air methane (VAM) ( 15 vol.% CH4 in the second stage product. Simulated ventilation air streams with 0.30, 0.60 and 0.98 vol.% CH4 were enriched up to 19.28, 24.24 and 36.92 vol.% CH4, respe...

Cell death is a fundamental process in cardiac pathologies. Recent studies have revealed multiple forms of cell death, and several of them have been demonstrated to underlie adverse cardiac remodeling and heart failure. With the expansion in the area of myocardial cell death and increasing concerns over rigor and reproducibility, it is important and timely to set a guideline for the best practices of evaluating myocardial cell death. There are six major forms of regulated cell death observed in cardiac pathologies, namely apoptosis, necroptosis, mitochondrial-mediated necrosis, pyroptosis, ferroptosis, and autophagic cell death. In this article, we describe the best methods to identify, measure, and evaluate these modes of myocardial cell death. In addition, we discuss the limitations of currently practiced myocardial cell death mechanisms.Listen to this article's corresponding podcast at https://ajpheart.podbean.com/e/guidelines-for-evaluating-myocardial-cell-death/ .

Parallel magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technique is able to accelerate MRI speed for reducing costs and enhancing patient’s comfortability. Parallel MRI can be categorized into two types: image-based and k-space-based methods. For k-space-based parallel MRI, missing k-space data is reconstructed by interpolating existing acquired k-space data with appropriate coefficients, which is generally considered as a linear process. However, noise cannot be suppressed or removed during the linear reconstruction process and therefore reconstructed image often suffers serious noise, especially when the acceleration factor is high. Non-linear filters are known to remove non-linear noise better. Based on the Volterra series that discovers and removes the second-order non-linear noise, we proposed a non-linear reconstruction strategy called adaptive Volterra generalized autocalibrating partial parallel acquisition (AV-GRAPPA) to reconstruct the unacquired k-space signals. For the proposed AV-GRAPPA, optimal selection of the second-order Volterra series terms is adjusted and determined for optimizing reconstruction quality. Experimental results show that the proposed method is able to better remove the reconstruction noise and suppress aliasing artifacts.

Graphene or reduced graphene oxide films (rGOFs) can be prepared by a number of methods including chemical vapor deposition (CVD), filtration, and spin-coating for a variety of applications. However, controlling their surface morphologies and microstructures to meet the requirements of specific applications is still a great challenge. Here, controlled microstructure of large-size rGOF with good electrical and thermal conductivities as well as high sorption ability is produced through a heating-assisted spray method. By simply tuning the heating temperature, the smooth surface and close-packed layered structure of rGOF can be changed to rough surface and porous structure. Impressively, the rapid preparation of rGOF with area as large as ∼216 cm2 in only 6 h has been successfully achieved, which is significant since normally it takes several days to prepare a rGOF with small area of ∼10 cm2 by using conventional filtration method. More importantly, our rGOFs show promising applications in oil sorption, supercapacitors, and thermally/electrically conductive films. Environment & Water Industry Development Council (EWI) Ministry of Education (MOE) Nanyang Technological University National Research Foundation (NRF) H.B. and S.W. contributed equally to this paper. This work was supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2242017K41006, and 2242016R20013), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos 61274114, 51420105003, and 113279028), China Postdoctoral Science Foundation funded project (Nos 2017M611653), and the “Qianjiang Scholars” program and “Thousand Talent Program” of Zhejiang Province. This work was also supported by MOE under AcRF Tier 2 (ARC 19/15, No. MOE2014-T2-2-093; MOE2015-T2-2-057; MOE2016-T2-2-103) and AcRF Tier 1 (2016-T1-001-147; 2016-T1-002-051), NTU under Start-Up Grant (M4081296.070.500000), and NOL Fellowship Programme Research Grant in Singapore. This research grant is supported by the Singapore National Research Foundation under its Environmental & Water Technologies Strategic Research Programme and administered by the Environment & Water Industry Programme Office (EWI) of the PUB (project No.: 1301-IRIS-47). This research is supported by the National Research Foundation, Prime Minister's Office, Singapore under its Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise (CREATE) programme.

Background Child-Turcotte-Pugh (CTP) score extensively used to assess hepatic function, predicting postoperative outcome of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients. Lately, the albumin–bilirubin (ALBI) grade has been identified to be a predictor of overall survival of HCC patients. In this investigation, we compared the pre-SBRT ALBI and CTP scores with the prognosis of patients with HCC. Methods This cohort study included 594 HCC patients who treated with SBRT. Overall survival (OS) rates were measured from treatment date to death date or last follow-up. We compared ALBI score with the CTP score in predicting long-term survival. Results The average follow-up time was 21 months (1 to 82 months). The CTP and ALBI ratings have discriminatory for long-term survival across the groups. CTP class was significantly related to OS, with a median OS of 29.9 months in CTP-A, 11.5 in CTP-B (P 0.05). Conclusions To assess liver dysfunction in HCC patients before SBRT, traditional CTP classification is a necessary but imperfect tool for assessing HCC liver injury. The ALBI score is a more objective, discriminatory and evidence-based approach in CTP-A groups, and need to be validated in CTP ≥ B7 class.

The KxNa(1-x)NbO3 (x = 0.45, 0.46, 0.47, 0.48, 0.49, 0.50) lead-free piezoelectric ceramics was fabricated by conventional solid-state sintering method. It was found that the ratio of alkaline metal would affect the microstructure, bulk density, and optimum sintering temperatures of ceramics. Meanwhile, the electrical properties were also influenced by modulating the K/Na ratio, exhibiting corresponding composition-dependent properties. The optimum electrical properties of KxNa(1-x)NbO3 such as piezoelectric constant d33 = 115 pC/N, mechanical quality factor Qm = 20, Curie temperature Tc = 365 °C, eT33/e0= 588.1, dielectric loss tan δ = 0.024, bulk density (ρ) = 3.08 g/cm3, remnant polarization (Pr) = 8.87 μC/cm2 and coercive field (Ec) = 13.79 kV/cm were obtained at x = 0.46.

Although the role of hydrophilic antioxidants in the development of hepatic insulin resistance and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease has been well studied, the role of lipophilic antioxidants remains poorly characterized. A known lipophilic hydrogen peroxide scavenger is bilirubin, which can be oxidized to biliverdin and then reduced back to bilirubin by cytosolic biliverdin reductase. Oxidation of bilirubin to biliverdin inside mitochondria must be followed by the export of biliverdin to the cytosol, where biliverdin is reduced back to bilirubin. Thus, the putative mitochondrial exporter of biliverdin is expected to be a major determinant of bilirubin regeneration and intracellular hydrogen peroxide scavenging. Here, we identified ABCB10 as a mitochondrial biliverdin exporter. ABCB10 reconstituted into liposomes transported biliverdin, and ABCB10 deletion caused accumulation of biliverdin inside mitochondria. Obesity with insulin resistance up-regulated hepatic ABCB10 expression in mice and elevated cytosolic and mitochondrial bilirubin content in an ABCB10-dependent manner. Revealing a maladaptive role of ABCB10-driven bilirubin synthesis, hepatic ABCB10 deletion protected diet-induced obese mice from steatosis and hyperglycemia, improving insulin-mediated suppression of glucose production and decreasing lipogenic SREBP-1c expression. Protection was concurrent with enhanced mitochondrial function and increased inactivation of PTP1B, a phosphatase disrupting insulin signaling and elevating SREBP-1c expression. Restoration of cellular bilirubin content in ABCB10 KO hepatocytes reversed the improvements in mitochondrial function and PTP1B inactivation, demonstrating that bilirubin was the maladaptive effector linked to ABCB10 function. Thus, we identified a fundamental transport process that amplifies intracellular bilirubin redox actions, which can exacerbate insulin resistance and steatosis in obesity.

The fractional-order Bloch equations have been shown to describe a wider range of experimental situations involving heterogeneous, porous, or composite materials. This paper introduces a novel dictionary of quantitative MR fingerprinting generated by signal evolution model with fractional-order Bloch equations to describe magnetic resonance (MR) relaxation. Here, the fractional-order relaxation models are implemented into Bloch equations through phase transitions using EPG simulation. In the phantom experiments, the fractional-order analysis showed smaller root mean squared error (T1: RMSE = 5.21%, T2: RMSE=3.75%) using the proposed method compared to using conventional method. Among the in vivo experiments of human brains, the estimated T1 and T2 values (mean ± SD) were 843 ± 46.3 ms and 70 ± 4.7 ms in white matter, 1323 ± 28.5 ms and 95 ± 3.8 ms in gray matter. So the proposed method can provide well extensions of current MR fingerprinting and has shown potential to apply into the phantom experiments and the in vivo applications to approach the standard methods for quantitative imaging.

The human ether-á-go-go related gene (hERG, KCNH2) encodes the pore-forming subunit of the potassium channel responsible for a fast component of the cardiac delayed rectifier potassium current (I

With the transition from traditional distribution networks to active distribution networks, renewable energy sources represented by wind and photovoltaics are connected to the system on a large scale. However, due to the randomness and intermittentness of their output, the peak shaving of the distribution network Competence presents a huge challenge. In this paper, considering the forecast errors on both sides of the source and load and the limited power purchase of the grid and the output of distributed power sources, through flexible scheduling of interruptible loads on the demand side and distributed power sources, an optimization scenario suitable for each typical operation is proposed. The multi-time scale coordinated optimization strategy with multiple time scales and multiple optimization objectives is used to coordinate and optimize the dispatch of distributed power sources and interruptible loads in the distribution network from three time scales: day-ahead, intra-day rolling, and real-time. After simulation verification, the multi-time scale coordinated and optimized dispatching method of active distribution network proposed in this paper can effectively suppress the impact of the uncertainty of renewable energy output on the distribution network, and alleviate the voltage over-limit, Problems such as line overload.

With the integration of distributed power sources based on wind and photovoltaic power into the grid, due to the fluctuation and uncertainty of its output, the characteristics of distributed power generation and grid load demand characteristics are not uniform on the time scale, making the distribution network integrated the increased complexity of load characteristics brings a series of problems and challenges to the distribution network. This paper proposes a cascaded Buck-Boost converter and its control method based on the energy storage unit. First, analyze the energy storage unit structure of the cascaded Buck-Boost converter and the working principle of the converter; secondly, determine the three working modes of the cascaded Buck-Boost converter, and then select the droop according to the different operating modes of the converter Control is used as the control method of each energy storage unit module. Finally, a simulation model is built to verify the energy storage unit and the selected control strategy. The simulation results verify that the proposed converter structure and its control method can well solve the distribution network factors. The instantaneous power imbalance of the system caused by distributed power access.

With the continuous development of the power grid, power equipment becomes more complex and diverse, which has increased the workload of power maintenance personnel. This paper proposes a method of intelligent identification of distribution network equipment to reduce the power maintenance personnel's workload. The model needs device photos, GPS coordinates, and device topology information of the entire power grid to infer the possible situation of the current device. The model is mainly divided into two parts: target recognition and equipment prediction. In target recognition, we propose a Self-attention target detection network (SA-TDN) that combines Faster-RCNN and Attention mechanism. In equipment prediction part, we use KD-Tree to analyse the grid topology to predict the real identification of the device. We compared this model with other convolutional neural networks (CNN) classification models. The results show that our model is ahead of current models in prediction accuracy.

The human ether-a-go-go related gene (hERG, KCNH2) encodes the pore-forming subunit of the potassium channel responsible for a fast component of the cardiac delayed rectifier potassium current (IKr). Outward IKr is an important determinant of cardiac action potential (AP) repolarization and effectively controls the duration of the QT interval in humans. Dysfunction of hERG channel can cause severe ventricular arrhythmias and thus modulators of the channel, including hERG inhibitors and activators, continue to attract intense pharmacological interest. Certain inhibitors of hERG channel prolong the action potential duration (APD) and effective refractory period (ERP) to suppress premature ventricular contraction and are used as class III antiarrhythmic agents. However, a reduction of the hERG/IKr current has been recognized as a predominant mechanism responsible for the drug-induced delayed repolarization known as acquired long QT syndromes (LQTS), which is linked to an increased risk for "torsades de pointes" (TdP) ventricular arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death. Many drugs of different classes and structures have been identified to carry TdP risk. Hence, assessing hERG/IKr blockade of new drug candidates is mandatory in the drug development process according to the regulatory agencies. In contrast, several hERG channel activators have been shown to enhance IKr and shorten the APD and thus might have potential antiarrhythmic effects against pathological LQTS. However, these activators may also be proarrhythmic due to excessive shortening of APD and the ERP.

Background: It is unclear whether robotic stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) is superior to intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) in advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). This study aimed to compare the long-term outcomes of SBRT with those of IMRT in HCCs with portal vein tumor thrombosis (PVTT). Methods: We retrospectively evaluated 287 HCC patients with PVTT who underwent radiotherapy between January 2000 and January 2017. Of them, 154 and 133 patients were treated with IMRT and SBRT, respectively. Overall survival (OS), progression-free survival (PFS), intrahepatic control (IC), and local control (LC) were evaluated in univariable and propensity-score matched analyses. Results: After matching, 102 well-paired patients were selected. There was no significant difference in the 6-, 12-, 24-, and 60-month cumulative OS (73.5, 42.9, 23.6, 7.6% vs. 72.4, 45.1, 29.8, 13.2%, P=0.151), PFS (53.9, 29.3, 21.8, 7.5% vs. 54.5, 19.3, 12.0, 9.6%, P=0.744) , IC (61.4, 45.7, 39.0, 26.8% vs. 75.1, 45.8, 35.9, 28.7%, P=0.144), and LC (85.2, 56.5, 52.1, 47.4% vs. 87.4, 65.2, 62.1, 62.1%, P=0.191) between the IMRT and SBRT groups. A biologically effective dose assumed at an a/b ratio of 10 (BED10) of ≥100 Gy was the optimal cutoff for predicting the OS, PFS, IC, and LC in the patients who received SBRT. Conclusions: When high-precision tracking technology is available, SBRT appears to be a safe and more time-efficient treatment, achieving comparable OS, PFS, IC and LC to IMRT for local advanced HCC with PVTT. A BED10≥100 Gy is recommended if tolerated by normal tissue.

Epilepsy drug treatment outcome prediction is valuable for the treatment process of children with tuberous sclerosis complex. In this paper, three common feature selection methods and six common machine learning models are used to predict epilepsy drug treatment outcomes with multi-modality data in children with tuberous sclerosis complex. The analysis of variance F-value selecting 35 features combined with multilayer perceptron achieves the best area-under-curve score (95% confidence interval) of 0.812 (± 0.005), which shows the feasibility of using machine learning to predict the outcomes of drug treatments. Then, the effectiveness of the lesion features in the magnetic resonance imaging is evaluated from 3 important perspectives: quantity, location, and type. Our analysis results found that among them, lesion type is the most important in the outcome prediction, followed by location and quantity.

Objectives/Scope Oil production optimization under economical and operational constraints is of paramount importance to most E&P companies. Enhancing production from mature oilfields is often achieved through artificial lift operations. Decline in well performance is observed in most aging giant waterflooded reservoirs in Abu Dhabi. The objective of this paper is to propose an efficient method to improve well performance while optimizing long-term field development plans both for minimum investment and maximum recovery. Methods, Procedures, Process This paper presents a dynamic field management strategy to optimize the gas lift allocation with groups of wells performing under different operational constraints. The gas lift allocation optimization is the cornerstone of the field development plan optimization to increase the recovery from existing wells by applying optimal gas lift injection, to optimize the infill drilling planning to achieve the mandated target, and to minimize the requirements for infill drilling. Despite the large number of gas-lift optimization procedures proposed in the literature, this paper describes a very efficient methodology that is suitable for long-term field developments. In addition to optimization of individual well performance, we propose a new logic for gas lift allocation based upon well potential, history, and performance and the long-term investment planned for the field. This required dynamically to change the logic of allocation mechanism in real-time management manner which proved its efficiency when applied to a giant waterflooded reservoir suffering from water override and high water cut. The method’s logics implemented in terms of fields entities within a simulator field management framework are independent of reservoir model and can be easily scaled and applied to any other reservoir. Results, Observations, Conclusions The implementation of the proposed gas-lift based optimization strategy allowed to achieve the mandated field production by increasing the lifetime of existing wells, while delaying and reducing the number of infill wells. This resulted in a much more economic strategy while minimizing cost and risks of drilling activities. Applying this unique workflow, allow to activate the gas lift optimization function while the field still on plateau, which was not possible before following the default logic in all the simulators. The result showed significant improvement on the field scale in terms of gas lift and facility requirements as well as field production performance. In addition to that, realistic gas lift requirements was observed compared with the conventional methods. Economic analysis is still ongoing, however, huge cost saving is expected and will be presented in the technical paper. Novel/Additive Information In current economic situation, making field development more profitable can be achieved by applying the proposed approach which will help establishing solid foundation to develop fields at scale. This is due to the flexibility and intelligence of the logics applied in the methodology which combine both constraints from operations and uncertainty in the long run. As described, the method is generic and can be applied to other fields following the same workflow steps.

Sharjah National Oil Corporation (SNOC) operates three onshore reservoirs in the Emirate of Sharjah. The reservoir simulation models use compositional modelling to capture the fluid dynamics in mature, low porosity highly fractured gas condensate fields. The scope of this project was to improve the reservoir characterization by investigating and overcoming lack of water production in compositional models for effective EOR and gas storage strategies. Water cut of 30%+ comprised of a combination of produced and condensed water in a reservoir with no active aquifer, thus posing a modelling challenge combined with a lack of comprehensive historical PVT data. All existing PVT reports in the database were retrieved and a comprehensive quality check was performed. The best possible PVT results for each field were short-listed and taken as reference datasets for validating the compositional EoS in a depleted field. A new EOS was generated for these fields based on legacy PVT data combined with 38+ years of production data. A shortfall of this new EOS was the inability to produce condensed water as observed in the field with Chloride counts less than 1500 ppm. To rectify this low water production mismatch, a blind test was conducted introducing water as a component in the EoS in the simulation model to see the effect. Moreover, extensive scale problems in any of the wells of 30-year-old mature assets leading to regular interventions never occurred in the asset's operational history. As expected, mobility of the fluids in the system had changed and low salinity condensed water was seen to have a good match. Liberated water was traced at the surface to confirm water production rate of the same order of magnitude as observed in production data. Due to overwhelming water production rates from the trial test, SNOC decided to perform a comprehensive extended PVT study. The naturally fractured carbonates were subjected to geological and material balance study and the data indicated an absence of active aquifers, which made it difficult to match observed water production in simulation models. To effectively plan future EOR projects like gas storage, it was necessary to model the effects of water and its interaction with injected fluids in the reservoir while honouring low water movement in the subsurface. The paper provides a novel workflow for generation of the compositional equation of state with water as a component in retrograde condensate fields. The workflow followed the lumping of hydrocarbon components to minimise runtime and capture maximum possible fluid dynamics in the reservoir without compromising the fluid properties observed in the PVT lab. It was also vital for the simulation model to honour the production history spanning over three decades. It also highlights the ability and importance of including water as an EOS component to effectively capture the condensed water in the reservoirs that many works of literature and simulators are unable to provide insight on.

With the continuous advancement of science and technology, the artificial intelligence industry is developing more and more rapidly, and the research field focusing on autonomous driving continues to attract young engineers to join in. In the field of autonomous driving, the estimation of pedestrian intention at urban traffic intersections is a very important part of the entire field, and the technical difficulties and challenges faced are undoubtedly the biggest, because the life safety of pedestrians is involved here. Pedestrian trajectory prediction is also a very challenging topic in the field of autonomous driving or assisted driving. In this article, we design a splicing network that combines pedestrian intention and trajectory to build a set of network models that predict pedestrian intention and pedestrian trajectory. We call this model "IAT" (intention and trajectory). We train the collected data and test it on the validation set. The accuracy is 95%. The overlap of the trajectory and the walking trajectory of the human in reality almost overlap within 2s.

PURPOSE To propose a novel model incorporating virtual conjugate coil (VCC) reconstruction and wave encoding (Wave) for improved parallel MRI. THEORY AND METHODS A novel model (VCC-Wave) incorporating VCC and Wave is proposed. The correlation matrix of the encoding operator is introduced to analyze the encoding capability. In addition, simulation experiments are conducted to gain insights into VCC-Wave. In vivo experiments are performed to compare VCC-Wave with alternative methods. RESULTS The correlation matrix and the simulation experiments show that the proposed VCC-Wave can utilize more priors of Wave under the VCC framework. In vivo experiments show that the proposed VCC-Wave can achieve good image quality at a 6-fold acceleration in high-resolution and high-bandwidth cases, indicating an improvement over the original Wave technique. CONCLUSION The proposed VCC-Wave can not only combine the advantages of both the VCC and Wave but also exploit more priors of Wave under the VCC framework. The improvement in VCC-Wave alleviates the limitation of Wave in high-resolution and high-bandwidth cases.

Notably, all neural network models are trained by using gradient descent, and by far, the most successful approach for machine learning is to use gradient descent. However, this is a greedy algorithm and hits some of the biggest open problems in the neural networks. By using gradient descent, it is not guaranteed that a better solution cannot be found. Here, this article has presented an empirical study of the performance of two hidden layers’ neural networks. It gives practical methods to improve the accuracy of neural networks: cooperation method of neural network. In this study, our group applied the data augmentation method by adding noise into the training data set and compared 3 kinds of training methods: batch gradient descent (BGD), stochastic gradient descent (SGD), and batch stochastic gradient descent (BSGD). According to cooperating the neural networks, the performance of these neural networks has improved compared to baseline neural networks by 47% (PEG (generalization classification error probability) of 9 neural networks in cooperation is 0.071). Finally, the real-time classification using a cooperation method which has PEG equals 0.04 (single neural networks’ PEG is 0.104), further proves the results that cooperation improves the performance of neural networks.

The Wave Controlled Aliasing In Parallel Imaging (Wave-CAIPI) technique manifests great potential to highly accelerate three-dimensional (3D) balanced steady-state free precession (bSSFP) through substantially reducing the geometric factor (g-factor) and aliasing artifacts of image reconstruction. However, severe banding artifacts appear in bSSFP imaging due to unbalanced gradients with nonzero 0th moment applied by the conventional Wave-CAIPI technique. In this study, we propose a 3D Wave-bSSFP scheme that adopts truncated wave gradients with zero 0th moment to avoid introducing additional banding artifacts and to maintain the advantages of wave encoding. The simulation results indicate that the number of wave cycles that are truncated and different options of applying wave gradients affect both the g-factor reduction and image quality, but the influence is limited. In phantom experiments, the proposed technique shows similar acceleration performance as the conventional Wave-CAIPI technique and effectively eliminates its introduced banding artifacts. Additionally, Wave-bSSFP obtains up to $12\times $ retrospective acceleration at 0.8 mm isotropic resolution in in vivo 3D brain experiments and is superior to the state-of-the-art Controlled Aliasing In Parallel Imaging Results IN Higher Acceleration (CAIPIRINHA) technique, according to both visual validation and quantitative analysis. Moreover, in vivo 3D spine and abdomen imaging demonstrate the potential clinical applications of Wave-bSSFP with fast acquisition speed, improved isotropic resolution and fine image quality.

Materials for emulsion separation with low pressure, high flux and high stability are of great interest in the treatment of oily wastewater. Herein, we report a facile strategy for the fabrication of PDMS and graphene coated melamine sponge (PG-MS), which can efficiently separate oil-in-water emulsions. In PG-MS, melamine sponge (MS) provides a three-dimensional porous structure, graphene constructs hydrophobic microcavities, and PDMS enhances the hydrophobic property of the material, forming a superhydrophobic material. The PG-MS shows high flux (experimentally 10 000 L m−2 h−1, and the effective flux increases with the thickness of the filter layer), high separation efficiency (oil content of the filtered water ∼4.7 mg L−1 can be discharged directly, with oil separation efficiency >99%), low pressure (applied to overcome water's gravity), and high stability (no obvious change in 20 cycles). Our study indicates that PG-MS has a wide range of applications in oil-in-water emulsion separation in industry and environmental sciences.

Background: Macroscopic vascular invasion (MVI) is a terminal manifestation of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and carries an extremely poor prognosis. In Chinese and Korean HCC guidelines, transarterial chemoembolization (TACE), or/and radiotherapy (RT) is adopted for treatment of MVI. In the current study, we aimed to compare the long-term outcome of TACE + RT to that of RT alone in patients with local advanced HCC with MVI.Methods: In this retrospective study, 148 treatment-naive patients of HCC with MVI were enrolled. Of the patients enrolled, 49 received TACE + RT treatment, whereas 99 patients received RT alone as a monotherapy. Overall survival (OS), progression-free survival (PFS), and intrahepatic control were evaluated using univariable and propensity score–matched analyses.Results: During follow-up, 126 patients (85.1%) died. The median follow-up time was 55.0 months in the RT group and 57.0 months in the TACE + RT group. The TACE + RT group showed better OS and PFS than the RT group, but intrahepatic control was comparable in these two groups. Of 41 cases well-pairs after propensity score matching, the associations between TACE + RT and better OS and PFS remained (15.0 vs. 8.0 months, and 8.0 vs. 4.0 months, all P < 0.05). The 1-, 2-, 3-, and 5-years OS rates in the TACE + RT group were 56.1, 28.6, 20.8, and 15.7 vs. 31.5%, 13.1%, 9.8%, and 6.7% in the RT group, respectively (P = 0.017). The 6-, 12-, and 24-months rates in the TACE + RT group were 51.2, 39.0, and 23.1% vs. 36.6%, 13.9%, and 11.1% in the RT group, respectively (P = 0.04). Two patients (4.1%) experienced radiation-induced liver disease (RILD), and one (2.0%) experienced RT-related gastrointestinal (GI) bleed in the TACE + RT groups. Nine patients (9.1%) experienced RILD, and two (2.0%) experienced RT-related GI bleed in the RT groups.Conclusion: Transarterial chemoembolization + RT had well-complementarity with no more complications than RT alone, providing a better PFS and OS compared with RT-alone treatment for HCC with MVI.

The susceptibility-based positive contrast MR technique was applied to estimate arbitrary magnetic susceptibility distributions of the metallic devices using a kernel deconvolution algorithm with a regularized L-1 minimization.Previously, the first-order primal-dual (PD) algorithm could provide a faster reconstruction time to solve the L-1 minimization, compared with other methods. Here, we propose to accelerate the PD algorithm of the positive contrast image using the multi-core multi-thread feature of graphics processor units (GPUs). The some experimental results showed that the GPU-based PD algorithm could achieve comparable accuracy of the metallic interventional devices in positive contrast imaging with less computational time. And the GPU-based PD approach was 4~15 times faster than the previous CPU-based scheme., 4 pages, 6 figures, Accepted at the 42nd Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC 2020)

Background and Objective: It is unclear if stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) or transarterial chemoembolization (TACE) is better for the treatment of inoperable early-stage hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). This study aimed to retrospectively compare the efficacy of SBRT to TACE in patients with inoperable Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer (BCLC)-A stage HCC. Materials and Methods: In this multi-institutional retrospective study, a total of 326 patients with inoperable BCLC-A stage HCC were enrolled. Totally, 167 patients initially received SBRT and 159 initially received TACE. Overall survival (OS), local control (LC), intrahepatic control (IC), and progression-free survival (PFS) were evaluated in univariable and propensity-score matched analyses. Results: There was a smaller median tumor size in the SBRT group than in the TACE group (3.4 cm vs. 7.2 cm, P < 0.001). After propensity score matching in the selection of 95 patient pairs, SBRT had better LC, IC, and PFS than TACE but showed comparable OS. The accumulative 1-, 3-, and 5-year OS rates were 85.7, 65.1, and 62.8% in the SBRT group and 83.6, 61.0, and 50.4% in the TACE group, respectively (P = 0.29). The accumulative 1-, 3-, and 5-year PFS were 63.4, 35.9, and 27.5% in the SBRT group and 53.5, 27.4, and 14.2% in the TACE group, respectively (P = 0.049). The accumulative 1-, 3-, and 5-year LC were 86.8, 62.5, and 56.9% in the SBRT group and 69.3, 53.3, and 36.6% in the TACE group, respectively (P = 0.0047). The accumulative 1-, 3-, and 5-year IC were 77.3, 45.9, and 42.4% in the SBRT group and 57.3, 34.1, and 17.7% in the TACE group, respectively (P = 0.003). On multivariate analysis, treatment (SBRT vs. TACE) was a significant covariate associated with local and intrahepatic control (HR = 1.59; 95% CI: 1.03–2.47; P = 0.04; HR = 1.61; 95% CI: 1.13–2.29; P = 0.009). Conclusions: SBRT was an alternative to TACE for inoperable BCLC-A stage HCC with better local and intrahepatic control. Controlled clinical trials are recommended to evaluate the actual effects of this novel regimen adequately.