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In the current article, we use a random supercontinuum based on a random Raman distributed feedback laser to investigate the generation of random numbers by spectrally demultiplexing the broad supercontinuum spectrum in parallel channels. By tuning the spectral separation between two independent channels, we test the most typically used statistical tests' abilities to identify the required minimum spectral separation between channels, especially after the use of post-processing steps. Out of all the tests that were investigated, the cross-correlation across channels using the raw data appears to be the most robust. We also demonstrate that the use of post-processing steps, either least significant bits extraction or exclusive-OR operations, hinders the ability of these tests to detect the existing correlations. As such, performing these tests on post-processed data, often reported in literature, is insufficient to properly establish the independence of two parallel channels. We therefore present a methodology, which may be used to confirm the true randomness of parallel random number generation schemes. Finally, we demonstrate that, while tuning a single channel's bandwidth can modify its potential randomness output, it also affects the number of available channels, such that the total random number generation bitrate is conserved., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

Objective: Minimally invasive revascularization procedures such as percutaneous transluminal angioplasty seek to treat occlusions in peripheral arteries. However their ability to treat long occlusions are hampered by difficulties to monitor the location of intravascular devices such as guidewires using fluoroscopy which requires continuous radiation, and lack the capacity to measure physiological characteristics such as laminar blood flow close to occlusions. Fiber optic technologies provide means of tracking by measuring fibers under strain, however they are limited to known geometrical models and are not used to measure external variations., Methods: We present a navigation framework based on optical frequency domain reflectometry (OFDR) using fully-distributed optical sensor gratings enhanced with ultraviolet exposure to track the three-dimensional shape and surrounding blood flow of intra-vascular guidewires. To process the strain information provided by the continuous gratings, a dual-branch model learning spatio-temporal features allows to predict the output measures based on scattered wavelength distributions. The first network determines the 3D shape appearance of the guidewire using the input backscattered wavelength shift data in combination with prior segmentations, while a second network (graph temporal convolution network) produces estimates of vascular flow velocities using ground-truth 4D-flow MRI acquisitions., Results: Experiments performed on synthetic and animal models, as well as in a preliminary human trial shows the capability of the model to generate accurate 3D shape tracking and blood flow velocities differences below 2 cm/s, thus providing realistic physiologic and anatomical properties for intravascular techniques., Conclusion and Significance: The study demonstrates the feasibility of using the device clinically, and could be integrated within revascularization workflows for treating occlusions in arteries, since the navigation framework involves minimal manual intervention.

We demonstrate laser induced cooling in ytterbium doped silica (SiO 2 ) glass with alumina, yttria co-doping (GAYY-Aluminum: Yttrium: Ytterbium Glass) fabricated using the modified chemical vapour deposition (MCVD) technique. A maximum temperature reduction by - 0.9 K from room temperature (296 K) at atmospheric pressure was achieved using only 6.5 W of 1029 nm laser radiation. The developed fabrication process allows us to incorporate ytterbium at concentration of 4 × 10 26  ions/m 3 which is the highest value reported for laser cooling without clustering or lifetime shortening, as well as to reach a very low background absorptive loss of 10 dB/km. The numerical simulation of temperature change versus pump power well agrees with the observation and predicts, for the same conditions, a temperature reduction of 4 K from room temperature in a vacuum. This novel silica glass has a high potential for a vast number of applications in laser cooling such as radiation-balanced amplifiers and high-power lasers including fiber lasers., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

Intra-arterial catheter guidance is instrumental to the success of minimally invasive procedures, such as percutaneous transluminal angioplasty. However, traditional device tracking methods, such as electromagnetic or infrared sensors, exhibits drawbacks such as magnetic interference or line of sight requirements. In this work, shape sensing of bends of different curvatures and lengths is demonstrated both asynchronously and in real-time using optical frequency domain reflectometry (OFDR) with a polymer extruded optical fiber triplet with enhanced backscattering properties. Simulations on digital phantoms showed that reconstruction accuracy is of the order of the interrogator's spatial resolution (millimeters) with sensing lengths of less than 1 m and a high SNR.

Femtosecond laser direct-writing is an attractive technique to fabricate fiber Bragg gratings and to achieve through-the-coating inscription. In this article, we report the direct inscription of high-quality first-order gratings in optical fiber, without the use of an index-matching medium. A new alignment technique based on the inscription of weak probe gratings is used to track the relative position between the focal spot and fiber core. A simple and flexible method to precisely control the position of each grating plane is also presented. With this method, periodic phase modulation of grating structures is achieved and used to inscribe arbitrary apodization and phase profiles. It is shown that a burst of multiple laser pulses used to inscribe each grating plane leads to a significant increase in the grating strength, while maintaining low insertion loss, critical for many applications.

A simple novel method for random number generation is presented, based on a random Raman fiber laser. This laser is built in a half-open cavity scheme, closed on one side by a narrow-linewidth 100 mm fiber Bragg grating. The interaction between the randomly excited lasing modes of this laser, in addition to nonlinear effects such as modulation instability, allow the generation of random bits at rates of up to 540 Gbps with minimal post processing. Evaluation of the resulting bit streams' randomness by the NIST statistical test suite highlights the importance of evaluating the physical entropy content, as bit sequences generated by this random laser pass all the statistical tests with a significance level of 0.01, despite being generated at more than twice the theoretical entropy generation speed.

Trois Zones d'Apprentissage et de Recherche (ZAR) sont développées par le programme RIPSEC en République Démocratique duCongo (RDC). Cette stratégie consiste à utiliser un district sanitaire comme substrat pour former des managers des districts de santé et mener des recherches sur les systèmes de santé. L'objet de cet article est d'explorer les principes, les effets et les conditions de succès de cette stratégie à travers une évaluation qualitative des expériences ZAR antérieures en Afrique Subsaharienne. Elle concerne quatre expériences, deux menées au Niger, une en RDC et une au Congo-Brazzaville. Les données proviennent des témoignages de responsables du développement des expériences, présentés dans un séminaire en 2014 et approfondis par des entretiens en 2015, et des publications traitant des expériences. Les faits communs aux quatre expériences sont la diffusion nationale et souvent internationale des bonnes pratiques et des modèles organisationnels, leur développement inscrit dans le long-terme et l'implication des managers des ZAR dans tous les volets de leur transformation. Le centrage de la recherche sur les problèmes de la ZAR et la promotion de la réflexivité dans les décisions managériales sont importants pour cette transformation. L'utilisation des résultats par le programme RIPSEC, les logiques imbriquées dans le concept ZAR et l'apport potentiel de l'implication d'écoles de santé publiques nationales dans leur développement sont ensuite discutés. La validité de l'étude est limitée mais renforcer le leadership des managers des districts sanitaires est un défi fréquent pour les systèmes de santé aux ressources limitées. Cet article peut aider à développer une stratégie pour le renforcer.

Flexible medical instruments, such as Continuum Dexterous Manipulators (CDM), constitute an important class of tools for minimally invasive surgery. Accurate CDM shape reconstruction during surgery is of great importance, yet a challenging task. Fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors have demonstrated great potential in shape sensing and consequently tip position estimation of CDMs. However, due to the limited number of sensing locations, these sensors can only accurately recover basic shapes, and become unreliable in the presence of obstacles or many inflection points such as s-bends. Optical Frequency Domain Reflectometry (OFDR), on the other hand, can achieve much higher spatial resolution, and can therefore accurately reconstruct more complex shapes. Additionally, Random Optical Gratings by Ultraviolet laser Exposure (ROGUEs) can be written in the fibers to increase signal to noise ratio of the sensors. In this comparison study, the tip position error is used as a metric to compare both FBG and OFDR shape reconstructions for a 35 mm long CDM developed for orthopedic surgeries, using a pair of stereo cameras as ground truth. Three sets of experiments were conducted to measure the accuracy of each technique in various surgical scenarios. The tip position error for the OFDR (and FBG) technique was found to be 0.32 (0.83) mm in free-bending environment, 0.41 (0.80) mm when interacting with obstacles, and 0.45 (2.27) mm in s-bending. Moreover, the maximum tip position error remains sub-millimeter for the OFDR reconstruction, while it reaches 3.40 mm for FBG reconstruction. These results propose a cost-effective, robust and more accurate alternative to FBG sensors for reconstructing complex CDM shapes.

We propose a novel device defined as Random Optical Grating by Ultraviolet or ultrafast laser Exposure (ROGUE), a new type of fiber Bragg grating (FBG), exhibiting a weak reflection over a large bandwidth, which is independent of the length of the grating. This FBG is fabricated simply by dithering the phase randomly during the writing process. This grating has an enhanced backscatter, several orders of magnitude above typical Rayleigh backscatter of standard SMF-28 optical fiber. The grating is used in distributed sensing using optical frequency domain reflectometry (OFDR), allowing a significant increase in signal to noise ratio for strain and temperature measurement. This enhancement results in significantly lower strain or temperature noise level and accuracy error, without sacrificing the spatial resolution. Using this method, we show a sensor with a backscatter level 50 dB higher than standard unexposed SMF-28, which can thus compensate for increased loss in the system.

Intra-arterial liver cancer therapies, such as trans-arterial chemoembolization, are the preferred therapeutic approaches for advanced hepatocellular carcinoma. However, these palliative techniques are challenging for delivering therapeutic agents selectively in the tumor without real-time 3-D visualization of the catheter within the hepatic arteries. The objective of this paper is to develop and evaluate in pre-clinical tests an advanced interventional guidance platform using a distributed strain sensing device based on optical frequency-domain reflectometry (OFDR) to track the tip and shape of a catheter. The scattering properties of a fiber triplet are enhanced by focusing an ultraviolet beam on these fibers, producing a fully distributed strain sensor, which avoids interpolation errors observed with traditional shape tracking systems. A 3-D roadmap of the hepatic arteries is obtained from a combined fully convolutional and residual networks trained on MR angiography and combined with a 4-D flow dynamic sequence enabling to map blood flow velocities. An anisotropic curvature matching method is proposed to map the sensed data onto pre-operative MR and using 3-D ultrasound to correct for non-rigid deformations. Experiments were conducted in a controlled environment setting as well as in both synthetic phantoms and in five porcine models to assess the performance for device navigation, yielding satisfactory tracking accuracy with 3-D mean errors of 2.8 ± 0.9 mm. We present the first pilot study of MR-compatible UV-exposed OFDR optical fibers for non-ionizing device guidance in intra-arterial procedures, with the potential of avoiding multiple hospitalizations required to perform invasive selective chemoembolizations.

This work focuses on modelling design and operation of "microfluidic sample traps" (MSTs). MSTs regroup a widely used class of microdevices that incorporate wells, recesses or chambers adjacent to a channel to individually trap, culture and/or release submicroliter 3D tissue samples ranging from simple cell aggregates and spheroids, to ex vivo tissue samples and other submillimetre-scale tissue models. Numerous MST designs employing various trapping mechanisms have been proposed in the literature, spurring the development of 3D tissue models for drug discovery and personalized medicine. Yet, there lacks a general framework to optimize trapping stability, trapping time, shear stress, and sample metabolism. Herein, the effects of hydrodynamics and diffusion-reaction on tissue viability and device operation are investigated using analytical and finite element methods with systematic parametric sweeps over independent design variables chosen to correspond to the four design degrees of freedom. Combining different results, we show that, for a spherical tissue of diameter d < 500 μm, the simplest, closest to optimal trap shape is a cube of dimensions w equal to twice the tissue diameter: w = 2d. Furthermore, to sustain tissues without perfusion, available medium volume per trap needs to be 100× the tissue volume to ensure optimal metabolism for at least 24 hours.