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Background/aim The anticancer mechanism of itraconazole remains unsolved; therefore, we studied itraconazole-induced alterations in specialized pro-resolving mediators (SPMs) in cancer cells. Materials and methods The human cervical squamous carcinoma cell line CaSki was cultured with or without 1 μM itraconazole. Liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry analysis was conducted to identify SPMs that were influenced by itraconazole. Cell growth experiments were conducted using itraconazole and inhibitors targeting the metabolic pathways of candidate SPMs. Results Resolvin E3, resolvin E2, prostaglandin J2 (PGJ2), delta-12-PGJ2, and maresin 2 were identified as candidate SPMs. The 12/15-lipoxygenase inhibitor, which is involved in the conversion of 18-hydroxy-eicosapentaenoic acid to resolvin E3, attenuated the inhibitory effect of itraconazole. Inhibition of the PGJ2 metabolic pathway did not interfere with itraconazole treatment. Conclusion The metabolic pathway of SPMs, including resolving E3, could be proposed as an anticancer target of itraconazole.

We present the development of time-of-flight/energy (TOF-E) telescope for elastic recoil detection analysis (ERDA) in UTTAC at the University of Tsukuba. The designs of the TOF tube are introduced. The performance for the quantification and mass resolution for light elements is confirmed on a CaTaOxNy film deposited on a Si substrate. The results are cross-checked by the data taken by an existing ΔE-E telescope ERDA system, which was previously installed in MALT at The University of Tokyo. The newly developed system can be used to reveal the relationship between the film deposition condition and the contamination quantitatively on a Si-Al-N (SiAlN) film on a SiO2 substrate. Finally, the analysis of a triple-layered metal nitrides film on a soda glass substrate, in which each layer has a thickness of 10 to15 nm, is shown. From the analysis of the surface peak of oxygen, the time resolution corresponds to depth resolution of 2.1 nm at the surface. The overall practical depth resolution conservatively estimated as better than 10 nm, because the depth profiles of various elements show clear counters corresponding to the three layers.

Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT) uses boundary voltage measurements due to multiple injection current patterns to reconstruct cross-sectional impedance images. Usually, the hardware does not provide any capacitive information and the reconstructed image is only based on conductivity. An approach where each electrode has its own Howland current source is a powerful and innovative architecture in which different current injections can be implemented. However, the potential source of error increases with this new architecture when compared with conventional architectures. This paper enumerates some of the potential errors considering the main modules of the electrode: 1. Howland current source; 2. ADC and DAC converters; and 3. The demodulator. A methodology for verifying ADC and DAC precision and linearity is proposed.

Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT) is a noninvasive, indirect image reconstruction technique which consists in the inference of the distribution of electrical conductivity inside a body or object from the set of electrical potentials measured on its boundary. Several methods have been used for the reconstruction of EIT images, such as Simulated Annealing, Kalman Filter, D-bar, and, more recently, Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN). An issue when using CNN is that the resulting image of the convolution process is smaller than the original input image. Besides that, the values lying on the borders of the input image are used less, hence their importance is overlooked. This problem is usually addressed by the introduction of padding, which is the addition of layers in the borders of the original input image. This work proposes the use of a doubly periodic padding, which is relevant for toroidal image problems such as the electric potential distribution measured using EIT. The CNN is trained using a database generated by numerical simulations. The resulting image reconstructions are presented for different noisy potential inputs.

To evaluate the usefulness of synthetic magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) performed before the initiation of neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) in predicting whether breast cancers can achieve a pathological complete response (pCR) after the completion of NAC.This retrospective study investigated 37 consecutive patients with 39 breast cancers (pCR: 14, and non-pCR: 25) who underwent dynamic contrast-enhanced (DCE)-MRI and synthetic MRI before the initiation of NAC. Using synthetic MRI images, quantitative values (T1 and T2 relaxation times, proton density [PD] and their standard deviations [SD]) were obtained in breast lesions, before (Pre-T1, Pre-T2, Pre-PD, SD of Pre-T1, SD of Pre-T2, SD of Pre-PD) and after (Gd-T1, Gd-T2, Gd-PD, SD of Gd-T1, SD of Gd-T2, SD of Gd-PD) contrast agent injection. The aforementioned quantitative values and several morphological features that were identified on DCE-MRI were compared between pCR and non-pCR.Multivariate analyses revealed that the SD of Pre-T2 (p=0.038) was significant and was an independent predictor of pCR, with an area under the receiver operating characteristics curve of 0.829. The sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of the SD of Pre-T2 with an optimal cut-off value of 11.5 were 71.4%, 80%, and 76.3%, respectively.The SD of Pre-T2 obtained from synthetic MRI was used successfully to predict those breast cancers that would achieve a pCR after the completion of NAC; however, these results are preliminary and need to be verified by further studies.

The 3D reconstruction and automatic statistical analysis of sporting events is an area of increasing demand and innovation. In this work, it is proposed the use of two different CNNs (AlexNet and LeNet) with different activation functions for the classification of soccer field view. The images will be classified as viewing the right goal, the center field, and the left goal. The classification of the soccer field view facilitates the creation of an automated algorithm for creating correspondences of relevant points. This activity is the most difficult to be automated. As it is very difficult to obtain real images for training the CNNs, it is proposed a method for creating synthetic soccer field views. Three CNNs presented good results and high accuracy.

Com o crescimento do mercado de vendas online, existe uma nova demanda de aplicativos para facilitar e aumentar a experiencia de compras online do cliente. Um exemplo e a loja de roupas, que fazem com que clientes favorecam a compra em lojas fisicas pela certeza de que a roupa ira servir perfeitamente. Neste sentido, a visao computacional pode ser usada para aumentar a experiencia do cliente reconstruindo virtualmente seu corpo, permitindo o uso de um modelo virtual para mostrar o ajuste da roupa no corpo, para sugerir modelos baseados nas caracteristicas fisicas do cliente e prover medidas para a fabricacao de roupas customizadas. Este artigo descreve a parte mais importante desta tecnologia, que e a reconstrucao 3D do corpo utilizando-se uma cˆamera. Utilizando-se um video, uma nuvem de pontos e gerada e o corpo e extraido dessa nuvem de pontos. A partir disso, um modelo parametrico do torso e ajustado utilizando um algoritmo de otimizacao.

A Tomografia por Impedância Eletrica (TIE) e uma tecnica de imageamento que utiliza medicoes de potenciais eletricos para a estimacao da distribuicao de condutividade eletrica de um corpo. A solucao para o problema da TIE pode ser aproximada em duas dimensoes, mas apenas de forma imprecisa, uma vez que as medicoes obtidas em uma cinta de eletrodos de TIE decorrem de fenomenos fisicos que ocorrem em tres dimensoes. Nesse sentido, a adocao de um modelo tridimensional para a solucao da TIE pode resultar em solucoes mais precisas. Neste trabalho, uma rede neural convolucional e treinada com dados obtidos a partir de um modelo tridimensional. O modelo e utilizado para a solucao do problema direto da TIE e, portanto, para a geracao de um banco de dados de treinamento da rede neural artificial. Da mesma forma, a resolucao do problema inverso tambem e realizada no modelo 3D. Os resultados preliminares indicam que a abordagem do problema em tres dimensoes pode apresentar reconstrucoes com alto contraste.

The automation of soccer video analysis is an area of recent interest, particularly the 3D reconstruction of soccer matches from broadcast video. One important task is the camera center determination. The camera center is calculated from a single soccer match image. It is assumed that a model of the soccer field with known dimensions is accessible. Two different approaches are presented: 1. Camera matrix determination; and 2. Homography matrix determination. It is shown that the homography matrix can be determined using mapped points and lines. Both methods are compared. To improve the numerical stability, a normalization procedure is used. Both methods with normalization are also compared. The results showed that the combination of points and lines with normalization improved the obtained results.

A quantificacao de vazamentos submersos de gases pode ser realizada por diferentes tecnicas, utilizando-se câameras, sonares ou sensores quimicos. Este trabalho apresenta a quantificacao de gases submersos utilizando tecnicas de ultrassom e otica. Na abordagem otica, uma câmera de alta velocidade e utilizada, e as imagens capturadas sao processadas utilizando-se tecnicas de segmentacao. A bolha segmentada e aproximada por um elipsoide e o maior diâmetro projetado e determinado. Nessa abordagem, a sobreposicao parcial e tambem considerada no processamento. Na abordagem de ultrassom, um transdutor multielemento linear e utilizado para capturar as imagens. Em ambos os metodos a velocidade vertical, o tamanho das bolhas, a taxa de emissao de bolhas e a taxa de vazamento sao calculados. Os resultados obtidos utilizando-se os dois metodo sao comparados e analisados.

Aquaculture is an activity that is growing 10% a year in Brazil and still occupies less than 1% of the area reserved for fish farming, which shows the great productive potential of Brazil. With this growth, many challenges are emerging and many advances are being made. One technology they are starting to use in Brazilian fish farms is stereo cameras that can evaluate the average weight of Nile tilapia in a tank. This estimation of fish weight is based on its 3D length, but one of the most correlated information with the fish weight is its width. Thus, the objective of this work is to improve this estimation using stereo cameras by processing the cloud point of the surface of the fish. This paper shows some preliminary results that encourage further research since was obtained results similar to the methodology currently used.

The quantification of underwater gas leakage using optical and ultrasound technologies is presented. In the optical method, a high-speed camera is utilized, and the captured images are processed with segmentation techniques. The bubble is considered as an ellipsoid and its projected largest diameter is determined. The case of bubbles partial overlapping is also processed. In the ultrasound method, a ultrasonic linear array is used to capture images. For both methods, vertical speed, size of the bubbles, the bubble emission rate and the leak rate are measured. The results of the optical and acoustic methods are compared and analyzed.

This chapter is related to several aspects of optimization problems in engineering. Engineers usually mathematically model a problem and create a function that must be minimized, like cost, required time, wasted material, etc. Eventually, the function must be maximized. This function has different names in the literature: objective function, cost function, etc. We will refer to it in the chapter as objective function. There is a wide range of possibilities for the problems and they can be classified in different ways. At first, the values of the parameters can be continuous, discrete (integers), cyclic (angles), intervals, and combinatorial. The result of the objective function can be continuous, discrete (integers) or intervals. One very difficult class of problems have continuous parameters and discrete objective function, this type of objective function has very weak sensibility. This chapter shows the versatility of the simulated annealing showing that it can have different possibilities of parameters and objective functions.

Background/aim Itraconazole shows anticancer activity in various types of cancer but its underlying mechanism is unclear. We investigated the effect of itraconazole on membrane-associated lipids. Materials and methods To investigate the influences of itraconazole on cholesterol trafficking, cervical cancer CaSki cells were cultured with itraconazole and analyzed by Filipin staining followed by confocal microscopy. Effect on the glycerophospholipid profiles was analyzed by liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry (LC/MS). Results After itraconazole treatment, Filipin staining revealed cholesterol accumulation in the intracellular compartments, which was similar to the distribution after treatment of U18666A (cholesterol transport inhibitor). LC/MS analysis showed a significant decrease in phosphatidylserine levels and an increase in lysophosphatidylcholine levels in CaSki cells. Conclusion Itraconazole inhibited cholesterol trafficking and altered the phospholipid composition. Alterations in the cell membrane can potentiate the anticancer activity of itraconazole.

A Tomografia por Impedância Eletrica e uma tecnica de reconstrucao de imagens do interior de um corpo que utiliza da medicao de potenciais el etricos em superfi cies obtidos a partir da injecao de uma corrente de baixa amplitude. Diversos m etodos foram utilizados para a reconstrucao de imagens com TIE, mas, em geral, os m etodos sao indiretos e, consequentemente, apresentam baixo desempenho. A fim de contornar esse problema, entre as abordagens mais recentes est a a aplicacao das Redes Neurais Arti ciais. Neste trabalho propoe-se a utiliza cao de Redes Neurais Convolucionais baseadas na arquitetura da rede LeNet. Malhas de elementos finitos de diferentes resolucoes sao utilizadas para a resolu cao do problema direto e da reconstrucao da distribuicao de condutividade a fim de possibilitar uma maior precisao na solucao do problema direto. Os resultados da reconstru cao de imagens para um conjunto de dados sint eticos mostraram-se bastante satisfat orios a partir de uma avaliacao visual e da determinacao do erro quadr atico medio para um pequeno conjunto de dados de testes.

O v rus SARS-Cov2 disseminou-se pelo mundo rapidamente. Embora uma pequena fracao das pessoas infectadas necessitarem de cuidados especiais, este n umero e muito superior ao que o sistema de sa ude suporta. Nos casos mais severos, a ventila cao mecânica e crucial para a recupera cao do paciente, e nao est a dispon ivel na quantidade necess aria. No Brasil, os ventiladores mecânicos sao em grande parte importados a um custo alto, elevado pela pandemia e a crise economica, e com um atraso grande na entrega, agravado pelo risco de infec cao atraves de embarca coes, avioes e bens vindos do exterior. Nesse sentido, um ventilador mecânico de emergencia desenvolvido e produzido no pai s poderia salvar muitas vidas acometidas pela falta de ventila cao mecânica. Para resolver esses problemas, este artigo descreve os esforcos para o desenvolvimento de tal dispositivo.

A análise de vídeos de futebol é uma área de recente interesse, particularmente a reconstrução 3D de partidas de futebol a partir de vídeos televisionados. São propostos três algoritmos que combinados suportarão esta reconstrução 3D de modo automático. Inicialmente, a região do jogo é determinada, que corresponde à região da imagem onde está a bola, o juiz e os jogadores. Posteriormente, as linhas do campo são determinadas utilizando a transformada de Hough, filtros de cor de geométricos são utilizados para remover falso-positivos. As intersecções entre as linhas determinam pontos invariantes que são mapeados a pontos do modelo do campo. O correto mapeamento permite corrigir a distorção perspectiva. Para determinar o mapeamento correto são realizadas combinações de correspondência entre os pontos invariantes e pontos no modelo do campo. O mapeamento do plano do gol também é determinado.

Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT) is a noninvasive, fast-growing technique for image reconstruction. In a typical EIT modeling configuration, electrodes are assumed to be positioned at regularly spaced intervals along the contour of an object. Thus, the resulting reconstructed image – which could be obtained by different methods, such as Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) - has deviations due to the common existence of errors in the measurement, which is related to wrong electrode positioning in real applications. When a discrepancy exists between model and experiment, the distribution obtained by the inverse problem solver will differ from the real case. We propose herein a framework for an EIT problem with non-uniform electrodes distribution. This proposal takes into account prior knowledge about the object interior, in order to make it permit the investigation of electrode positions. A framework to generate training data for the EIT problem was developed and tested with a simple experiment with three cucumbers inside a circular tank. The proposed framework is very flexible as it allows for different experimental setups, with different geometries for the contour and its interior physical structures, by converting the shapes to simple polygons. Moreover, it allows for non-uniform electrode distribution, which can be even more important when medical applications are considered.

Analysis of soccer videos is an area of recent interest, particularly the 3D reconstruction of soccer matches from broadcasted videos. Three algorithms are proposed that, when combined, will support this 3D reconstruction automatically. Initially, the region of the game is determined, which corresponds to the region of the image where the ball, the judge and the players are located. Subsequently, the field lines are determined using the Hough transform, while geometric and color filters are used to remove false positives. The intersections between the lines determine invariant points that are mapped to points in the field model. The correct mapping allows the correction of the perspective distortion. To determine the correct mapping, correspondence combinations are made between the invariant points and points in the field model. The mapping of the goal plane is also determined.

With the growing market of online sales, there is a new demand for tools that facilitate and augment the client online shopping experience. One example is clothing stores, which face the client preference to buy in physical stores to make sure the clothing will fit nicely. In this sense, computer vision could be used to augment the client experience by virtually reconstructing the body of the client, enabling a virtual model to show how the clothing will fit, suggest models based on the client physical characteristics and provide measurements for customized clothing fabrication. This paper describes the most important part of this technology, which is the body 3D reconstruction requiring only a camera. A video input is used to build a point cloud model and the body is extracted from the point cloud. Then a parametric model of the torso is fit using an optimization algorithm.

The teeth segmentation plays a key role in the orthodontics analysis, but, due to their irregularity, it is a complex task. Irregular surfaces segmentation is still an open issue. Whereas some state-of-art algorithms are either very time consuming or not very precise, the region growth algorithm performs well in both aspects. In this project, the region growth algorithm was adapted to reduce noise and improve the performance with a pre-processing step. In this step, the curvature was analysed in order to obtain the boundaries and apply the region growth. Two method were developed: a manual algorithm and an automatic application. The manual algorithm was capable of segmenting all teeth correctly in the experiments. However, the automatic variant did not achieve the same results. Moreover, some holes must be removed in order to perform simulation on the results.

Benign metastasizing leiomyoma (BML) is a rare disease associated with a history of uterine surgery leiomyomas. BML is often seen in the lungs. Symptomatic patients with BML are usually treated with surgical resection or medical castration. Here, we report three patients diagnosed with BML. A 58-year-old patient presented with back pain. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and positron emission tomography – computed tomography (PET/CT) showed a tumor of 3 cm in diameter in the L2/L3 vertebrae with Fluorine-18 deoxyglucose (FDG) accumulation. Histopathology of CT-guided biopsy was smooth muscle tumor, which was compatible with the specimen obtained by hysterectomy for leiomyoma five years before. After administration of letrozole for one month, her back pain improved. Letrozole was used for 5 years, and the size of the tumor remained stable. A 38-year-old patient presented with abdominal distension. CT demonstrated multiple abdominal and subcutaneous tumors and uterine leiomyomas. She had myomectomy and complete surgical resection of the multiple tumor, and was diagnosed with BML. Six years later, she presented with slight cough, and CT showed multiple small nodules in the lungs. Because her symptom diminished spontaneously, she was followed without treatment. Her lung tumors gradually increased without symptoms. A 45-year-old patient with a past history of myomectomy twice presented with Raynaud symptom. CT showed multiple small nodules in the lung which showed no accumulation of 18-FDG. Histopathology of CT-guided biopsy was well-differentiated smooth muscle tumors, and she was diagnosed with BML. Because she had no symptoms, she was followed conservatively without treatment.

We have been studying drug repositioning of itraconazole for an anticancer drug. Previously, we reported clinical trials of patients with various types of cancer, and a window opportunity trial is ongoing (jRCTs051190006). Using uterine cancer cells, itraconazole inhibited cancer growth by downregulation of signal transduction (Akt/mTOR, hedgehog, Wnt/β-catenin). In this report, we investigated the bioactive lipid mediators (LMs) associated with itraconazole induced anti-cancer effect. Methods CaSki cervical cancer cells before and after exposure to itraconazole were scraped and stored at -30 °C. LC-MS/MS–based metabololipidomics were performed. Deuterated internal standards representing each chromatographic region of identified lipid mediators were added to samples to facilitate quantification. The samples were extracted by automated SPE system on C18 columns and were then subjected to LC-MS/MS analysis with a Qtrap 6500 (Sciex) connected with a Shimadzu LC-30AD HPLC system. Biochemical pathway for LMs which increased more than 2 fold or decreased less than a half either at 30 min and 60 min after incubation with 10-6M itraconazole were subjected to the cell growth inhibitory experiments using WST assay. Results Among downstream metabolites of eicosapentaenoic acid, resolvin E3 and resolvin E2 increased over 2 fold at 30 min and at 60 min, respectively. Coculture with 10M ML351, 12/15-LOX inhibitor responsible for the metabolism from 18-HEPE to resolvin E3, did not effect on the growth of CaSki cells. Coculture with 10M ML351 and 10-6M itraconazole attenuated the growth inhibitory effect of itraconazole (figure 1). Conclusion Resolvin E3 could be a potential therapeutic target for the cancer treatment.

No standard treatment is available for 2nd line, especially for patients who experience anaphylaxis to platinum, or develop early recurrence. Previously, we reported 4 cases treated with 50 mg of oral cyclophosphamide daily and 15 mg/kg of intravenous bevacizumab every 3 weeks (mCPA-BEV). Here, we report follow up of the 4 cases and the additional cases. Methods Patients with cervical cancer who had anaphylaxis to platinum or who recurred less than 6 months after the last administration of cisplatin, and treated with mCPA-BEV were retrospectively reviewed. Adverse events and response rate were recorded according to CTCAE ver 5.0 and RECIST ver 1.1, respectively. Results During 2016 and 2020, 11 patients were enrolled. Histology of the tumor were SCC in 6, adeno in 3, adeno-SCC in 1, and LCNEC in 1. Two patients had platinum anaphylaxis, 7 patients had progressive disease during previous chemotherapy, and 2 patients recurred within 6 months. One patient suffered from grade 3 neutropenia; however, no grade 2 or higher non-hematological toxicities were observed. Median duration of chemotherapy was 4.1M (range 0.2–30.6 M). One patient had CR in RECIST criteria, and none had PR. Median PFS was 4.1 months (95%CI: 2.1–11.3M), and median OS was 33.7M (95%CI: 13.5–33.7M, figure 1). Conclusion The tumor dormancy was probably maintained by long administration with mild toxicities. These cases demonstrate the use of mCPA-BEV with minimal toxicity and expected anti-cancer activity and indicate that this regimen could be considered for the second-line chemotherapy in advanced recurrent cervical cancer.

We have been studying drug repositioning of itraconazole for an anticancer drug, and in vitro study demonstrated itraconazole inhibited growth of cervical cancer cells via down regulation of Akt/mTOR, hedgehog, and Wnt/β-catenin signal transduction. We report a case who showed rapid response to itraconazole and transcript analysis of the sequential biopsy was conducted. [Case] A 75-year-old woman with cervical cancer, diagnosed with Stage IIIB (cT3C N0 MA) squamous cell carcinoma was enrolled in a window of opportunity clinical trial (jRCTs051190006). She had 40 mg of oral itraconazole daily for 7 days before the primary treatment started (a window period). Her symptom of vaginal bleeding decreased and the vaginal ultrasound showed the maximum diameter of the cervical tumor decreased from 61 mm to 50 mm. The primary treatment involved pelvic external beam radiation therapy (54Gy/30fr) combined with chemotherapy (40 mg/m2 of cisplatin, weekly x 5 times) and a brachytherapy boost (24 Gy/4fr). Four months after last administration of cisplatin, she had pelvic, mediastinal and supraclavicular lymph node recurrence. Tumor genomic profiling using FoundationOne CDx showed PIK3CA and PTEN mutation, microsatellite stable, and tumor mutation burden of 23Muts/Mb. In Japan, pembrolizumab was not covered by public insurance. She wished further treatment with itraconazole. Transcript analysis of mRNA obtained before and after itraconazole treatment during the initial window period are shown in table 1. Pathway mapping using Transcriptome Analysis Console version 4.0 (Thermo Fisher Scientific) showed significant reduction of PI3K-Akt-mTOR signaling pathway.

Objective The purpose of chemotherapy for recurrent cancer is to get survival benefit, relieve symptoms, and improve quality of life. We used oral cyclophosphamide (CPA) and bevacizumab (BEV) combination therapy in cases of recurrent ovarian and peritoneal cancer, where standard chemotherapy was difficult to conduct. We subsequently evaluated the safety and efficacy of this treatment. Methods Between August 2014 and June 2020, subjects who provided informed consent received the following regimen: oral CPA 50 mg daily and intravenous BEV15 mg/kg every 3 weeks as 1 cycle. Data from the two facilities were retrospectively studied. Result Twenty-two patients were enrolled (20 with ovarian cancer and 2 with peritoneal cancer). The median follow-up period was 18.9 months (range, 5.0–51.5), and median age was 60 years (range 37–81). Sixteen patients had platinum resistance. The median number of previous chemotherapy regimens was 2.5 (range 0–5). The median implementation cycle was 5 (range 2–14). Eighteen patients discontinued treatment: three due to side effects, and fifteen due to disease progression. Grade 2 toxicities included neutropenia (1), protein urea (1), hypertension (2), and esophagitis (1). Two patients had a complete response, and one patient had a partial response. Five patients had stable disease. The response rate was 13.6%. Median PFS was 5.3 months (range, 0.8–23.5). The median OS from the initiation of CPA/BEV was 9.2 months (range, 4.8–51.5+). Conclusions The combination therapy of oral cyclophosphamide and bevacizumab had relatively effective, and can be used safely in patients who have become difficult to treat after second-line chemotherapy.

In the past, since the reperfusion part is less than 10% of the total vascular system composed of multiple inputs, such as lungs, the γ-variate function was used as a method of eliminating the reperfusion component. In this research, an analytical method that separates and evaluates all blood flow systems by modeling the impulse response of the blood flow system with multiple inputs was proposed. In addition, a calibration method to adjust the input/output waveform areas was also proposed. The proposed method was verified in a patient with lung cancer. The lung total blood volume using the contrast MR image and the global lung blood volume estimated from the pulmonary artery and the signal strength of the left atrium were also compared. Moreover, the lung field reperfusion percentage was compared with the cardiac output detected by Fast GE Cine.

Virtual bronchoscopy is a promising method for diagnosing pulmonary disorders. It is an alternative diagnostic modality when flexible bronchoscopy is not available. The visualization of the lung movement, particularly the airways respiratory movement is a very active research topic. This work combines both areas, creating the possibility of an animated virtual bronchoscopy. The virtual bronchoscopy is happening while the breathing of the patient is simulated happening. The respiratory movement is extracted from a sequence of low resolution CT images and registered to a CT image with high resolution. The animated model is visualized in a immersing environment where the movements are controlled by the Oculus Rift and the Leap Motion.

A 3D reconstruction method using feature points is presented and the parameters used to improve the reconstruction are discussed. The precision of the 3D reconstruction is improved by combining point clouds obtained from different viewpoints using structured light. A well-known algorithm for point cloud registration is the ICP (Iterative Closest Point) that determines the rotation and translation that, when applied to one of the point clouds, places both point clouds optimally. The ICP algorithm iteratively executes two main steps: point correspondence determination and registration algorithm. The point correspondence determination is a module that, if not properly executed, can make the ICP converge to a local minimum. To overcome this drawback, two techniques were used. A meaningful set of 3D points using a technique known as SIFT (Scale-invariant feature transform) was obtained and an ICP that uses statistics to generate a dynamic distance and color threshold to the distance allowed between closest points was implemented. The reconstruction precision improvement was implemented using meaningful point clouds and the ICP to increase the number of points in the 3D space. The surface reconstruction is performed using marching cubes and filters to remove the noise and to smooth the surface. The factors that influence the 3D reconstruction precision are here discussed and analyzed. A detailed discussion of the number of frames used by the ICP and the ICP parameters is presented.

This study explored ethical treatment decisions of healthcare professional students beginning their education. As part of a first-semester modern medicine and bioethics course, 311 students watched and discussed, in interprofessional groups, a video titled Dax's Case: Who Should Decide? regarding the treatment of a life-threatening infectious disease against Dax's wish. The students then discussed and made their decision regarding treating or not. Their decisions, recorded on a worksheet, were classified as "will treat" or "won't treat." Professional groups' decision patterns were compared using the chi-square test. Overall, 151 (71%) opinions from students were classified as "will treat," and 61 (29%) as "won't treat." Nursing students were more likely to decide "won't treat" (in line with Dax's preference); however, the majority of other professions' students favoured treatment (against Dax's wish). Given the students' limited exposure to profession-specific education, our preliminary study supports the notion that healthcare profession students hold different values that align with their chosen profession at the start of their studies.

Pipelines are subject to wall-thickness loss due to corrosion along time. Ultrasonic pulse-echo techniques are widely used for thickness measurement achieving a high resolution. However, the precision of measurement is highly dependent on temperature and on the ultrasonic system. This work presents an echo analysis method based on an appropriate temporal window and threshold to evaluate a pipe wall-thickness using ultrasonic transducers. The results are experimentally evaluated using an array of ultrasonic transducers (5 MHz, 10 mm diameter) operating in pulse-echo mode with a water coupling layer.

The determination of an approximation curve from a given sequence of points is an important task in CAD. This work proposes an algorithm to determine a piecewise Bezier curve that approximates a sequence of points. It is used a multiobjective simulated annealing aiming at minimizing the discrepancy between the given sequence of points and the curve, the curve length and the absolute difference of the curve length and length of the given sequence of points. The discrepancy between the given sequence of points and the curve is determined by the sum of the distance between each point from the sequence and the approximation curve, and the distance from a point to the curve is determined by an enhanced method in which the curve is discretized.

Due to the great interest of the automotive industry to quickly and systematically evaluate low wear quantities a new approach based on image processing is presented. By comparing the captured rough surface point cloud using optical interferometry before and after wear, the proposed algorithm was able to estimate the amount of volume wear and mass loss. The proposed algorithm has two main steps. In the first step, the 3D point clouds obtained before and after wear are mapped to 2D images, and conventional edge detection algorithms are applied. Keypoints are determined using the SIFT algorithm on both images (before and after the wear), followed by the use of the RANSAC algorithm to create a good 2D registration between both 2D images. In the second step an enhanced ICP algorithm is used to perform a 3D registration. The main advantage of this method is the visualization of the wear geometry provided by the wear topography. The proposed algorithm was tested and the results are presented.

Image registration is an efficient computational technique for diagnosis and diseases monitoring. Lungs airways diseases, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and asthma, require periodical checkups and past data comparison to estimate the patient condition. In this work, it is proposed an airways registration algorithm that is performed branch by branch. The branch registration combines the positive aspects from the conventional ICP and skeleton registration algorithms. The registration procedure requires two main modules: point correspondence determination, and transformation determination. The point correspondence determination is the most time consuming and it is performed in high speed using a 3D discrete Voronoi diagram. Copyright ©2015 IF AC.

The objective of this work is to use low precision laser sensor and create reasonably precise 3D reconstructions. The 3D reconstruction is executed by combining several point clouds obtained from different viewpoints. The proposed method was developed with three main steps: point cloud registration, error compensation and surface reconstruction. The ICP algorithm is improved to execute the point cloud registration: dynamic distance threshold, weighted distance, rigid body restriction and color information. It is shown that using this improved ICP, the number of point correspondences to evaluate the quadratic error converges to a value. The quadratic error can be determined independently of scene complexity. The point cloud errors are compensated using the consensus surface algorithm with signed distance. The surface is reconstructed using the marching cubes algorithm. Several results are shown to demonstrate the reliability of the proposed method.