Search

GO-GRASS demonstration results show the importance of supportive business environments that foster innovative, grass-based business. The four business cases havethe potential to deliver improved policies for rural development and rural jobs. The White Paper shows that readiness level of some of these initiatives is above technologyreadiness level (TRL) 7 and that significant market breakthrough requires adequate funding, rules and regulations that do not hinder opportunities, and mechanisms thatvalorise additional benefits such as carbon sequestration.Policy makers can stimulate grassland valorisation and foster new opportunities for farmers and rural businesses by securing grasslands functions as a sustainable sourceof raw materials, a space for social, organisation and business innovations, and an important contributor to carbon removal and climate change mitigation.

Breast cancer is the most prevalent cancer among women and predicting pathologic complete response (pCR) after anti-cancer treatment is crucial for patient prognosis and treatment customization. Deep learning has shown promise in medical imaging diagnosis, particularly when utilizing multiple imaging modalities to enhance accuracy. This study presents a model that predicts pCR in breast cancer patients using dynamic contrast-enhanced (DCE) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) maps. Radiomics features are established hand-crafted features of the tumor region and thus could be useful in medical image analysis. Our approach extracts features from both DCE MRI and ADC using an encoder with a self-attention mechanism, leveraging radiomics to guide feature extraction from tumor-related regions. Our experimental results demonstrate the superior performance of our model in predicting pCR compared to other baseline methods., Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, IEEE ISBI 2024 proceedings

Objectives: The objective of this study was to detect success and failure factors for the implementation of passive exoskeletons in agriculture. Exoskeletons have been shown to reduce musculoskeletal loads during lab-based manual tasks, but long-term implementation experiences in agriculture are lacking. Methods: We analyzed four intervention studies in agriculture focusing on methodological and contextual reasons why the trials were successful or unsuccessful. The study context, attempted intervention, and data collection of each field trial is compared. In the absence of long-term studies investigating the implementation and effectiveness of exoskeletons in agriculture, a set of multi-week pilot trials were initiated among German market vegetable farms and French vineyards from 2019 to 2022. Participant ratings, farm characteristics (e.g. employment duration and payment scheme) and intervention implementation characteristics (e.g. participation in implementation or language barriers) were analyzed using a mixed-methods approach to identify success and failure factors. Results: The comparison of the studies showed that despite the organizational issues, there were several practical issues that limit the success of exoskeleton use in agriculture. We observed that participant rejection of the intervention is a major barrier to successfully conducting long-term field trials in agriculture. Factors like pain, discomfort, heat stress, or a lack of perceived benefits have been identified as failure factors but also the implementation process itself. Conclusion: In addition to careful targeting of trial sites and inclusion of participatory elements in the implementation plan, successful implementation of exoskeletons in agriculture requires fundamental human factors development of the exoskeletons themselves. This will require better matching the physical needs of the workers, the production needs of the tasks, and compatibility with the environment., QC 20231114

[Abstract:] Grasslands play a crucial role in European agriculture and ecology, but are often underutilized due to low-value end-products. The utilisation of late-harvest grass for biochar and heat generation on farm-level is being studied as a potential negative emissions technology. Technical (energy provision and carbon sink), economic (cost vs. benefit), political (regulatory framework) and social (SWOT) perspectives are being evaluated. Technical feasibility has been demonstrated with three different farm-scale technologies and the energetic and carbon-sink potential evaluated. When a continuously operating allothermal unit is evaluated, 35 % of the input biomass energy content can be utilized for heating a farm, in combination with the potential to provide a carbon sink. The cost-benefit analysis shows important monetary savings when including the agronomic value (based on the market price) of the produced biochar. An assessment of the regulatory framework of biochar production in Germany presents a multitude of regulations applying to such technologies some of which provide a hurdle to navigate and may incur excessive costs for farmers as small-scale biochar producers. A SWOT analysis of a case in Brandenburg, Germany highlights strengths and opportunities, but also obstacles such as lack of infrastructure and regulatory support. This study highlights the need for further development of suitable technology and research on the long-term economic and carbon sink potential of biochar.

The Circle of Willis (CoW) is an important network of arteries connecting major circulations of the brain. Its vascular architecture is believed to affect the risk, severity, and clinical outcome of serious neuro-vascular diseases. However, characterizing the highly variable CoW anatomy is still a manual and time-consuming expert task. The CoW is usually imaged by two angiographic imaging modalities, magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) and computed tomography angiography (CTA), but there exist limited public datasets with annotations on CoW anatomy, especially for CTA. Therefore we organized the TopCoW Challenge in 2023 with the release of an annotated CoW dataset. The TopCoW dataset was the first public dataset with voxel-level annotations for thirteen possible CoW vessel components, enabled by virtual-reality (VR) technology. It was also the first large dataset with paired MRA and CTA from the same patients. TopCoW challenge formalized the CoW characterization problem as a multiclass anatomical segmentation task with an emphasis on topological metrics. We invited submissions worldwide for the CoW segmentation task, which attracted over 140 registered participants from four continents. The top performing teams managed to segment many CoW components to Dice scores around 90%, but with lower scores for communicating arteries and rare variants. There were also topological mistakes for predictions with high Dice scores. Additional topological analysis revealed further areas for improvement in detecting certain CoW components and matching CoW variant topology accurately. TopCoW represented a first attempt at benchmarking the CoW anatomical segmentation task for MRA and CTA, both morphologically and topologically., Comment: 24 pages, 11 figures, 9 tables. Summary Paper for the MICCAI TopCoW 2023 Challenge

We introduce RadiomicsFill, a synthetic tumor generator conditioned on radiomics features, enabling detailed control and individual manipulation of tumor subregions. This conditioning leverages conventional high-dimensional features of the tumor (i.e., radiomics features) and thus is biologically well-grounded. Our model combines generative adversarial networks, radiomics-feature conditioning, and multi-task learning. Through experiments with glioma patients, RadiomicsFill demonstrated its capability to generate diverse, realistic tumors and its fine-tuning ability for specific radiomics features like 'Pixel Surface' and 'Shape Sphericity'. The ability of RadiomicsFill to generate an unlimited number of realistic synthetic tumors offers notable prospects for both advancing medical imaging research and potential clinical applications., Comment: Paper accepted at NeurIPS 2023 Workshop: Medical Imaging meets NeurIPS

Multi-modal images play a crucial role in comprehensive evaluations in medical image analysis providing complementary information for identifying clinically important biomarkers. However, in clinical practice, acquiring multiple modalities can be challenging due to reasons such as scan cost, limited scan time, and safety considerations. In this paper, we propose a model based on the latent diffusion model (LDM) that leverages switchable blocks for image-to-image translation in 3D medical images without patch cropping. The 3D LDM combined with conditioning using the target modality allows generating high-quality target modality in 3D overcoming the shortcoming of the missing out-of-slice information in 2D generation methods. The switchable block, noted as multiple switchable spatially adaptive normalization (MS-SPADE), dynamically transforms source latents to the desired style of the target latents to help with the diffusion process. The MS-SPADE block allows us to have one single model to tackle many translation tasks of one source modality to various targets removing the need for many translation models for different scenarios. Our model exhibited successful image synthesis across different source-target modality scenarios and surpassed other models in quantitative evaluations tested on multi-modal brain magnetic resonance imaging datasets of four different modalities and an independent IXI dataset. Our model demonstrated successful image synthesis across various modalities even allowing for one-to-many modality translations. Furthermore, it outperformed other one-to-one translation models in quantitative evaluations., Comment: 8 pages, 7 figures, WACV 2024 Accepted

As a key component to the bottom limb of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), the Labrador Sea is one of the regions where deep ocean convection takes place. This convection is driven by atmospheric cooling during winter, which brings the surface water into the intermediate and deep layers by uniformizing water mass properties. This homogeneous layer is called Mixed Layer (ML). As a result of this convection, stratification is no longer maintained, and the Mixed Layer Depth (MLD) deepens. During this deepening, an enormous amount of potential energy is converted to kinetic energy, and meso- and sub-mesoscale instabilities develop. After wintertime, the MLD starts to shallow again. Atmospheric-induced convection ceases or decreases significantly and physical components return to stratified conditions. Baroclinic instabilities grown to mesoscale or geostrophic scale play a role in restratifying the ML through the formation of coherent ocean eddies. This chain of processes follows a seasonal cycle that strongly depends on the imbalance between horizontal and vertical buoyancy gradients. A practical way to quantify this imbalance is the use of the Ertel potential vorticity or a derived magnitude as the Richardson angle, which allow to infer the existence of instabilities and to classify them respectively. This study analyzes the physical processes behind the MLD seasonal variability in the Labrador Sea. To this end, high-resolution model data (1/12° × 1/12°) from a global simulation has been used. An evaluation of spatial and temporal patterns of the MLD and energy conversion is provided, and the dominant types of instabilities are determined. It is hypothesized that these instabilities drive the energy conversion and the growth of coherent mesoscale eddies, which can modify the MLD and restratify the ocean. Finally, the sequential interactions among the processes are investigated to provide better understanding about seasonal MLD variability. Thi, Civil Engineering

This study analyzes and compares data for interventions (river training works, dredging and nourishment), discharge statistics, bed elevation and slope spatially and temporally in the Niederrhein, Bovenrijn, Pannerdensch Kanaal and Waal branches. River training works have actively taken place in the study area so far. Meander cutoffs and normalizations had mainly taken place between 16th and 19th centuries for navigability, and fixed layers, channel widening and side channels have been constructed in 20th and 21st centuries to mitigate river bed degradation and defend hinterland from flood. Dredging and nourishment have been actively conducted in the study area as well, and nourishment is more dominant than dredging in Niederrhein and Bovenrijn. Characteristic yearly discharges are estimated, which is highly fluctuating in time, and Bovenrijn discharge is distributed to about 64% and 36% for Waal river and Pannerdensch Kanaal respectively. According to data, discharge at Rees (Rkm 837) is higher than discharge at Lobith (Rkm 862) which is the most downstream station in the study area. This is probably because of the difference of Q-H relations in the Netherlands and Germany, and more research on the Q-H relations is needed to understand this phenomenon. The bed elevation of the study area is degrading, and it is still ongoing. Bed slope in the Niederrhein and Bovenrijn has steepened between 1934 and 1991, and after the moment bed slope is relatively stable and somewhat constant. Degradation rate is decreasing in time, but it is expected to take more time to reach equilibrium state. It is also confirmed that slope of Pannerdensch Kanaal and Waal is increasing in time., Civil Engineering

As a key component to the bottom limb of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), the Labrador Sea is one of the regions where deep ocean convection takes place. This convection is driven by atmospheric cooling during winter, which brings the surface water into the intermediate and deep layers by uniformizing water mass properties. This homogeneous layer is called Mixed Layer (ML). As a result of this convection, stratification is no longer maintained, and the Mixed Layer Depth (MLD) deepens. During this deepening, an enormous amount of potential energy is converted to kinetic energy, and meso- and sub-mesoscale instabilities develop. After wintertime, the MLD starts to shallow again. Atmospheric-induced convection ceases or decreases significantly and physical components return to stratified conditions. Baroclinic instabilities grown to mesoscale or geostrophic scale play a role in restratifying the ML through the formation of coherent ocean eddies. This chain of processes follows a seasonal cycle that strongly depends on the imbalance between horizontal and vertical buoyancy gradients. A practical way to quantify this imbalance is the use of the Ertel potential vorticity or a derived magnitude as the Richardson angle, which allow to infer the existence of instabilities and to classify them respectively. This study analyzes the physical processes behind the MLD seasonal variability in the Labrador Sea. To this end, high-resolution model data (1/12° × 1/12°) from a global simulation has been used. An evaluation of spatial and temporal patterns of the MLD and energy conversion is provided, and the dominant types of instabilities are determined. It is hypothesized that these instabilities drive the energy conversion and the growth of coherent mesoscale eddies, which can modify the MLD and restratify the ocean. Finally, the sequential interactions among the processes are investigated to provide better understanding about seasonal MLD variability. Thi, Civil Engineering

This study analyzes and compares data for interventions (river training works, dredging and nourishment), discharge statistics, bed elevation and slope spatially and temporally in the Niederrhein, Bovenrijn, Pannerdensch Kanaal and Waal branches. River training works have actively taken place in the study area so far. Meander cutoffs and normalizations had mainly taken place between 16th and 19th centuries for navigability, and fixed layers, channel widening and side channels have been constructed in 20th and 21st centuries to mitigate river bed degradation and defend hinterland from flood. Dredging and nourishment have been actively conducted in the study area as well, and nourishment is more dominant than dredging in Niederrhein and Bovenrijn. Characteristic yearly discharges are estimated, which is highly fluctuating in time, and Bovenrijn discharge is distributed to about 64% and 36% for Waal river and Pannerdensch Kanaal respectively. According to data, discharge at Rees (Rkm 837) is higher than discharge at Lobith (Rkm 862) which is the most downstream station in the study area. This is probably because of the difference of Q-H relations in the Netherlands and Germany, and more research on the Q-H relations is needed to understand this phenomenon. The bed elevation of the study area is degrading, and it is still ongoing. Bed slope in the Niederrhein and Bovenrijn has steepened between 1934 and 1991, and after the moment bed slope is relatively stable and somewhat constant. Degradation rate is decreasing in time, but it is expected to take more time to reach equilibrium state. It is also confirmed that slope of Pannerdensch Kanaal and Waal is increasing in time., Civil Engineering

Quantification of cerebral white matter hyperintensities (WMH) of presumed vascular origin is of key importance in many neurological research studies. Currently, measurements are often still obtained from manual segmentations on brain MR images, which is a laborious procedure. Automatic WMH segmentation methods exist, but a standardized comparison of the performance of such methods is lacking. We organized a scientific challenge, in which developers could evaluate their method on a standardized multi-center/-scanner image dataset, giving an objective comparison: the WMH Segmentation Challenge (https://wmh.isi.uu.nl/). Sixty T1+FLAIR images from three MR scanners were released with manual WMH segmentations for training. A test set of 110 images from five MR scanners was used for evaluation. Segmentation methods had to be containerized and submitted to the challenge organizers. Five evaluation metrics were used to rank the methods: (1) Dice similarity coefficient, (2) modified Hausdorff distance (95th percentile), (3) absolute log-transformed volume difference, (4) sensitivity for detecting individual lesions, and (5) F1-score for individual lesions. Additionally, methods were ranked on their inter-scanner robustness. Twenty participants submitted their method for evaluation. This paper provides a detailed analysis of the results. In brief, there is a cluster of four methods that rank significantly better than the other methods, with one clear winner. The inter-scanner robustness ranking shows that not all methods generalize to unseen scanners. The challenge remains open for future submissions and provides a public platform for method evaluation., Comment: Accepted for publication in IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging

Résumé : Les ostéosarcomes sont des tumeurs malignes osseuses primaires qui affectent principalement les enfants et les adolescents. Les thérapies utilisées depuis les 30 dernières années n'ont malheureusement eu que très peu d'effet sur la survie des patients. Ce projet de doctorat évalue deux stratégies pour contrer certaines dérégulations des cellules d'ostéosarcome humain. La première consiste à abolir leur résistance à l'apoptose avec un alcaloïde d'origine végétale. La seconde consiste à accroître leur différenciation ou à réduire leur prolifération en utilisant des protéines morphogénétiques osseuses (BMPs) et leurs peptides dérivés (pBMPs). La première partie de ce doctorat s'intéresse donc au comportement et à la régulation des cellules d'ostéosarcome en comparaison avec celui des cellules osseuses normales afin d'identifier des cibles potentielles. Elle met l'accent sur trois caractéristiques de l'ostéosarcome: la résistance à l'apoptose, la prolifération incontrôlée des cellules et leur différenciation défectueuse. La sanguinarine, un alcaloïde d'origine végétale, est déjà utilisée pour traiter plusieurs types de cancers (sein et colon). Cet alcaloïde a été choisi pour vaincre la résistance à l'apoptose des cellules d'ostéosarcome. La sanguinarine a éradiqué les deux lignées cellulaires humaines d'ostéosarcome, MG-63 et SaOS-2, d'une manière dépendante du temps et de la dose. Les deux lignées cellulaires se distinguent par des états de différenciation et des taux de prolifération différents. L'alcaloïde induit l'apoptose par les voies extrinsèque et intrinsèque en activant les caspases-8 et -9. La sanguinarine semble agir sur les cellules d'ostéosarcome en fonction de leur potentiel tumorigène. La BMP-2, la BMP-9 et leurs peptides dérivés, pBMP-2 et pBMP-9, ont été utilisés pour contrer la différenciation défectueuse ou la prolifération incontrôlée des cellules d'ostéosarcome. La BMP-2, la BMP-9 et le pBMP-9 activent la phosphorylation des Smads dans les

In this thesis, Suspension Induction Plasma Synthesis (SIPS) has been studied to produce spherical and nano alpha-tricalcium phosphate ([alpha]-TCP) powders for bone cement applications. Previously, [alpha]-TCP powders were only produced by high-temperature solid/solid reaction in conventional oven. SIPS synthesis is based on the allotropy of tricalcium phosphate (TCP): a suspension of the low-temperature phase, [bêta]-TCP, is atomized in an induction plasma to synthesize the alpha high-temperature phase, [alpha]-TCP. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to understand the effects of suspension and plasma conditions on the plasma-synthesized powder (composition and morphology). To achieve this aim, an experimental plan was realized to study the influence of several parameters. Suspension concentration, feed rate and composition were selected for the suspension conditions. Plate power, chamber pressure and probe position were selected for the plasma conditions. Generally, filter powder has higher percentage of spheroidized [alpha]-TCP than reactor powder and all SIPS parameters have effect on the final product. It was found that low suspension concentration (40 wt% of [bêta]-TCP), feed rate (5 ml/min), suspension composition (H[subscript 2]O), low plate power (24 kW), low chamber pressure (150 Torr) and low probe position (20 mm lower) produced a high percentage of spheroidized [alpha]-TCP. Specially, in the plasma condition, there is a correlation between high plate power, high chamber pressure and probe position. Indeed, high plate power and high chamber pressure produced high percentage of [alpha]-TCP, when the probe position was 20 mm lower. This thesis is the first investigation to study SIPS as a way to produce spherical and nano-scale [alpha]-tricalcium phosphate powders. These features will benefit the bone cements concerning their injectability and their mechanical properties.

Dans cette thèse, une méthode par pulvérisation d'une suspension à l'intérieur d'un plasma inductif (SIPS pour Suspension Induction Plasma Synthesis) a été étudiée pour synthètiser des poudres sphériques et nanométriques de phosphate tricalcique alpha (a- TCP pour alpha-tricalcium phosphate) en vue d'application en tant que ciments osseux. Jusqu'à ce jour, l'a-TCP est produit par réaction solide/solide à haute température dans des fours conventionnels. La méthode SIPS se base sur l'allotropie du phosphate tricalcique : une suspension de la phase du TCP, stable à basse température, est pulvérisée dans un plasma inductif afin de synthétiser la phase a, métastable à température ambiante. Par conséquent, le but de cette étude est de comprendre les effets des conditions de suspension et de plasma sur la poudre synthétisée (composition et morphologie). Dans cette optique, un plan expérimental a été réalisé afin d'étudier l'influence des paramètres. Suivants la concentration et la composition de la suspension ainsi que la vitesse d'alimentation de la pompe ont été choisies pour les « conditions de suspension». La puissance appliquée à la cathode, la pression de la chambre et la position de sonde ont, elles, été choisies pour les « conditions du plasma». D'une part, une faible concentration de la suspension liée à une faible vitesse d'alimentation a permis de produire un pourcentage élevé d'a-TCP. Par contre, seule, la composition de la suspension n'a aucun effet significatif sur la composition des poudres. D'autre part, une faible puissance couplée à une faible pression à l'intérieure de la chambre et à une position basse de la sonde est nécessaire pour obtenir un pourcentage élevé d'a-TCP sphérique. Quoi qu'il en soit, dans cette étude, les paramètres du plasma possèdent des effets plus importants sur la conversion de la phase à la phase a que les paramètres de la suspension. Cette thèse est le premier jalon de l'étude du SIPS comme méthode de synthèse de particules sphér, In this thesis, Suspension Induction Plasma Synthesis (SIPS) has been studied to produce spherical and nano alpha-tricalcium phosphate ([alpha]-TCP) powders for bone cement applications. Previously, [alpha]-TCP powders were only produced by high-temperature solid/solid reaction in conventional oven. SIPS synthesis is based on the allotropy of tricalcium phosphate (TCP): a suspension of the low-temperature phase, [bêta]-TCP, is atomized in an induction plasma to synthesize the alpha high-temperature phase, [alpha]-TCP. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to understand the effects of suspension and plasma conditions on the plasma-synthesized powder (composition and morphology). To achieve this aim, an experimental plan was realized to study the influence of several parameters. Suspension concentration, feed rate and composition were selected for the suspension conditions. Plate power, chamber pressure and probe position were selected for the plasma conditions. Generally, filter powder has higher percentage of spheroidized [alpha]-TCP than reactor powder and all SIPS parameters have effect on the final product. It was found that low suspension concentration (40 wt% of [bêta]-TCP), feed rate (5 ml/min), suspension composition (H[subscript 2]O), low plate power (24 kW), low chamber pressure (150 Torr) and low probe position (20 mm lower) produced a high percentage of spheroidized [alpha]-TCP. Specially, in the plasma condition, there is a correlation between high plate power, high chamber pressure and probe position. Indeed, high plate power and high chamber pressure produced high percentage of [alpha]-TCP, when the probe position was 20 mm lower. This thesis is the first investigation to study SIPS as a way to produce spherical and nano-scale [alpha]-tricalcium phosphate powders. These features will benefit the bone cements concerning their injectability and their mechanical properties.