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Background and Aim: This study aimed to investigate the effect of stenting‐related factors, including endoscopists' expertise, on clinical outcomes after bridge‐to‐surgery (BTS) stenting for obstructive colorectal cancer (CRC). Methods: We analyzed BTS stenting‐related factors, including stenting expertise and the interval between stenting and surgery, in 233 patients (63 [13] years, 137 male) who underwent BTS stenting for obstructive CRC. We evaluated the influence of these factors on post‐BTS stenting clinical outcomes such as stent‐related complications and cancer recurrence. Results: The interval between stenting and surgery was ≤ 7 days in 79 patients (33.9%) and > 7 days in 154 patients (66.1%). BTS stenting was performed by endoscopists with ≤ 50, 51–100, and > 100 prior stenting experiences in 94, 43, and, 96 patients, respectively. The clinical success rate of BTS stenting was 93.1%. Stent‐related and postoperative complications developed in 19 (8.2%) and 20 (8.6%) patients, respectively. Cancer recurrence occurred in 76 patients (32.6%). Short BTS interval of ≤ 7 days increased the risk of postoperative complications (odds ratio [OR], 2.61 [1.03–6.75]; P = 0.043). Endoscopists' stenting experience > 100 showed greater clinical success of stenting (OR, 5.50 [1.45–28.39]; P = 0.021) and fewer stent‐related complications (OR, 0.26 [0.07–0.80]; P = 0.028) compared with stenting experience ≤ 50. BTS stenting‐related factors did not affect long‐term oncological outcomes. Conclusion: Greater expertise of endoscopists was associated with better short‐term outcomes, including high stenting success rate and low rate of stent‐related complications after BTS stenting for obstructive CRC. An interval of > 7 days between BTS stenting and surgery was required to decrease postoperative complications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chronic myeloid leukemia is generally required bone marrow biopsy for diagnosis. Although examining peripheral blood is less invasive, it has not been fully validated as a routine diagnostic test due to suboptimal sensitivity. To overcome this limitation, a number of methodologies based on microfluidics have been developed for sorting circulating tumor cells from peripheral blood of patients with leukemia. In order to develop a more convenient method, we designed an analysis protocol using motion microscopy that amplifies cellular micro motions in a captured video by re-rendering pixels to generate extreme magnified visuals. Intriguingly, no fluctuations around leukemic myeloblasts were observed with a motion microscope at any wavelength of 0–10 Hz. However, use of 0.05% hyaluronic acid, one type of non-newtonian fluid, demonstrated fluctuations around leukemic myeloblasts under conditions of 25 μm/s and 0.5–1.5 Hz with a motion microscope. Thus, the non-invasive detection of leukemic myeloblasts can offer a valuable supplementary diagnostic tool for assessment of drug efficacy for monitoring patients with chronic myeloid leukemia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exposure to heavy metals may increase the risk of developing prostate cancer. However, these observations are often inconsistent and not based on clinically diagnosed cases. To investigate the association of lead (Pb), cadmium (Cd), and mercury (Hg) exposure with clinically determined prostate cancer cases among adult males in South Korea. Metal biomonitoring data and cancer information from the general Korean population were extracted by linking National Cancer Center (NCC) cancer registration data (2002–2017) with Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES) data (2008–2017). Among them, 46 prostate cancer cases (designated as 'all-prostate'), including 25 diagnosed after heavy metal measurement (designated as 'post-prostate'), and 93 matching controls were chosen. Logistic regression analysis was used to calculate the odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) between the heavy metal levels and prostate cancer. Post-prostate patients exhibited higher blood Pb levels than controls (median 3.1 μg/dL vs. 2.38 μg/dL, p = 0.01). For all-prostate cancer, the OR of prostate cancer increased by 2.04-fold for every doubling of Pb levels (95% CI = 1.08–3.87, p = 0.03). The OR was also significantly elevated when comparing the third quartile (Q3) to the lowest quartile (Q1), with ORs ranging from 3.38 to 7.95, depending on model (p < 0.05). Blood Pb levels maintained a positive association with inconsistent significance for post-prostate cancer patients. For Cd and Hg, no statistically significant association was established. By linking two national health databases for the first time, we constructed an unbiased database of prostate cancer cases and matching controls. We found that blood Pb concentrations were associated with the risk of prostate cancer in Korean men at the current level of exposure. • Two national health DBs were linked to associate metal exposure & prostate cancer. • Clinically diagnosed prostate cancer cases showed higher blood Pb concentrations. • Doubling blood Pb levels increased prostate cancer odds by 2-fold. • Cd and Hg exposure did not show association with prostate cancer risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Humans are exposed to metals in their daily lives and this metal exposure is responsible for various adverse health effects. Delayed pubertal development has been suggested as an adverse outcome of metal exposure; however, evidence in nationally representative populations, especially in Asia, is limited. We evaluated the association of blood cadmium (Cd), lead (Pb), and mercury (Hg) levels with the age at menarche in Korean females whose blood heavy metals were measured as part of the Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES) 2008–2017. Among the females 16 years of age or older, all measured heavy metals in blood, i.e., Cd, Pb, and Hg, were positively associated with age at menarche. These associations remained significant in a model adjusted for age, survey year, income, education, body mass index, smoking history, and menopausal status as covariates (β : 0.10, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.03–0.18 for Cd; β : 0.17, 95%CI: 0.06–0.27 for Pb; β : 0.12, 95%CI: 0.05–0.19 for Hg). When the population was separated by age group at the time of the survey, the significance between heavy metal levels and age at menarche became inconsistent, but the general trends were similar. Among those in their 20s and 40s, blood Cd showed a significant association, while Pb was significant among those in their 40s and 50s. A similar trend was observed in the sensitivity analysis in the girls aged 10–15 years at the time of the survey. Blood Cd levels were associated with decreased odds of precocious menarche (OR: 0.57, 95%CI: 0.31–1.03). Delayed menarche is a risk factor for cardiovascular and chronic kidney diseases in later life; hence, public health implication of heavy metal exposure warrants a public health attention. [Display omitted] • Metal exposure was associated with age at menarche in women of KNHANES 2008–2017. • Blood Cd, Pb, & Hg levels were related to delayed menarche in women ≥16 years old. • Among girls (10–15 years old), blood Cd levels were related to later menarche. • Association of metals with menarche differs by age group, but trends were similar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims Background Design Methods Results Conclusion Relevance to clinical practice This study aimed to understand the dissemination of information relating to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) and its impact on nursing care in the early phase of transmission.COVID‐19 has spread globally, causing an unprecedentedly large number of casualties. Nurses face challenges in dealing with patients with COVID‐19 with limited information about the pathogen.This qualitative study followed the COREQ guidelines.Fifteen nurses were recruited from two university hospitals in South Korea using a snowballing technique for in‐depth interviews in May 2020. All interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim. Content analysis was performed on the interview data.Two themes emerged: access to COVID‐19 information and the impact of information on nursing care. The categories of access to COVID‐19 information were lack of nursing‐specific information, limited information cascading from top management and confusion due to varying points of view. The categories of the impact of information on nursing care were unprepared management that aggravates exhaustion, lack of personal protective equipment that creates anxiety and being a nurse leader to overcome the pandemic.During a pandemic of emerging infectious diseases, nurses should have access to up‐to‐date information tailored to their working environment. Human resources, material resources and systematic support are needed for nurses who provide care for patients with an infectious disease.A collaborative interprofessional education system for emerging infectious diseases is needed for effective communication and consistent care during a pandemic. Nurse leaders should be prepared to deliver profession‐specific information for standardised care and respond to nursing management needs by using resources and tailoring the workforce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The CRISPR–Cas9 system is a powerful tool for editing genes of interest in specific plant genomes. Indeed, genome-editing systems have been used to enhance a variety of agricultural traits and to study gene functions in many plant species, and the plasmid-mediated delivery of Cas9 and single guide RNA (sgRNA) to plants has been reported to facilitate highly efficient editing. However, the random and stable integration of plasmid DNA sequences into plant genomes can cause insertional mutagenesis, and an additional step is required to remove such foreign sequences from edited plant genomes. Accordingly, the aim of the present study was to investigate the effectiveness of directly delivering purified CRISPR–Cas9 ribonucleoproteins (RNPs) to protoplasts from cabbage (Brassica oleracea var. capitata), an important cruciferous vegetable. The flowering-time regulator gene GIGANTEA (GI) was targeted, with the goal of delaying flowering time and prolonging vegetative growth. We investigated the targeted mutagenesis insertion and deletion rates using targeted deep sequencing. The mutation frequency achieved using one of the sgRNAs (sgRNA2) was 2% in the infected protoplast. The shoots were regenerated from 44% (46/103) of protoplast-derived calli. Consequently, three independent and completely transgene-free mutants were obtained, including one homogeneous biallelic line in which both GI alleles were successfully edited, thereby yielding a complete GI knockout line. These results suggest that the transgene-free CRISPR–Cas9 system is a promising tool for improving agricultural beneficial traits of cabbage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A deep learning-based extended aperture image reconstruction method is proposed to overcome aperture limit. • Signals from limited and full-apertures were used as input and target, respectively, to train the proposed method. • The proposed image reconstruction method is evaluated by simulation, experimental data, and in vivo studies. • Our reconstruction method significantly improves the image quality of the boundary region in plane-wave ultrasound imaging. B-mode images undergo degradation in the boundary region because of the limited number of elements in the ultrasound probe. Herein, a deep learning-based extended aperture image reconstruction method is proposed to reconstruct a B-mode image with an enhanced boundary region. The proposed network can reconstruct an image using pre-beamformed raw data received from the half-aperture of the probe. To generate a high-quality training target without degradation in the boundary region, the target data were acquired using the full-aperture. Training data were acquired from an experimental study using a tissue-mimicking phantom, vascular phantom, and simulation of random point scatterers. Compared with plane-wave images from delay and sum beamforming, the proposed extended aperture image reconstruction method achieves improvement at the boundary region in terms of the multi-scale structure of similarity and peak signal-to-noise ratio by 8% and 4.10 dB in resolution evaluation phantom, 7% and 3.15 dB in contrast speckle phantom, and 5% and 3 dB in in vivo study of carotid artery imaging. The findings in this study prove the feasibility of a deep learning-based extended aperture image reconstruction method for boundary region improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Palladium(II) complexes, L n PdCl 2 (L n  = L A –L I ), with N , N ′-bidentate imine ligands derived from picolinaldehyde and substituted anilines have been synthesized and structurally characterized. Molecular structures revealed a distorted square plane geometry around Pd(II) centre in L n PdCl 2 (L n  = L A –L C ) obtained via coordination with pyridine and imine nitrogens and two chloro ligands. Pd(II) complexes L n PdCl 2 (L n  = L A –L I ) initiate polymerisation of methylmethacrylate (MMA) in the presence of modified methylaluminoxane (MMAO). The complex L I PdCl 2 (of which the ligand was N -furfuryl substituted) showed the highest catalytic activity for the polymerisation of MMA with an activity of 7.08 × 10 4  g PMMA/mol·Pd·h at 60 °C. All the complexes yielded syndio-rich poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) ([ rr ] = 0.70). Notably, the substituents on the imine moiety of the iminopyridine fragments affects the activities towards MMA polymerization, whereas the stereoselectivities remained unchanged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: This study investigated the association between psychological factors and temporomandibular disorder (TMD) in a representative sample using data from the Korean nationwide survey.Methods: The study included 1337 adolescents. Participants provided demographic, socio-economic and behavioural information, and responses to questionnaires assessing their mental health status including perceived stress, depressed mood and suicidal ideation in the presence of TMD. In univariate analysis, t-test was used to test the association between TMD and risk factors by gender in a complex sampling design. Multivariate logistic regression analyses were used to examine the association between TMD and psychological factors.Results: Male adolescents with TMD were highly engaged with depressed mood and suicidal ideation (p = .0006, p = .0223), however, no psychological factors were significant in female adolescents (p < .05). Male adolescents with both depressed mood and suicidal ideation had significantly high rates of TMD (p = .0024). The risks for experiencing depressed mood (OR: 3.07) and suicidal ideation (OR: 2.564) were significantly associated with TMD in male adolescents after adjusting confounders.Conclusions: The results provide evidence that the depressed mood and suicidal ideation were associated with TMD in male adolescents. This study has important implications for enhanced screening and evaluation of mental health among patients with TMD according to gender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the maritime field, interest in the utilization of multiple and various domains' data for provision of relevant, accurate and timely information ensuring the safety and security of navigation at sea has been growing. Discussion, for example, of the implementation of e-navigation, a new maritime service paradigm introduced by the International Maritime Organization, is ongoing. E-navigation enables and facilitates the on- and off-shore exchange, sharing and utilization of marine and marine-related domains' data in support of users' decision-making. For consistent exchange and sharing of marine and marine-related data in the e-navigation environment, the International Hydrographic Organization's S-100 has been adopted as the baseline of the common maritime data structure. S-100 provides common data models for consistent definition of data elements representing data contents. To that end, it supports syntactic-level data interoperability among S-100 applied e-navigation systems. However, the current S-100 does not provide methods or models for formal representation of data semantics or semantic-level harmonization of data. Therefore, current e-navigation-system efforts are focusing on the utilization of multiple domains' data at the syntactic-level. To provide relevant information for various marine activities, e-navigation systems should be able to handle various domains' data and integrate them at the syntactic-level. In this paper, we introduce a method by which multiple domains' S-100-based data can be integrated according to the characteristics of such data. Additionally, we present a method for consistent display and integration of multiple domains' S-100-based data. These methods promise to greatly facilitate S-100-based e-navigation systems' handling of multiple and various domains' data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A series of benzothiadiazole (BT)–rhodanine-based nonfullerene acceptors (NFAs) were designed and synthesized. These BT–rhodanine-based NFAs were composed of BT as a central core with a 3-octylthienothiohene π-bridge and two different rhodanine end groups (BT-rho for octylrhodanine and BT-rhoCN for dicyano-octylrhodanine end groups). The highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO)/lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) levels were −5.53/−3.78 eV for a BT-rho film and −5.63/−3.90 eV for a BT-rhoCN film. The strong electron-withdrawing dicyano-octylrhodanine end group of BT-rhoCN downshifted the HOMO and LUMO levels by ∼0.1 eV compared with those of BT-rho. The 10% BT-rho in a PM6:Y6-BO ternary organic solar cell exhibit a maximum power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 16.17% with a short-circuit current density (J SC) of 25.29 mA cm−2, open-circuit voltage (V OC) of 0.84 V, and fill factor (FF) of 76.13%. The hole/electron mobilities of the PM6:Y6-BO, 10% BT-rho, and 10% BT-rhoCN ternary devices were 2.20 × 10−4/1.85 × 10−4 cm2 V−1 s−1, 3.66 × 10−4/3.77 × 10−4 cm2 V−1 s−1, and 1.34 × 10−4/0.94 × 10−4 cm2 V−1 s−1, respectively. The crystal coherence lengths (L C s) of the (010) peaks for the PM6:Y6-BO, 10% BT-rho, and 10% BT-rhoCN ternary films are 43.2, 60.8, and 33.7 Å, respectively. The superior PCE of the 10% BT-rho ternary devices compared with that of the PM6:Y6-BO binary device is attributed to the enhanced hole and electron mobilities and the high crystallinity of the blend films, which contribute to the enhancement of the J SC and PCE. [Display omitted] • New BT-based acceptors, BT-rho and BT-rhoCN, were synthesized by inserting rhodanine terminal groups. • Rhodanine end groups of BT-rho lowered the LUMO level and thus increased the open-circuit voltage. • An enhanced PCE of 16.17% was achieved using BT-rho as a third component in a PM6:Y6-BO blend. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the maritime field, e-navigation, a new-paradigm information service framework that provides proper, accurate and timely information related to various marine activities at sea, has been widely discussed. For consistent exchange, sharing, and use of data among e-navigation services, the S-100 standard of the International Hydrographic Organization was adopted as the Common Maritime Data Structure. To provide proper information in the form of e-navigation services for various activities at sea, it is necessary to integrated, at the semantic level, S-100-based data that exists in several domains and is distributed both onboard and ashore. Whereas S-100, as the common data model, resolves the issue of syntactic interoperability among domains, it does not provide for semantic interoperability. In this paper, we introduce for the purposes of effective e-navigation, a multi-domain data utilization structure based on a marine knowledge base for support of the semantic representation of S-100-compliant data and their semantic interrelationships. The multiple-domain data utilization structure enables e-navigation services to access multiple-domain data and to find the e-navigation services best supporting their marine activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A facile synthetic strategy has been developed for size-controlled PtCu@Ru nanorattles via co-decomposition of Ru and Cu precursors in the presence of Pt nanoparticles. The presence of Pt nanoparticles induces a fast decomposition of Cu precursors, leading to the growth of the Cu phase on the Pt seeds. The Pt nanoparticle surface is partially alloyed with the Cu phase to form a PtCu alloy phase. Subsequent decomposition of Ru precursors leads to the formation of the Ru shell. The Cu layer between the core and shell of the intermediate PtCu@Cu@Ru nanoparticle, generated as a kinetic product, is then in situ removed by a CTAB (cetyltrimethylammonium bromide)-induced destabilization process to yield a novel nanorattle structure with a Pt-based core and a porous Ru shell. The diameter of the Ru shell could be conveniently controlled by varying the ratio of employed Cu and Ru precursors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective. Vascular wall motion can be used to diagnose cardiovascular diseases. In this study, long short-term memory (LSTM) neural networks were used to track vascular wall motion in plane-wave-based ultrasound imaging. Approach. The proposed LSTM and convolutional LSTM (ConvLSTM) models were trained using ultrasound data from simulations and tested experimentally using a tissue-mimicking vascular phantom and an in vivo study using a carotid artery. The performance of the models in the simulation was evaluated using the mean square error from axial and lateral motions and compared with the cross-correlation (XCorr) method. Statistical analysis was performed using the Bland–Altman plot, Pearson correlation coefficient, and linear regression in comparison with the manually annotated ground truth. Main results. For the in vivo data, the median error and 95% limit of agreement from the Bland–Altman analysis were (0.01, 0.13), (0.02, 0.19), and (0.03, 0.18), the Pearson correlation coefficients were 0.97, 0.94, and 0.94, respectively, and the linear equations were 0.89 x + 0.02, 0.84 x + 0.03, and 0.88 x + 0.03 from linear regression for the ConvLSTM model, LSTM model, and XCorr method, respectively. In the longitudinal and transverse views of the carotid artery, the LSTM-based models outperformed the XCorr method. Overall, the ConvLSTM model was superior to the LSTM model and XCorr method. Significance. This study demonstrated that vascular wall motion can be tracked accurately and precisely using plane-wave-based ultrasound imaging and the proposed LSTM-based models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Minimum variance (MV) beamforming has been studied for improving the performance of a diagnostic ultrasound imaging system. However, it is not easy for the MV beamforming to be implemented in a real-time ultrasound imaging system because of the enormous amount of computation time associated with the covariance matrix inversion. In this paper, to address this problem, we propose a new fast MV beamforming method that almost optimally approximates the MV beamforming while reducing the computational complexity greatly through dimensionality reduction using principal component analysis (PCA). The principal components are estimated offline from pre-calculated conventional MV weights. Thus, the proposed method does not directly calculate the MV weights but approximates them by a linear combination of a few selected dominant principal components. The combinational weights are calculated in almost the same way as in MV beamforming, but in the transformed domain of beamformer input signal by the PCA, where the dimension of the transformed covariance matrix is identical to the number of some selected principal component vectors. Both computer simulation and experiment were carried out to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method with echo signals from simulation as well as phantom and in vivo experiments. It is confirmed that our method can reduce the dimension of the covariance matrix down to as low as 2 ? 2 while maintaining the good image quality of MV beamforming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sea fog occurs frequently around the Korean Peninsula during April to July and is considered a major marine meteorological disaster, causing serious transport accidents and socioeconomic losses. Fog-related marine accidents represent 29.5% of the total marine accidents in Korea, which mainly occur along domestic ship routes during night time. In this study, an algorithm for sea fog monitoring using information technologies was developed to reduce fog-related marine accidents and to manage marine transportation, offshore and coastal fisheries, and naval operations. A dual channel difference (DCD) method using the 3.9 and 10.8 µm channels and texture-related measurements from the Multi-functional Transport Satellite (MTSAT) is applied to detect sea fog. To delineate the probable area of sea fog, the threshold value of − 2.0 K on the DCD is regarded as an indication of areas of sea fog and low cloud. A Laplacian calculation of the 10.8 µm brightness temperature is proposed as the texture-related measurement for sea fog. The threshold value of the Laplacian calculation is 0.1. An algorithm based on a combination of information technology (IT)-based navigation and sea fog detection technologies was developed to provide warnings to sea-going ships that may encounter fog-related danger. The algorithm checks the geometric relationship between the detected sea fog area and parameters related to the ship, such as its current position, sailing direction and speed, and sailing route. If the algorithm determines that the ship may be in danger, a warning is provided to the ship and a change of route is recommended. Copyright © 2012 Royal Meteorological Society [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study proposes an innovative opto-chemical treatment using a basket-integrated optical device (BIOD) to disinfect mature bacterial biofilm on endoscope channels. A BIOD was designed to position an optical diffuser on the central axis of an endoscope channel and to distribute laser light concentrically to the bacterial biofilm on the channel surface. To apply thermal damage and oxidative stress to the bacterial biofilm, a low concentration of a crosslinking agent (glutaraldehyde ~0.5%) was combined with 808 nm infrared (IR) and 405 nm blue (BL) laser lights. The applied irradiances of IR and BL were 10 W/cm2 and 1.6 W/cm2 for Teflon channel model and 20 W/cm2 and 3.2 W/cm2 for a clinical model, respectively. Individual irradiation of either IR or BL for 180 s induced the maximum temperatures of 62 ± 2 °C and 53 ± 3 °C on the biofilm, respectively. The simultaneous opto-chemical treatment reduced a significant population of the bacterial biofilms (7.5-log 10 for Staphylococcus aureus and 7.1-log 10 for Pseudomonas aeruginosa), which were 2.9-fold and 3.9-fold higher than that of the standard treatment with 2% glutaraldehyde (GA) solution, respectively. The proposed opto-chemical disinfection method can help reduce multi-drug resistant bacteria and prevent cross-infection during the clinical usage of a flexible endoscope. • A novel opto-chemical treatment can disinfect opportunistic respiratory pathogens in a clinical endoscope. • Glutaraldehyde, infrared, and blue lights were simultaneously combined for collective biofilm disinfection. • Laser lights were delivered concentrically and circumferentially into the endoscope. • Thermal denaturation and oxidative stress led to rapid and effective disinfection of biofilm in an endoscope. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: Despite recent advances, some patients with pancreatic cancer are refractory to treatment and the disease rapidly progresses, resulting in early death. The potential prognostic value of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) has been demonstrated in other cancer types, but the clinical validity in pancreatic cancer remains elusive. Here, we show that CTC clusters, which show mesenchymal characteristics and platelet marker expression, are highly correlated with poor prognosis in patients with unresectable pancreatic cancer. Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are known to be heterogeneous and clustered with tumor-associated cells, such as macrophages, neutrophils, fibroblasts, and platelets. However, their molecular profile and clinical significance remain largely unknown. Thus, we aimed to perform a comprehensive gene expression analysis of single CTCs and CTC clusters in patients with pancreatic cancer and to identify their potential clinical relevance to provide personalized medicine. Epitope-independent, rapid (>3 mL of whole blood/min) isolation of single CTCs and CTC clusters was achieved from a prospective cohort of 16 patients with unresectable pancreatic cancer using a centrifugal microfluidic device. Forty-eight mRNA expressions of individual CTCs and CTC clusters were analyzed to identify pancreatic CTC phenotype. CTC clusters had a larger proportion of mesenchymal expression than single CTCs (p = 0.0004). The presence of CTC clusters positively correlated with poor prognosis (progression-free survival, p = 0.0159; overall survival, p = 0.0186). Furthermore, we found that most CTCs in these patients (90.7%) were cloaked with platelets and found the presence of a positive correlation between the increase in CTC clusters and rapid disease progression during follow-ups. Efficient CTC cluster isolation and analysis techniques will enhance the understanding of complex tumor metastasis processes and can facilitate personalized disease management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dental caries are one of the chronic diseases caused by organic acids made from oral microbes. However, there was a lack of knowledge about the oral microbiome of Korean children. The aim of this study was to analyze the metagenome data of the oral microbiome obtained from Korean children and to discover bacteria highly related to dental caries with machine learning models. Saliva and plaque samples from 120 Korean children aged below 12 years were collected. Bacterial composition was identified using Illumina HiSeq sequencing based on the V3–V4 hypervariable region of the 16S rRNA gene. Ten major genera accounted for approximately 70% of the samples on average, including Streptococcus, Neisseria, Corynebacterium, and Fusobacterium. Differential abundant analyses revealed that Scardovia wiggsiae and Leptotrichia wadei were enriched in the caries samples, while Neisseria oralis was abundant in the non-caries samples of children aged below 6 years. The caries and non-caries samples of children aged 6–12 years were enriched in Streptococcus mutans and Corynebacterium durum, respectively. The machine learning models based on these differentially enriched taxa showed accuracies of up to 83%. These results confirmed significant alterations in the oral microbiome according to dental caries and age, and these differences can be used as diagnostic biomarkers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High-frame rate ultrasound imaging is necessary to track fast deformation in ultrasound elasticity imaging, but the image quality may be degraded. Previously, we investigated the performance of strain imaging using numerical models of conventional and ultrafast ultrasound imaging techniques. In this paper, we performed experimental studies to quantitatively evaluate the strain images and elasticity maps obtained using conventional and high frame rate ultrasound imaging methods. The experiments were carried out using point target and tissue mimicking phantoms. The experimental results were compared with the results of numerical simulation. Our experimental studies confirm that the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR), and axial/lateral resolution of the displacement and strain images acquired using high-frame rate ultrasound imaging are slightly lower but comparable with those obtained using conventional imaging. Furthermore, the quality of elasticity images also exhibits similar treads. Thus, high-frame rate ultrasound imaging can be used reliably for static elasticity imaging to capture the internal tissue motion if the frame rate is critical. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Choroid plexus tumors (CPTs) are intraventricular tumors derived from the choroid plexus epithelium and occur frequently in children. The aim of this study was to investigate the genomic and epigenomic characteristics of CPT and identify the differences between choroid plexus papilloma (CPP) and choroid plexus carcinoma (CPC). We conducted multiomics analyses of 20 CPT patients including CPP and CPC. Multiomics analysis included whole-genome sequencing, whole-transcriptome sequencing, and methylation sequencing. Mutually exclusive TP53 and EPHA7 point mutations, coupled with the amplification of chromosome 1, were exclusively identified in CPC. In contrast, amplification of chromosome 9 was specific to CPP. Differential gene expression analysis uncovered a significant overexpression of genes related to cell cycle regulation and epithelial-mesenchymal transition pathways in CPC compared to CPP. Overexpression of genes associated with tumor metastasis and progression was observed in the CPC subgroup with leptomeningeal dissemination. Furthermore, methylation profiling unveiled hypomethylation in major repeat regions, including long interspersed nuclear elements, short interspersed nuclear elements, long terminal repeats, and retrotransposons in CPC compared to CPP, implying that the loss of epigenetic silencing of transposable elements may play a role in tumorigenesis of CPC. Finally, the differential expression of AK1, regulated by both genomic and epigenomic factors, emerged as a potential contributing factor to the histological difference of CPP against CPC. Our results suggest pronounced genomic and epigenomic disparities between CPP and CPC, providing insights into the pathogenesis of CPT at the molecular level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Laser lights have been used by dermatologists for tattoo removal through photothermal interactions. However, most clinical studies used a visual scoring method to evaluate the tattoo removal process less objectively, leading to unnecessary treatments. This study aimed to develop a simple and quantitative imaging method to monitor the degree of tattoo removal in in vivo skin models. Sprague Dawley rat models were tattooed with four different concentrations of black inks. Laser treatment was performed weekly on the tattoos using a wavelength of 755 nm over six weeks. Images of non-treated and treated samples were captured using the same method after each treatment. The intensities of the tattoos were measured to estimate the contrast for quantitative comparison. The results demonstrated that the proposed monitoring method quantified the variations in tattoo contrast after the laser treatment. Histological analysis validated the significant removal of tattoo inks, no thermal injury to adjacent tissue, and uniform remodeling of epidermal and dermal layers after multiple treatments. This study demonstrated the potential of the quantitative monitoring technique in assessing the degree of clearance level objectively during laser treatments in clinics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is indisputable that a great deal of brand new technologies such as the internet of things, (IoT) big data, and cloud computing are conquering every aspect of our life. So, in the branch of marine technology, the mentioned technologies are also being applied to obtain more features and to automate marine-related operations as well as creating novel smart devices. As a result of this, traditional ports and ships are being replaced by smart ports and vessels. To achieve this transition, numerous applications need to be developed to make them smart. The purpose of this paper is to present a dedicated an IoT-based system for automating linkage procedures by searching for available locations via port-mounted sensors and planned ship notification. In the experimental system, we have used smartphone as an alternative to the client-side vessel of the system and created an Android app called "Smart Ship Berthing" instead of the charging program, for instance, NORIVIS 4, VDASH, ODYSSEY, etc. To test our proposed server-side system, we used Raspberry Pi with a combination of an ultrasonic sensor to detect the ship and modify the empty berth for anchoring. The experimental results show that the set of UR sensors have high accuracy to detect ships at the port for ship berthing and our proposed system is very amenable to implementation in the real marine environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Porcine protegrin-1 (PG-1) is a broad-spectrum antimicrobial peptide (AMP) with potent antimicrobial activities. We produced recombinant PG-1 and evaluated its cytotoxicity toward various types of mammalian cell lines, including embryonic fibroblasts, retinal cells, embryonic kidney cells, neuroblastoma cells, alveolar macrophage cells, and neutrophils. The sensitivity of the different mammalian cells to cytotoxic damage induced by PG-1 differed significantly among the cell types, with retinal neuron cells and neutrophils being the most significantly affected. A circular dichroism analysis showed there was a precise correlation between conformational changes in PG-1 and the magnitude of cytotoxicity among the various cell type. Subsequently, a green fluorescent protein (GFP) penetration assay using positively charged GFPs indicated there was a close correlation between the degree of penetration of charged GFP into cells and the magnitude of PG-1 cytotoxicity. Furthermore, we also showed that inhibition of the synthesis of anionic sulphated proteoglycans on the cell surface decreases the cytotoxic damage induced by PG-1 treatment. Taken together, the observed cytotoxicity of PG-1 towards different membrane surfaces is highly driven by the membrane's anionic properties. Our results reveal a possible mechanism underlying cell-type dependent differences in cytotoxicity of AMPs, such as PG-1, toward mammalian cells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fecal calprotectin (FC) is commonly used to assess Crohn's disease (CD) activity. However, standardized cut-off values accounting for bowel resection history and disease location are lacking. In this study, we analyzed data from patients with CD who underwent magnetic resonance enterography, ileocolonoscopy, and FC measurements from January 2017 to December 2018. In 267 cases from 254 patients, the FC levels in the 'operated' patients were higher when the disease was active compared with those who were in the remission group (178 vs. 54.7 μg/g; p < 0.001), and similar findings were obtained for the 'non-operated' patients (449.5 vs. 40.95 μg/g; p < 0.001). The FC levels differed significantly according to the location of inflammation, with lower levels in the small bowel compared to those in the colon. The FC cut-off levels of 70.8 μg/g and 142.0 μg/g were considered optimal for predicting active disease for operated and non-operated patients, respectively. The corresponding FC cut-off levels of 70.8 μg/g and 65.0 μg/g were observed for patients with disease only in the small bowel. In conclusion, different FC cut-off values would be applicable to patients with CD based on their bowel resection history and disease location. Tight control with a lower FC target may benefit those with a history of bowel resection or small-bowel-only disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Temperature monitoring during high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) therapy on tissue is essential to regulate the degree of thermal coagulation and to achieve the desired treatment outcomes eventually. The aim of the current study was to design and investigate the feasibility of a proportional-integral-derivative (PID) temperature controller-integrated portable HIFU driver for thermal coagulation.Methods: A portable HIFU driver was designed and operated at a maximum output voltage of 50 V with pulse-width modulation signals at 2 MHz. The temperature of ex vivo bovine liver tissue was monitored using a K-type thermocouple during the 2-MHz HIFU exposure.Results: The tissue temperature was maintained at 60 °C using a PID controller-integrated HIFU driver that modulated the output voltage during the 300-s HIFU exposure. The ex vivo testing demonstrated that the tissue temperature at the focal point approached the chosen temperature, i.e., 60 °C, within 70 s. The temperature was maintained with a deviation of less than 4 °C until the HIFU driver voltage was turned off at 300 s.Conclusions: The designed PID controller-integrated HIFU driver can be used as a small portable tool to regulate the tissue temperature in real time and achieve thermal coagulation via HIFU sonication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A series of Zn (II), Pd (II) and Cd (II) complexes, [(L)nMX2]m (L = L‐a–L‐c; M = Zn, Pd; X = Cl; M = Cd; X = Br; n, m = 1 or 2), containing 4‐methoxy‐N‐(pyridin‐2‐ylmethylene) aniline (L‐a), 4‐methoxy‐N‐(pyridin‐2‐ylmethyl) aniline (L‐b) and 4‐methoxy‐N‐methyl‐N‐(pyridin‐2‐ylmethyl) aniline (L‐c) have been synthesized and characterized. The X‐ray crystal structures of Pd (II) complexes [L1PdCl2] (L = L‐b and L‐c) revealed distorted square planar geometries obtained via coordinative interaction of the nitrogen atoms of pyridine and amine moieties and two chloro ligands. The geometry around Zn (II) center in [(L‐a)ZnCl2] and [(L‐c)ZnCl2] can be best described as distorted tetrahedral, whereas [(L‐b)2ZnCl2] and [(L‐b)2CdBr2] achieved 6‐coordinated octahedral geometries around Zn and Cd centers through 2‐equivalent ligands, respectively. In addition, a dimeric [(L‐c)Cd(μ‐Br)Br]2 complex exhibited typical 5‐coordinated trigonal bipyramidal geometry around Cd center. The polymerization of methyl methacrylate in the presence of modified methylaluminoxane was evaluated by all the synthesized complexes at 60°C. Among these complexes, [(L‐b)PdCl2] showed the highest catalytic activity [3.80 × 104 g poly (methyl methacrylate) (PMMA)/mol Pd hr−1], yielding high molecular weight (9.12 × 105 g mol−1) PMMA. Syndio‐enriched PMMA (characterized using 1H‐NMR spectroscopy) of about 0.68 was obtained with Tg in the range 120–128°C. Unlike imine and amine moieties, the introduction of N‐methyl moiety has an adverse effect on the catalytic activity, but the syndiotacticity remained unaffected. Zn (II), Pd (II) and Cd (II) complexes with 4‐methoxy‐N‐(pyridin‐2‐ylmethylene)aniline exhibited diverse coordination geometries. Higher activity with modest syndiotacticity has been displayed by Pd (II) initiators towards MMA polymerization compared with its Zn (II) and Cd (II) analogs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A series of late transition metal complexes, [(bpma)Co(μ–Cl)Cl]2, [(bpma)Cu(μ–Cl)Cl]2, [(bpma)Zn(μ–Cl)Cl]2 and [(bpma)Cd(μ–Br)Br]2 (where bpma is 4‐bromo‐N‐((pyridin‐2‐yl)methylene)benzenamine) have been synthesized and structurally characterized. The X‐ray structures of dimeric complexes [(bpma)M(μ–X)X]2 (M = Co, Cu and Zn, X = Cl; M = Cd, X = Br) showed a distorted 5‐coordinate trigonal bipyramidal geometry involving two nitrogen atoms of N,N‐bidentate ligand, two bridged and one terminal halogen atoms. The complex [(bpma)Cu(μ–Cl)Cl]2 revealed the highest catalytic activity for the polymerisation of methyl methacrylate in the presence of modified methylaluminoxane with an activity of 9.14 × 104 g PMMA/mol·Cu·h at 60 °C and afforded syndiotactic poly (methylmethacrylate) (rr = 0.69). Novel late transition metal complexes with 4‐bromo‐N(2‐pyridinylmethylene) benzenamine presented distorted trigonal bipyramidal geometries. Cu (II) initiator effectively catalysed MMA and yielded syndio‐enriched PMMA. The activity of synthesized complexes can be considered as a function of electronic density around the metal centre. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Until now, there is no effective anti-fibrotic therapy available for liver cirrhosis. Stem cell therapies have been studied for the treatment of hepatic fibrosis. However, the use of embryonic stem cells or induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) has limitations such as ethical concern or malignancy potential. Induced hepatocyte-like cells (iHEPs) generated by direct reprogramming technology may overcome these limitations. Methods: In this study, we generated iHEPs by direct reprogramming from mouse embryonic fibroblast (MEF) either using specific transcription factors such as c-Myc and Klf-4 (type A), or adding small molecules to HNF1α (type B). Results: We investigated the effect of iHEPs on acute liver injury and chronic hepatic fibrosis animal models induced by CCl4 intra-peritoneal injection in BALB/C nude mice. In acute liver injury model, serum AST/ALT levels peaked at 24 h after CCl4 injection. Intra-splenic transplantation of iHEPs significantly attenuated CCl4-induced acute liver injury. GFP-labeled iHEPs (type A) migrated to the liver after intra-splenic transplantation that was confirmed by Western blotting and immunofluorescence staining. We found that GFP and albumin were co-localized in migrated iHEPs in the liver suggesting migrated iHEPs were functional. In chronic hepatic fibrosis mice experiment, transplantation of either type A or type B iHEPs significantly attenuated liver fibrosis induced by CCl4 injection for 10 weeks. Conclusions: Our study suggests that iHEPs may be used as a novel therapeutic strategy for the treatment of hepatic fibrosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Complementary and integrative health (CIH) therapies refers to massage therapy, acupuncture, aromatherapy, and guided imagery. These therapies have gained increased attention in recent years, particularly for their potential to help manage chronic pain and other conditions. National organizations not only recommend the use of CIH therapies but also the documentation of these therapies within electronic health records (EHRs). Yet, how CIH therapies are documented in the EHR is not well understood. The purpose of this scoping review of the literature was to examine and describe research that focused on CIH therapy clinical documentation in the EHR. Methods: The authors conducted a literature search using six electronic databases: Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), Ovid MEDLINE, Scopus, Google Scholar, Embase, and PubMed. Predefined search terms included "informatics," "documentation," "complementary and integrative health therapies," "non-pharmacological approaches," and "electronic health records" using AND/OR statements. No restrictions were placed on publication date. The inclusion criteria were as follows: (1) Original peer-reviewed full article in English, (2) focus on CIH therapies, and (3) CIH therapy documentation practice used in the research. Results: The authors identified 1684 articles, of which 33 met the criteria for a full review. A majority of the studies were conducted in the United States (20) and hospitals (19). The most common study design was retrospective (9), and 26 studies used EHR data as a data source for analysis. Documentation practices varied widely across all studies, ranging from the feasibility of documenting integrative therapies (i.e., homeopathy) to create changes in the EHR to support documentation (i.e., flowsheet). Discussion: This scoping review identified varying EHR clinical documentation trends for CIH therapies. Pain was the most frequent reason for use of CIH therapies across all included studies and a broad range of CIH therapies were used. Data standards and templates were suggested as informatics methods to support CIH documentation. A systems approach is needed to enhance and support the current technology infrastructure that will enable consistent CIH therapy documentation in EHRs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Defect inspection is essential in the semiconductor industry to fabricate printed circuit boards (PCBs) with minimum defect rates. However, conventional inspection systems are labor-intensive and time-consuming. In this study, a semi-supervised learning (SSL)-based model called PCB_SS was developed. It was trained using labeled and unlabeled images under two different augmentations. Training and test PCB images were acquired using automatic final vision inspection systems. The PCB_SS model outperformed a completely supervised model trained using only labeled images (PCB_FS). The performance of the PCB_SS model was more robust than that of the PCB_FS model when the number of labeled data is limited or comprises incorrectly labeled data. In an error-resilience test, the proposed PCB_SS model maintained stable accuracy (error increment of less than 0.5%, compared with 4% for PCB_FS) for noisy training data (with as much as 9.0% of the data labeled incorrectly). The proposed model also showed superior performance when comparing machine-learning and deep-learning classifiers. The unlabeled data utilized in the PCB_SS model helped with the generalization of the deep-learning model and improved its performance for PCB defect detection. Thus, the proposed method alleviates the burden of the manual labeling process and provides a rapid and accurate automatic classifier for PCB inspections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: Surgical therapy is critical to pancreatic cancer survival. The segmentation of pancreatic cancer in endoscopic ultrasonography (EUS) images can provide critical characteristics of the pancreatic cancer for surgical therapy. However, EUS has high operator dependency, and it requires a considerable level of experience and competency to stage pancreatic cancer. Deep learning approaches have been used on EUS images, but there have been no studies on the segmentation of pancreatic cancer. The purpose of this study is to segment pancreatic cancer from EUS images using a neural network model with deep attention features, called DAF-Net. The significance of this study lies in the successful segmentation performance of the pancreatic cancer using the DAF-Net, regardless of the size and location of the cancer, and its usefulness in preoperative planning. Endoscopic ultrasonography (EUS) plays an important role in diagnosing pancreatic cancer. Surgical therapy is critical to pancreatic cancer survival and can be planned properly, with the characteristics of the target cancer determined. The physical characteristics of the pancreatic cancer, such as size, location, and shape, can be determined by semantic segmentation of EUS images. This study proposes a deep learning approach for the segmentation of pancreatic cancer in EUS images. EUS images were acquired from 150 patients diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. A network with deep attention features (DAF-Net) is proposed for pancreatic cancer segmentation using EUS images. The performance of the deep learning models (U-Net, Attention U-Net, and DAF-Net) was evaluated by 5-fold cross-validation. For the evaluation metrics, the Dice similarity coefficient (DSC), intersection over union (IoU), receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve, and area under the curve (AUC) were chosen. Statistical analysis was performed for different stages and locations of the cancer. DAF-Net demonstrated superior segmentation performance for the DSC, IoU, AUC, sensitivity, specificity, and precision with scores of 82.8%, 72.3%, 92.7%, 89.0%, 98.1%, and 85.1%, respectively. The proposed deep learning approach can provide accurate segmentation of pancreatic cancer in EUS images and can effectively assist in the planning of surgical therapies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vascular damage is one of the therapeutic mechanisms of photodynamic therapy (PDT). In particular, short-term PDT treatments can effectively destroy malignant lesions while minimizing damage to nonmalignant tissue. In this study, we investigate the feasibility of label-free quantitative photoacoustic microscopy (PAM) for monitoring the vasculature changes under the effect of PDT in mouse ear melanoma tumors. In particular, quantitative vasculature evaluation was conducted based on Hessian filter segmentation. Three-dimensional morphological PAM and depth-resolved images before and after PDT treatment were acquired. In addition, five quantitative vasculature parameters, including the PA signal, vessel diameter, vessel density, perfused vessel density, and vessel complexity, were analyzed to evaluate the influence of PDT on four different areas: Two melanoma tumors, and control and normal vessel areas. The quantitative and qualitative results successfully demonstrated the potential of the proposed PAM-based quantitative approach to evaluate the effectiveness of the PDT method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report the extraction of silicon via a carbothermal reduction process using a CO2 laser beam as a heat source. The surface of a mixture of silica and carbon black powder became brown after laser beam irradiation for a few tens of seconds, and clear peaks of crystalline silicon were observed by Raman shift measurements, confirming the successful carbothermal reduction of silica. The influence of process parameters, including the laser beam intensity, radiation time, nitrogen gas flow in a reaction chamber, and the molar ratios of silica/carbon black of the mixture, on the carbothermal reduction process is explained in detail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we developed a UV-LED/H 2 O 2 /Cu 2+ system to remove cyanide, which is typically present in metal electroplating wastewater. The results showed the synergistic effects of UV-LED, H 2 O 2 , and Cu 2+ ions on cyanide removal in comparison with UV-LED photolysis, H 2 O 2 oxidation, UV-LED/H 2 O 2 , and H 2 O 2 /Cu 2+ systems. Cyanide was removed completely in 30 min in the UV-LED/H 2 O 2 /Cu 2+ system, and its loss followed pseudo-first order kinetics. Statistically, both H 2 O 2 and Cu 2+ ions showed positive effects on cyanide removal, but Cu 2+ ions exhibited a greater effect. The highest cyanide removal rate constant ( k  = 0.179 min −1 ) was achieved at pH 11, but the lowest was achieved at pH 12.5 ( k  = 0.064 min −1 ) due to the hydrolysis of H 2 O 2 (pK a of H 2 O 2  = 11.75). The presence of dissolved organic matter (DOM) inhibited cyanide removal, and the removal rate constant exhibited a negative linear correlation with DOM ( R 2  = 0.987). The removal rate of cyanide was enhanced by the addition of Zn 2+ ions (from 0.179 to 0.457 min −1 ), while the co-existence of Ni 2+ or Cr +6 ion with Cu 2+ ion reduced cyanide removal. The formation of OH radicals in the UV-LED/H 2 O 2 /Cu 2+ system was verified using an aminophenyl fluorescence (APF) probe. Cyanate ions and ammonia were detected as the byproducts of cyanide decomposition. Finally, an acute toxicity reduction of 64.6% was achieved in the system within 1 h, despite a high initial cyanide concentration (100 mg/L). In terms of removal efficiency and toxicity reduction, the UV-LED/H 2 O 2 /Cu 2+ system may be an alternative method of cyanide removal from wastewaters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bisphenol A (BPA) is one of the most widely used chemicals in various consumer products. In thermal papers such as receipts and tickets, BPA is used as a heat-activated developer. Cashiers are therefore suspected to be a vulnerable group of exposure to BPA, but neither contribution of receipt handling to the total body burden of BPA among cashiers, nor related health effects are well characterized. Female cashiers (n = 54) were recruited from seven retail shops of a major supermarket chain in Korea, and urinary levels of BPA and metabolic syndrome (MetS) related biomarkers were measured. In order to estimate the contribution of receipt handling to the body burden of BPA, an intervention was designed on the use of gloves: the subjects were asked not to wear gloves during the work for one week, and in the following week, to wear gloves. Urine samples were collected at pre-shift and post-shift for the first two consecutive days in each week, and urinary BPA concentrations were measured. In cashiers without gloves, about a two-fold increase in urinary BPA concentrations was observed after work-shift. When the cashiers wore gloves, however, urinary BPA levels showed no changes. Higher urinary BPA concentrations were associated with greater levels of fasting insulin and insulin resistance. Our observation shows that receipt handling among the cashiers could double the BPA exposure levels at post-shift compared to those at pre-shift, and use of simple protective equipment such as gloves could effectively reduce the BPA exposure levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An image reconstruction method that can simultaneously provide high image quality and frame rate is necessary for diagnosis on cardiovascular imaging but is challenging for plane-wave ultrasound imaging. To overcome this challenge, an end-to-end ultrasound image reconstruction method is proposed for reconstructing a high-resolution B-mode image from radio frequency (RF) data. A modified U-Net architecture that adopts EfficientNet-B5 and U-Net as the encoder and decoder parts, respectively, is proposed as a deep learning beamformer. The training data comprise pairs of pre-beamformed RF data generated from random scatterers with random amplitudes and corresponding high-resolution target data generated from coherent plane-wave compounding (CPWC). To evaluate the performance of the proposed beamforming model, simulation and experimental data are used for various beamformers, such as delay-and-sum (DAS), CPWC, and other deep learning beamformers, including U-Net and EfficientNet-B0. Compared with single plane-wave imaging with DAS, the proposed beamforming model reduces the lateral full width at half maximum by 35% for simulation and 29.6% for experimental data and improves the contrast-to-noise ratio and peak signal-to-noise ratio, respectively, by 6.3 and 9.97 dB for simulation, 2.38 and 3.01 dB for experimental data, and 3.18 and 1.03 dB for in vivo data. Furthermore, the computational complexity of the proposed beamforming model is four times less than that of the U-Net beamformer. The study results demonstrate that the proposed ultrasound image reconstruction method employing a deep learning beamformer, trained by the RF data from scatterers, can reconstruct a high-resolution image with a high frame rate for single plane-wave ultrasound imaging. • An end-to-end image reconstruction method is proposed for high-resolution plane-wave ultrasound imaging. • A modified U-Net architecture is developed as a deep learning beamformer trained by pre-beamformed radio frequency (RF) data. • Our beamforming model is trained by simulation data from only point targets and evaluated by in vivo experimental data. • Our image reconstruction method improves the image quality with reduced computational time for higher frame rate imaging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copper sulphide materials have received great attention due to their low bandgap semiconducting properties. As compared to other chalcogenides, few synthetic examples have been reported, and a simple and scalable synthetic method for preparing size- and shape-controlled copper sulphide nanoparticles is required for potential wide application of these materials. Herein, a facile one pot scalable synthetic route has been developed for preparing highly monodisperse djurleite Cu1.94S hexagonal nanoplates. The thermal decomposition of a single precursor CuSCN was found suitable for preparing a large quantity of highly monodisperse Cu1.94S hexagonal nanoplates; a multi-gram scale product could be obtained in a single step. Under the synthetic scheme developed, the width of Cu1.94S nanoplates with a thickness of ~ 10 nm could be easily tuned from 70 nm to 130 nm. Their optical properties were investigated and their photothermal effect was also studied by photothermal optical coherence reflectometry (PT OCR). Cu1.94S hexagonal nanoplates showed a considerable photothermal effect, which was found to depend on the nanoparticle concentration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The efficacy of using subharmonic emissions from Sonazoid microbubbles (GE Healthcare, Oslo, Norway) to track portal vein pressures and pressure changes was investigated in 14 canines using either slow- or high-flow models of portal hypertension (PH). A modified Logiq 9 scanner (GE Healthcare, Milwaukee, WI, USA) operating in subharmonic mode (ftransmit: 2.5 MHz, freceive: 1.25 MHz) was used to collect radiofrequency data at 10–40% incident acoustic power levels with 2–4 transmit cycles (in triplicate) before and after inducing PH. A pressure catheter (Millar Instruments, Inc., Houston, TX, USA) provided reference portal vein pressures. At optimum insonification, subharmonic signal amplitude changes correlated with portal vein pressure changes; r ranged from −0.82 to −0.94 and from −0.70 to −0.73 for PH models considered separately or together, respectively. The subharmonic signal amplitudes correlated with absolute portal vein pressures (r: −0.71 to −0.79). Statistically significant differences between subharmonic amplitudes, before and after inducing PH, were noted (p ≤ 0.01). Portal vein pressures estimated using subharmonic aided pressure estimation did not reveal significant differences (p > 0.05) with respect to the pressures obtained using the Millar pressure catheter. Subharmonic-aided pressure estimation may be useful clinically for portal vein pressure monitoring. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In ultrasound strain and elasticity imaging, an accurate and cost-effective sub-pixel displacement estimator is required because strain/elasticity imaging quality relies on the displacement SNR, which can often be higher if more computational resources are provided. In this paper, we introduce an autocorrelation-based method to cost-effectively improve subpixel displacement estimation quality. To quantitatively evaluate the performance of the autocorrelation method, simulated and tissue-mimicking phantom experiments were performed. The computational cost of the autocorrelation method is also discussed. The results of our study suggest the autocorrelation method can be used for a real-time elasticity imaging system. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Infrared thermal imaging has been widely used to show the correlation between thermal characteristics of the body and muscle activation. This study aims to investigate a method using thermal imaging to visualize and differentiate target muscles during resistance training. Thermal images were acquired to monitor three target muscles (i.e., biceps brachii, triceps brachii, and deltoid muscle) in the brachium while varying the training weight, duration, and order of training. The acquired thermal images were segmented and converted to heat maps. By generating difference heat maps from pairs of heat maps during training, the target muscles were clearly visualized, with an average temperature difference of 0.86 °C. It was observed that training order had no significant effect on skin surface temperature. The difference heat maps were also used to train a convolutional neural network (CNN) to show the feasibility of target muscle classification, with an accuracy of 92.3%. This study demonstrated that infrared thermal imaging could be effectively utilized to locate and differentiate target muscle activation during resistance training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mucinous cystic neoplasms (MCN) and serous cystic neoplasms (SCN) account for a large portion of solitary pancreatic cystic neoplasms (PCN). In this study we implemented a convolutional neural network (CNN) model using ResNet50 to differentiate between MCN and SCN. The training data were collected retrospectively from 59 MCN and 49 SCN patients from two different hospitals. Data augmentation was used to enhance the size and quality of training datasets. Fine-tuning training approaches were utilized by adopting the pre-trained model from transfer learning while training selected layers. Testing of the network was conducted by varying the endoscopic ultrasonography (EUS) image sizes and positions to evaluate the network performance for differentiation. The proposed network model achieved up to 82.75% accuracy and a 0.88 (95% CI: 0.817–0.930) area under curve (AUC) score. The performance of the implemented deep learning networks in decision-making using only EUS images is comparable to that of traditional manual decision-making using EUS images along with supporting clinical information. Gradient-weighted class activation mapping (Grad-CAM) confirmed that the network model learned the features from the cyst region accurately. This study proves the feasibility of diagnosing MCN and SCN using a deep learning network model. Further improvement using more datasets is needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Benzalkonium chloride (BKC) is a commonly used preservative in personal care products and pharmaceutical preparations. However, its ecological risks are not well understood because of lack of monitoring data and ecotoxicological information. In the present study, occurrence of BKC was investigated in the waters near a pharmaceutical manufacturing complex of South Korea and its acute and chronic ecotoxicities were evaluated using Daphnia magna and Japanese medaka (Oryzias latipes). Associated ecological risks were estimated by calculating hazard quotients (HQs). In addition, endocrine disruption potency of BKC was compared with those of other frequently used preservatives using human adrenal (H295R) and rat pituitary (GH3) cells. High concentration of BKC was detected at locations near the pharmaceutical manufacturing plants, i.e., 35.8 μg/L for dodecyl benzyl dimethyl ammonium chloride (BKC–C 12), and 21.6 μg/L tetradecyl benzyl dimethyl ammonium chloride (BKC–C 14). In Daphnia, 48 h immobilization EC 50 and 21 d reproduction NOEC were determined at 41.1 μg/L and ≥10.8 μg/L, respectively. For O. latipes, 96 h LC 50 was determined at 246 μg/L while the growth inhibition NOEC was ≥113.4 μg/L following early life stage exposure. BKC significantly up-regulated vitellogenin gene of juvenile fish, indicating its endocrine disrupting potential in fish. Exposure to BKC increased steroid hormone level in H295R cells, and induced cytotoxicity in GH3 cells. HQ values of BKC were determined at greater than one in the ambient water near pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities. Considering high ecological risk and endocrine disrupting potential, long-term consequences of BKC contamination in aquatic ecosystem need to be examined. 1. Occurrence of BKC and associated ecological risk were assessed. 2. Water body near pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities was chosen as a hotspot. 3. High levels of BKC was detected in locations near WWTP of the facilities. 4. Endocrine disrupting potential of BKC was observed in both fish and H295R cells. 5. Substantial ecological risk of BKC was expected at locations near the WWTP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A method is introduced to monitor cardiac ablative therapy by examining slope changes in the thermal strain curve caused by speed of sound variations with temperature. The sound speed of water-bearing tissue such as cardiac muscle increases with temperature. However, at temperatures above about 50?C, there is no further increase in the sound speed and the temperature coefficient may become slightly negative. For ablation therapy, an irreversible injury to tissue and a complete heart block occurs in the range of 48 to 50°C for a short period in accordance with the well-known Arrhenius equation. Using these two properties, we propose a potential tool to detect the moment when tissue damage occurs by using the reduced slope in the thermal strain curve as a function of heating time. We have illustrated the feasibility of this method initially using porcine myocardium in vitro. The method was further demonstrated in vivo, using a specially equipped ablation tip and an 11-MHz microlinear intracardiac echocardiography (ICE) array mounted on the tip of a catheter. The thermal strain curves showed a plateau, strongly suggesting that the temperature reached at least 50°C. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]