Precision measurements by the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) on the International Space Station of the deuteron (D) flux are presented. The measurements are based on 21×10^{6} D nuclei in the rigidity range from 1.9 to 21 GV collected from May 2011 to April 2021.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) hosts pure single-photon emitters that have shown evidence of optically detected electronic spin dynamics. However, the electrical and chemical structures of these optically addressable spins are unknown, and the nature of their spin-optical interactions remains mysterious. Here, we use time-domain optical and microwave experiments to characterize a single emitter in h-BN exhibiting room temperature optically detected magnetic resonance.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground And Objective: Skin thermal diffusivity plays a crucial role in various applications, including laser therapy and cryogenic skin cooling.This study investigates the correlation between skin thermal diffusivity and two important skin parameters, melanin content and erythema, in a cohort of 102 participants.
Methods: An in-house developed device based on transient temperature measurement was used to assess thermal diffusivity at different body locations.
Since the 1960 s, our health has been compromised by exposure to over 350,000 newly introduced toxic substances, contributing to the current pandemic in allergic, autoimmune and metabolic diseases. The "Epithelial Barrier Theory" postulates that these diseases are exacerbated by persistent periepithelial inflammation (epithelitis) triggered by exposure to a wide range of epithelial barrier-damaging substances as well as genetic susceptibility. The epithelial barrier serves as the body's primary physical, chemical, and immunological barrier against external stimuli.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Atopic dermatitis (AD) has long been regarded as a primarily pediatric disease. However, there is growing evidence for a high rate of adult-onset AD. We aimed to characterize factors associated with adult-onset versus childhood-onset AD and controls.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Chronic rhinosinusitis with a type 2 inflammatory pattern (T2CRS) is believed to be restricted to the nose and sinuses and associated with polyps, without clear serologic markers. Dupilumab is a promising new therapy in difficult to treat T2CRS. No factors are known to predict dupilumab treatment outcome.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Eur Acad Dermatol Venereol
September 2022
Objective: Most methods for monitoring sweat gland activity use simple gravimetric methods, which merely measure the average sweat rate of multiple sweat glands over a region of skin. It would be extremely useful to have a method which could quantify individual gland activity in order to improve the treatment of conditions which use sweat tests as a diagnostic tool, such as hyperhidrosis, cystic fibrosis, and peripheral nerve degeneration.
Methods: An optical method using an infrared camera to monitor the skin surface temperature was developed.
The field of portable healthcare monitoring devices has an urgent need for the development of real-time, noninvasive sensing and detection methods for various physiological analytes. Currently, transdermal sensing techniques are severely limited in scope (i.e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCurrent diagnostic methods for evaluating the functionality of the lymphatic vascular system usually do not provide quantitative data and suffer from many limitations including high costs, complexity, and the need to perform them in hospital settings. In this work, we present a quantitative, simple outpatient technology named LymphMonitor to quantitatively assess lymphatic function. This method is based on the painless injection of the lymphatic-specific near-infrared fluorescent tracer indocyanine green complexed with human serum albumin, using MicronJet600 microneedles, and monitoring the disappearance of the fluorescence signal at the injection site over time using a portable detection device named LymphMeter.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe present a novel computational model of the human skin designed to investigate dielectric spectroscopy electrodes for stratum corneum hydration monitoring. The multilayer skin model allows for the swelling of the stratum corneum, as well as the variations of the dielectric properties under several hydration levels. According to the results, the stratum corneum thickness variations should not be neglected.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe monitoring of lymphatic drainage is of great importance, particularly in the context of the early detection and diagnosis of several diseases. Existing methods of imaging and monitoring lymphatic drainage can be costly and require trained personnel, posing problems for at-home or point-of-care monitoring. Recently, an alternative approach has been proposed, consisting of using microneedles to deliver a near-infrared (NIR) fluorescent tattoo to the skin, which can be monitored with traditional laboratory-based fluorescence detectors.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: For breast cancer patients undergoing neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC), pathologic complete response (pCR; no invasive or in situ) cannot be assessed non-invasively so all patients undergo surgery. The aim of our study was to develop and validate a radiomics classifier that classifies breast cancer pCR post-NAC on MRI prior to surgery.
Methods: This retrospective study included women treated with NAC for breast cancer from 2014 to 2016 with (1) pre- and post-NAC breast MRI and (2) post-NAC surgical pathology report assessing response.
Background: Hymenoptera stings are a major cause of anaphylaxis. Various risk factors are discussed in literature. This study aims to investigate potential risk factors for severe sting reactions in wasp ( spp.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFG3 (Bethesda)
December 2019
Cell-fate decisions during development are controlled by densely interconnected gene regulatory networks (GRNs) consisting of many genes. Inferring and predictively modeling these GRNs is crucial for understanding development and other physiological processes. Gene circuits, coupled differential equations that represent gene product synthesis with a switch-like function, provide a biologically realistic framework for modeling the time evolution of gene expression.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCurrent clinical methods for the evaluation of lymphatic vessel function, crucial for early diagnosis and evaluation of treatment response of several pathological conditions, in particular of postsurgical lymphedema, are based on complex and mainly qualitative imaging techniques. To address this unmet medical need, we established a simple strategy for the painless and quantitative assessment of cutaneous lymphatic function. We prepared a lymphatic-specific tracer formulation, consisting of the clinically approved near-infrared fluorescent dye, indocyanine green, and the solubilizing surfactant Kolliphor HS15.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEur J Obstet Gynecol Reprod Biol
June 2017
Objective: To identify and estimate the importance of risk factors on pregnancy loss until the end of the second trimester after clinical pregnancy was achieved by either in vitro fertilisation (IVF) or intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI).
Study Design: Retrospective cohort study including 588 cycles with fresh embryo transfers and 150 cycles with frozen-thawed embryo transfers using logistic regression.
Results: The rate of miscarriages subsequent to a fresh embryo transfer was significantly increased by a diagnosis of endometriosis (p=0.
Background: The study aim was to validate Beckman Coulter's fully automated Access Immunoassay System (BC Access assay) for anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH) and compare it with Beckman Coulter's Modified Manual Generation II assay (BC Mod Gen II), with regard to cycle AMH fluctuations and antral follicle counts.
Methods: During one complete menstrual cycle, transvaginal ultrasound was performed on regularly menstruating women (n=39; 18-40years) every 2 days until the dominant ovarian follicle reached 16mm, then daily until observed ovulation; blood samples were collected throughout the cycle. Number and size of antral follicles was determined and AMH levels measured using both assays.
Proc IEEE Int Symp Biomed Imaging
April 2016
Early detection and the assessment of changes in bone metastatic cancers can enable clinicians to monitor disease progression and modify treatment to help achieve improved results for patients. However, poor contrast makes detection difficult, and multiple disease sites make tracking of their changes over time difficult. We present a method for automatically detecting and tracking the longitudinal changes in multiple sclerotic bone metastases from Dual Energy Computed Tomography (DECT) images.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNoninvasive, radiological image-based detection and stratification of Gleason patterns can impact clinical outcomes, treatment selection, and the determination of disease status at diagnosis without subjecting patients to surgical biopsies. We present machine learning-based automatic classification of prostate cancer aggressiveness by combining apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) and T2-weighted (T2-w) MRI-based texture features. Our approach achieved reasonably accurate classification of Gleason scores (GS) 6(3 + 3) vs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: To investigate Haralick texture analysis of prostate MRI for cancer detection and differentiating Gleason scores (GS).
Methods: One hundred and forty-seven patients underwent T2- weighted (T2WI) and diffusion-weighted prostate MRI. Cancers ≥0.