A counter-gravity casting system for in situ high-speed synchrotron x-ray imaging characterization.

Counter-gravity casting (CGC) aims to eliminate turbulent melt flow and defect formation during filling and subsequent solidification by pushing high-temperature melt into the mold cavity against gravity with regulated pressure. However, limited by the opaqueness of molten metals and the complexity of the CGC apparatus, it is extremely difficult to directly quantify the high-velocity mold filling and pressurized solidification in real-time. Here, we report the design and characterization of a CGC system capable of in situ monitoring of mold filling and subsequent solidification processes in the synchrotron beamlines by deploying a high-energy, high-speed synchrotron x-ray imaging technique.

Dynamic X-ray speckle-tracking imaging with high-accuracy phase retrieval based on deep learning.

Speckle-tracking X-ray imaging is an attractive candidate for dynamic X-ray imaging owing to its flexible setup and simultaneous yields of phase, transmission and scattering images. However, traditional speckle-tracking imaging methods suffer from phase distortion at locations with abrupt changes in density, which is always the case for real samples, limiting the applications of the speckle-tracking X-ray imaging method. In this paper, we report a deep-learning based method which can achieve dynamic X-ray speckle-tracking imaging with high-accuracy phase retrieval.

Soft and Stretchable Liquid Metal-Elastomer Composite for Wearable Electronics.

Soft devices, especially capacitive stress (or strain) sensors, are important for applications, including wearable medical monitoring, electronic skin, and soft robotics. The incorporation of liquid metal particles (LMPs) into highly deformable elastomers as inclusions ameliorates the mechanical compliance caused by a rigid filler. The high dielectric constant and liquid feature of LMPs are suitable for soft sensors with high sensitivity and a large real-time dynamic detection range.

Real-time X-ray imaging of mouse cerebral microvessels in vivo using a pixel temporal averaging method.

Rodents are used extensively as animal models for the preclinical investigation of microvascular-related diseases. However, motion artifacts in currently available imaging methods preclude real-time observation of microvessels in vivo. In this paper, a pixel temporal averaging (PTA) method that enables real-time imaging of microvessels in the mouse brain in vivo is described.

Sensitive imaging of intact microvessels with synchrotron radiation.

Early stages of diseases, including stroke, hypertension, angiogenesis of tumours, spinal cord injuries, ., are closely associated with the lesions of microvasculature. Rodent models of human vascular diseases are extensively used for the preclinical investigation of the disease evolution and therapy with synchrotron radiation.

High-efficiency fast X-ray imaging detector development at SSRF.

Indirect X-ray imaging detectors consisting of scintillator screens, long-working-distance microscope lenses and scientific high-speed complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) cameras are usually used to realize fast X-ray imaging with white-beam synchrotron radiation. However, the detector efficiency is limited by the coupling efficiency of the long-working-distance microscope lenses, which is only about 5%. A long-working-distance microscope lenses system with a large numerical aperture (NA) is designed to increase the coupling efficiency.

Structural and topological nature of plasticity in sheared granular materials.

Upon mechanical loading, granular materials yield and undergo plastic deformation. The nature of plastic deformation is essential for the development of the macroscopic constitutive models and the understanding of shear band formation. However, we still do not fully understand the microscopic nature of plastic deformation in disordered granular materials.

Improving the efficiency of small-angle x-ray scattering computed tomography using the OSEM algorithm.

Small-angle x-ray scattering computed tomography (SAXS-CT) is a nondestructive method for the nanostructure analysis of heterogeneous materials. However, the limits of a long data acquisition time and vast amounts of data prevent SAXS-CT from becoming a routine experimental method in the applications of synchrotron radiation. In this study, the ordered subsets expectation maximization (OSEM) algorithm is introduced to improve the efficiency of SAXS-CT.

Monochromatic-beam-based dynamic X-ray microtomography based on OSEM-TV algorithm.

Monochromatic-beam-based dynamic X-ray computed microtomography (CT) was developed to observe evolution of microstructure inside samples. However, the low flux density results in low efficiency in data collection. To increase efficiency, reducing the number of projections should be a practical solution.

Visualization and Pathological Characteristics of Hepatic Alveolar Echinococcosis with Synchrotron-based X-ray Phase Sensitive Micro-tomography.

Propagation-based phase-contrast computed tomography (PPCT) utilizes highly sensitive phase-contrast technology applied to X-ray micro-tomography, especially with the extensive use of synchrotron radiation (SR). Performing phase retrieval (PR) on the acquired angular projections can enhance image contrast and enable quantitative imaging. We employed the combination of SR-PPCT and PR for the histopathological evaluation of hepatic alveolar echinococcosis (HAE) disease and demonstrated the validity and superiority of PR-based SR-PPCT.

Fourier-Transform Ghost Imaging with Hard X Rays.

Knowledge gained through x-ray crystallography fostered structural determination of materials and greatly facilitated the development of modern science and technology in the past century. However, it is only applied to crystalline structures and cannot resolve noncrystalline materials. Here we demonstrate a novel lensless Fourier-transform ghost imaging method with pseudothermal hard x rays that extends x-ray crystallography to noncrystalline samples.

Anisotropic shrinkage of insect air sacs revealed in vivo by X-ray microtomography.

Air sacs are thought to be the bellows for insect respiration. However, their exact mechanism of action as a bellows remains unclear. A direct way to investigate this problem is in vivo observation of the changes in their three-dimensional structures.

X-ray propagation-based equally sloped tomography for mouse brain.

Background: The outstanding functional importance of the brain implies a strong need for brain imaging modalities. However, the current imaging approaches that target the brain in rodents remain suboptimal.

Objective And Methods: In this paper, X-ray propagation-based phase contrast imaging combined with equally sloped tomography (PPCI-EST) was employed to nondestructively investigate the mouse brain.

3D elemental sensitive imaging by full-field XFCT.

X-ray fluorescence computed tomography (XFCT) is a stimulated emission tomography modality that maps the three-dimensional (3D) distribution of elements. Generally, XFCT is done by scanning a pencil-beam across the sample. This paper presents a feasibility study of full-field XFCT (FF-XFCT) for 3D elemental imaging.

Mouse coronary angiography in vivo using synchrotron radiation.

Purpose: To establish a method for mouse coronary angiography in vivo using synchrotron radiation, which is essential for physiological and pathological research on coronary diseases.

Methods: 1) The imaging parameters (e.g.

Phase retrieval for hard X-ray computed tomography of samples with hybrid compositions.

X-ray tomography of samples containing both weakly and strongly absorbing materials are necessary in material and biomedical imaging. Extending the validity of the phase-attenuation duality (PAD) method, the propagation-based phase-contrast computed tomography (PPCT) of a sample with hybrid compositions of both the light and dense components with 60 keV of synchrotron radiation is investigated. The experimental results show that the PAD-based PPCT is effective in imaging both the weakly and strongly absorbing components simultaneously.

Real-time imaging of mouse lenticulostriate artery following brain ischemia.

Detection of microvascular changes in experimental stroke models is limited by current technologies. Using state-of-the-art synchrotron radiation (SR), we explored the feasibility of detecting the normal morphological variations of lenticulostriate arteries (LSAs) and the changes to LSAs following middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO). Cerebral microvessels of ICR mice were imaged with synchrotron radiation microangiography using nonionic iodine and barium sulfate as contrast agents.

X-ray phase contrast imaging of cell isolation with super-paramagnetic microbeads.

Super-paramagnetic microbeads are widely used for cell isolation. Evaluation of the binding affinity of microbeads to cells using optical microscopy has been limited by its small scope. Here, magnetic property of microbeads was first investigated by using synchrotron radiation (SR) in-line x-ray phase contrast imaging (PCI).

Anti-VEGFR2-conjugated PLGA microspheres as an x-ray phase contrast agent for assessing the VEGFR2 expression.

The primary goal of this study was to evaluate the feasibility of using anti-vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 2 (VEGFR2)-conjugated poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) microspheres as an x-ray phase contrast agent to assess the VEGFR2 expression in cell cultures. The cell lines, mouse LLC (Lewis lung carcinoma) and HUVEC (human umbilical vein endothelial cell), were selected for cell adhesion studies. The bound PLGA microspheres were found to better adhere to LLC cells or HUVECs than unbound ones.

[Exploring the three-dimensional structure of dermal tissues of normal skin and scar in rat with synchrotron radiation X-ray imaging technology].

Objective: To compare the morphological difference between dermal tissue of normal skin and that of scar in rat, and to explore its structural pattern.

Methods: The full-thickness skin and the scar tissue formed 3 weeks after wound healing from SD rats were harvested as samples, which were prepared appropriately afterwards. Samples were scanned and imaged with synchrotron radiation technology, micro-CT, and phase-contrast imaging technology.

Bag-of-features based medical image retrieval via multiple assignment and visual words weighting.

Bag-of-features based approaches have become prominent for image retrieval and image classification tasks in the past decade. Such methods represent an image as a collection of local features, such as image patches and key points with scale invariant feature transform (SIFT) descriptors. To improve the bag-of-features methods, we first model the assignments of local descriptors as contribution functions, and then propose a novel multiple assignment strategy.

Microbubble-based synchrotron radiation phase contrast imaging: basic study and angiography applications.

The purpose of the study was to evaluate the feasibility of microbubbles as phase contrast imaging (PCI) agents for angiography applications. The hypothesis was that the introduction of microbubbles into tissue produces a significant change in the refractive index and highlights the lumen of the vessel in PCI. The absorption and phase contrast images of commercially available microbubbles were obtained and compared in vitro.