A hydro-economic model of South Florida water resources system.

South Florida's water infrastructure and ecosystems are under pressure from socio-economic growth. Understanding the region's water resources management tradeoffs is essential for developing effective adaptation strategies to cope with emerging challenges such as climate change and sea level rise, which are expected to affect many other regions in the future. We describe a network-based hydro-economic optimization model of the system to investigate the tradeoffs, incorporating the economic value of water in urban and agricultural sectors and economic damages due to urban flooding while also accounting for water supply to sustain fragile ecosystems such as the Everglades and coastal estuaries.

The characterization of dynamic susceptibility effects.

Understanding and quantifying dynamic susceptibility contrast, which arises from compartmentalized magnetic field perturbers (e.g., deoxyhemoglobin, contrast agents) that affect the water around them, formed the basis of a significant part of the author's fMRI-related research in the early 90's.

Relative cerebral blood volume maps corrected for contrast agent extravasation significantly correlate with glioma tumor grade, whereas uncorrected maps do not.

Background And Purpose: Relative cerebral blood volume (rCBV) estimates for high-grade gliomas computed with dynamic susceptibility contrast MR imaging are artificially lowered by contrast extravasation through a disrupted blood-brain barrier. We hypothesized that rCBV corrected for agent leakage would correlate significantly with histopathologic tumor grade, whereas uncorrected rCBV would not.

Methods: We performed dynamic T2*-weighted perfusion MR imaging on 43 patients with a cerebral glioma after prebolus gadolinium diethylene triamine penta-acetic acid administration to diminish competing extravasation-induced T1 effects.

Mapping complex tissue architecture with diffusion spectrum magnetic resonance imaging.

Methods are presented to map complex fiber architectures in tissues by imaging the 3D spectra of tissue water diffusion with MR. First, theoretical considerations show why and under what conditions diffusion contrast is positive. Using this result, spin displacement spectra that are conventionally phase-encoded can be accurately reconstructed by a Fourier transform of the measured signal's modulus.

Fibrin-targeted contrast agent for improvement of in vivo acute thrombus detection with magnetic resonance imaging.

Objective: Plaque rupture leading to thrombosis and occlusion is a major source of acute coronary syndromes. Methods for accurate detection of thrombosis in veins or arteries may expand our capacity to predict clinical complications and guide therapeutic decisions. We sought to demonstrate the feasibility of in vivo acute thrombus detection using a fibrin-targeted gadolinium based magnetic resonance contrast agent (EP-1242).