Enhancement of temporal resolution and BOLD sensitivity in real-time fMRI using multi-slab echo-volumar imaging.

In this study, a new approach to high-speed fMRI using multi-slab echo-volumar imaging (EVI) is developed that minimizes geometrical image distortion and spatial blurring, and enables nonaliased sampling of physiological signal fluctuation to increase BOLD sensitivity compared to conventional echo-planar imaging (EPI). Real-time fMRI using whole brain 4-slab EVI with 286 ms temporal resolution (4mm isotropic voxel size) and partial brain 2-slab EVI with 136 ms temporal resolution (4×4×6 mm(3) voxel size) was performed on a clinical 3 Tesla MRI scanner equipped with 12-channel head coil. Four-slab EVI of visual and motor tasks significantly increased mean (visual: 96%, motor: 66%) and maximum t-score (visual: 263%, motor: 124%) and mean (visual: 59%, motor: 131%) and maximum (visual: 29%, motor: 67%) BOLD signal amplitude compared with EPI.

Mining in chemometrics.

Some of the increasingly spread data mining methods in chemometrics like exploratory data analysis, artificial neural networks, pattern recognition, and digital image processing with their highs and lows along with some of their representative applications are discussed. The development of more complex analytical instruments and the need to cope with larger experimental data sets have demanded for new approaches in data analysis, which have led to advanced methods in experimental design and data processing. Hypothesis-driven methods typified by inferential statistics have been gradually complemented or even replaced by data-driven model-free methods that seek for structure in data without reference to the experimental protocol or prior hypotheses.