Limited-view photoacoustic imaging based on an iterative adaptive weighted filtered backprojection approach.

An iterative adaptive weighted filtered backprojection (FBP) approach was applied to our photoacoustic imaging (PAI) of the optical absorption in biological tissues from limited-view data. By using an image-based adaptive weighted PAI reconstruction, we can modify the defect of the artifacts degrading the quality of the image. Results of numerical simulations demonstrated that the proposed algorithm was superior to FBP in terms of both accuracy and robustness to noise.

Compressed sensing photoacoustic imaging based on fast alternating direction algorithm.

Photoacoustic imaging (PAI) has been employed to reconstruct endogenous optical contrast present in tissues. At the cost of longer calculations, a compressive sensing reconstruction scheme can achieve artifact-free imaging with fewer measurements. In this paper, an effective acceleration framework using the alternating direction method (ADM) was proposed for recovering images from limited-view and noisy observations.

Interaction between Tbx1 and Hoxd10 and connection with TGFβ-BMP signal pathway during kidney development.

Renal malformations are commonly found among patients carrying a 22q11 deletion which renders loss of Tbx1 gene, an important transcriptional factor implicated in a number of developmental processes. Smad1 is known to interact with Tbx1, but the exact mechanism remains unknown. In this study, we have measured the expression of Tbx1 in both murine and human tissues using RT-PCR, and analyzed its protein product and protein-protein interactions with Western blotting and immunoprecipitation assays.

[The research on time-frequency detection method of respiratory component in ballistocardiogram signal].

Based on the fact that the respiratory component modulates the cardiac cycle component in the ballistocardiogram (BCG) signal, we propose a method that detects respiratory with time-frequency analysis for the sitting ballistocardiography system. Firstly, we demodulated the BCG signal by using the variable frequency complex demodulation (VFCDM) to obtain the output for different center frequency of interest. Then we calculated the instantaneous frequencies and the instantaneous amplitudes by the time-frequency representation.

[Optimization of the ray-casting algorithm based on streaming single instruction multiple datum extension].

At present, ray-casting algorithm is the most widely used algorithm in the field of medical image visualization, and it can achieve the best image quality. Due to large amounts of computation like sampling, gradient, lighting and blending calculation, the cost of ray-casting algorithm is very large. The characteristic of Streaming single instruction multiple datum extensions (SSE) instruction--supporting vector computation--can satisfy the property of ray-casting algorithm well.

PhenOMIM: an OMIM-based secondary database purported for phenotypic comparison.

Phenotypic comparison may provide crucial information for obtaining insights into molecular interactions underlying various diseases. However, few attempts have been made to systematically analyze the phenotypes of hereditary disorders, mainly owing to the poor quality of text descriptions and lack of a unified system of descriptors. Here we present a secondary database, PHENOMIM, for translating the phenotypic data obtained from the Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM) database into a structured form.

Automated measurement method and tool of glomerular filtration rate using triphasic helical computed tomography images.

Objectives: To introduce an automated method to perform computed tomography-based glomerular filtration rate (CT GFR) measurement using the 2-point Patlak plot technique and triphasic helical CT images. We also evaluated the correlation between our automated method and the manual measurement results, as well as the results from cystatin C.

Methods: The present study included 25 patients without an acute renal disorder.

The CUBLAS and CULA based GPU acceleration of adaptive finite element framework for bioluminescence tomography.

In molecular imaging (MI), especially the optical molecular imaging, bioluminescence tomography (BLT) emerges as an effective imaging modality for small animal imaging. The finite element methods (FEMs), especially the adaptive finite element (AFE) framework, play an important role in BLT. The processing speed of the FEMs and the AFE framework still needs to be improved, although the multi-thread CPU technology and the multi CPU technology have already been applied.

Arterial radius estimation from microscopic data using a new algorithm for circle parameter estimation.

We develop and test a new method for automatic determination of vessel wall diameters from image stacks obtained using two-photon laser scanning microscopy (TPLSM) on viable arteries in perfusion flow chambers. To this extent, a new method is proposed for estimating the parameters of a circle describing the inner diameter of the blood vessels. The new method is based on the Hough transform and the observation that three points that are not colinear uniquely define a circle.

A trust region method in adaptive finite element framework for bioluminescence tomography.

Bioluminescence tomography (BLT) is an effective molecular imaging (MI) modality. Because of the ill-posedness, the inverse problem of BLT is still open. We present a trust region method (TRM) for BLT source reconstruction.

Effects of dielectric parameters of human body on radiation characteristics of ingestible wireless device at operating frequency of 430 MHz.

In order to assess the sensitivities of the radiation characteristics and the compliance of ingestible wireless device (IWD) in human body due to the uncertainty and intersubject variability of dielectric properties of human body tissues, the specific absorption rate (SAR) and radiation characteristics of the IWD in two realistic human body models with changed and unchanged dielectric values are quantitatively compared using the finite-difference time-domain method. Simulations are carried out in 13 scenarios where the IWD is placed in the center positions of abdomens in the two body models at the operating frequency of 430 MHz with three orientations. Results show that the variation of radiation intensity near the surface of abdomen is around 2.

[Genetic analysis of genitourinary malformations].

Objective: To analyze the expression of genes from chromosomal region 22q11.2 and assess the association between mutation(s) of particular gene(s) from this region and malformations of the urinary system.

Methods: Expression of rat homologs of 33 genes from above region was determined in kidney tissues derived from rats of different fetal development ages (E13, E15, E19) and adulthood with reverse transcriptase-PCR.

Histogram partition and interval thresholding for volumetric breast tissue segmentation.

It is possible to automatically decompose a volume into subvolumes based on histogram partition and interval thresholding. In practice, a histogram may assume unimodal or multimodal distributions. In this paper, we implement an automatic volumetric segmentation scheme by partitioning a histogram into intervals followed by interval thresholding.