Providing a movie of the beating heart in a single prescribed plane, cine MRI has been widely use... more Providing a movie of the beating heart in a single prescribed plane, cine MRI has been widely used in clinical cardiac diagnosis, especially in the left ventricle (LV). Right ventricular (RV) morphology and function are also important for the diagnosis of cardiopulmonary diseases and serve as predictors for the long term outcome. The purpose of this study is to develop a self-gated free-breathing 3D imaging method for RV quantification and to evaluate its performance by comparing it with breath-hold 2D cine imaging in 7 healthy volunteers. Compared with 2D, the 3D RV functional measurements show a reduction of RV end-diastole volume (RVEDV) by 10%, increase of RV end-systole volume (RVESV) by 1.8%, reduction of RV systole volume (RVSV) by 21%, and reduction of RV ejection fraction (RVEF) by 12%. High correlations between the two techniques were found (RVEDV: 0.94; RVESV: 0.85; RVSV: 0.95; and RVEF: 0.89). Compared with 2D, the 3D image quality measurements show a small reduction in ...
Purpose To assess feasibility and reliability of electrocardiographic (ECG)-gated cardiac magneti... more Purpose To assess feasibility and reliability of electrocardiographic (ECG)-gated cardiac magnetic resonance (MR) imaging with a simplified reusable electrode design that does not touch the skin. Materials and Methods In this institutional review board-approved, HIPAA-compliant study, a silicon positioner held four ECG leads and detected ECG signals without requiring shaving, adhesive, or removal of the gown. The patient lies down on the device and the patient's weight ensures good lead contact against patient's gown; electrode gel that soaks through the gown provides electrical contact with the skin. It was tested at 1.5 T on 12 volunteers and 52 patients by using double inversion recovery, steady-state, fast gradient-echo time course perfusion, and delayed inversion recovery sequences. Paired Student t test was used to assess the significance of differences in durations to apply and remove ECG pad and standard leads. Image quality was assessed and rated on a four-point sca...
To assess the reproducibility of brain quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) in healthy subje... more To assess the reproducibility of brain quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) in healthy subjects and in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) on 1.5 and 3T scanners from two vendors. Ten healthy volunteers and 10 patients were scanned twice on a 3T scanner from one vendor. The healthy volunteers were also scanned on a 1.5T scanner from the same vendor and on a 3T scanner from a second vendor. Similar imaging parameters were used for all scans. QSM images were reconstructed using a recently developed nonlinear morphology-enabled dipole inversion (MEDI) algorithm with L1 regularization. Region-of-interest (ROI) measurements were obtained for 20 major brain structures. Reproducibility was evaluated with voxel-wise and ROI-based Bland-Altman plots and linear correlation analysis. ROI-based QSM measurements showed excellent correlation between all repeated scans (correlation coefficient R ≥ 0.97), with a mean difference of less than 1.24 ppb (healthy subjects) and 4.15 ppb (patients), and 95% limits of agreements of within -25.5 to 25.0 ppb (healthy subjects) and -35.8 to 27.6 ppb (patients). Voxel-based QSM measurements had a good correlation (0.64 ≤ R ≤ 0.88) and limits of agreements of -60 to 60 ppb or less. Brain QSM measurements have good interscanner and same-scanner reproducibility for healthy and MS subjects, respectively, on the systems evaluated in this study. J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2015.
Medical image computing and computer-assisted intervention : MICCAI ... International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention, 2013
Demyelinating diseases such as multiple sclerosis cause changes in the brain white matter microst... more Demyelinating diseases such as multiple sclerosis cause changes in the brain white matter microstructure. Multi-exponential T2 relaxometry is a powerful technology for detecting these changes by generating a myelin water fraction (MWF) map. However, conventional approaches are subject to noise and spatial in-consistence. We proposed a novel approach by imposing spatial consistency and smoothness constraints. We first introduce a two-Gaussian model to approximate the T2 distribution. Then an expectation-maximization framework is introduced with an edge-preserving prior incorporated. Three-dimensional multi-echo MRI data sets were collected from three patients and three healthy volunteers. MWF maps obtained using the conventional, Spatially Regularized Non-negative Least Squares (srNNLS) algorithm as well as the proposed algorithm are compared. The proposed method provides MWF maps with improved depiction of brain structures and significantly lower coefficients of variance in various ...
This study is based on the assumption that the off-flavour of pea proteins might be decreased usi... more This study is based on the assumption that the off-flavour of pea proteins might be decreased using the retention of volatile compounds by a mixture with another biopolymer. The partition of volatile compounds in an aqueous system containing pea protein and maltodextrins was followed under thermodynamic incompatibility conditions. Firstly, the phase diagram of the system was established. Then, the partition of aroma compounds between the phase rich in protein and the phase rich in maltodextrin was measured by SPME-GC-MS. There was a transfer of volatile compounds during phase separation. Variations of pH were also used to vary the retention of volatile compounds by proteins. The concentration of volatile compounds in protein solution at pH 2.4 was higher than at pH 7.2. It was possible to increase the transfer of volatile compounds from the phase rich in protein to the phase rich in maltodextrin using the effect of pH on protein denaturation.
Magnetic resonance in medicine : official journal of the Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine / Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, 2004
The purpose of this work was to investigate a new magnetization preparation scheme for navigator ... more The purpose of this work was to investigate a new magnetization preparation scheme for navigator steady-state free precession (SSFP) 3D coronary MR angiography (MRA) that executes the navigator and fat saturation pulses in steady state after the dummy RFs in order to minimize the delay between the magnetization preparation and the image echoes. Compared to the previous preparation scheme that executes the navigator and fat saturation pulses before the dummy RFs, the new scheme was found to provide more effective motion suppression, significantly improved blood-to-myocardium contrast-to-noise ratio (46%, P < 0.001) at slightly but insignificantly decreased blood signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) (2%, P = 0.73), significantly reduced fat SNR (32%, P < 0.001), and better overall image quality (P = 0.05; Wilcoxon paired sample signed rank test).
Magnetic resonance in medicine : official journal of the Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine / Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, 2004
Magnetization prepared segmented acquisition requires a view order that maximizes signal contrast... more Magnetization prepared segmented acquisition requires a view order that maximizes signal contrast during the acquisition of the central portion of k-space. Steady state free precession (SSFP) acquisition further requires a view order that minimizes changes in phase-encoding gradients from one repetition to the next in order to minimize eddy current artifacts. In this article, optimal view ordering schemes satisfying these two requirements are formulated and applied to inversion prepared 3D SSFP contrast-enhanced MR angiography (MRA). Experiments on phantoms and pigs demonstrated improved background suppression and reduced image artifacts.
Magnetic resonance in medicine : official journal of the Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine / Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, 2006
Motion artifacts and the lack of accurate detection of cardiac motion present a major challenge f... more Motion artifacts and the lack of accurate detection of cardiac motion present a major challenge for high-resolution cardiac MRI. Recently a multidimensional cardiac fat navigator was proposed to provide a fast and direct measurement of bulk cardiac motion. The objective of this study was to demonstrate the feasibility of employing the cardiac fat navigator in balanced steady-state free precession (SSFP) free-breathing 3D coronary MRA (CMRA). The cardiac fat navigator echo is optimized to provide both motion monitoring and epicardial fat suppression. Steady-state magnetization preparation, which is needed for SSFP CMRA, is optimized by comparing three preparation schemes: alpha/2, linear ramp with 20 RF pulses (20LR), and Kaiser ramp with six RF pulses (6KR). The present preliminary human study shows that the 6KR preparation provides better image quality than both the alpha/2 (P<0.0025) and the 20LR preparations (P<0.025) for free-breathing SSFP 3D CMRA (N=11).
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the use of (Gd-DTPA)-cystamine copolymers (GDCC), a nove... more The purpose of this study is to evaluate the use of (Gd-DTPA)-cystamine copolymers (GDCC), a novel biodegradable intravascular polydisulfide-based macromolecular gadolinium(III) contrast agent, for first-pass and steady-state contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) in a swine model. A breath-hold background-suppressed 3D MRA of the thorax was performed for first-pass imaging and repeated every 10 min after GDCC injection to monitor the tissue enhancement time course. A navigator-gated 3D MRA of the coronary arteries was performed during steady state following the first-pass imaging. Imaging with intravascular agent MS-325 approximately 1 h after GDCC injection was also included for comparison. Experimental results indicated that GDCC provided significant blood signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) improvement, approximately 1633% for first-pass and 33% for steady-state contrast-enhanced MRA. Compared to MS-325, GDCC provided similar blood enhancement for first-pass and steady-s...
T1 mapping is a promising quantitative tool for assessing diffuse cardiomyopathies. The purpose o... more T1 mapping is a promising quantitative tool for assessing diffuse cardiomyopathies. The purpose of this study is to quantify in vivo accuracy of the Modified Look-Locker Inversion Recovery (MOLLI) cardiac T1 mapping sequence against the spin echo gold standard, which has not been done previously. T1 accuracy of MOLLI was determined by comparing with the gold standard inversion recovery spin echo sequence in the calf muscle, and with a rapid inversion recovery fast spin echo sequence in the heart. T1 values were obtained with both conventional MOLLI fitting and MOLLI fitting with inversion efficiency correction. In the calf (n = 6), conventional MOLLI fitting produced inconsistent T1 values with error ranging from 8.0% at 90° to 17.3% at 30°. Modified MOLLI fitting with inversion efficiency correction improved error to under 7.4% at all flip angles. In the heart (n = 5), modified MOLLI fitting with inversion correction reduced T1 error to 5.5% from 14.0% by conventional MOLLI fitting...
ABSTRACT Cloud computing and E-learning are the inevitable trend of computational science in gene... more ABSTRACT Cloud computing and E-learning are the inevitable trend of computational science in general, and information systems and technologies in specific. However, there are not many studies on the adoption of cloud-based E-learning systems. Moreover, while there are many papers on information system adoption as well as customer innovativeness, the innovativeness and adoption in the same model seems to be rare in the literature. The study combines the extended Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT2) and consumer innovativeness on the adoption of E-learning systems based on cloud computing. A survey was conducted among 282 cloud-based E-learning participants and analyzed by structural equation modeling (SEM). The findings indicate that the adoption of cloud-based E-learning is influenced by performance expectancy, social influence, hedonic motivation, and habit. Interestingly, although innovativeness is not significant to use intention, it has a positive effect on E-learning usage which is relatively new in Vietnam.
2009 International Conference on Advanced Technologies for Communications, 2009
AbstractDHT-based P2P networks such as Chord, CAN, Pastry, etc can achieve exact query with char... more AbstractDHT-based P2P networks such as Chord, CAN, Pastry, etc can achieve exact query with characteristic of scalability, efficiency and fault-tolerate. However, in the case of complex queries such as range query or multiple-attribute query, pure DHT is not efficient since a ...
Advances in Natural Sciences: Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, 2012
Gold, silver and copper nanoparticles were prepared in clean and biologically-friendly liquids by... more Gold, silver and copper nanoparticles were prepared in clean and biologically-friendly liquids by laser ablation. The average size of nanoparticles ranges from 3 to 30 nm. These nanoparticles were used to fabricate nanostructured substrates for surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) measurement. Raman spectra were measured by a Micro-Raman spectrophotometer. The results show that gold, silver and copper nanoparticle substrates fabricated by our method are effective for SERS studies. SERS was also obtained when using gold, silver and copper nanoparticle colloid prepared by laser ablation.
The aim of this study was to develop a novel technique for acquiring 3-dimensional (3D) coronary ... more The aim of this study was to develop a novel technique for acquiring 3-dimensional (3D) coronary CINE magnetic resonance images with both water and fat visualization during free breathing and without external respiratory or cardiac gating. The implemented multi-echo hybrid 3D radial balanced Steady-State Free Precession (SSFP) sequence has an efficient data acquisition and is robust against motion. The k-space center along the slice encoding direction was repeatedly acquired to derive both respiratory and cardiac self-gating signals without an increase in scan time, enabling a free-breathing acquisition. The multi-echo acquisition allowed image reconstruction with water-fat separation, providing improved visualization of the coronary artery lumen. Ten healthy subjects were imaged successfully at 1.5 T, achieving a spatial resolution of 1.0 × 1.0 × 3.0 mm(3) and scan time of about 5 minutes. The proposed imaging technique provided coronary vessel depiction comparable to that obtained with conventional breath-hold imaging and navigator gated free-breathing imaging.
Methods for probing mechanical responses of mammalian cells to electrical excitations can improve... more Methods for probing mechanical responses of mammalian cells to electrical excitations can improve our understanding of cellular physiology and function. The electrical response of neuronal cells to applied voltages has been studied in detail, but less is known about their mechanical response to electrical excitations. Studies using atomic force microscopes (AFMs) have shown that mammalian cells exhibit voltage-induced mechanical deflections at nanometre scales, but AFM measurements can be invasive and difficult to multiplex. Here we show that mechanical deformations of neuronal cells in response to electrical excitations can be measured using piezoelectric PbZr(x)Ti(1-x)O(3) (PZT) nanoribbons, and we find that cells deflect by 1 nm when 120 mV is applied to the cell membrane. The measured cellular forces agree with a theoretical model in which depolarization caused by an applied voltage induces a change in membrane tension, which results in the cell altering its radius so that the pressure remains constant across the membrane. We also transfer arrays of PZT nanoribbons onto a silicone elastomer and measure mechanical deformations on a cow lung that mimics respiration. The PZT nanoribbons offer a minimally invasive and scalable platform for electromechanical biosensing.
Providing a movie of the beating heart in a single prescribed plane, cine MRI has been widely use... more Providing a movie of the beating heart in a single prescribed plane, cine MRI has been widely used in clinical cardiac diagnosis, especially in the left ventricle (LV). Right ventricular (RV) morphology and function are also important for the diagnosis of cardiopulmonary diseases and serve as predictors for the long term outcome. The purpose of this study is to develop a self-gated free-breathing 3D imaging method for RV quantification and to evaluate its performance by comparing it with breath-hold 2D cine imaging in 7 healthy volunteers. Compared with 2D, the 3D RV functional measurements show a reduction of RV end-diastole volume (RVEDV) by 10%, increase of RV end-systole volume (RVESV) by 1.8%, reduction of RV systole volume (RVSV) by 21%, and reduction of RV ejection fraction (RVEF) by 12%. High correlations between the two techniques were found (RVEDV: 0.94; RVESV: 0.85; RVSV: 0.95; and RVEF: 0.89). Compared with 2D, the 3D image quality measurements show a small reduction in ...
Purpose To assess feasibility and reliability of electrocardiographic (ECG)-gated cardiac magneti... more Purpose To assess feasibility and reliability of electrocardiographic (ECG)-gated cardiac magnetic resonance (MR) imaging with a simplified reusable electrode design that does not touch the skin. Materials and Methods In this institutional review board-approved, HIPAA-compliant study, a silicon positioner held four ECG leads and detected ECG signals without requiring shaving, adhesive, or removal of the gown. The patient lies down on the device and the patient's weight ensures good lead contact against patient's gown; electrode gel that soaks through the gown provides electrical contact with the skin. It was tested at 1.5 T on 12 volunteers and 52 patients by using double inversion recovery, steady-state, fast gradient-echo time course perfusion, and delayed inversion recovery sequences. Paired Student t test was used to assess the significance of differences in durations to apply and remove ECG pad and standard leads. Image quality was assessed and rated on a four-point sca...
To assess the reproducibility of brain quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) in healthy subje... more To assess the reproducibility of brain quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) in healthy subjects and in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) on 1.5 and 3T scanners from two vendors. Ten healthy volunteers and 10 patients were scanned twice on a 3T scanner from one vendor. The healthy volunteers were also scanned on a 1.5T scanner from the same vendor and on a 3T scanner from a second vendor. Similar imaging parameters were used for all scans. QSM images were reconstructed using a recently developed nonlinear morphology-enabled dipole inversion (MEDI) algorithm with L1 regularization. Region-of-interest (ROI) measurements were obtained for 20 major brain structures. Reproducibility was evaluated with voxel-wise and ROI-based Bland-Altman plots and linear correlation analysis. ROI-based QSM measurements showed excellent correlation between all repeated scans (correlation coefficient R ≥ 0.97), with a mean difference of less than 1.24 ppb (healthy subjects) and 4.15 ppb (patients), and 95% limits of agreements of within -25.5 to 25.0 ppb (healthy subjects) and -35.8 to 27.6 ppb (patients). Voxel-based QSM measurements had a good correlation (0.64 ≤ R ≤ 0.88) and limits of agreements of -60 to 60 ppb or less. Brain QSM measurements have good interscanner and same-scanner reproducibility for healthy and MS subjects, respectively, on the systems evaluated in this study. J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2015.
Medical image computing and computer-assisted intervention : MICCAI ... International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention, 2013
Demyelinating diseases such as multiple sclerosis cause changes in the brain white matter microst... more Demyelinating diseases such as multiple sclerosis cause changes in the brain white matter microstructure. Multi-exponential T2 relaxometry is a powerful technology for detecting these changes by generating a myelin water fraction (MWF) map. However, conventional approaches are subject to noise and spatial in-consistence. We proposed a novel approach by imposing spatial consistency and smoothness constraints. We first introduce a two-Gaussian model to approximate the T2 distribution. Then an expectation-maximization framework is introduced with an edge-preserving prior incorporated. Three-dimensional multi-echo MRI data sets were collected from three patients and three healthy volunteers. MWF maps obtained using the conventional, Spatially Regularized Non-negative Least Squares (srNNLS) algorithm as well as the proposed algorithm are compared. The proposed method provides MWF maps with improved depiction of brain structures and significantly lower coefficients of variance in various ...
This study is based on the assumption that the off-flavour of pea proteins might be decreased usi... more This study is based on the assumption that the off-flavour of pea proteins might be decreased using the retention of volatile compounds by a mixture with another biopolymer. The partition of volatile compounds in an aqueous system containing pea protein and maltodextrins was followed under thermodynamic incompatibility conditions. Firstly, the phase diagram of the system was established. Then, the partition of aroma compounds between the phase rich in protein and the phase rich in maltodextrin was measured by SPME-GC-MS. There was a transfer of volatile compounds during phase separation. Variations of pH were also used to vary the retention of volatile compounds by proteins. The concentration of volatile compounds in protein solution at pH 2.4 was higher than at pH 7.2. It was possible to increase the transfer of volatile compounds from the phase rich in protein to the phase rich in maltodextrin using the effect of pH on protein denaturation.
Magnetic resonance in medicine : official journal of the Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine / Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, 2004
The purpose of this work was to investigate a new magnetization preparation scheme for navigator ... more The purpose of this work was to investigate a new magnetization preparation scheme for navigator steady-state free precession (SSFP) 3D coronary MR angiography (MRA) that executes the navigator and fat saturation pulses in steady state after the dummy RFs in order to minimize the delay between the magnetization preparation and the image echoes. Compared to the previous preparation scheme that executes the navigator and fat saturation pulses before the dummy RFs, the new scheme was found to provide more effective motion suppression, significantly improved blood-to-myocardium contrast-to-noise ratio (46%, P < 0.001) at slightly but insignificantly decreased blood signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) (2%, P = 0.73), significantly reduced fat SNR (32%, P < 0.001), and better overall image quality (P = 0.05; Wilcoxon paired sample signed rank test).
Magnetic resonance in medicine : official journal of the Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine / Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, 2004
Magnetization prepared segmented acquisition requires a view order that maximizes signal contrast... more Magnetization prepared segmented acquisition requires a view order that maximizes signal contrast during the acquisition of the central portion of k-space. Steady state free precession (SSFP) acquisition further requires a view order that minimizes changes in phase-encoding gradients from one repetition to the next in order to minimize eddy current artifacts. In this article, optimal view ordering schemes satisfying these two requirements are formulated and applied to inversion prepared 3D SSFP contrast-enhanced MR angiography (MRA). Experiments on phantoms and pigs demonstrated improved background suppression and reduced image artifacts.
Magnetic resonance in medicine : official journal of the Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine / Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, 2006
Motion artifacts and the lack of accurate detection of cardiac motion present a major challenge f... more Motion artifacts and the lack of accurate detection of cardiac motion present a major challenge for high-resolution cardiac MRI. Recently a multidimensional cardiac fat navigator was proposed to provide a fast and direct measurement of bulk cardiac motion. The objective of this study was to demonstrate the feasibility of employing the cardiac fat navigator in balanced steady-state free precession (SSFP) free-breathing 3D coronary MRA (CMRA). The cardiac fat navigator echo is optimized to provide both motion monitoring and epicardial fat suppression. Steady-state magnetization preparation, which is needed for SSFP CMRA, is optimized by comparing three preparation schemes: alpha/2, linear ramp with 20 RF pulses (20LR), and Kaiser ramp with six RF pulses (6KR). The present preliminary human study shows that the 6KR preparation provides better image quality than both the alpha/2 (P<0.0025) and the 20LR preparations (P<0.025) for free-breathing SSFP 3D CMRA (N=11).
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the use of (Gd-DTPA)-cystamine copolymers (GDCC), a nove... more The purpose of this study is to evaluate the use of (Gd-DTPA)-cystamine copolymers (GDCC), a novel biodegradable intravascular polydisulfide-based macromolecular gadolinium(III) contrast agent, for first-pass and steady-state contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) in a swine model. A breath-hold background-suppressed 3D MRA of the thorax was performed for first-pass imaging and repeated every 10 min after GDCC injection to monitor the tissue enhancement time course. A navigator-gated 3D MRA of the coronary arteries was performed during steady state following the first-pass imaging. Imaging with intravascular agent MS-325 approximately 1 h after GDCC injection was also included for comparison. Experimental results indicated that GDCC provided significant blood signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) improvement, approximately 1633% for first-pass and 33% for steady-state contrast-enhanced MRA. Compared to MS-325, GDCC provided similar blood enhancement for first-pass and steady-s...
T1 mapping is a promising quantitative tool for assessing diffuse cardiomyopathies. The purpose o... more T1 mapping is a promising quantitative tool for assessing diffuse cardiomyopathies. The purpose of this study is to quantify in vivo accuracy of the Modified Look-Locker Inversion Recovery (MOLLI) cardiac T1 mapping sequence against the spin echo gold standard, which has not been done previously. T1 accuracy of MOLLI was determined by comparing with the gold standard inversion recovery spin echo sequence in the calf muscle, and with a rapid inversion recovery fast spin echo sequence in the heart. T1 values were obtained with both conventional MOLLI fitting and MOLLI fitting with inversion efficiency correction. In the calf (n = 6), conventional MOLLI fitting produced inconsistent T1 values with error ranging from 8.0% at 90° to 17.3% at 30°. Modified MOLLI fitting with inversion efficiency correction improved error to under 7.4% at all flip angles. In the heart (n = 5), modified MOLLI fitting with inversion correction reduced T1 error to 5.5% from 14.0% by conventional MOLLI fitting...
ABSTRACT Cloud computing and E-learning are the inevitable trend of computational science in gene... more ABSTRACT Cloud computing and E-learning are the inevitable trend of computational science in general, and information systems and technologies in specific. However, there are not many studies on the adoption of cloud-based E-learning systems. Moreover, while there are many papers on information system adoption as well as customer innovativeness, the innovativeness and adoption in the same model seems to be rare in the literature. The study combines the extended Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT2) and consumer innovativeness on the adoption of E-learning systems based on cloud computing. A survey was conducted among 282 cloud-based E-learning participants and analyzed by structural equation modeling (SEM). The findings indicate that the adoption of cloud-based E-learning is influenced by performance expectancy, social influence, hedonic motivation, and habit. Interestingly, although innovativeness is not significant to use intention, it has a positive effect on E-learning usage which is relatively new in Vietnam.
2009 International Conference on Advanced Technologies for Communications, 2009
AbstractDHT-based P2P networks such as Chord, CAN, Pastry, etc can achieve exact query with char... more AbstractDHT-based P2P networks such as Chord, CAN, Pastry, etc can achieve exact query with characteristic of scalability, efficiency and fault-tolerate. However, in the case of complex queries such as range query or multiple-attribute query, pure DHT is not efficient since a ...
Advances in Natural Sciences: Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, 2012
Gold, silver and copper nanoparticles were prepared in clean and biologically-friendly liquids by... more Gold, silver and copper nanoparticles were prepared in clean and biologically-friendly liquids by laser ablation. The average size of nanoparticles ranges from 3 to 30 nm. These nanoparticles were used to fabricate nanostructured substrates for surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) measurement. Raman spectra were measured by a Micro-Raman spectrophotometer. The results show that gold, silver and copper nanoparticle substrates fabricated by our method are effective for SERS studies. SERS was also obtained when using gold, silver and copper nanoparticle colloid prepared by laser ablation.
The aim of this study was to develop a novel technique for acquiring 3-dimensional (3D) coronary ... more The aim of this study was to develop a novel technique for acquiring 3-dimensional (3D) coronary CINE magnetic resonance images with both water and fat visualization during free breathing and without external respiratory or cardiac gating. The implemented multi-echo hybrid 3D radial balanced Steady-State Free Precession (SSFP) sequence has an efficient data acquisition and is robust against motion. The k-space center along the slice encoding direction was repeatedly acquired to derive both respiratory and cardiac self-gating signals without an increase in scan time, enabling a free-breathing acquisition. The multi-echo acquisition allowed image reconstruction with water-fat separation, providing improved visualization of the coronary artery lumen. Ten healthy subjects were imaged successfully at 1.5 T, achieving a spatial resolution of 1.0 × 1.0 × 3.0 mm(3) and scan time of about 5 minutes. The proposed imaging technique provided coronary vessel depiction comparable to that obtained with conventional breath-hold imaging and navigator gated free-breathing imaging.
Methods for probing mechanical responses of mammalian cells to electrical excitations can improve... more Methods for probing mechanical responses of mammalian cells to electrical excitations can improve our understanding of cellular physiology and function. The electrical response of neuronal cells to applied voltages has been studied in detail, but less is known about their mechanical response to electrical excitations. Studies using atomic force microscopes (AFMs) have shown that mammalian cells exhibit voltage-induced mechanical deflections at nanometre scales, but AFM measurements can be invasive and difficult to multiplex. Here we show that mechanical deformations of neuronal cells in response to electrical excitations can be measured using piezoelectric PbZr(x)Ti(1-x)O(3) (PZT) nanoribbons, and we find that cells deflect by 1 nm when 120 mV is applied to the cell membrane. The measured cellular forces agree with a theoretical model in which depolarization caused by an applied voltage induces a change in membrane tension, which results in the cell altering its radius so that the pressure remains constant across the membrane. We also transfer arrays of PZT nanoribbons onto a silicone elastomer and measure mechanical deformations on a cow lung that mimics respiration. The PZT nanoribbons offer a minimally invasive and scalable platform for electromechanical biosensing.
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