Performed in this work are complex statistical, fractal and singular analyses of phase properties inherent to birefringence networks of protein crystals consisting of optically-thin layers prepared from blood plasma. Within the framework of a statistical approach, the authors have investigated values and ranges for changes of statistical moments of the first to the fourth orders that characterize coordinate distributions for phase shifts between orthogonal components of amplitudes inherent to laser radiation transformed by blood plasma with various pathologies. In the framework of the fractal approach, determined are the dimensions of self-similar coordinate phase distributions as well as features of transformation of logarithmic dependences for power spectra of these distributions for various types of hominal mammary gland pathologies.

Qualitative and quantitative analysis of trace heavy metals in aqueous environment are rapidly assuming significance along with the rapid development of industry. In this paper, gold microelectrode array (MEA) plated with mercury film was used for simultaneous voltammetric detection of zinc, cadmium, lead and copper ions in water. The electrochemical behavior and the actual surface area of the MEA were investigated by cyclic voltammetry in K3[Fe(CN)6]. Electrochemical impedance spectrum (EIS) was utilized to examine the deposition of mercury on the electrode surface. Based on anodic stripping voltammetry, mercury film-Au MEA was applied to the detection of heavy metals in artificial analyte, where good calibrate linearity was obtained for cadmium, lead and copper ions, but with zinc exhibiting poor linearity.

We used resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to determine whether there are any abnormalities in different frequency bands between amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations (ALFF) and fractional ALFF (fALFF) and between 10 early amnestic mild cognitive impairment (EMCI) patients and eight normal controls participating in the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI). We showed widespread difference in ALFF/fALFF between two frequency bands (slow-4: 0.027-0.073 Hz, slow-5: 0.01-0.027 Hz) in many brain areas including posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), suprasellar cistern (SC) and ambient cistern (AC). Compared to the normal controls, the EMCI patients showed increased ALFF values in PCu, cerebellum, occipital lobe and cerebellum posterior lobe in frequency band slow-4. While in frequency band slow-5, the EMCI patients showed decreased ALFF values in temporal lobe, left cerebrum and middle temporal gyrus5. Moreover, the EMCI patients showed increased fALFF values in frontal lobe and inferior frontal gyrus in band slow-5. While in frequency band slow-4, the EMCI patients showed decreased fALFF values in limbic lobe, cingulate gyrus and corpus callosum. These results demonstrated that EMCI patients had widespread abnormalities of amplitude of LFF in different frequency bands.

Gait recognition has been of great importance for disease diagnosis, rehabilitation assessment, as well as personal identification. Conventional gait analysis generally has to rely heavily on complex, expensive data acquisition and computing apparatus. To significantly simplify the evaluation process the mobile phone, which is one of the most indispensable electronic media in human daily life, was adopted as a pervasive tool for gait study, by using its digital imaging recording and analysis function. The basic procedure to record and quantify the video of human gait was illustrated and demonstrated through conceptual experiments. Potential applications were discussed. Some fundamental and practical issues raised in such flexible technology were pointed out. This method is expected to be widely used in future human analysis.

Cellular metabolism arouses the changes of substance in extracellular physiological microenvironment, and the metabolic level reflects the physiological state of cells. This paper developed a novel microphysiometer automatic analysis instrument based on multiparameter cell-based biosensors for quick drug analysis. This study included the multiparameter cell-based biosensors, cell culture chamber, drug auto-injection detection and analysis. The analysis instrument was capable of real-time detection for the acidic product and other chemical parameters generated by the cellular metabolism in the micro-volume. Finally, the paper employs human breast cancer cell line MCF-7 and drug experiments to verify the performance of microphysiometer, and study effects of different drugs on cell metabolism. Further, the research explores drug analysis method of the multiparameter microphysiometer. The results showed that the cell-based microphysiometer system provides a utility platform for rapid, long-term and automatic cell physiological environment detection and drug analysis.

In this paper, a hybrid electronic noses’ system (HENS) based on MOS-SAW detection units intended for lung cancer diagnosis is proposed. The MOS gas sensors are used to detect the VOC molecules with low molecular weight (LMW), and the SAW sensors are adopted for the detection of VOC with high molecular weight (HMW). Thus, the novel combination of these two kinds of gas sensors provides higher sensitivities to more of VOC species in breath than that of using only a single kind of sensor. The signals from MOS-SAW detection units are then recognized by a multi-model diagnosis method. Applying four algorithms, six models were established for diagnosis and tested by leave-one-out cross-validation method. The model by artificial neural network (ANN) was selected as the best model to analyze breath samples. 89 clinical samples were tested with MOS-SAW ANN diagnostic model, which takes the features derived from both the MOS and SAW sensors. It shows the highest sensitivity of 93.62%, and the highest selectivity of 83.37%. The study shows that, promisingly, our HENS is effective during screening of lung cancer patients, especially among the people of high risk.

A new rapid, specific and sensitive method for assay of recombinant CFP10-ESAT6 amalgamation proteins from Mycobacterium tuberculosis was proposed. The method used streptavidincoated magnetic beads to enrich the specific biotinylated anti-CFP10 antibody, then adopted a sandwich-type enzyme linked immunosorbent assay technology with two kinds of monoclonal antibodies: biotinylated anti-CFP10 antibody and HRP-labeled anti-CFP10 antibody to identify the target CFP10-ESAT6 proteins, and finally detected chemiluminescence intensity by a small home-made optical sensor. It was shown that, the corresponding chemiluminescence intensity had a good logarithmic linear response to the concentration of CFP10-ESAT6 proteins when ranging at 1 - 1000 ng/mL, and the correlation coefficient is 0.9937. The proposed method could detect the CFP10-ESAT6 proteins with low detection limit (1 ng/mL) and the detection time could be controlled within 45 min. Compared with commonly used detection methods of M. tuberculosis, this method was easy to operate, faster, and of higher sensitivity. The achievement of the quantitative detection of CFP10-ESAT6 proteins has important scientific significance and wide application prospects in tuberculosis control.

To compare the efficacy and safety of CO₂ laser plus 5-aminolevulinic acid (ALA) photodynamic therapy (PDT) with CO₂ laser for the treatment of multiple condyloma acuminatum (CA), 120 patients with multiple CA were allocated into two groups — combined group (CO₂ laser plus ALA-PDT, n = 60) and CO₂ laser group (CO₂ laser plus placebo-PDT, n = 60). After CO₂ laser, a 20% ALA or a placebo solution was applied to the CA area 3 h before illumination with red light (635 nm, 100mW/cm2, 80 J/cm2T. The treatment was repeated seven days after the first treatment if the lesions were not completely resolved. The complete response rate, recurrence rate and adverse effects in the two groups were analyzed. After two treatments, the complete response rates in the CO₂ laser group and combined group were 100% (509/509) and 100% (507/507) in the CA (p > 0:05), respectively. The recurrence rates in the CO₂ laser group and combined group were 44.9% (229/509) and 10.6% (54/507) in the CA (p < 0:05), respectively. The adverse effects in CO₂ laser group was more than that in combined group. The combined group is a more effective treatment for multiple CA compared with CO₂ laser group. T/S. Style the highlighted text as abstract.

Most high frequency (>15MHz) medical ultrasound systems are based on single element transducers mechanically scanned. These systems can provide images with excellent resolution. However, single element transducers are often limited by the fixed focal point and small depth of field. Annular arrays consisting of concentric rings of elements are focused electronically. These arrays are desirable to avoid the fixed focal point of the single element transducers and improve the depth of field. This paper reports the design, fabrication, and characterization of a 5-element equal-area annular array transducer. After electrical impedance matching, the average center frequency was 20MHz and -6 dB bandwidths ranged from 34 to 42%. The ILs for the matched annuli ranged from 6.1 to 26.5 dB.

Published 16 January 2012 Stroke and heart attack, which could be led by a kind of cerebrovascular and cardiovascular disease named as atherosclerosis, would seriously cause human morbidity and mortality. It is important for the early stage diagnosis and monitoring medical intervention of the atherosclerosis. Carotid stenosis is a classical atherosclerotic lesion with vessel wall narrowing down and accumulating plaques burden. The carotid artery of intima-media thickness (IMT) is a key indicator to the disease. With the development of computer assisted diagnosis technology, the imaging techniques, segmentation algorithms, measurement methods, and evaluation tools have made considerable progress. Ultrasound imaging, being real-time, economic, reliable, and safe, now seems to become a standard in vascular assessment methodology especially for the measurement of IMT. This review firstly attempts to discuss the clinical relevance of measurements in clinical practice at first, and then followed by the challenges that one has to face when approaching the segmentation of ultrasound images. Secondly, the commonly used methods for the IMT segmentation and measurement are presented. Thirdly, discussion and evaluation of different segmentation techniques are performed. An overview of summary and future perspectives is given finally.

Being an emerging body-shaping technology of fat cell disruption, high-intensity focused ultrasound has been investigated intensively in recent years for its favorable natures such as painlessness, safety and noninvasion. One of the major problems for the technology, however, is the overheating of transducers. In this study, we modified the transducer design in order to solve the overheating problem. We simulated the performance of the modified design by finite element analysis and fabricated the newly designed transducer. By measuring the actual performance data, we proved that the new design can effectively reduce temperature rise while keeping the acoustic intensity field unaffected.

Tissue elasticity and viscosity are always associated with pathological changes. As a new imaging method, ultrasound vibro-acoustic imaging is developed for quantitatively measuring tissue elasticity and viscosity which have important significance in early diagnosis of cancer. This paper developed an ultrasound vibro-acoustic imaging research platform mainly consisting of excitation part and detection part. The excitation transducer was focused at one location within the medium to generate harmonic vibration and shear wave propagation, and the detection transducer was applied to detect shear wave at other locations along shear wave propagation path using pulse-echo method. The received echoes were amplified, filtered, digitized and then processed by Kalman filter to estimate the vibration phase. According to the phase changes between different propagation locations, we estimated the shear wave speed, and then used it to calculate the tissue elasticity and viscosity. Preliminary phantom experiments based on this platform show results of phantom elasticity and viscosity close to literature values. Upcoming experiments are now in progress to obtain quantitative elasticity and viscosity in vitro tissue.

Response features of mitral cells in the olfactory bulb were examined using principal component analysis to determine whether they contain information about odorant stimuli. Using microwire electrode array to record from the olfactory bulb in freely breathing anesthetized rats, we recorded responses of different mitral cells to saturated vapor of anisole (1 M), carvone (1 M), isobutanol (1 M), citral (1 M) and isoamyl actate (1 M). The responses of single mitral cells to the same odorant varied over time. The response profiles showed similarity during certain amount of period, which indicated that the response was not only depended on odor itself but also associated with context. Furthermore, the responses of single mitral cell to different odorants were observed with difference in firing rate. In order to recognize different odorant stimuli, we apply four cells as a sensing group for classification using principal component analysis. Features of each cell’s response describing both temporal and frequency characteristics were selected. The results showed that five different single molecular odorants can be distinguished from each other. These data suggest that action potentials of mitral cells may play a role in odor coding.