Search results for: tumor image

Authors: Jiri Kysucan, Dusan Klos, Katherine Vomackova, Pavel Koranda, Martin Lovecek, Cestmir Neoral, Roman Havlik

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Aim: The prognosis of patients with pancreatic cancer is poor. The median of survival after establishing diagnosis is 3-11 months without surgical treatment, 13-20 months with surgical treatment depending on the disease stage, 5-year survival is less than 5%. Radical surgical resection remains the only hope of curing the disease. Early diagnosis with valid establishment of tumor resectability is, therefore, the most important aim for patients with pancreatic cancer. The aim of the work is to evaluate the contribution and define the role of 18F-FDG PET/CT in preoperative staging. Material and Methods: In 195 patients (103 males, 92 females, median age 66,7 years, 32-88 years) with a suspect pancreatic lesion, as part of the standard preoperative staging, in addition to standard examination methods (ultrasonography, contrast spiral CT, endoscopic ultrasonography, endoscopic ultrasonographic biopsy), a hybrid 18F-FDG PET/CT was performed. All PET/CT findings were subsequently compared with standard staging (CT, EUS, EUS FNA), with peroperative findings and definitive histology in the operated patients as reference standards. Interpretation defined the extent of the tumor according to TNM classification. Limitations of resectability were local advancement (T4) and presence of distant metastases (M1). Results: PET/CT was performed in a total of 195 patients with a suspect pancreatic lesion. In 153 patients, pancreatic carcinoma was confirmed and of these patients, 72 were not indicated for radical surgical procedure due to local inoperability or generalization of the disease. The sensitivity of PET/CT in detecting the primary lesion was 92.2%, specificity was 90.5%. A false negative finding in 12 patients, a false positive finding was seen in 4 cases, positive predictive value (PPV) 97.2%, negative predictive value (NPV) 76,0%. In evaluating regional lymph nodes, sensitivity was 51.9%, specificity 58.3%, PPV 58,3%, NPV 51.9%. In detecting distant metastases, PET/CT reached a sensitivity of 82.8%, specificity was 97.8%, PPV 96.9%, NPV 87.0%. PET/CT found distant metastases in 12 patients, which were not detected by standard methods. In 15 patients (15.6%) with potentially radically resectable findings, the procedure was contraindicated based on PET/CT findings and the treatment strategy was changed. Conclusion: PET/CT is a highly sensitive and specific method useful in preoperative staging of pancreatic cancer. It improves the selection of patients for radical surgical procedures, who can benefit from it and decreases the number of incorrectly indicated operations.

Keywords: cancer, PET/CT, staging, surgery

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Authors: Piyush Sharma, Devi Prasad Sharma, Sulabh Bansal

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Diseases are fairly common in fruits and vegetables because of the changing climatic and environmental circumstances. Crop diseases, which are frequently difficult to control, interfere with the growth and output of the crops. Accurate disease detection and timely disease control measures are required to guarantee high production standards and good quality. In India, apples are a common crop that may be afflicted by a variety of diseases on the fruit, stem, and leaves. It is fungi, bacteria, and viruses that trigger the early symptoms of leaf diseases. In order to assist farmers and take the appropriate action, it is important to develop an automated system that can be used to detect the type of illnesses. Machine learning-based image processing can be used to: this research suggested a system that can automatically identify diseases in apple fruit and apple plants. Hence, this research utilizes the hybrid SVM-RBN model. As a consequence, the model may produce results that are more effective in terms of accuracy, precision, recall, and F1 Score, with respective values of 96%, 99%, 94%, and 93%.

Keywords: fruit plant disease, crop disease, machine learning, image processing, SVM-RBN

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Authors: Cosmin-Gabriel Porumb-Ghiurco, Dumitrana Fiț-Iordache, Szőke Árpád

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The literature incorporating geographical or tourist-geographical themes and explicit references to the Carpathian area is extremely abundant. Through this paper, we attempt to “undermine” the traditional, tourist-geographical approaches of the Carpathian Arch by targeting an aspect often regarded as marginal but which, if examined, even only empirically, takes the form of a vast problem with multidisciplinary vocation. Therefore, we propose a more extravagant yet pro-touristic approach to the Romanian Carpathian geo-space. Consequently, the explicit goal of this approach consists precisely in broadening the multidisciplinary, essentially geographic scope of the research, the vision and mental representation of the Carpathian area by advancing a lever that would symbolize a different kind of unification between geography and tourism on a more intimate, subtle, mythological and archetypal level. The spiritual and mercantile dimensions of the tourism field in general and of the local Carpathian tourism can meld harmoniously together in order to create a common territorial reality of referral and favorable perspectives for the consolidation of their symbiotic relationship.

Keywords: tourist image, mythical geography, collective imaginary, spiritual patrimony, Carpathians

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Authors: Mohammad Hossain Mohammadi, Saif Al Ameri, Sana Ziaei, Jinane Mounsef

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Automated enumeration of the number of hand fingers is widely used in several motion gaming and distance control applications, and is discussed in several published papers as a starting block for hand recognition systems. The automated finger enumeration technique should not only be accurate, but also must have a fast response for a moving-picture input. The high performance of video in motion games or distance control will inhibit the program’s overall speed, for image processing software such as Matlab need to produce results at high computation speeds. Since an automated finger enumeration with minimum error and processing time is desired, a comparative study between two finger enumeration techniques is presented and analyzed in this paper. In the pre-processing stage, various image processing functions were applied on a real-time video input to obtain the final cleaned auto-cropped image of the hand to be used for the two techniques. The first technique uses the known morphological tool of skeletonization to count the number of skeleton’s endpoints for fingers. The second technique uses a radial distance method to enumerate the number of fingers in order to obtain a one dimensional hand representation. For both discussed methods, the different steps of the algorithms are explained. Then, a comparative study analyzes the accuracy and speed of both techniques. Through experimental testing in different background conditions, it was observed that the radial distance method was more accurate and responsive to a real-time video input compared to the skeletonization method. All test results were generated in Matlab and were based on displaying a human hand for three different orientations on top of a plain color background. Finally, the limitations surrounding the enumeration techniques are presented.

Keywords: comparative study, hand recognition, fingertip detection, skeletonization, radial distance, Matlab

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Authors: A. C. Galvis-Castro, R. D. Tovar, R. Salgado, M. Prezzi

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It is generally accepted that the shaft capacity of piles in the sand is lower for tensile loading that for compressive loading. So far, very little attention has been paid to the role of the influence of the installation method on the tensile to compressive shaft capacity ratio. The objective of this paper is to analyze the effect of installation method on the tensile to compressive shaft capacity of piles in dense sand as observed in tests on half-circular model pile tests in a half-circular calibration chamber with digital image correlation (DIC) capability. Model piles are either monotonically jacked, jacked with multiple strokes or pre-installed into the dense sand samples. Digital images of the model pile and sand are taken during both the installation and loading stages of each test and processed using the DIC technique to obtain the soil displacement and strain fields. The study provides key insights into the mobilization of shaft resistance in tensile and compressive loading for both displacement and non-displacement piles.

Keywords: digital image correlation, piles, sand, shaft resistance

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Authors: Thanh Noi Phan, Martin Kappas, Jan Degener

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The currently launched Sentinel 2 (S2) satellite (June, 2015) bring a great potential and opportunities for land use/cover map applications, due to its fine spatial resolution multispectral as well as high temporal resolutions. So far, there are handful studies using S2 real data for land cover classification. Especially in northern Vietnam, to our best knowledge, there exist no studies using S2 data for land cover map application. The aim of this study is to provide the preliminary result of land cover classification using Sentinel -2 data with a rising state – of – art classifier, Random Forest. A case study with heterogeneous land use/cover in the eastern of Hanoi Capital – Vietnam was chosen for this study. All 10 spectral bands of 10 and 20 m pixel size of S2 images were used, the 10 m bands were resampled to 20 m. Among several classified algorithms, supervised Random Forest classifier (RF) was applied because it was reported as one of the most accuracy methods of satellite image classification. The results showed that the red-edge and shortwave infrared (SWIR) bands play an important role in land cover classified results. A very high overall accuracy above 90% of classification results was achieved.

Keywords: classify algorithm, classification, land cover, random forest, sentinel 2, Vietnam

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Authors: M. C. Paliwal, A. K. Jain, S. K. Katiyar

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Classification of satellite imagery is very important for the assessment of its accuracy. In order to determine the accuracy of the classified image, usually the assumed-true data are derived from ground truth data using Global Positioning System. The data collected from satellite imagery and ground truth data is then compared to find out the accuracy of data and error matrices are prepared. Overall and individual accuracies are calculated using different methods. The study illustrates advanced classification and accuracy assessment of land use/land cover mapping using satellite imagery. IRS-1C-LISS IV data were used for classification of satellite imagery. The satellite image was classified using the software in fourteen classes namely water bodies, agricultural fields, forest land, urban settlement, barren land and unclassified area etc. Classification of satellite imagery and calculation of accuracy was done by using ERDAS-Imagine software to find out the best method. This study is based on the data collected for Bhopal city boundaries of Madhya Pradesh State of India.

Keywords: resolution, accuracy assessment, land use mapping, satellite imagery, ground truth data, error matrices

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Authors: Mingxin Li, Liya Ni

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Autonomous parking is a valuable feature applicable to many robotics applications such as tour guide robots, UV sanitizing robots, food delivery robots, and warehouse robots. With auto-parking, the robot will be able to park at the charging zone and charge itself without human intervention. As compared to self-driving vehicles, auto-parking is more challenging for a small-scale mobile robot only equipped with a front camera due to the camera view limited by the robot’s height and the narrow Field of View (FOV) of the inexpensive camera. In this research, auto-parking of a small-scale mobile robot with a front camera only was achieved in a four-step process: Firstly, transfer learning was performed on the AlexNet, a popular pre-trained convolutional neural network (CNN). It was trained with 150 pictures of empty parking slots and 150 pictures of occupied parking slots from the view angle of a small-scale robot. The dataset of images was divided into a group of 70% images for training and the remaining 30% images for validation. An average success rate of 95% was achieved. Secondly, the image of detected empty parking space was processed with edge detection followed by the computation of parametric representations of the boundary lines using the Hough Transform algorithm. Thirdly, the positions of the entrance point and center of available parking space were predicted based on the robot kinematic model as the robot was driving closer to the parking space because the boundary lines disappeared partially or completely from its camera view due to the height and FOV limitations. The robot used its wheel speeds to compute the positions of the parking space with respect to its changing local frame as it moved along, based on its kinematic model. Lastly, the predicted entrance point of the parking space was used as the reference for the motion control of the robot until it was replaced by the actual center when it became visible again by the robot. The linear and angular velocities of the robot chassis center were computed based on the error between the current chassis center and the reference point. Then the left and right wheel speeds were obtained using inverse kinematics and sent to the motor driver. The above-mentioned four subtasks were all successfully accomplished, with the transformed learning, image processing, and target prediction performed in MATLAB, while the motion control and image capture conducted on a self-built small scale differential drive mobile robot. The small-scale robot employs a Raspberry Pi board, a Pi camera, an L298N dual H-bridge motor driver, a USB power module, a power bank, four wheels, and a chassis. Future research includes three areas: the integration of all four subsystems into one hardware/software platform with the upgrade to an Nvidia Jetson Nano board that provides superior performance for deep learning and image processing; more testing and validation on the identification of available parking space and its boundary lines; improvement of performance after the hardware/software integration is completed.

Keywords: autonomous parking, convolutional neural network, image processing, kinematics-based prediction, transfer learning

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Authors: Elizabeth Malebogo Mosepele

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Road transport has become increasingly common in the world; people rely on road networks for transportation purpose on a daily basis. However, environmental impact of roads on surrounding landscapes extends their potential effects even further. This study investigates the impact of road network on natural vegetation. The study will provide baseline knowledge regarding roadside vegetation and would be helpful in future for conservation of biodiversity along the road verges and improvements of road verges. The general hypothesis of this study is that the amount and condition of road side vegetation could be explained by road network conditions. Remote sensing techniques were used to analyze vegetation conditions. Landsat 8 OLI image was used to assess vegetation cover condition. NDVI image was generated and used as a base from which land cover classes were extracted, comprising four categories viz. healthy vegetation, degraded vegetation, bare surface, and water. The classification of the image was achieved using the supervised classification technique. Road networks were digitized from Google Earth. For observed data, transect based quadrats of 50*50 m were conducted next to road segments for vegetation assessment. Vegetation condition was related to road network, with the multinomial logistic regression confirming a significant relationship between vegetation condition and road network. The null hypothesis formulated was that 'there is no variation in vegetation condition as we move away from the road.' Analysis of vegetation condition revealed degraded vegetation within close proximity of a road segment and healthy vegetation as the distance increase away from the road. The Chi Squared value was compared with critical value of 3.84, at the significance level of 0.05 to determine the significance of relationship. Given that the Chi squared value was 395, 5004, the null hypothesis was therefore rejected; there is significant variation in vegetation the distance increases away from the road. The conclusion is that the road network plays an important role in the condition of vegetation.

Keywords: Chi squared, geographic information system, multinomial logistic regression, remote sensing, road side vegetation

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Authors: Elvin P. Chizenga, Heidi Abrahamse

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Cancer cell resistance to therapy is the main cause of treatment failures and the poor prognosis of cancer convalescence. The progression of cervical cancer to other parts of the genitourinary system and the reported recurrence rates are overwhelming. Current treatments, including surgery, chemo and radiation have been inefficient in eradicating the tumor cells. These treatments are also associated with poor prognosis and reduced quality of life, including fertility loss. This has inspired the need for the development of new treatment modalities to eradicate cervical cancer successfully. Photodynamic Therapy (PDT) is a modern treatment modality that induces cell death by photochemical interactions of light and a photosensitizer, which in the presence of molecular oxygen, yields a set of chemical reactions that generate Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) and other free radical species causing cell damage. Enhancing PDT using modified drug delivery can increase the concentration of the photosensitizer in the tumor cells, and this has the potential to maximize its therapeutic efficacy. In cervical cancer, all infected cells constitutively express genes of the E6 and E7 HPV viral oncoproteins, resulting in high concentrations of E6 and E7 in the cytoplasm. This provides an opportunity for active targeting of cervical cancer cells using immune-mediated drug delivery to maximize therapeutic efficacy. The use of nanoparticles in PDT has also proven effective in enhancing therapeutic efficacy. Gold nanoparticles (AuNps) in particular, are explored for their use in biomedicine due to their biocompatibility, low toxicity, and enhancement of drug uptake by tumor cells. In this present study, a biomolecule comprising of AuNPs, anti-E6 monoclonal antibodies, and Aluminium Phthalocyanine photosensitizer was synthesized for use in targeted PDT of cervical cancer. The AuNp-Anti-E6-Sulfonated Aluminium Phthalocyanine mix (AlPcSmix) photosensitizing biomolecule was synthesized by coupling AuNps and anti-E6 monoclonal antibodies to the AlPcSmix via Polyethylene Glycol (PEG) chemical links. The final product was characterized using Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM), Zeta Potential, Uv-Vis Spectrophotometry, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), and X-ray diffraction (XRD), to confirm its chemical structure and functionality. To observe its therapeutic role in treating cervical cancer, cervical cancer cells, HeLa cells were seeded in 3.4 cm² diameter culture dishes at a concentration of 5x10⁵ cells/ml, in vitro. The cells were treated with varying concentrations of the photosensitizing biomolecule and irradiated using a 673.2 nm wavelength of laser light. Post irradiation cellular responses were performed to observe changes in morphology, viability, proliferation, cytotoxicity, and cell death pathways induced. Dose-Dependent response of the cells to treatment was demonstrated as significant morphologic changes, increased cytotoxicity, and decreased cell viability and proliferation This study presented a synthetic biomolecule for targeted PDT of cervical cancer. The study suggested that PDT using this AuNp- Anti-E6- AlPcSmix photosensitizing biomolecule is a very effective treatment method for the eradication of cervical cancer cells, in vitro. Further studies in vivo need to be conducted to support the use of this biomolecule in treating cervical cancer in clinical settings.

Keywords: anti-E6 monoclonal antibody, cervical cancer, gold nanoparticles, photodynamic therapy

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Authors: Philip Friedlander, John Rutledge, Jason Suh

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Inhibition of programmed death-1 (PD-1) or its ligand PD-L1 confers therapeutic efficacy in a wide range of solid tumor malignancies. Primary or acquired resistance can develop through activation of immunosuppressive immune cells such as tumor-associated macrophages. The renin angiotensin system (RAS) systemically regulates fluid and sodium hemodynamics, but components are expressed on and regulate the activity of immune cells, particularly of myeloid lineage. We hypothesized that inhibition of RAS would improve the efficacy of PD-1/PD-L-1 treatment. A retrospective analysis was performed through a chart review of patients with solid metastatic malignancies treated with a PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitor between 1/2013 and 6/2019 at Valley Hospital, a community hospital in New Jersey, USA. Efficacy was determined by medical oncologist documentation of clinical benefit in visit notes and by the duration of time on immunotherapy treatment. The primary endpoint was the determination of efficacy differences in patients treated with an inhibitor of RAS ( ace inhibitor, ACEi, or angiotensin blocker, ARB) compared to patients not treated with these inhibitors. To control for broader antihypertensive effects, efficacy as a function of treatment with beta blockers was assessed. 173 patients treated with PD-1/PD-L-1 inhibitors were identified of whom 52 were also treated with an ACEi or ARB. Chi-square testing revealed a statistically significant relationship between being on an ACEi or ARB and efficacy to PD-1/PD-L-1 therapy (p=0.001). No statistically significant relationship was seen between patients taking or not taking beta blocker antihypertensives (p= 0.33). Kaplan-Meier analysis showed statistically significant improvement in the duration of therapy favoring patients concomitantly treated with ACEi or ARB compared to patients not exposed to antihypertensives and to those treated with beta blockers. Logistic regression analysis revealed that age, gender, and cancer type did not have significant effects on the odds of experiencing clinical benefit (p=0.74, p=0.75, and p=0.81, respectively). We conclude that retrospective analysis of the treatment of patients with solid metastatic tumors with anti-PD-1/PD-L1 in a community setting demonstrates greater clinical benefit in the context of concomitant ACEi or ARB inhibition, irrespective of gender or age. This data supports the development of prospective assessment through randomized clinical trials.

Keywords: angiotensin, cancer, immunotherapy, PD-1, efficacy

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Authors: Shishay T. Kidanu

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The study area is located in Southwestern Missouri and is mainly underlain by Mississippian Age limestone which is highly susceptible to karst processes. The area is known for the presence of various karst features like caves, springs and more importantly Sinkholes. Sinkholes are one of the most common karst features and the primary hazard in karst areas. Investigating the subsurface structure and development mechanism of existing sinkholes enables to understand their long-term impact and chance of reactivation and also helps to provide effective mitigation measures. In this study ERT (Electrical Resistivity Tomography), MASW (Multichannel Analysis of Surface Waves) and borehole control data have been used to image the subsurface structure and investigate the development mechanism of a sinkhole in Southwestern Missouri. The study shows that the main process responsible for the development of the sinkhole is the downward piping of fine grained soils. Furthermore, the study reveals that the sinkhole developed along a north-south oriented vertical joint set characterized by a vertical zone of water seepage and associated fine grained soil piping into preexisting fractures.

Keywords: ERT, Karst, MASW, sinkhole

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Authors: Nandhakumar Elumalai, Purushothaman Ayyakannu, Sachidanandam T. Panchanatham

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Background: Understanding the basic mechanisms and factors underlying the tumor growth and invasion has gained attention in recent times. The processes of angiogenesis and apoptosis are known to play a vital role in various stages of cancer. The vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is well established as one of the key regulators of tumor angiogenesis while MMPs are known for their exclusive ability to degrade ECM. Objective: The present study was designed to evaluate the pro apoptotic and anti angiogenic activity of the herbal formulation Shemamruthaa. The anticancer activity of Shemamruthaa was tested in breast cancer cell line (MCF-7). Results of MTT, trypan blue and flow cytometric analysis of apoptotis suggested that Shemamruthaa can induce cytotoxicity in cancer cells, in a concentration- and time dependent manner and induce apoptosis. With these results, we further evaluated the antiangiogenic and pro-apoptotic activities of Shemamruthaa in DMBA induced mammary carcinoma in Sprague Dawley rats. Flavono tumour was induced in 8-week-old Sprague-Dawley rats by gastric intubation of 25 mg DMBA in 1ml olive oil. After 90 days of induction period, the rats were orally administered with Shemamruthaa (400 mg/kg body wt) for 45 days. Treatment with the drug SM significantly modulated the expression of p53, MMP-2, MMP-3, MMP-9 and VEGF by means of its anti angiogenic and protease inhibiting activity. Conclusion: Based on these results, it might be concluded that the formulation, Shemamruthaa, constituted of dried flowers of Hibiscus rosa-sinensis, fruits of Emblica officinalis, and honey has been found to exhibit pronounced antiproliferative and apoptotic effects. This enhanced anticancer effect of Shemamruthaa might be attributed to the synergistic action of polyphenols such as flavonoids, tannins, alkaloids, glycosides, saponins, steroids, terpenoids, vitamin C, niacin, pyrogallol, hydroxymethylfurfural, trilinolein, and other compounds present in the formulation. Collectively, these results demonstrate that Shemamruthaa holds potential to be developed as a potent chemotherapeutic agent against mammary carcinoma.

Keywords: Shemamruthaa, flavonoids, MCF-7 cell line, mammary cancer

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Authors: Nour Eldin Afyouni, Hassan Assoum, Kamel Abed-Meraim, Anas Sakout

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The acoustic of an impinging jet holds significant importance in the engineering field. In HVAC systems, the jet impingement, in some cases, generates noise that destroys acoustic comfort. This paper presents an experimental study of a rectangular air jet impinging on a slotted plate to investigate the correlation between sound emission and turbulence dynamics. The experiment was conducted with an impact ratio L/H = 4 and a Reynolds number Re = 4700. The survey shows that coherent structures within the impinging jet are responsible for self-sustaining tone production. To achieve this, a specific experimental setup consisting of two simultaneous Stereoscopic Particle Image Velocimetry (S-PIV) measurements was developed to track vortical structures both before and after the plate, in addition to acoustic measurements. The results reveal a significant correlation between acoustic waves and the passage of coherent structures. Variations in the arrangement of vortical structures between the upstream and downstream sides of the plate were observed. This analysis of flow dynamics can enhance our understanding of slot noise.

Keywords: impinging jet, coherent structures, SPIV, aeroacoustics

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Authors: Kashika P. H.

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The development of computer vision systems has been greatly aided by the efficient and precise detection of images and videos. Although the ability to recognize and comprehend images is a strength of the human brain, employing technology to tackle this issue is exceedingly challenging. In the past few years, the use of Deep Learning algorithms to treat object detection has dramatically expanded. One of the key issues in the realm of image recognition is the recognition and detection of certain notable people from randomly acquired photographs. Face recognition uses a way to identify, assess, and compare faces for a variety of purposes, including user identification, user counting, and classification. With the aid of an accessible deep learning-based API, this article intends to recognize various faces of people and their facial descriptors more accurately. The purpose of this study is to locate suitable individuals and deliver accurate information about them by using the Amazon Rekognition system to identify a specific human from a vast image dataset. We have chosen the Amazon Rekognition system, which allows for more accurate face analysis, face comparison, and face search, to tackle this difficulty.

Keywords: Amazon rekognition, API, deep learning, computer vision, face detection, text detection

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Authors: Omer Cahana, Ofer Levi, Maya Herman

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Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is a lengthy medical scan that stems from a long acquisition time. Its length is mainly due to the traditional sampling theorem, which defines a lower boundary for sampling. However, it is still possible to accelerate the scan by using a different approach such as Compress Sensing (CS) or Parallel Imaging (PI). These two complementary methods can be combined to achieve a faster scan with high-fidelity imaging. To achieve that, two conditions must be satisfied: i) the signal must be sparse under a known transform domain, and ii) the sampling method must be incoherent. In addition, a nonlinear reconstruction algorithm must be applied to recover the signal. While the rapid advances in Deep Learning (DL) have had tremendous successes in various computer vision tasks, the field of MRI reconstruction is still in its early stages. In this paper, we present an end-to-end method for MRI reconstruction from k-space to image. Our method contains two parts. The first is sensitivity map estimation (SME), which is a small yet effective network that can easily be extended to a variable number of coils. The second is reconstruction, which is a top-down architecture with lateral connections developed for building high-level refinement at all scales. Our method holds the state-of-art fastMRI benchmark, which is the largest, most diverse benchmark for MRI reconstruction.

Keywords: magnetic resonance imaging, image reconstruction, pyramid network, deep learning

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Authors: Raquel Rossini, Edelvais Caldeira

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The aim of this work is to investigate the motivation for the metaphorical uses of two verb combinations: come out and take over. Drawing from cognitive semantics theories, image schemas and metaphors, it was attempted to demonstrate that: a) the metaphorical senses of both 'come out' and 'take over' extend from both the verbs and the particles central (spatial) senses in such verb combinations; and b) the particles 'out' and 'over' also contribute to the whole meaning of the verb combinations. In order to do so, a random selection of 579 concordance lines for come out and 1,412 for take over was obtained from the Corpus of Contemporary American English – COCA. One of the main procedures adopted in the present work was the establishment of verb and particle central senses. As per the research questions addressed in this study, they are as follows: a) how does the identification of trajector and landmark help reveal patterns that contribute for the identification of the semantic network of these two verb combinations?; b) what is the relationship between the schematic structures attributed to the particles and the metaphorical uses found in empirical data?; and c) what conceptual metaphors underlie the mappings from the source to the target domains? The results demonstrated that not only the lexical verbs come and take, but also the particles out and over play an important whole in the different meanings of come out and take over. Besides, image schemas and conceptual metaphors were found to be helpful in order to establish the motivations for the metaphorical uses of these linguistic structures.

Keywords: cognitive linguistics, English syntax, multi-word verbs, prepositions

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Authors: Kazumoto Tanaka, Takayuki Fujino

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Sports games conducted as a group are a form of therapeutic exercise for aged people with decreased strength and for people suffering from permanent damage of stroke and other conditions. However, it is difficult for patients with different athletic abilities to play a game on an equal footing. This study specifically examines a computer video game designed for therapeutic exercise, and a game system with support given depending on athletic ability. Thereby, anyone playing the game can participate equally. This video-game, to be specific, is a popular variant of balloon volleyball, in which players hit a balloon by hand before it falls to the floor. In this game system, each player plays the game watching a monitor on which the system displays tailor-made video-game images adjusted to the person’s athletic ability, providing players with player-adaptive assist support. We have developed a multiplayer game system with an image generation technique for the tailor-made video-game and conducted tests to evaluate it.

Keywords: therapeutic exercise, computer video game, disability-adaptive assist, tailor-made video-game image

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Authors: Odete Paiva, Cláudia Seabra, José Luís Abrantes, Fernanda Cravidão

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There is a clear ‘cult of authenticity’, at least in modern Western society. So, there is a need to analyze the tourist perception of authenticity, bearing in mind the destination, its attractions, motivations, cultural distance, and contact with other tourists. Our study seeks to investigate the relationship among cultural values, image, sense of place, perception of authenticity and behavior intentions at World Heritage Historic Centers. From a theoretical perspective, few researches focus on the impact of cultural values, image and sense of place on authenticity and intentions behavior in tourists. The intention of this study is to help close this gap. A survey was applied to collect data from tourists visiting two World Heritage Historic Centers – Guimarães in Portugal and Cordoba in Spain. Data was analyzed in order to establish a structural equation model (SEM). Discussion centers on the implications of model to theory and managerial development of tourism strategies. Recommendations for destinations managers and promoters and tourist organizations administrators are addressed.

Keywords: authenticity perception, behavior intentions, cultural tourism, cultural values, world heritage historic centers

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Authors: S. Sarumathi, C. Deepadharani, Garimella Archana, S. Dakshayani, D. Logeshwaran, D. Jayakumar, Vijayarangan Natarajan

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The need of the hour for the customers who use a dial-up or a low broadband connection for their internet services is to access HD video data. This can be achieved by developing a new video format using H. 265. This is the latest video codec standard developed by ISO/IEC Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) and ITU-T Video Coding Experts Group (VCEG) on April 2013. This new standard for video compression has the potential to deliver higher performance than the earlier standards such as H. 264/AVC. In comparison with H. 264, HEVC offers a clearer, higher quality image at half the original bitrate. At this lower bitrate, it is possible to transmit high definition videos using low bandwidth. It doubles the data compression ratio supporting 8K Ultra HD and resolutions up to 8192×4320. In the proposed model, we design a new video format which supports this H. 265 standard. The major areas of applications in the coming future would lead to enhancements in the performance level of digital television like Tata Sky and Sun Direct, BluRay Discs, Mobile Video, Video Conferencing and Internet and Live Video streaming.

Keywords: access HD video, H. 265 video standard, high performance, high quality image, low bandwidth, new video format, video streaming applications

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Authors: Wen Zhang

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The smartphone plays a significant role in media convergence, and smartphone photography is reconstructing the way we communicate and think. This article aims to explore the smartphone photography practices of urban Chinese smartphone users and images produced by smartphones from a techno-cultural perspective. The analysis consists of two types of data: One is a semi-structured interview of 21 participants, and the other consists of the images created by the participants. The findings are organised in two parts. The first part summarises the current tendencies of capturing, editing, sharing and archiving digital images via smartphones. The second part shows that food and selfie/anti-selfie are the preferred subjects of smartphone photographic images from a technical and multi-purpose perspective and demonstrates that screenshots and image texts are new genres of non-photographic images that are frequently made by smartphones, which contributes to improving operational efficiency, disseminating information and sharing knowledge. The analyses illustrate the positive impacts between smartphones and photography enthusiasm and practices based on the diffusion of innovation theory, which also makes us rethink the value of photographs and the practice of ‘photographic seeing’ from the screen itself.

Keywords: digital photography, image-text, media convergence, photographic- seeing, selfie/anti-selfie, smartphone, technological innovation

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Authors: Kaitlyn Deierlein, Janet Lydecker

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Stereotypes surrounding anorexia nervosa are that the illness is commonly perceived as a self-inflicted disorder influenced by controlling parents, vanity, and cultural pressures. According to the authors' best knowledge minimal research has examined interactions with other factors, including gender and racial stereotypes involving this disorder. A common stereotype of this disease is that it mainly only affects Caucasian women and is very rarely seen in any other ethnicity. Previous literature has failed to investigate how visual body image and ethnic stereotypes affect the mental health of different ethnic groups, how various cultures impact the type of anorexia nervosa in the patient, and the different stereotypes associated with their eating disorder. Participants completed a pre-test questionnaire with vignettes, an image exposure portion, and a post-test questionnaire, which will all be evaluated and analyzed by ANOVA t-test and SPSS. Results showed that participants picked Caucasian females as more likely to have anorexia nervosa than those of Asian, Latin American, or African American descent subjects in both picture identification and vignettes. Future research should be conducted to further the results of this study by examining differences between gender stereotypes with anorexia nervosa as well as how sexuality has a role in perception.

Keywords: anorexia nervosa, ethnicity, stereotypes, eating disorders, perception

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Authors: Geliashvili T. M., Tyulyandina A. S., Valiev A. K., Kononets P. V., Kharatishvili T. K., Salkov A. G., Pronin A. I., Gadzhieva E. H., Parnas A. V., Ilyakov V. S.

Abstract:

Aim/Introduction: Metastasis (Mts) to the sternum, while extremely rare in differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC) (1), requires a personalized, multidisciplinary treatment approach. In aggressively growing Mts to the sternum, which rapidly become unresectable, a comprehensive therapeutic and diagnostic approach is particularly important. Materials and methods: We present a clinical case of solitary Mts to the sternum as first manifestation of a papillary thyroid microcarcinoma in a 55-year-old man. Results: 18F-FDG PET/CT after thyroidectomy confirmed the solitary Mts to the sternum with extremely high FDG uptake (SUVmax=71,1), which predicted its radioiodine-refractory (RIR). Due to close attachment to the mediastinum and rapid growth, Mts was considered unresectable. During the next three months, the patient received targeted therapy with the tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) Lenvatinib 24 mg per day. 1st course of radioiodine therapy (RIT) 6 GBq was also performed, the results of which confirmed the RIR of the tumor process. As a result of systemic therapy (targeted therapy combined with RIT and suppressive hormone therapy with L-thyroxine), there was a significant biochemical response (decrease of serum thyroglobulin level from 50,000 ng/ml to 550 ng/ml) and a partial response with decrease of tumor size (from 80x69x123 mm to 65x50x112 mm) and decrease of FDG accumulation (SUVmax from 71.1 to 63). All of this made possible to perform surgical treatment of Mts - sternal extirpation with its replacement by an individual titanium implant. At the control examination, the stimulated thyroglobulin level was only 134 ng/ml, and PET/CT revealed postoperative areas of 18F-FDG metabolism in the removed sternal Mts. Also, 18F-FDG PET/CT in the early (metabolic) stage revealed two new bone Mts (in the area of L3 SUVmax=17,32 and right iliac bone SUVmax=13,73), which, as well as the removed sternal Mts, appeared to be RIRs at the 2nd course of RIT 6 GBq. Subsequently, on 02.2022, external beam radiation therapy (EBRT) was performed on the newly identified oligometastatic bone foci. At present, the patient is under dynamic monitoring and in the process of suppressive hormone therapy with L-thyroxine. Conclusion: Thus, only due to the early prescription of targeted TKI therapy was it possible to perform surgical resection of Mts to the sternum, thereby improve the patient's quality of life and preserve the possibility of radical treatment in case of oligometastatic disease progression.

Keywords: differentiated thyroid cancer, metastasis to the sternum, radioiodine therapy, radioiodine-refractory cancer, targeted therapy, lenvatinib

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Authors: María García-García, Esther Simancas-González, Said Balhadj, Carmen Silva-Robles, Driss Ferhane

Abstract:

Cooperation between the territories on both sides of the Strait of Gibraltar is an urgent reality. the south of Spain and northern Morocco share a common historical past and belong to a very similar geographical and ecological area. Economic, social and cultural relations make cooperation between the two countries’ (Spain and Morocco) a priority for the EU and both countries governments. Likewise, deepened changes happened in production systems and consumption patterns had seriously damaged and weakened the craftwork sector. The promotion of local crafts, and its economic value, and the cooperation with the north of Morocco has been an important issue for the Andalusian government in recent years. The main aim of this work is to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the Tangier - Tetuan region craftworks sector in order to develop accurate communication and promotion plans. From the knowledge of the real identity, the sector could be repositioned. Promotion and communication could be a spur to traditional sectors, such as crafts. Competitiveness requires "the culture of communication, the cooperation between different companies to build powerful territory brands and maintain the establishment confidence and effectiveness relationships among agencies and organizations". The lack of previous literature addressing how Tangier craftwork promote and communicate its value to their stakeholders, has conducted the study to an exploratory approach with a double dimension: internal, Tangier craftwork sector image, and external, Andalusia image of the sector in Tangier. Different interviews were conducted with Andalusian partners involved in the artisanal sector (9 master craftsmen and 3 institutions) and focus groups with 9 Tangiers craftsmen were developed. The result of these interviews and expert groups are reflected in a SWOT analysis which reveals a handcraft industry with a worrying wide-spread and undifferentiated identity and reluctance to innovation and new technologies.

Keywords: communication management, image, Moroccan crafts, Spain-Morocco cooperation

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Authors: M. Kastek, M. Kowalski, M. Szustakowski, H. Polakowski, T. Sosnowski

Abstract:

Development of highly efficient security systems is one of the most urgent topics for science and engineering. There are many kinds of threats and many methods of prevention. It is very important to detect a threat as early as possible in order to neutralize it. One of the very challenging problems is detection of dangerous objects hidden under human’s clothing. This problem is particularly important for safety of airport passengers. In order to develop methods and algorithms to detect hidden objects it is necessary to determine the thermal signatures of such objects of interest. The laboratory measurements were conducted to determine the thermal signatures of dangerous tools hidden under various clothes in different ambient conditions. Cameras used for measurements were working in spectral range 0.6-12.5 μm An infrared imaging Fourier transform spectroradiometer was also used, working in spectral range 7.7-11.7 μm. Analysis of registered thermograms and hyperspectral datacubes has yielded the thermal signatures for two types of guns, two types of knives and home-made explosive bombs. The determined thermal signatures will be used in the development of method and algorithms of image analysis implemented in proposed monitoring systems.

Keywords: hyperspectral detection, nultispectral detection, image processing, monitoring systems

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Authors: Bencherif Kada

Abstract:

In the forest management practice, landscape and Mediterranean forest are never posed as linked objects. But sustainable forestry requires the valorization of the forest landscape, and this aim involves assessing the spatial distribution of biodiversity by mapping forest landscaped units and subunits and by monitoring the environmental trends. This contribution aims to highlight, through object-oriented classifications, the landscaped biodiversity of the National Park of Tlemcen (Algeria). The methodology used is based on ground data and on the basic processing units of object-oriented classification, that are segments, so-called image-objects, representing a relatively homogenous units on the ground. The classification of Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper plus (ETM+) imagery is performed on image objects and not on pixels. Advantages of object-oriented classification are to make full use of meaningful statistic and texture calculation, uncorrelated shape information (e.g., length-to-width ratio, direction, and area of an object, etc.), and topological features (neighbor, super-object, etc.), and the close relation between real-world objects and image objects. The results show that per object classification using the k-nearest neighbor’s method is more efficient than per pixel one. It permits to simplify of the content of the image while preserving spectrally and spatially homogeneous types of land covers such as Aleppo pine stands, cork oak groves, mixed groves of cork oak, holm oak, and zen oak, mixed groves of holm oak and thuja, water plan, dense and open shrub-lands of oaks, vegetable crops or orchard, herbaceous plants, and bare soils. Texture attributes seem to provide no useful information, while spatial attributes of shape and compactness seem to be performant for all the dominant features, such as pure stands of Aleppo pine and/or cork oak and bare soils. Landscaped sub-units are individualized while conserving the spatial information. Continuously dominant dense stands over a large area were formed into a single class, such as dense, fragmented stands with clear stands. Low shrublands formations and high wooded shrublands are well individualized but with some confusion with enclaves for the former. Overall, a visual evaluation of the classification shows that the classification reflects the actual spatial state of the study area at the landscape level.

Keywords: forest, oaks, remote sensing, diversity, shrublands

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Authors: Qianhui Li, Christoph H. Bruecker

Abstract:

Atherosclerotic plaques are typically found where flow separation and variations of shear stress occur. Although helical flow patterns and flow separations have been recorded in the aorta, their relation has not been clearly clarified and especially in the condition of artificial heart valve prostheses. Therefore, an experimental study is performed to investigate the hemodynamic performance of different mechanical heart valves (MHVs), i.e. the SJM Regent bileaflet mechanical heart valve (BMHV) and the Lapeyre-Triflo FURTIVA trileaflet mechanical heart valve (TMHV), in a transparent model of the human aorta under a physiological pulsatile right-hand helical flow condition. A typical systolic flow profile is applied in the pulse-duplicator to generate a physiological pulsatile flow which thereafter flows past an axial turbine blade structure to imitate the right-hand helical flow induced in the left ventricle. High-speed particle image velocimetry (PIV) measurements are used to map the flow evolution. A circular open orifice nozzle inserted in the valve plane as the reference configuration initially replaces the valve under investigation to understand the hemodynamic effects of the entered helical flow structure on the flow evolution in the aortic arch. Flow field analysis of the open orifice nozzle configuration illuminates the helical flow effectively delays the flow separation at the inner radius wall of the aortic arch. The comparison of the flow evolution for different MHVs shows that the BMHV works like a flow straightener which re-configures the helical flow pattern into three parallel jets (two side-orifice jets and the central orifice jet) while the TMHV preserves the helical flow structure and therefore prevent the flow separation at the inner radius wall of the aortic arch. Therefore the TMHV is of better hemodynamic performance and reduces the pressure loss.

Keywords: flow separation, helical aortic flow, mechanical heart valve, particle image velocimetry

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Authors: Hemadri Raut

Abstract:

The city is a blend of the possible interactions of the built form, open spaces and their spatial organization layout in a geographical area to obtain an integrated pattern and environment with building facades being a dominant figure in the body of a city. Façades of each city have their own inherent properties responsive to the human behaviour, weather conditions, safety factors, material availability and composition along with the necessary aesthetics in coordination with adjacent building facades. Cities experience a huge transformation in the culture, lifestyle; socioeconomic conditions and technology nowadays because of the increasing population, urban sprawl, industrialization, contemporary architectural style, post-disaster consequences, war reconstructions, etc. This leads to the loss of the actual identity and architectural character of the city which in turn induces chaos and turbulence in the city. This paper attempts to identify and learn from the traditional elements that would make us more aware of the unique identity of the local communities in a city. It further studies the architectural style, color, shape, and design techniques through the case studies of contextual cities. The work focuses on the observation and transformation of the image of the city through these considerations in the designing of the facades to achieve the reconciliation of the people with urban spaces.

Keywords: building facades, city, community, heritage, identity, transformation, urban

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Authors: S. V. Akulinichev, S. A. Chaushansky, V. I. Derzhiev

Abstract:

High dose rate (HDR) brachytherapy is a method of contact radiotherapy, when a single sealed source with an activity of about 10 Ci is temporarily inserted in the tumor area. The isotopes Ir-192 and (much less) Co-60 are used as active material for such sources. The other type of brachytherapy, the low dose rate (LDR) brachytherapy, implies the insertion of many permanent sources (up to 200) of lower activity. The pulse dose rate (PDR) brachytherapy can be considered as a modification of HDR brachytherapy, when the single source is repeatedly introduced in the tumor region in a pulse regime during several hours. The PDR source activity is of the order of one Ci and the isotope Ir-192 is currently used for these sources. The PDR brachytherapy is well recommended for the treatment of several tumors since, according to oncologists, it combines the medical benefits of both HDR and LDR types of brachytherapy. One of the main problems for the PDR brachytherapy progress is the shielding of the treatment area since the longer stay of patients in a shielded canyon is not enough comfortable for them. The use of Yb-169 as an active source material is the way to resolve the shielding problem for PDR, as well as for HRD brachytherapy. The isotope Yb-169 has the average photon emission energy of 93 KeV and the half-life of 32 days. Compared to iridium and cobalt, this isotope has a significantly lower emission energy and therefore requires a much lighter shielding. Moreover, the absorption cross section of different materials has a strong Z-dependence in that photon energy range. For example, the dose distributions of iridium and ytterbium have a quite similar behavior in the water or in the body. But the heavier material as lead absorbs the ytterbium radiation much stronger than the iridium or cobalt radiation. For example, only 2 mm of lead layer is enough to reduce the ytterbium radiation by a couple of orders of magnitude but is not enough to protect from iridium radiation. We have created an original facility to produce the start stable isotope Yb-168 using the laser technology AVLIS. This facility allows to raise the Yb-168 concentration up to 50 % and consumes much less of electrical power than the alternative electromagnetic enrichment facilities. We also developed, in cooperation with the Institute of high pressure physics of RAS, a new technology for manufacturing high-density ceramic cores of ytterbium oxide. Ceramics density reaches the limit of the theoretical values: 9.1 g/cm3 for the cubic phase of ytterbium oxide and 10 g/cm3 for the monoclinic phase. Source cores from this ceramics have high mechanical characteristics and a glassy surface. The use of ceramics allows to increase the source activity with fixed external dimensions of sources.

Keywords: brachytherapy, high, pulse dose rates, radionuclides for therapy, ytterbium sources

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Authors: V. Lukášová, P. Peukert, V. Votrubec

Abstract:

Thermal conductivity in the x, y and z-directions was measured on a pultruded profile that was manufactured by the technology of pulling from glass fibers and a polyester matrix. The results of measurements of thermal conductivity showed considerable variability in different directions. The caused variability in thermal conductivity was expected due fraction variations. The cross-section of the pultruded profile was scanned. An image analysis illustrated an uneven distribution of the fibers and the matrix in the cross-section. The distribution of these inequalities was processed into a Voronoi diagram in the observed area of the pultruded profile cross-section. In order to verify whether the variation of the fiber volume fraction in the pultruded profile can affect its thermal conductivity, the numerical simulations in the ANSYS Fluent were performed. The simulation was based on the geometry reconstructed from image analysis. The aim is to quantify thermal conductivity numerically. Above all, images with different volume fractions were chosen. The results of the measured thermal conductivity were compared with the calculated thermal conductivity. The evaluated data proved a strong correlation between volume fraction and thermal conductivity of the pultruded profile. Based on presented results, a modification of production technology may be proposed.

Keywords: pultrusion profile, volume fraction, thermal conductivity, numerical simulation

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