PURPOSE: To evaluate the lipopolysaccharide (LPS) model of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in mouse with (1)H and hyperpolarized (HP) (3)He MR imaging.MATERIALS AND METHODS: Axial slices of the lung volume were acquired with HP (3)He and (1)H MRI at 4, 24, and 48 h after LPS exposure. A quantitative ventilation index was calculated from two HP (3)He acquisitions. A bronchoalveolar lav

PURPOSE: To develop a multiplanar magnetic resonance temperature imaging (MRTI) technique based on interleaved gradient-echo echo-planar imaging (EPI), verify in phantom, develop software tools to process and display data on a clinical scanner in near real-time, and demonstrate feasibility to monitor ultrasound thermal ablation therapy in vivo.MATERIALS AND METHODS: Temperature estimation used com

A method for analysing and comparing treatment planning system (TPS) data and ferrous dosimeter gel measurements evaluated with MRI (FeMRI) was developed, including image processing to final absorbed dose images. Measurements were analysed according to this method and FeMRI data were thereby compared with the TPS-calculated dose distribution. For photons, differences between FeMRI- and TPS dose da

A ferrous gel, based on ferrous (Fe) sulphate and agarose, was used with a clinical magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner to obtain relative dose distribution data from therapeutic photon and electron beams. The FeMRI gel was scanned using a new MRI acquisition protocol optimized for T1 measurements. Thorough comparisons with silicon semiconductor detector and ionization chamber measurements, a

A new method has been investigated for the mapping of dose distributions in three dimensions delivered by the Leksell gamma knife. The irradiation unit is used to selectively treat small volumes in the brain with single high doses of ionising radiation--a treatment procedure known as radiosurgery. The dosimetry method investigated utilises a dosimeter gel consisting of ferrous sulphate solution an

The thermodynamic behavior of a three-dimensional off-lattice model for protein folding is probed. The model has only two types of residues, hydrophobia and hydrophilic. In absence of local interactions, native structure formation does not occur for the temperatures considered. By including sequence independent local interactions, which qualitatively reproduce local properties of functional protei

Blind people may detect objects from the information in reflected sounds, echolocation. Detection as a function of the number of clicks compared to a continuous noise was tested by presenting clicks of 5 ms with rates from 1 to 64 clicks during a 500 ms period and a 500-ms continuous white noise. The sounds were recorded in an ordinary room through an artificial binaural head. The reflecting objec

The linear filtering, prediction and smoothing problems as well as the linear quadratic control problems can very generally be formulated as operator equations using basic linear algebra.The equations are of Fredholm type II, and they are difficult to solve directly.It is shown how the operator can be factorized into two Volterra operators using a matrix Riccati equation. Recursive solution of the

We investigate the steady-state performance of a single irreversible mixing-controlled reaction between segregated reactant streams entering the annular gap between coaxial cylinders that can rotate independently. The three-dimensional Stokes flow results from the superposition of a pressure-driven Poiseuille flow along the mixer axis, and a cross-sectional Couette flow generated by the steady rot

Objective: Compare caregiver burden, provision of informal care, participation in everyday occupations and life satisfaction of caregivers to people with stroke, who either had received a client-centred, activities of daily living intervention or usual activities of daily living interventions. Design: A multicentre cluster randomized controlled trial in which 16 rehabilitation units were randomly

Molecular systems are uncertain: The variability of reaction parameters and the presence of unknown interactions can weaken the predictive capacity of solid mathematical models. However, strong conclusions on the admissible dynamic behaviors of a model can often be achieved without detailed knowledge of its specific parameters. In systems with a sign-definite Jacobian, for instance, cycle-based cr

Crystallographic screening of the binding of small organic compounds (termed fragments) to proteins is increasingly important for medicinal chemistry-oriented drug discovery. To enable such experiments in a widespread manner, an affordable 96-compound library has been assembled for fragment screening in both academia and industry. The library is selected from already existing protein-ligand struct

Background: Maintaining and improving the quality of prosthetics and orthotics education at the Tanzania Training Centre for Orthopaedic Technologists is essential for the provision of appropriate prosthetics and orthotics services in African countries.Objectives: To describe how Tanzanian and Malawian graduates’ of the Diploma in Orthopaedic Technology perceive their education and how it could be