MacMillan Wang (dollmaple9)

Particularly, for the case with the largest initial landmark displacement of 15 ± 9 mm, the modified Demons algorithm had a registration error of 1.3 ± 1.1 mm, while the original Demons algorithm had a registration error of 3.6 ± 5.9 mm. We also qualitatively evaluated the modified Demons algorithm using two difficult cases in our routine clinic one lung case with large sliding motion and one head and neck case with large anatomical changes in air cavity. Visual evaluation on the deformed image created by the deformable image registration showed that the modified Demons algorithm achieved reasonable registration accuracy, but the original Demons algorithm produced distinct registration errors.A new method was developed to extract 129I from urine samples and measure it using accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS). The samples were pre-treated in an autoclave with hydrogen peroxide and were then acidified with nitric acid, followed by the precipitation of iodine as silver iodide (AgI) for measurement by AMS. This new procedure is substantially faster than previous methods for the extraction of iodine from urine and results in less chemical waste. The efficiency and reproducibility of this method were evaluated by using 125I as a yield tracer, eventually giving a recovery above 99%. To achieve this, several iterations of the method were required. The method was then successfully applied to measure 129I/127I isotopic ratios and 129I concentrations in 25 human urine samples. The AMS results for 129I in urine ranged 3.3 × 106 atoms/L to 884 × 106 atoms/L and the isotope ratio (129I/127I) in human urine ranged from 7.38 × 10-12 to 3.97 × 10-10 with a median of 1.29 × 10-10. This new method will be useful for investigations into the sources of iodine in the human diet and their relative importance for iodine sufficiency.The present work deals with locating a defect buried in a medium composed of a fluid matrix and small solid inhomogeneities. Classical imaging methods are based on delay and sum principle and would implicitly assume that the undamaged medium is homogeneous. The topological imaging framework however allows to take into account the heterogeneous nature of the undamaged medium and potentially to take advantage of it. In this work, it is applied to a demanding test case with different assumptions on the knowledge of the medium properties using a specifically-designed fluid-solid compatible imaging function. It leads to the definition of three imaging processes whose results are compared using respectively synthetic and experimental data. The results show the relevance of using the inhomogeneities' locations information, but not necessarily at all steps of the imaging process, leading to the definition of so called hybrid topological imaging method.Seagrasses are submerged marine angiosperms often prone to various biotic and abiotic stress factors in the marine environment. Our study investigated the response, adaptation and underlying tolerance mechanism of tropical seagrass Halodule pinifolia upon temperature stress (24°, 29°, 37°, and 45 °C) and evaluated the effect of temperature stress on net photosynthesis (ΔF/F'm) and dark respiration (Fv/Fm). In this study, metabolomic analysis of seagrass H. pinifolia upon heat stress has been performed using GC-MS based omics approach. As a result, the net photosynthetic efficiency (ΔF/F'm) was found significantly decreased upon heat stress, while the dark respiration rate was increased to 2.903 mg O2/g FW h-1 and 3.87 mg O2/g FW h-1 as compared to the control (24 °C), respectively. Metabolomic analysis showed heat stress could cause large metabolite variations with respect to sugar, amino acids and organic acids. Interestingly, three thermo-protective metabolites such as trehalose (sugar), glycine betaine (amino acid) and methyl vinyl ketone (organic acid) were profiled from H. pinifolia (45 °C) and is the first report on the occurrence of glycine betaine and methyl vinyl ketone f