Noninvasive determination of spectral depth of light penetration into skin

A noninvasive method for determining the spectral depth of light penetration into the skin has been developed. It is based on measuring fluxes of radiation reflected from the skin in N _Λ ≥ 3 narrow or wide spectral parts and spectral analysis thereof using the regression approach to solving ill-posed inverse problems. The possibility of estimating the spectral depth of light penetration into skin by skin images in three wide spectral parts (red, green, and blue) is demonstrated. Errors of the method are estimated under conditions of general variability of structural-morphological skin parameters, and its resistance to errors of optical measurements is analyzed.     

Monte Carlo simulation of spectral reflectance using a multilayered skin tissue model

A nine-layered skin tissue model is newly developed for the Monte Carlo simulation of spectral reflectance. The derivation of the necessary parameters for each of the nine layers in the simulation is presented, in which the parameters used in the conventional three-layered model are modified on the basis of some histological findings on skin and reported examples. Using appropriate optical and geometrical parameters, simulated spectra can be produced that agree well with measured spectra. This approach provides a flexible means of spectral fitting to measured results and of estimating changes in the parameters of skin tissue.     

Motion tracking in infrared imaging for quantitative medical diagnostic applications

In medical applications, infrared (IR) thermography is used to detect and examine the thermal signature of skin abnormalities by quantitatively analyzing skin temperature in steady state conditions or its evolution over time, captured in an image sequence. However, during the image acquisition period, the involuntary movements of the patient are unavoidable, and such movements will undermine the accuracy of temperature measurement for any particular location on the skin. In this study, a tracking approach using a template-based algorithm is proposed, to follow the involuntary motion of the subject in the IR image sequence. The motion tacking will allow to associate a temperature evolution to each spatial location on the body while the body moves relative to the image frame. The affine transformation model is adopted to estimate the motion parameters of the template image. The Lucas–Kanade algorithm is applied to search for the optimized parameters of the affine transformation. A weighting mask is incorporated into the algorithm to ensure its tracking robustness. To evaluate the feasibility of the tracking approach, two sets of IR image sequences with random in-plane motion were tested in our experiments. A steady-state (no heating or cooling) IR image sequence in which the skin temperature is in equilibrium with the environment was considered first. The thermal recovery IR image sequence, acquired when the skin is recovering from 60-s cooling, was the second case analyzed. By proper selection of the template image along with template update, satisfactory tracking results were obtained for both IR image sequences. The achieved tracking accuracies are promising in terms of satisfying the demands imposed by clinical applications of IR thermography.     

Determination of human skin optical properties in vivo from reflectance spectroscopic measurements

A novel approach has been proved to quickly and non-invasively determine the optical properties of human skin in vivo. It is based on the diffuse reflectance approximation model and subjected to the well established library of absorption spectra of water and hemoglobin. Under the nonlinear least-square algorithm, fitting the measured spectra in the range of 400-1000 nm to the diffusion approximation model, the reduced scattering coefficient and absorption coefficient of skin tissue can be quickly determined in vivo. The results show that this method is convenient and suitable for the real-time clinical application.     

Temperature effects on the absorption cross section of a small conductive particle

Temperature effects on the absorption cross section of a small conductive spherical particle were investigated. Calculations were performed in terms of the kinetic approach for the case where the contribution of eddy currents to the absorption dominated and provided that the particle size was small compared to the skin depth. The latter condition allows the skin effect to be disregarded.     

基于皮肤探测的自动对焦

用模式识别方法选择对焦窗口,对成像主体是人的情况进行了详细讨论.先对自动对焦中使用模式识别的必要性进行了深入的理论分析,然后讨论了具体的实现方法.利用人类皮肤颜色分布的特点来探测图像中的皮肤区域;用形态学操作来去除皮肤区域中的眼睛、鼻孔、嘴巴和其他非皮肤碎片;最后以所得的皮肤区域作为对焦窗口应用对焦评价函数.实验结果表明这种方法的实用性和有效性.     

Development of an atmospheric nonthermal multineedle dielectric barrier discharge jet for large area treatment of skin diseases

Nonthermal plasma is suitable for applications in the biomedical field because of the large amounts of active species and a low gas temperature that does not injure the human body. A plasma jet of the typical pen type is applied in most biomedical applications, but it is difficult to apply such jets to treat skin diseases that generally have wide affected areas. In this study, nonthermal multineedle dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) jet was developed for the treatment of large area lesions and used to verify its effectiveness in treating psoriasis as a representative skin disease. Stable discharge was maintained using the developed plasma jet with a multineedle electrode structure by utilizing various discharge gases. Electrical and optical analyses were performed to determine the characteristics of the plasma. The effectiveness of psoriasis treatment using this approach was confirmed by performing in vitro and in vivo experiments with the multineedle DBD jet.     

Adaptive exponential approximation of optical density ratio using third-order regression equations for depth profiling of a blood inclusion in a skin tissue model

We propose the use of the third-order multiple regression equations in approximating an optical density ratio with an adaptive exponential function for measuring depth and thickness of a blood inclusion embedded in a skin tissue model. To ensure accuracy of the exponential approximation, we investigated numerically various relations of optical density ratios versus depth and thickness, on the basis of Monte Carlo simulations for a layered skin tissue model. The third-order multiple regression analysis based on the relations above was used to derive regression equations for the determination of depth and thickness. Experiments with skin tissue phantoms were used to assess this approach.     

Optical properties of metals with inhomogeneously heated electrons

We propose a new approach for describing the optical properties of metals with inhomogeneously heated electrons in the skin layer. The absorption coefficient and phase shift of the reflected wave, which are not described by the usual Fresnel formulas, were found. Talk presented at the oral issue of J. Russ. Laser Res. dedicated to the memory of Professor Vladimir A. Isakov, Professor Alexander S. Shumovsky, and Professor Andrei V. Vinogradov held in Moscow February 21–22, 2008.     

Exploring nuclear symmetry energy with isospin dependence in neutron skin thickness of nuclei

We propose an alternative way to constrain the density dependence of the symmetry energy from the neutron skin thickness of nuclei which shows a linear relation to both the isospin asymmetry and the nuclear charge with a form of Z^2/3. The relation of the neutron skin thickness to the nuclear charge and isospin asymmetry is systematically studied with the data from antiprotonic atom measurement, and with the extended Thomas-Fermi approach incorporating the Skyrme energy density functional. An obviously linear relationship between the slope parameter L of the nuclear symmetry energy and the isospin asymmetry dependent parameter of the neutron skin thickness can be found, by adopting 70 Skyrme interactions in the calculations. Combining the available experimental data, the constraint of -20 MeV L 82 MeV on the slope parameter of the symmetry energy is obtained. The Skyrme interactions satisfying the constraint are selected.     

Giant magneto-impedance and skin effect in CuBe/CoNiP composite wires

The giant magneto-impedance and skin effect in electroless deposited CuBe/CoNiP composite wires with different diameter of CuBe core are presented, and involves a theoretical approach of the current density distributions in layers. Results show that the strong eddy current in the magnetic CoNiP coating will be induced due to the electromagnetic interactions with the CuBe core. It makes the skin effect strong in the magnetic coating even at very low frequency, and at this, large MI changes can also be observed.     

Jet fuel toxicity: skin damage measured by 900-MHz MRI skin microscopy and visualization by 3D MR image processing

The toxicity of jet fuels was measured using noninvasive magnetic resonance microimaging (MRM) at 900-MHz magnetic field. The hypothesis was that MRM can visualize and measure the epidermis exfoliation and hair follicle size of rat skin tissue due to toxic skin irritation after skin exposure to jet fuels. High-resolution 900-MHz MRM was used to measure the change in size of hair follicle, epidermis thickening and dermis in the skin after jet fuel exposure. A number of imaging techniques utilized included magnetization transfer contrast (MTC), spin-lattice relaxation constant (T1-weighting), combination of T2-weighting with magnetic field inhomogeneity (T2*-weighting), magnetization transfer weighting, diffusion tensor weighting and chemical shift weighting. These techniques were used to obtain 2D slices and 3D multislice–multiecho images with high-contrast resolution and high magnetic resonance signal with better skin details. The segmented color-coded feature spaces after image processing of the epidermis and hair follicle structures were used to compare the toxic exposure to tetradecane, dodecane, hexadecane and JP-8 jet fuels. Jet fuel exposure caused skin damage (erythema) at high temperature in addition to chemical intoxication. Erythema scores of the skin were distinct for jet fuels. The multicontrast enhancement at optimized TE and TR parameters generated high MRM signal of different skin structures. The multiple contrast approach made visible details of skin structures by combining specific information achieved from each of the microimaging techniques. At short echo time, MRM images and digitized histological sections confirmed exfoliated epidermis, dermis thickening and hair follicle atrophy after exposure to jet fuels. MRM data showed correlation with the histopathology data for epidermis thickness (R²=0.9052, P<.0002) and hair root area (R²=0.88, P<.0002). The toxicity of jet fuels on skin structures was in the order of tetradecane>hexadecane>dodecane. The method showed a sensitivity of 87.5% and a specificity of 75%. By MR image processing, different color-coded skin structures were extracted and 3D shapes of the epidermis and hair follicle size were compared. In conclusion, high-resolution MRM measured the change in skin epidermis and hair follicle size due to toxicity of jet fuels. MRM offers a three-dimensional spatial visualization of the change in skin structures as a method of toxicity evaluation and for comparison of jet fuels.     

Microimaging of hairless rat skin by magnetic resonance at 900 MHz

Purpose

Quantitative imaging of the rat skin was performed using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) at 900 MHz.

Materials and methods

A number of imaging techniques utilized for multiple contrast included magnetization transfer contrast, spin-lattice relaxation constant (T1-weighting), combination of T2-weighting with magnetic field inhomogeneity (T2*-weighting), magnetization transfer weighting and diffusion tensor weighting. These were used to obtain 2D slices and 3D multislice-multiecho images with high magnetic resonance contrast. These 2D and 3D imaging techniques were combined to achieve high-resolution MRI.

Results

Oil–water phantom showed distinct fat-water contrast. The dermis and epidermis, including the stratum corneum remnants, of nude rat skin were distinct due to their proton magnetic resonance as a result of proton interactions with the skin interstitial tissue. Combined details obtained from high-resolution, high-quality ex vivo skin images with different multicontrast characteristics generated better differentiation of skin layers, sublayers and significant correlation (r²=0.4927 for MRI area, r²=0.3068 for histology area; P<.0148) of MR data with co-registered histological areas of the epidermis as well as the hair follicle.

Conclusion

The multiple contrast approach provided a noninvasive ex vivo MRI visualization with semi-quantitative assessment of the major skin structures including the stratum corneum remnants, epidermis, hair, papillary dermis, reticular dermis and hypodermis.     

Imaging of subcutaneous blood vessels and flow velocity profiles by optical coherence tomography

We have applied a compact low power rapid scanning Doppler Optical Coherence Tomography system to monitor multi-dimensional velocity profiles within the complex vessels and simultaneous real-time non-invasive imaging of skin tissues morphology in vivo, in the wavelength range of 1.3–1.5 nm. Optical clearing of skin tissues has been utilized to achieve depth of OCT images up to 1.7 mm. Current approach enables applying low-power (0.4–0.5 mW) and low-noise broadband near-infrared light sources and obtaining OCT images with down to 12 μm spatial resolution. Two-dimensional time-domain OCT images of complex flow velocity profiles in blood vessel phantom and in vivo subcutaneous human skin tissues are presented. The effect of optical clearing on in vivo images is demonstrated and discussed.     

Investigation of Chinese skin colour and appearance for skin colour reproduction

A Chinese skin colour database is established based on measurements taken from nine bodies areas of 202 Chinese individuals to move towards accurate skin colour reproduction. The colour appearance of each skin point is predicted, and a comprehensive colour gamut for Chinese skin is determined. A consistent colour shift between facial and arm colours is identified, in which facial colour tends to be more reddish, more colourful, and darker than arm colour. Moreover, Chinese females are found to have lighter, paler, and more yellowish skin than Chinese males. Variations in Chinese skin colour are quantified, and body area differences and gender differences are shown to have significant effects on Chinese skin colour.     

Plasma heating by an ultrashort light pulse

Nonstationary absorption of the energy of a short electromagnetic-radiation pulse in a superdense semibounded plasma is considered. An approach is proposed for finding the electron distribution function, wherein the region of the skin layer (in the anomalous skin-effect regime) is described as a boundary condition for the distribution function over the entire plasma volume. A self-similar electron-distribution function is obtained and is used to analyze the dynamics of the electromagnetic-field absorption, of the heat transfer, and of the bremsstrahlung of the heated plasma.Quantum Radiophysics Division, Lebedev Physics Institute. Translated from Preprint No. 22 of the Lebedev Physics Institute, Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Moscow, 1990.     

The influence of the skin effect on gamma detected pulsed NMRON signals

The influence of the skin effect on single and triple (spin echo) gamma detected pulsed NMRON signals is calculated using a density matrix approach within a pure Zeeman manifold. For single pulse NMRON the turn angle dependences of the signals for uniform and exponential profiles of the resonant nuclei are presented for a typical inhomogeneous broadening applicable to intermediate mass impurities in ferromagnetic hosts. For triple pulse NMRON the baseline and principal spin echo amplitudes for equal resonant rf pulses are presented for the same inhomogeneous broadening. It is found that the skin effect leads to the form of pulsed NMRON signals that are in accord with experiment.     

基于支持向量机的肤色滤波器

为了探测图像中的肤色像素，提出了一种新的方法-支持向量机（SVM：Support Vector Machine）方法.它是一种基于肤色的非特定人的面部定位方法，是非接触人机交互技术和机器视觉中的一个重要内容.实验结果表明，采用支持向量机方法较传统人工神经网络方法不仅有更高的探测准确性，而且具有更好的推广性能.由于SVM采用结构风险最小化（SRM：Structural Risk Minimization）准则，在最小化训练误差（经验风险）的同时，尽量缩小模型预测误差的上界，从而使模型有更好的泛化能力.