Artifact-free black-blood cine cardiac imaging in a single breath-hold

Fast imaging using the STimulated Echo Acquisition Mode (STEAM) sequence can produce cine images of the heart with black-blood contrast. Nevertheless, correction of deformation-related artifacts is required in order to maintain myocardial signal throughout the cardiac cycle. Recent work by our group has eliminated this artifact by combining two STEAM sequences acquired with two different demodulation gradients. Unfortunately, these two STEAM sequences were acquired on two separate breath-holds; thus, scan time doubled. In this work, we present a technique to reduce the total scan time by one half, without sacrificing image quality. The technique is based on interleaving two demodulations within one acquisition in order to obtain quality cine images of the heart in a single breath-hold. The technique was tested on animal models and human subjects, and the impact of interleaved acquisition on image quality was studied using quantitative and qualitative measures.     

MHD Flow and Heat Transfer Characteristics in a Casson Liquid Film Towards an Unsteady Stretching Sheet with Temperature-Dependent Thermal Conductivity

Theoretical and numerical outcomes of the non-Newtonian Casson liquid thin film fluid flow owing to an unsteady stretching sheet which exposed to a magnetic field, Ohmic heating and slip velocity phenomena is reported here. The non-Newtonian thermal conductivity is imposed and treated as it vary with temperature. The nonlinear partial differential equations governing the non-Newtonian Casson thin film fluid are simplified into a group of highly nonlinear ordinary differential equations by using an adequate dimensionless transformations. With this in mind, the numerical solutions for the ordinary conservation equations are found using an accurate shooting iteration technique together with the Runge-Kutta algorithm. The lineaments of the thin film flow and the heat transfer characteristics for the pertinent parameters are discussed through graphs. The results obtained here detect many concern for the local Nusselt number and the local skin-friction coefficient in which they may be beneficial for the material processing industries. Furthermore, in some special conditions, the present problem has an excellent agreement with previously published work.     

Finite temperature infinitesimally deformed classical and quantum gravity

Deformed classical mechanics and gravity is discussed. Infinitesimally deformed quantum field theory is reviewed. Infinitesimally deformed Bose-Einstein distribution is derived. Infinitesimally deformed thermofield dynamics is constructed and applied to a scalar field and string theories.On leave of absence from: Mathematics Department, Faculty of Science, Mansoura University, Mansoura, Egypt     

Simulation of the short-range order in disordered cubic titanium monoxide TiO1.0

A model of the atomic structure with the short-range order in the vacancy distribution for the disordered cubic phase of titanium monoxide TiO_1.0 has been proposed. The effect of the short-range order on the electronic structure and the stability of the compound has been studied by the supercell method within the DFT-GGA approximation with the use of pseudopotentials. It has been established that the appearance of the short-range order considerably decreases the total energy. The decrease in the energy is comparable with the energy gain during the ordering of the vacancies according to the type of monoclinic superstructure Ti₅O₅ to the long-range order parameter η = 0.7. It has been shown that the discrepancies between the theoretical and experimental electronic spectra of titanium monoxide can be explained by allowance for the short range order.     

Variable fluid properties and variable heat flux effects on the flow and heat transfer in a non-Newtonian Maxwell fluid over an unsteady stretching sheet with slip velocity

The effects of variable fluid properties and variable heat flux on the flow and heat transfer of a non-Newtonian Maxwell fluid over an unsteady stretching sheet in the presence of slip velocity have been studied. The governing differential equations are transformed into a set of coupled non-linear ordinary differential equations and then solved with a numerical technique using appropriate boundary conditions for various physical parameters. The numerical solution for the governing non-linear boundary value problem is based on applying the fourth-order Runge-Kutta method coupled with the shooting technique over the entire range of physical parameters. The effects of various parameters like the viscosity parameter, thermal conductivity parameter, unsteadiness parameter, slip velocity parameter, the Deborah number, and the Prandtl number on the flow and temperature profiles as well as on the local skin-friction coefficient and the local Nusselt number are presented and discussed. Comparison of numerical results is made with the earlier published results under limiting cases.     

Optical microstrip patch antennas design and analysis

This paper has presented transparent conductor oxide materials (TCOMs) based microstrip patch antennas with glass substrate and copper ground plane, which have been deeply analyzed in the visible spectrum region in comparison with the practical patch antenna model of indium tin oxide patch with glass substrate and different TCOMs based ground plane. As well as the study have investigated the effect of transparent oxide materials on patch antenna design instead of perfect conductor materials such as copper that has low cost and weight. The tradeoff between optical transparency and electrical conductivity will be evaluated for a range of visible regions. Microstrip transmission line feed method is used to predict the skin effects on a patch antenna and their impact on antenna efficiency, resonance frequency and optical transmission are also described. This study have discussed assessment of these tradeoffs and effect of TCOMs parameters on antenna design.     

Nonlinear resonant tunneling diode (RTD) circuits for microwave A/D conversion

Short-duration electrical pulses play important roles in ultrafast time-domain metrology: they are used to sample rapidly varying signals or as probe signals in ranging radars, time-domain reflectometry and in communication. In this work, we design a nonlinear transmission, which is loaded with resonant tunneling diode to be suitable for microwave A/D conversion. A resonant tunneling diode (RTD) has a negative differential resistance that means when the voltage increases the current decreases. The equivalent circuit of monostable line is given. The simulation is performed by using OrCad program. Results show that a spike is produced and after a charging time constant, another switching occurs. Hence – similar to a relaxation oscillator – the spiking period is determined by the amplitude and frequency of the input current. The transmission line itself ensures the generation and propagation of identical spikes, such as solitons formed after few diodes.     

Field Analysis of Pillbox Resonator with Radiation Loss Utilizing Finite-Element Beam Propagation Method Formulation

To deal with the radiation from an axially symmetric pillbox resonator embedded in LiNbO₃ substrate, an eigenvalue equation is derived from the expression of the finite-element beam propagation method in a cylindrical coordinate system. By solving the eigenvalue equation iteratively, the field distributions and the angular phase constants of the pillbox resonator are evaluated. The iterative scheme of solving the eigenvalue equation is an extension of our previous direct solution method which was described for a lossless case. The results obtained by this method are compared with those obtained analytically, and excellent agreement is found.     

Background updating and shadow detection based on spatial, color, and texture information of detected objects

Background model updating is a vital process for any background subtraction technique. This paper presents an updating mechanism that can be applied efficiently to any background subtraction technique. This updating mechanism exploits the color and spatial features to characterize each detected object. Spatial and color features are used to classify each detected object as a moving background object, a ghost, or a real moving object. The starting position of each detected object is the cue for updating background images. In addition, this paper presents a hybrid scheme to detect and remove cast shadows based on texture and color features. The robustness of the proposed method and its effectiveness in overcoming challenging problems such as gradual and sudden illumination changes, ghost appearance, non-stationary background objects, the stability of moving objects most of the time, and cast shadows are verified quantitatively and qualitatively.