Validation of an adapted MRI pulse sequence for quantification of fatty infiltration in muscle

Purpose

The long-term goal of our research is to develop a patient-specific biomechanical model of the supraspinatus muscle and tendon for analyzing the effects of fatty infiltration and pennation angle changes. One input of the model will be the amount and distribution of fat within the muscle. Therefore, the objective of this project was to adapt and validate a novel magnetic resonance imaging pulse sequence for quantifying the extent of fatty infiltration for the supraspinatus muscle.

Methods

Samples of incremental combinations of muscle and fat from a cow were prepared and scanned with our quantitative MR technique. The MR results were compared to actual fat measurements taken using a Soxtec extraction analyzer.

Results

The MR fat quantification results closely match those values determined by Soxtec analysis (R²=.98, root mean square deviation=4.9).

Conclusions

Our MR fat quantification protocol can be used to accurately quantify fatty infiltration in skeletal muscle. This ability to evaluate skeletal muscle tissue noninvasively will improve the efficacy of evaluation of fatty degeneration in assessing tissue quality preoperatively. This can be important in surgical planning of any musculoskeletal repairs, particularly rotator cuff tears.     

Pharmacokinetics of gadoversetamide injection, a gadolinium-based contrast agent, in pediatric patients

Objective

The pharmacokinetics of gadoversetamide were examined in pediatric patients scheduled to undergo contrast-enhanced MRI of the central nervous system.

Materials and Methods

One hundred patients received an intravenous injection of gadoversetamide at a dose of 0.1 mmol/kg for a contrast-enhanced MRI procedure. A subpopulation of 30 patients were enrolled to evaluate the pharmacokinetics of gadoversetamide in patients 2–11 and 12–18 years of age. Serial blood and urine samples were collected before and after the administration of gadoversetamide.

Results

The terminal half-life, initial concentration and area under the curve assessments for gadoversetamide showed no significant (P>.05) differences between the age groups or the sexes. Although no sex-related differences occurred in the volume of distribution or clearance, significant (P<.05) age-related differences were found, but once corrected for body mass or surface area the differences were no longer significant.

Conclusions

The pharmacokinetic behavior of gadoversetamide was not significantly altered by differences in age or sex in pediatric patients from 2 to 18 years of age. Although significant differences in volumes of distribution, and clearance occurred between the age groups, these differences appeared to depend on body size rather than on age in pediatric patients between 2 and 18 years of age.     

Focusing,collimation and flux throughput at the IMCA‐CAT bending‐magnet beamline at the Advanced Photon Source

The IMCA‐CAT bending‐magnet beamline was upgraded with a collimating mirror in order to achieve the energy resolution required to conduct high‐quality multi‐ and single‐wavelength anomalous diffraction (MAD/SAD) experiments without sacrificing beamline flux throughput. Following the upgrade, the bending‐magnet beamline achieves a flux of 8 × 10¹¹ photons s^?1 at 1 Å wavelength, at a beamline aperture of 1.5 mrad (horizontal) × 86 µrad (vertical), with energy resolution (limited mostly by the intrinsic resolution of the monochromator optics) δE/E = 1.5 × 10^?4 (at 10 kV). The beamline operates in a dynamic range of 7.5–17.5 keV and delivers to the sample focused beam of size (FWHM) 240 µm (horizontally) × 160 µm (vertically). The performance of the 17‐BM beamline optics and its deviation from ideally shaped optics is evaluated in the context of the requirements imposed by the needs of protein crystallography experiments. An assessment of flux losses is given in relation to the (geometric) properties of major beamline components.     

Flavor anarchy in a Randall-Sundrum model with 5D minimal flavor violation and a low Kaluza-Klein scale

A variant of a warped extra dimension model is presented. It is based on 5D minimal flavor violation, in which the only sources of flavor breaking are two 5D anarchic Yukawa matrices. These matrices also control the bulk masses, which are responsible for the resulting flavor hierarchy. The theory flows to a next to minimal flavor violation model where flavor violation is dominantly coming from the 3rd generation. Flavor violation is also suppressed by a parameter that dials the violation in the up or down sector. There is therefore a sharp limit in which there is no flavor violation in the down-type quark sector which, remarkably, is consistent with the observed flavor parameters. This is used to eliminate the current Randall-Sundrum flavor and CP problem. Our construction suggests that strong dynamic-based, flavor models may be built based on the same concepts.     

Repeated modifications of limitk-periodic continued fractions

Summary The advantages of using modified approximants for continued fractions, can be enhanced by repeating the modification process. IfK(a _n /b _n) is limitk-periodic, a natural choice for the modifying factors is ak-periodic sequence of right or wrong tails of the correspondingk-periodic continued fraction, if it exists. If the modified approximants thus obtained are ordinary approximants of a new limitk-periodic continued fraction, we repeat the process, if possible. Some examples where this process is applied to obtain a convergence acceleration are also given.     

Suppression of intrachannel four-wave-mixing induced ghost pulses in high-speed transmissions by phase inversion between adjacent marker blocks

We propose a method for suppressing the intensity of the worst ghost pulse (a single ghost pulse between two long marker blocks) resulting from intrachannel four-wave mixing (FWM) in strongly dispersion-managed on-off keying optical transmissions by inverting the optical phases of the marker blocks surrounding the ghost pulse. We show both analytically and numerically that the method provides substantial suppression of the maximum ghost pulse energy. The suppression is experimentally verified in 40-Gbit/s transmission experiment over a 100-km non-zero-dispersion-shifted fiber. The proposed method may extend the reach of high-bit-rate optical transmission systems in which intrachannel FWM is the dominating nonlinear penalty.     

Longitudinal flow of protons from (2-8)A GeV central Au+Au collisions

Rapidity distributions of protons from central 197Au+197Au collisions measured by the E895 Collaboration in the energy range from (2-8)A GeV at the Brookhaven AGS are presented. Longitudinal flow parameters derived using a thermal model including collective longitudinal expansion are extracted from these distributions. The results show an approximately linear increase in the longitudinal flow velocity, (L), as a function of the logarithm of beam energy.     

Amperometric and voltammetric detection for capillary electrophoresis

The focus of this article is amperometric and voltammetric detection coupled with capillary electrophoresis. Fundamental concepts and progress in the field of capillary electrophoresis with electrochemical detection (CEEC) that have occurred within the past three years, including new methodologies and unique applications, are highlighted. This review contains 95 references.     

Catalytic oxidative carbonylation of primary and secondary diamines to cyclic ureas. Optimization and substituent studies

W(CO)(6)-catalyzed oxidative carbonylation of 1,3-propanediamine to the corresponding urea has been examined under a variety of conditions. Following optimization, the Thorpe-Ingold effect on ring closure was studied using 2,2-dialkyl-1,3-propanediamines. For the 2,2-dimethyl- and 2,2-dibutyl-1,3-propanediamines, the yields were increased significantly as compared to that of the unsubstituted case. The eight-membered cyclic urea 5-butyl-5-ethyl-1,3-diazepan-2-one (5f) was formed in 38% yield, while only trace amounts of the cyclic urea were produced from the parent 1,5-pentanediamine. In a study of secondary diamines, yields from the carbonylation of N,N'-dialkyl-2,2-dimethyl-1,3-propanediamines were lower than those obtained from the primary diamines. The main byproducts from secondary diamines were tetrahydropyrimidine derivatives formed from a competitive reaction of the substrate with the oxidant and base.