Phenomenological model of diffuse global and regional atrophy using finite-element methods

The main goal of this work is the generation of ground-truth data for the validation of atrophy measurement techniques, commonly used in the study of neurodegenerative diseases such as dementia. Several techniques have been used to measure atrophy in cross-sectional and longitudinal studies, but it is extremely difficult to compare their performance since they have been applied to different patient populations. Furthermore, assessment of performance based on phantom measurements or simple scaled images overestimates these techniques' ability to capture the complexity of neurodegeneration of the human brain. We propose a method for atrophy simulation in structural magnetic resonance (MR) images based on finite-element methods. The method produces cohorts of brain images with known change that is physically and clinically plausible, providing data for objective evaluation of atrophy measurement techniques. Atrophy is simulated in different tissue compartments or in different neuroanatomical structures with a phenomenological model. This model of diffuse global and regional atrophy is based on volumetric measurements such as the brain or the hippocampus, from patients with known disease and guided by clinical knowledge of the relative pathological involvement of regions and tissues. The consequent biomechanical readjustment of structures is modelled using conventional physics-based techniques based on biomechanical tissue properties and simulating plausible tissue deformations with finite-element methods. A thermoelastic model of tissue deformation is employed, controlling the rate of progression of atrophy by means of a set of thermal coefficients, each one corresponding to a different type of tissue. Tissue characterization is performed by means of the meshing of a labelled brain atlas, creating a reference volumetric mesh that will be introduced to a finite-element solver to create the simulated deformations. Preliminary work on the simulation of acquisition artefacts is also presented. Cross-sectional and longitudinal sets of simulated data are shown and a visual classification protocol has been used by experts to rate real and simulated scans according to their degree of atrophy. Results confirm the potential of the proposed methodology.     

Observations of the collapses and rebounds of millimeter-sized lithotripsy bubbles

Bubbles excited by lithotripter shock waves undergo a prolonged growth followed by an inertial collapse and rebounds. In addition to the relevance for clinical lithotripsy treatments, such bubbles can be used to study the mechanics of inertial collapses. In particular, both phase change and diffusion among vapor and noncondensable gas molecules inside the bubble are known to alter the collapse dynamics of individual bubbles. Accordingly, the role of heat and mass transport during inertial collapses is explored by experimentally observing the collapses and rebounds of lithotripsy bubbles for water temperatures ranging from 20 to 60 °C and dissolved gas concentrations from 10 to 85% of saturation. Bubble responses were characterized through high-speed photography and acoustic measurements that identified the timing of individual bubble collapses. Maximum bubble diameters before and after collapse were estimated and the corresponding ratio of volumes was used to estimate the fraction of energy retained by the bubble through collapse. The rebounds demonstrated statistically significant dependencies on both dissolved gas concentration and temperature. In many observations, liquid jets indicating asymmetric bubble collapses were visible. Bubble rebounds were sensitive to these asymmetries primarily for water conditions corresponding to the most dissipative collapses.     

Noncontact transportation in water using ultrasonic traveling waves

A noncontact transport experiment in water using ultrasonic traveling waves was investigated. Acrylic, aluminum, and brass discs were used as test objects. Traveling waves were generated using two ultrasonic transducers attached at the ends of a vibrating plate. One side was used as the wave-source side and the other side was used as the wave-receiving side. Acrylic plates cemented to the sides of the vibrating plate formed a tank to hold water. Object transportation was accomplished by adding a small amount of water to the vibrating structure. The transport velocity of floating objects in water is faster than for floating transport in air because of buoyancy. The transport velocity of an object depends on water height. The minimum value of the velocity occurs when the disc thickness is equal to the water height. The transport velocity increases as the height of water increases. For very shallow depths, the largest velocity is obtained when cavitation-induced streaming occurs.     

Underwater sound generation and scattering from a bubble column

Sung Kyun Kwan University, Korea. National Center for Physical Acoustics, The University of Mississippi. Published in Izvetiya Vysshikh Uchebnykh Zavedenii, Radiofizika, Vol. 36, No. 7, pp. 727–734, July, 1993.     

Quantitative investigation of acoustic streaming in blood

Acoustic streaming may have practical utility in diagnostic medical ultrasound in distinguishing between stagnant blood and tissue as well as clotted and unclotted blood. This distinction can be difficult with conventional ultrasound but have high value in managing trauma patients with internal hemorrhage. Ultrasound energy applies a force to blood by momentum transfer, resulting in bulk streaming that is a function of the acoustic attenuation, sound speed, acoustic intensity, blood viscosity, and the boundary conditions posed by the geometry around the hematoma. A simple tubular model was studied analytically, by finite element simulation, and experimentally by in vitro measurement. The simulation agreed closely with measurements while the analytic solutions were found to be valid only for beam diameters approximating the diameter of the tubular channel. Experimentally, the acoustic streaming in blood decreased as the blood began to clot and the streaming flow was not detected in clotted blood. In contrast, the echogenicity of the same blood samples did not change appreciably from the unclotted to the clotted state for the stagnant blood studied. Streaming detection appears to offer a potential tool for improving hemorrhage diagnosis.     

A dual passive cavitation detector for localized detection of lithotripsy-induced cavitation in vitro

A passive cavitation detector (PCD) identifies cavitation events by sensing acoustic emissions generated by the collapse of bubbles. In this work, a dual passive cavitation detector (dual PCD), consisting of a pair of orthogonal confocal receivers, is described for use in shock wave lithotripsy. Cavitation events are detected by both receivers and can be localized to within 5 mm by the nature of the small intersecting volume of the focal areas of the two receivers in association with a coincidence detection algorithm. A calibration technique, based on the impulse response of the transducer, was employed to estimate radiated pressures at collapse near the bubble. Results are presented for the in vitro cavitation fields of both a clinical and a research electrohydraulic lithotripter. The measured lifetime of the primary growth-and-collapse of the cavitation bubbles increased from 180 to 420 microseconds as the power setting was increased from 12 to 24 kV. The measured lifetime compared well with calculations based on the Gilmore-Akulichev formulation for bubble dynamics. The radiated acoustic pressure 10 mm from the collapsing cavitation bubble was measured to vary from 4 to 16 MPa with increasing power setting; although the trends agreed with calculations, the predicted values were four times larger than measured values. The axial length of the cavitation field correlated well with the 6-dB region of the acoustic field. However, the width of the cavitation field (10 mm) was significantly narrower than the acoustic field (25 mm) as bubbles appeared to be drawn to the acoustic axis during the collapse. The dual PCD also detected signals from "rebounds," secondary and tertiary growth-and-collapse cycles. The measured rebound time did not agree with calculations from the single-bubble model. The rebounds could be fitted to a Rayleigh collapse model by considering the entire bubble cloud as an effective single bubble. The results from the dual PCD agreed well with images from high-speed photography. The results indicate that single-bubble theory is sufficient to model lithotripsy cavitation dynamics up to time of the main collapse, but that upon collapse bubble cloud dynamics becomes important.     

Comparison of electrohydraulic lithotripters with rigid and pressure-release ellipsoidal reflectors. II. Cavitation fields.

Dramatically different cavitation was produced by two separate acoustic pulses that had different shapes but similar duration, frequency content, and peak positive and negative pressure. Both pulses were produced by a Dornier HM-3 style lithotripter: one pulse when the ellipsoidal reflector was rigid, the other when the reflector was pressure release. The cavitation, or bubble action, generated by the conventional rigid-reflector pulse was nearly 50 times longer lived and 3-13 times stronger than that produced by the pressure-release-reflector pulse. Cavitation durations measured by passive acoustic detection and high-speed video agreed with calculations based on the Gilmore equation. Cavitation intensity, or destructive potential, was judged (1) experimentally by the size of pits in aluminum foil detectors and (2) numerically by the calculated amplitude of the shock wave emitted by a collapsing bubble. The results indicate that the trailing positive spike in the pressure-release-reflector waveform stifles bubble growth and mitigates the collapse, whereas the trough after the positive spike in the rigid-reflector waveform triggers inertially driven growth and collapse. The two reflectors therefore provide a tool to compare effects in weakly and strongly cavitating fields and thereby help assess cavitation's role in lithotripsy.     

Physical mechanisms of the therapeutic effect of ultrasound (a review)

Therapeutic ultrasound is an emerging field with many medical applications. High intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) provides the ability to localize the deposition of acoustic energy within the body, which can cause tissue necrosis and hemostasis. Similarly, shock waves from a lithotripter penetrate the body to comminute kidney stones, and transcutaneous ultrasound enhances the transport of chemotherapy agents. New medical applications have required advances in transducer design and advances in numerical and experimental studies of the interaction of sound with biological tissues and fluids. The primary physical mechanism in HIFU is the conversion of acoustic energy into heat, which is often enhanced by nonlinear acoustic propagation and nonlinear scattering from bubbles. Other mechanical effects from ultrasound appear to stimulate an immune response, and bubble dynamics play an important role in lithotripsy and ultrasound-enhanced drug delivery. A dramatic shift to understand and exploit these nonlinear and mechanical mechanisms has occurred over the last few years. Specific challenges remain, such as treatment protocol planning and real-time treatment monitoring. An improved understanding of the physical mechanisms is essential to meet these challenges and to further advance therapeutic ultrasound.     

The use of resonant scattering to identify stone fracture in shock wave lithotripsy

There is currently little feedback as to whether kidney stones have fractured during shock wave lithotripsy. Resonant scattering of the lithotripter shock wave was used here to differentiate intact and fractured stone models in water. Scattering, including reflection and radiation due to reverberation from within the stone, was calculated numerically with linear elasticity theory and agreed well with measurements made with a focused receiver. Identification of fracture was possible through frequency analysis, where scatter from fractured stones was characterized by higher energy in distinct bands. High-speed photography concurrent with measurement indicated the effect was not due to cavitation.     

The chemistry of heterocycles. IV. 2H-pyrido[4,3-e]-1,3-oxazine-2,4(3H)-dione,its precursors and some 3-substituted derivatives.

The preparation of 2H-pyrido[4, 3-e]-1, 3-oxazine-2, 4(3H)-dione (II) and the anisoyl, benzoyl, 4-chlorobenzoyl, trans-cinnamoyl, 3, 5-dinitrobenzoyl, 2-furoyl, and 2-naphthoyl derivatives substituted at position 3 of II together with their infrared and ultraviolet spectra are described. The 3-substituted 2 and 4-(2-pyridylethyl) and hydroxymethyl derivatives of quinolinimide and cinchomeronimide were also prepared and their spectra recorded.