Analysis of Vicinal Water in Soft Contact Lenses Using a Combination of Infrared Absorption Spectroscopy and Multivariate Curve Resolution

In this paper, we propose a new spectroscopic method to explore the behavior of molecules near polymeric molecular networks of water-containing soft materials such as hydrogels. We demonstrate the analysis of hydrogen bonding states of water in the vicinity of hydrogels (soft contact lenses). In this method, we apply force to hydrated contact lenses to deform them and to modulate the ratio between the signals from bulk and vicinal regions. We then collect spectra at different forces. Finally, we extracted the spectra of the vicinal region using the multivariate curve resolution-alternating least square (MCR-ALS) method. We report the hydration states depending on the chemical structures of hydrogels constituting the contact lenses.     

Techniques and Algorithms for Hepatic Vessel Skeletonization in Medical Images: A Survey

Hepatic vessel skeletonization serves as an important means of hepatic vascular analysis and vessel segmentation. This paper presents a survey of techniques and algorithms for hepatic vessel skeletonization in medical images. We summarized the latest developments and classical approaches in this field. These methods are classified into five categories according to their methodological characteristics. The overview and brief assessment of each category are provided in the corresponding chapters, respectively. We provide a comprehensive summary among the cited publications, image modalities and datasets from various aspects, which hope to reveal the pros and cons of every method, summarize its achievements and discuss the challenges and future trends.     

Ionic Liquids for and by Analytical Spectroscopy

Abstract

In this mini‐review we highlight two aspects of ionic liquids that to date have either no or limited studies. They are (1) exploitation of unique features of ionic liquids to develop novel spectroscopic methods and (2) development of novel spectroscopic methods, for the sensitive and accurate determination of thermal physical properties of ionic liquids. In the first category, we will describe several novel methods which were developed utilizing unique properties of ionic liquids for measurements which are not possible otherwise. They include the sensitive and accurate method to determine enantiomeric compositions of a variety of pharmaceutical products with different size, shape, and functional groups. This method is based on the use of a chiral IL which serves both as a solvent and also as a chiral selector. Ionic liquids have also been successfully used to substantially enhance the sensitivity of thermal lens measurements. In the second category, we will describe recent development in which transient grating technique and thermal lens technique have been successfully used for the sensitive, accurate, nondestructive determination of thermal physical properties of ILs.     

Combined use of nuclear magnetic resonance and infrared spectroscopy for studying recognition processes between amphenicolic antibiotics and albumin

Biological reactions are mostly concerned with selective interactions between small ligands and macromolecular receptors. The same ligands may activate responses of different intensities and/or effects in the presence of different receptors. Many approaches based on spectroscopic and non‐spectroscopic methods have been used to study interactions between small ligands and macromolecular receptors, including methods based on NMR and IR spectroscopic analysis of the solution behaviour of the ligand in the presence of receptors. In this work, we investigated the interaction between ovine serum albumin with two amphenicolic antibiotics [chloramphenicol (CAP) and thiamphenicol (TAP)], using a combined approach based on NMR and IR methodologies, furnishing complementary information about the recognition process occurring within the two systems. The two ligands, despite their similar structures, showed different affinities towards albumin. NMR methodology is based on the comparison of selective ( ) and non‐selective ( ) spin–lattice relaxation rates of the ligands in the presence and absence of macromolecular receptors and and temperature dependence analysis. From these studies, the ligand–receptor binding strength was evaluated on the basis of the ‘affinity index.’ The derivation of the affinity index from chemical equilibrium kinetics for both the CAP–albumin and TAP–albumin systems allowed a comparison of the abilities of the two amphenicolic antibiotics to interact with the protein. IR methodology is based on the comparison of the ligand–protein ‘complex’ spectra with those of the non‐interacting systems. On the basis of the differences revealed, a more thorough IR analysis was performed in order to understand the structural changes which occurred on both ligand and protein molecules within the interacting system. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The calculation of the density field from axisymmetric schlieren interferograms by the image processing techniques

The schlieren interferograms used to be analyzed in a qualitative way. In this paper, by means of the powerful computational ability and the large memory of computer; the image processing method is investigated for the digitalization of an axisymmetric schlieren interferogram and the determination of the density field. This method includes the 2-D low-pass filtering, the thinning of interferometric fringes, the extraction of physical information and the numerical integration of the density field. The image processing results show that the accuracy of the quantitative analysis of the schlieren interferogram can be improved and a lot of time can be saved in dealing with optical experimental results. Therefore, the algorithm used here is useful and efficient.     

刃型位错和圆弧形刚性线夹杂的干涉效应

位错和夹杂的干涉效应对于理解材料的强化和韧化机理具有十分重要的意义。文中研究了晶体材料中刃型位错和多条共圆弧刚性线夹杂的干涉作用。利用Riemann—Schwarz反照原理和复势函数的奇性主部分析技术，得到了问题的一般解答；对于只含一条刚性线夹杂的情况，给出了复势函数的封闭形式解。由Peach-Koehler公式求出了作用在刃型位错上的位错力，并讨论了圆弧形刚性线夹杂对位错力的影响规律，发现弧形刚性线对刃型位错有很强的排斥作用。本文解答不但可作为格林函数获得任意分布位错的相应解答，而且可以用于研究刚性线夹杂和任意形状裂纹的干涉效应问题。     

CT and MRI Medical Image Fusion Using Noise-Removal and Contrast Enhancement Scheme with Convolutional Neural Network

Medical image fusion (MIF) has received painstaking attention due to its diverse medical applications in response to accurately diagnosing clinical images. Numerous MIF methods have been proposed to date, but the fused image suffers from poor contrast, non-uniform illumination, noise presence, and improper fusion strategies, resulting in an inadequate sparse representation of significant features. This paper proposes the morphological preprocessing method to address the non-uniform illumination and noise by the bottom-hat–top-hat strategy. Then, grey-principal component analysis (grey-PCA) is used to transform RGB images into gray images that can preserve detailed features. After that, the local shift-invariant shearlet transform (LSIST) method decomposes the images into the low-pass (LP) and high-pass (HP) sub-bands, efficiently restoring all significant characteristics in various scales and directions. The HP sub-bands are fed to two branches of the Siamese convolutional neural network (CNN) by process of feature detection, initial segmentation, and consistency verification to effectively capture smooth edges, and textures. While the LP sub-bands are fused by employing local energy fusion using the averaging and selection mode to restore the energy information. The proposed method is validated by subjective and objective quality assessments. The subjective evaluation is conducted by a user case study in which twelve field specialists verified the superiority of the proposed method based on precise details, image contrast, noise in the fused image, and no loss of information. The supremacy of the proposed method is further justified by obtaining 0.6836 to 0.8794, 0.5234 to 0.6710, and 3.8501 to 8.7937 gain for QFAB, CRR, and AG and noise reduction from 0.3397 to 0.1209 over other methods for objective parameters.     

The Use of Constituent Spectra and Weighting in Extended Multiplicative Signal Correction in Infrared Spectroscopy

Extended multiplicative signal correction (EMSC) is a widely used preprocessing technique in infrared spectroscopy. EMSC is a model-based method favored for its flexibility and versatility. The model can be extended by adding constituent spectra to explicitly model-known analytes or interferents. This paper addresses the use of constituent spectra and demonstrates common pitfalls. It clarifies the difference between analyte and interferent spectra, and the importance of orthogonality between model spectra. Different normalization approaches are discussed, and the importance of weighting in the EMSC is demonstrated. The paper illustrates how constituent analyte spectra can be estimated, and how they can be used to extract additional information from spectral features. It is shown that the EMSC parameters can be used in both regression tasks and segmentation tasks.     

反射式红外传感器在智能型节水系统中的应用

利用反射式红外传感器和少量的电子器件(单稳态触发器),研制了智能型节水控制系统。该系统能够识别是否有人入厕,酌情产生冲洗信号, 躯动进水电磁阀开启,向浮球式水箱内注水,待注满足以冲刷干净所需的两水箱水后,便自动地切断电磁阀中电源,达到了既卫生又节约的目的。在某一教学楼应用该系统一年多来,与无使用此系统的同规模另一教学楼相比,节水约70％。该系统元件少、成本低、结构合理、工作可靠、安装容易、维修方便,有广阔的应用前景。