Application of Numerical Methods to Elasticity Imaging

Elasticity imaging can be understood as the intersection of the study of biomechanical properties, imaging sciences, and physics. It was mainly motivated by the fact that pathological tissue presents an increased stiffness when compared to surrounding normal tissue. In the last two decades, research on elasticity imaging has been an international and interdisciplinary pursuit aiming to map the viscoelastic properties of tissue in order to provide clinically useful information. As a result, several modalities of elasticity imaging, mostly based on ultrasound but also on magnetic resonance imaging and optical coherence tomography, have been proposed and applied to a number of clinical applications: cancer diagnosis (prostate, breast, liver), hepatic cirrhosis, renal disease, thyroiditis, arterial plaque evaluation, wall stiffness in arteries, evaluation of thrombosis in veins, and many others. In this context, numerical methods are applied to solve forward and inverse problems implicit in the algorithms in order to estimate viscoelastic linear and nonlinear parameters, especially for quantitative elasticity imaging modalities. In this work, an introduction to elasticity imaging modalities is presented. The working principle of qualitative modalities (sonoelasticity, strain elastography, acoustic radiation force impulse) and quantitative modalities (Crawling Waves Sonoelastography, Spatially Modulated Ultrasound Radiation Force (SMURF), Supersonic Imaging) will be explained. Subsequently, the areas in which numerical methods can be applied to elasticity imaging are highlighted and discussed. Finally, we present a detailed example of applying total variation and AM-FM techniques to the estimation of elasticity.     

Mobile phones, radiofrequency fields, and health effects in children--epidemiological studies

In 2004, when WHO organized a workshop on children's sensitivity to electromagnetic fields, very few studies on radiofrequency fields were available. With the recent increase in mobile phone use among children and adolescents, WHO has identified studies on health effects in this age-group as a high priority research area. There are no empirical data supporting the notion that children and adolescents are more susceptible to RF exposure, but the number of studies is still relatively small. There are a few cross-sectional studies on well-being, cognitive effects and behavioral problems, and some cohort studies, mainly of maternal use of mobile phones during pregnancy. Cancer outcomes have been studied in relation to environmental RF exposure, e.g. from transmitters, and only one study on mobile phone use in children and adolescents and brain tumor risk has been published. Several methodological limitations need to be taken into consideration when interpreting the findings of the epidemiological studies. The cross-sectional design does not allow determination of the temporal sequence of exposure and outcome, and for several outcomes there is a large potential for reversed causality, i.e. that the outcome causes an increased RF exposure rather than the opposite. Biases such as recall errors in self-reported mobile phone use, lack of confounding control, e.g. of other aspects of mobile phone use than RF fields, trained behaviors, and pubertal development, makes causal interpretations impossible. Future studies need to include prospectively collected exposure information, incident outcomes, and proper confounding control. Monitoring of brain tumor incidence trends is strongly recommended.     

Tinbergen on mirror neurons

Fifty years ago, Niko Tinbergen defined the scope of behavioural biology with his four problems: causation, ontogeny, survival value and evolution. About 20 years ago, there was another highly significant development in behavioural biology—the discovery of mirror neurons (MNs). Here, I use Tinbergen''s original four problems (rather than the list that appears in textbooks) to highlight the differences between two prominent accounts of MNs, the genetic and associative accounts; to suggest that the latter provides the defeasible ‘best explanation’ for current data on the causation and ontogeny of MNs; and to argue that functional analysis, of the kind that Tinbergen identified somewhat misleadingly with studies of ‘survival value’, should be a high priority for future research. In this kind of functional analysis, system-level theories would assign MNs a small, but potentially important, role in the achievement of action understanding—or another social cognitive function—by a production line of interacting component processes. These theories would be tested by experimental intervention in human and non-human animal samples with carefully documented and controlled developmental histories.     

铁线莲属研究随记(Ⅱ)

(1)对铁线链属以下诸种Clematis potaninii Maxim., C．heynei Rau,C．trichotoma Nakai,C．apiculata Hook．f.&; Thoms., C．theobromina Dunn,C．hedysarifolia DC．和C．dissecta Baker的系统位置进行了讨论,提出了新见解;(2)过去一些作者或不承认C．trifida Hook．,C．pimpinellifolia Hook.,C．oligophylla Hook．,和Clematopsis lineariloba Hutch诸种,或进行降级,作为种下分类群处理。本文作者在研究了有关标本之后认为上述4种有明显区别特征,均应成立;(3)对裂叶铁线莲Clematis parviloba Gardn．&; Champ．的5个变种,短毛铁线莲C．puberula Hook．f.&; Thoms．的4个变种和丝铁线莲组sect．Naraveliopsis Hand.-Mazz．的20个种做出新的分类安排;(4)归并了subsect．Potanimianae W．T．Wang,C．heynei M．Johnson,C．petelotii Gagnep．以及其他几个学名;(5)描述了2新亚组,4新系,3新种和3新变种;(6)做出了3个新等级,4个新组合。     

Cyclic competition of three species in the time periodic and diffusive case

We consider a semilinear reaction diffusion system with time periodic coefficients. The system models the competitive interaction of three species, which inhabit a bounded domain. We make assumptions that may be loosely stated (cyclically for i {1, 2, 3}) as: Species i outcompetes species i + 1 in the absence of species i + 2. Under those assumptions we prove the existence of a time periodic solution, which is strictly positive in each of its three components. Moreover, we obtain a new result on the nonexistence of positive time-periodic solutions and the extinction of one species for the related two-species subsystem. Our discussion includes a situation, known as cyclic competition in the autonomous ODE-case, in a more general framework that includes temporal and spatial heterogeneity.     

中国生态环境状况与生态文明建设

生态环境是人类生存和发展的主要物质来源,它承受着人类活动产生的废弃物和各种作用结果。良好的生态环境是人类发展最重要的前提,同时也是人类赖以生存、社会得以安定的基本条件。但目前全国生态环境问题日趋严峻,虽然当前环境状况在局部改善,但总体在恶化,治理速度远远赶不上破坏速度,生态环境破坏的程度在加剧,环境污染在加重,环境污染和破坏带来的危害也日趋明显,生态赤字逐渐扩大。生态文明是一种重视生态环境、重视环境保护的意识、价值观和文化,这意味着要解决当前日趋严峻的生态环境问题,进行生态文明建设是必要的。同时,我国经济的发展、科技的进步、法律法规的完善及社会环境保护意识的提高等使生态文明建设具有了可行性。因此,需要通过优化国土空间开发格局、调整能源利用结构、全面促进资源节约、加强生态文明制度建设、不断加强生态环境保护、转变经济增长方式等方面加强生态文明建设,为解决当前环境问题提供有效途径。     

Some African fossil foot bones: a note on the interpolation of fossils into a matrix of extant species

Certain fossil foot bones (a terminal toe phalanx from Olduvai, specimens of tali from Spy, Skhūl, Olduvai, Kromdraai, Songhor and Rusinga) have been investigated by other workers using the multivariate statistical approach. The conclusions of their studies have, in the main, been based upon examination of early canonical variates alone. It is demonstrated here that if the full analyses (generalized distances) are taken into account, then almost exactly opposite conclusions obtain. The terminal toe phalanx from Olduvai is widely different from those of modern men; the Neandertal tali differ more from modern human bones than previously realized; the specimens from Olduvai, Kromdraai, Songhor and Rusinga are all completely dissimilar from both African ape and modern human tali.