ObjectiveTo noninvasively assess the neurodegenerative changes in the brain of patients with Niemann-Pick type C (NPC) disease by measuring the lesion tissue with the iterative decomposition of water and fat with echo asymmetry and least square estimation-iron quantification (IDEAL-IQ).Materials and MethodsRoutine brain MRI, IDEAL-IQ and 1H-proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H-MRS, served as control) were performed on 12 patients with type C Niemann-Pick disease (4 males and 8 females; age range, 15–61 years; mean age, 36 years) and 20 healthy subjects (10 males and 10 females; age range, 20–65 years; mean age, 38 years). The regions with lesion and the normal appearing regions (NARs) of patients were measured and analyzed based on the fat/water signal intensity on IDEAL-IQ and the lipid peak on 1H-MRS.ResultsNiemann-Pick type C patients showed a higher fat/water signal intensity ratio with IDEAL-IQ on T2 hyperintensity lesions and NARs (3.7–4.9%, p < 0.05 and 1.8–3.0%, p < 0.05, respectively), as compared to healthy controls (HCs) (1.2–2.3%). After treatment, the fat/water signal intensity ratio decreased (2.2–3.4%), but remained higher than in the HCs (p < 0.05). The results of the 1H-MRS measurements showed increased lipid peaks in the same lesion regions, and the micro-lipid storage disorder of NARs in NPC patients was detectable by IDEAL-IQ instead of 1H-MRS.ConclusionThe findings of this study suggested that IDEAL-IQ may be useful as a noninvasive and objective method in the evaluation of patients with NPC; additionally, IDEAL-IQ can be used to quantitatively measure the brain parenchymal adipose content and monitor patient follow-up after treatment of NPC.
The keyword LOAD_BLAST in LS-DYNA has been established to simulate the response of the structure under blast loading since V960. The ConWep algorithm in it is described in this paper. As the load and impulse computed by keyword LOAD_BLAST are smaller than those they should be, the accuracy and reliability of parameters in keyword LOAD_BLAST should be verified and adjusted according to the experiment results of the blast loading on blast door. The results show that the load and impulse computed by ConWep module in LS-DYNA will be close to the experimental results when the TNT equivalent in keyword LOAD_BLAST is multiplied by a factor of 1.35.
Tornado codes have been used in the error control of data transmission in IP network. The efficiency of this erasure codes is critically affected by the short cycles in its bipartite graph. To remove this effect, two algorithms are introduced: (1) while generating the graph, the cycle eliminating algorithm is used to reduce the number of the short cycles in it; (2) in the decoding algorithm, cycles that are inevitably in the graph are used to remove decoding efficiency degradation. The simulation results show that they have a better performance than that of general tornado codes.
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