The efficacy of MRI‐based statistical texture analysis (TA) in predicting chemotherapy response among patients with osteosarcoma was assessed. Forty patients (male: female = 31:9; age = 17.2 ± 5.7 ...years) with biopsy‐proven osteosarcoma were analyzed in this prospective study. Patients were scheduled for three cycles of neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NACT) and diffusion‐weighted MRI acquisition at three time points: at baseline (t0), after the first NACT (t1) and after the third NACT (t2) using a 1.5 T scanner. Eight patients (nonsurvivors) died during NACT while 34 patients (survivors) completed the NACT regimen followed by surgery. Histopathological evaluation was performed in the resected tumor to assess NACT response (responder ≤50% viable tumor and nonresponder >50% viable tumor) and revealed nonresponder: responder = 20:12. Apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) and intravoxel incoherent motion (IVIM) parameters, diffusion coefficient (D), perfusion coefficient (D*) and perfusion fraction (f) were evaluated. A total of 25 textural features were evaluated on ADC, D, D* and f parametric maps and structural T1‐weighted (T1W) and T2‐weighted (T2W) images in the entire tumor volume using 3D TA methods gray‐level cooccurrence matrix (GLCM), neighborhood gray‐tone‐difference matrix (NGTDM) and run‐length matrix (RLM). Receiver‐operating‐characteristic curve analysis was performed on the selected textural feature set to assess the role of TA features (a) as marker(s) of tumor aggressiveness leading to mortality at baseline and (b) in predicting the NACT response among survivors in the course of treatment. Findings showed that the NGTDM features coarseness, busyness and strength quantifying tumor heterogeneity in D, D* and f maps and T1W and T2W images were useful markers of tumor aggressiveness in identifying the nonsurvivor group (area‐under‐the‐curve AUC = 0.82‐0.88) at baseline. The GLCM features contrast and correlation, NGTDM features contrast and complexity and RLM feature short‐run‐low‐gray‐level‐emphasis quantifying homogeneity/terogeneity in tumor were effective markers for predicting chemotherapeutic response using D (AUC = 0.80), D* (AUC = 0.80) and T2W (AUC = 0.70) at t0, and D* (AUC = 0.80) and f (AUC = 0.70) at t1. 3D statistical TA features might be useful as imaging‐based markers for characterizing tumor aggressiveness and predicting chemotherapeutic response in patients with osteosarcoma.
1. 3D texture analysis in multi‐parametric MRI was performed for predicting tumor aggressiveness and chemotherapeutic response among 40 patients with osteosarcoma.
2. NGTDM features coarseness, busyness and strength for D, D* & f and T1W, T2W images, were useful markers (AUC=0.82–0.88) of tumor aggressiveness at baseline.
3. GLCM features contrast, correlation; NGTDM features contrast, complexity and RLM feature SRLGE for D, D* & f and T2W image, were useful markers (AUC=0.70–0.80) of chemotherapy response early in the course of treatment.
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
Antiferromagnetic materials are internally magnetic, but the direction of their ordered microscopic moments alternates between individual atomic sites. The resulting zero net magnetic moment makes ...magnetism in antiferromagnets externally invisible. This implies that information stored in antiferromagnetic moments would be invisible to common magnetic probes, insensitive to disturbing magnetic fields, and the antiferromagnetic element would not magnetically affect its neighbours, regardless of how densely the elements are arranged in the device. The intrinsic high frequencies of antiferromagnetic dynamics represent another property that makes antiferromagnets distinct from ferromagnets. Among the outstanding questions is how to manipulate and detect the magnetic state of an antiferromagnet efficiently. In this Review we focus on recent works that have addressed this question. The field of antiferromagnetic spintronics can also be viewed from the general perspectives of spin transport, magnetic textures and dynamics, and materials research. We briefly mention this broader context, together with an outlook of future research and applications of antiferromagnetic spintronics.
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IJS, NUK, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
•Heat and moisture stress interact to affect conservation agriculture performance.•The interaction of heat and moisture stress is modified by soil clay content.•Conservation agriculture yields ...outperform conventional practice in drier seasons.•Heat stress increases relative yield performance on low clay soils.•N fertilizer was not required for a positive relative yield performance.
Conservation agriculture is widely promoted across sub-Saharan Africa as a sustainable farming practice that enhances adaptive capacity to climate change. The interactions between climate stress, management, and soil are critical to understanding the adaptive capacity of conservation agriculture. Yet conservation agriculture syntheses to date have largely neglected climate, especially the effects of extreme heat.
For the sub-tropics and tropics, we use meta-regression, in combination with global soil and climate datasets, to test four hypotheses: (1) that relative yield performance of conservation agriculture improves with increasing drought and temperature stress; (2) that the effects of moisture and temperature stress exposure interact; (3) that the effects of moisture and temperature stress are modified by soil texture; and (4) that crop diversification, fertilizer application rate, or the time since no-till implementation will enhance conservation agriculture performance under climate stress.
Our results support the hypothesis that the relative maize yield performance of conservation agriculture improves with increasing drought severity or exposure to high temperatures. Further, there is an interaction of moisture and heat stress on conservation agriculture performance and their combined effect is both non-additive and modified by soil clay content, supporting our second and third hypotheses. Finally, we found only limited support for our fourth hypothesis as (1) increasing nitrogen application rates did not improve the relative performance of conservation agriculture under high heat stress; (2) crop diversification did not notably improve conservation agriculture performance, but did increase its stability with heat stress; and (3) a statistically robust effect of the time since no-till implementation was not evident.
Our meta-regression supports the narrative that conservation agriculture enhances the adaptive capacity of maize production in sub-Saharan Africa under drought and/or heat stress. However, in very wet seasons and on clay-rich soils, conservation agriculture yields less compared to conventional practices.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZRSKP
A novel high-entropy M4AlC3 phase ceramic (M=Ti, V, Mo, Nb, Ta) was synthesized by three-step solid phase sintering, and the textured high-entropy M4AlC3 composites were prepared for the first time ...by SPS uniaxial pressing of nano flakes generated via reactive ball milling. The microstructure were characterized in detail and Maud software was used for Rietveld refinement analysis of phase composition content. The results showed that Ti, V, Mo, Nb, Ta were successfully dissolved in M4AlC3. On this basis, the density, hardness and mechanical properties before and after texture were tested. The results showed that the textured composite achieved 12.1 GPa Vickers hardness (//C-axis), 2.2 GPa compressive strength (//C-axis), 8.8 fracture toughness of MPa m1/2 (//C-axis) and 726 MPa bending strength (//C-axis). Dispersively distributed nano-Al2O3 and texturization played a key role in strengthening and toughening. This work can provide an important reference for the subsequent preparation and texturing of high-entropy MAX ceramics.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
In this Letter, an attempt has been made to segment the brainstem structure from structural magnetic resonance (sMR) images and differentiate early mild cognitive impairment (EMCI) from normal and ...Alzheimer's condition using multifractal texture measures. The images considered from public domain database are preprocessed and brainstem is segmented using fuzzy ‘C’ means-based connected component labelling method. Multifractal spectrum (MS) is evaluated for the segmented brainstem structure using the multifractal detrended moving average technique. Seven MS-based texture measures are extracted and statistically analysed using one-way analysis of variance. Classification algorithms namely, naïve Bayes, decision tree and random forest (RF) are employed to distinguish the EMCI condition. Ten-fold cross-validation approach is executed and its performance is evaluated using accuracy, precision, recall and area under the curve. The results indicate that the segmented brainstem structures possess multifractal characteristics. Of the extracted MS-based texture measures, αmax, α0, αR, B and Δα are found to be statistically significant. RF gives the highest accuracy of 92.3% in distinguishing EMCI from other subject groups. Hence, the proposed approach with brainstem MS-based texture measures in combination with RF can be used as an imaging biomarker for the diagnosis of EMCI.
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FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
•The first deep learning framework for texture cartoonization.•A deep regularization module to predict and enhance the regularity of texture.•An unsupervised module for texture ...cartoonization.•Tailored self-supervised and adversarial objectives for network training.
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Texture plays an important role in cartoon images to represent materials of objects and enrich visual attractiveness. However, manually crafting a cartoon texture is not easy, so amateurs usually directly use cartoon textures downloaded from the Internet. Unfortunately, Internet resources are quite limited and often patented, which restrict the users from generating visually pleasant and personalized cartoon textures. In this paper, we propose a deep learning based method to generate cartoon textures from natural textures. Different from the existing photo cartoonization methods that only aim to generate cartoonic images, the key to our method is to generate cartoon textures that are both cartoonic and regular. To achieve this goal, we propose a regularization module to generate a regular natural texture with similar appearance as the input, and a cartoonization module to cartoffonize the regularized natural texture into a regular cartoon texture. Our method successfully produces cartoonic and regular textures from various natural textures.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
Interacting with physical objects through a tool elicits tactile and kinesthetic sensations that comprise your haptic impression of the object. These cues, however, are largely missing from ...interactions with virtual objects, yielding an unrealistic user experience. This article evaluates the realism of virtual surfaces rendered using haptic models constructed from data recorded during interactions with real surfaces. The models include three components: surface friction, tapping transients, and texture vibrations. We render the virtual surfaces on a SensAble Phantom Omni haptic interface augmented with a Tactile Labs Haptuator for vibration output. We conducted a human-subject study to assess the realism of these virtual surfaces and the importance of the three model components. Following a perceptual discrepancy paradigm, subjects compared each of 15 real surfaces to a full rendering of the same surface plus versions missing each model component. The realism improvement achieved by including friction, tapping, or texture in the rendering was found to directly relate to the intensity of the surface's property in that domain (slipperiness, hardness, or roughness). A subsequent analysis of forces and vibrations measured during interactions with virtual surfaces indicated that the Omni's inherent mechanical properties corrupted the user's haptic experience, decreasing realism of the virtual surface.
Amaranth seeds represent an important category of pseudocereals that showed growth over time both in terms of cultivated areas and food products containing amaranth seeds. In different geographical ...areas, amaranth occupies an important place in terms of pseudocereal consumption, especially in Latin America and China where amaranth cultivation has been documented for over 3000 years. Due to the chemical composition in general but also due to the physical structure in particular, the cooking possibilities of amaranth seeds are limited to a certain extent. The purpose of this study was to examine and determine the impact of a new heat treatment method that can be applied to amaranth seeds in order to design and obtain new functional foods from a physical and sensory point of view. Sous-vide technology is mostly used for cooking meat or vegetables. Cereals and pseudocereals have so far not been considered suitable for sous-vide cooking due to their physical structure and low moisture content. In this study, the method adapted to these factors is described, which allows the heat treatment specific to sous-vide technology to be carried out for amaranth seeds as well. The sous vide treatment was applied at different temperature (75 °C, 80 °C and 85°C), times (60, 120, 180 and 240 min) and solid-liquid ratios (1/4, 1/5 and 1/6). The exposure time had a major influence on the textural characteristics up to the value of 180 minutes, after which the relevance of this parameter decreased.
Food texture is an important quality characteristic that affects sensory perception and consumer satisfaction. Thermal processing applies to food material for several reasons including palatability ...improvement and shelf life extension. Ohmic heating is an energy- and time-saving technique that was previously proposed as an alternative to conventional heating methods in the food industry.
Investigating the effects of ohmic processes on food quality parameters, such as texture, is an important step towards the industrial adaptation of ohmic heating technology. This review focuses specifically on the effects of ohmic heating on food texture and tries to elucidate the mechanisms behind the changes in textural attributes during an ohmic process as compared to the classical heating method.
Achieving a predefined product texture in a shorter time and the uniformity of product texture are among the benefits of ohmic heating. However, several challenges (e.g. the possibility of negative effects on the chemical composition of the product and high capital investment) should be addressed for the industrial adoption of this emerging technology.
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•Ohmic treatment can modify textural properties of food materials.•This process can shorten the process time and reduce consumed energy.•Both thermal and non-thermal effects of ohmic treatment can alter the product texture.•Pretreatments, raw material, and process condition affect the product texture.•The high capital investment and safety concerns and are among the obstacles for its industrial adaptation.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
The effect of equal channel angular pressing (ECAP) on the recrystallization-induced microstructure and texture evolution of cold-rolled (CR) pure copper was investigated. Compared with CR copper, ...ECAP+CR copper had finer recrystallized grains because the large stored energy introduced by ECAP led to a higher nucleation rate for the recrystallization. While preferred nucleation with the formation of nucleation site bands and preferred growth along the rolling direction occurred in CR copper, much more uniform nucleation and equiaxed growth of recrystallized grains occurred in ECAP+CR copper. In contrast to the annealed CR copper in which a weak retained rolling texture was observed, the annealed ECAP+CR copper presented a strong cube texture after recrystallization. Mechanisms of the texture evolution are also discussed.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZRSKP
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