Diagnostic Window Research Articles

Development of Primary Vacuum Windows for ITER Diagnostics

Most of ITER's diagnostics will be provided with viewing lines (optical, microwave, and spectroscopic) for the monitoring of key characteristics of the plasma or for the achievement of physical measurements inside the vacuum vessel. The nature of the physical signal transmitted through the viewing lines requires the implementation of window assemblies incorporating nonmetallic window. Placed at the vacuum boundary, the window assembly shall also ensure the vacuum integrity required for the plasma. Moreover, the diagnostic window assemblies form part of the ITER primary confinement boundary, and thus, directly related to the nuclear safety. This paper gives an overview of their design and related on-going engineering assessments by analysis or tests in the final design phase.

Sequence Fault Diagnosis for PEMFC Water Management Subsystem Using Deep Learning With t-SNE

For solving the problem of sequence failure diagnosis of proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) water management subsystem, this paper proposes a PEMFC failure diagnosis method of time series based on the bidirectional long short-term memory (BiLSTM) network and t-distributed stochastic neighbor embedding (t-SNE). This approach adopts the normalization strategy to eliminate the influence caused by dimensional differences of different parameters. The t-SNE is presented to decrease the dimensionality of normalized data to the estimate of intrinsic dimensionality to extract key characteristic variables. The width of the diagnostic window is set to transform the original single moment diagnosis problem into the fault diagnosis problem of multi-variable time series, which is more consistent with the time scale and physical evolution law of the PEMFC water management fault generation. The 672 sets of training sets and 448 sets of test sets are learned and tested by the BiLSTM. The experimental results show that the BiLSTM-tSNE method can realize the sequence fault diagnosis of the PEMFC water management subsystem with 96.88% diagnostic accuracy and 24 s of operation time. Compared with the conventional approach of multi-class support vector machine algorithm, the training accuracy and the testing accuracy of the proposed method are improved by 15% and 16.88%, respectively. The operation time of the presented approach is only about 1/28 of the multi-class support vector machine algorithm.

Stray millimeter-wave radiation loads on ITER fused silica windows

In ITER, the window assemblies will be subjected to the combination of loads due to stray radiation and neutron streaming. Therefore, adequate tests are needed to qualify the windows for the hostile environmental conditions. In ITER, two main systems will generate high power waves in the millimeter range: the Collective Thomson Scattering (CTS) system, with a total power of 1 MW at 60 GHz, and the Electron Cyclotron Resonant Heating (ECRH) system, with a maximum power of 20 MW at 170 GHz. In particular operating conditions, a significant power fraction can be deflected in other ports as stray radiation. High levels of stray radiation could damage diagnostic windows that are safety relevant components. The radiation absorbed by the fused silica window assemblies on ports #11 and #12 have been evaluated in detail. The possible effects of gamma and neutron flux on the dielectric permittivity and loss tangent, determining the absorption, have also been reviewed.

Dependencies between maternal and fetal autonomic tone

Background Disturbances in maternal physiology can cause changes in the fetal condition that may lead to impaired fetal development. Synchronous monitoring of cardiac autonomic tone via the assessment of the fetal and maternal heart rate (HR) and heart rate variability (HRV) may provide an appropriate diagnostic window. Methods Partial rank correlation coefficients between the maternal and fetal HR and HRV indices were calculated and verified by testing surrogate data in 315 magnetocardiographic (MCG) recordings from 141 healthy women pregnant with singleton fetuses [18+6 to 39+2 weeks gestational age (WGA)]. We assessed maternal self-perceived depression, anxiety and stress by means of the Depression, Anxiety, Stress Scales self-reporting instrument (DASS42G) questionnaire. Results The maternal HRV correlated positively with the fetal HRV, but negatively with the fetal HR. Correlation was |r|<0.2 in state-independent and gestational age (GA) <32 weeks, but |r|>0.2 in active sleep and GA ≥32 weeks. The DASS42G results correlated with the maternal HRV and HR, while the fetal HR and HRV were not influenced. Conclusion Correlations between maternal and fetal autonomic activation were statistically confirmed. They depend on the GA and active fetal state. As far as healthy subjects are concerned, maternal self-perceived stress, anxiety or depression is mirrored in maternal but not in fetal autonomic tone.

Features of the course of manifest forms of acute hepatitis C

Aim. To identify clinical, epidemiological and laboratory-instrumental features of acute hepatitis C at the present stage according to the infectious hospital data.&#x0D; Methods. The study included 111 patients with acute hepatitis C aged from 18 to 79 years who were hospitalized in Republican Clinical Infectious Diseases Hospital named after A.F. Agafonov in 2011 - I quarter of 2017. Acute hepatitis C was diagnosed in accordance with the guidelines of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation.&#x0D; Results. In the study group, females aged 21 to 40 years, non-working, predominantly living in Kazan with medical transmission of infection (34 %) prevailed. The disease was mild and moderately severe (71 %). The icteric form was observed in 94 % of patients, in 3.6 % - with a cholestatic component. When comparing laboratory parameters, markers of cytolysis and cholestasis differed significantly in patients depending on the severity (p&lt;0.001). Changes in the gallbladder walls (an ultrasound marker of cholestasis) were revealed in 21.4 % of patients. On specific examination, the viral RNA was detected in 100 % of patients. Analysis of serological markers revealed predominance of antibodies to core and NS3 proteins, M class antibodies were detected only in half of the patients. Specific antibodies were absent (“dark diagnostic window”) in 3 % of patients with mild and 6 % of moderate form of the disease.&#x0D; Conclusion. The feature of the course of acute viral hepatitis C was the predominance of moderate forms (71 %) with medical transmission of infection. Icteric forms of acute viral hepatitis C were diagnosed in 94 % of patients (in 3.6 % cases with the development of cholestatic component). PCR is a mandatory method of specific diagnosis of acute viral hepatitis C, and in case of a “dark diagnostic window” becomes the leading method.

Liquid biopsy: a new diagnostic, predictive and prognostic window in cancers of unknown primary

Cancer of unknown primary (CUP) is a heterogeneous group of metastatic cancers characterised by early dissemination of metastases in the absence of any identifiable primary site. Most patients with CUP have poor prognosis with the traditional diagnostic and treatment modalities. Recognising the putative primary tumour is hypothesised to ameliorate the prognosis of patients with CUP by guiding treatment decisions. The active efforts in molecular oncology have shown that gene expression profiling is able to identify the primary tumour site and to determine targetable mutations. In this regard, liquid biopsy opens a new diagnostic, predictive and prognostic window in CUP that may lead to substantial improvement in the management of patients with CUP.

Evaluation of diffraction effects of phase contrast imaging on HL-2A and HL-2M tokamak

Diffraction effects of diagnostic windows and a phase plate are evaluated in sets of phase contrast imaging (PCI) systems on HL-2A tokamak. Results show that wave field of an incident laser with shorter wavelength is less effected by diffraction. The diameter of viewing windows for PCI is asked to be larger than 50 mm to eliminate diffraction effect, implying the defection of the traditional PCI diagnostic with 10.6 μm CO2 laser based on the viewing port with an inner diameter of 35 mm. This investigation promises a remarkable anti-diffraction performance for PCI diagnostics on the constructing HL-2M tokamak, which reserves a pair of diagnostic windows with an inner diameter of 80 mm. Evaluation of response to the phase plate indicates that the signal response and the laser beam width are restricted by each other. A suitable choice of laser beam width depends on the specific plasma physics.

European position paper on drug-induced sleep endoscopy: 2017 Update.

The first edition of the European position paper (EPP) on drug-induced sleep endoscopy (DISE) was published in 2014 with the aim to standardise the procedure, to provide an in-depth insight into the main aspects of this technique and to have a basis for future research. Since 2014, new studies have been published concerning new sedative agents or new insights into the pattern/levels of the obstruction depending on the depth of sedation. Therefore, an enlarged group of European experts in the field of sleep breathing disorders (SBD), including the most of the first DISE EPP main authors, has decided to publish an update of the European position paper on DISE, in order to include new evidence and to find a common language useful for reporting the findings of this endoscopic evaluation in adult population affected by SBD. The authors have evaluated all the available evidence reported in the literature and have compared experience among various departments in leading European centres in order to provide an update regarding the standardisation of the DISE procedure and an in-depth insight into the main aspects of this technique. After the first European Position Consensus Meeting on DISE and its update, consensus was confirmed for indications, required preliminary examinations, where to perform DISE, technical equipment required, staffing, local anaesthesia, nasal decongestion, other medications, patient positioning, basics and special diagnostic manoeuvres, drugs and observation windows. So far, no consensus could be reached on a scoring and classification system. However, regarding this aim, the idea of an essential classification, such as VOTE with the possibility of its graded implementation of information and descriptions, seems to be the best way to reach a universal consensus on DISE classification at this stage. A common DISE language is mandatory, and attempts to come to a generally accepted system should be pursued.

Diurnal variation in expired breath volatiles in malaria-infected and healthy volunteers

We previously showed that thioether levels in the exhaled breath volatiles of volunteers undergoing controlled human malaria infection (CHMI) with P. falciparum increase as infection progresses. In this study, we show that thioethers have diurnal cyclical increasing patterns and their levels are significantly higher in P. falciparum CHMI volunteers compared to those of healthy volunteers. The synchronized cycle and elevation of thioethers were not present in P. vivax-infection, therefore it is likely that the thioethers are associated with unique factors in the pathology of P. falciparum. Moreover, we found that time-of-day of breath collection is important to accurately predict (98%) P. falciparum-infection. Critically, this was achieved when the disease was asymptomatic and parasitemia was below the level detectable by microscopy. Although these findings are encouraging, they show limitations because of the limited and logistically difficult diagnostic window and its utility to P. falciparum malaria only. We looked for new biomarkers in the breath of P. vivax CHMI volunteers and found that a set of terpenes increase significantly over the course of the malaria infection. The accuracy of predicting P. vivax using breath terpenes was up to 91%. Moreover, some of the terpenes were also found in the breath of P. falciparum CHMI volunteers (accuracy up to 93.5%). The results suggest that terpenes might represent better biomarkers than thioethers to predict malaria as they were not subject to malaria pathogens diurnal changes.

Assessment Strategies to Improve the Diagnosis of Osteomyelitis in Diabetic Foot Using Radiography

Background: Diabetes mellitus is a multi-system disease that affects people of both genders and any age or ethnic group. Foot wounds are common and can lead to loss of limb in cases of therapeutic failure. Aim: The aim of this study was to correlate initial diagnoses of osteomyelitis by radiography with bacterial cultures and identify ways to improve the diagnosis using this method. Method: In a prospective random clinical trial, the correlation between radiographs and bacterial cultures were evaluated in diabetic patients undergoing amputation of toes or part of the foot in Hospital de Base in the period from October 2010 to January 2012. Radiographs were considered suggestive of osteomyelitis if they identified an irregular bone surface, obliteration, bone resorption or periosteal resorption. The diagnostic impression from imaging was compared to the results of a bacterial growth culture prepared using bone removed during surgery. Results: An analysis of the radiographs identified 29 patients with results that were suggestive of osteomyelitis. Of these, the results of 27 bacterial cultures were positive. Eight of the 22 radiographs that were not suggestive of osteomyelitis were negative and 14 were positive. Conclusion: The diagnosis of osteomyelitis in diabetic foot can be improved by stratifying the results, taking the positive results and creating a diagnostic window with another diagnostic evaluation in cases that are initially negative.

Development of Q-band X-mode microwave reflectometry for the measurement of edge density profile

A Q-band X-mode homodyne microwave reflectometry has been developed for the measurement of edge electron density profile on the Joint TEXT tokamak (J-TEXT). A voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) with a frequency quadrupler is used as the microwave source. An arbitrary waveform generator (AWG) is adopted to control the sweeping period (20 μs) for the VCO. Homodyne method is chose to simplify the structure of the hardware circuit. In addition, a single antenna scheme which using a directional coupler to realize the sharing of an antenna for transmitting and receiving to save the resources of diagnostic windows has been adopted. For the data processing, the Hilbert transform has been used to demodulate the signal instead of the I/Q phase detector. This reflectometry has been installed on J-TEXT and effectively measured edge density profile.

Multiphotonic staging of chronic wounds and evaluation of sterile, optical transparent bacterial nanocellulose covering: A diagnostic window into human skin.

Diagnostics of healing, infection, and inflammation in chronic wounds in comparison with physiological wound healing in acute wounds may help for therapy decisions toward individualized therapy management. With emerging new optical techniques the coupling of optical diagnostic devices with tissue provides a great challenge. Traditional coupling with cover slips is used since the early days of microscopy. In modern health care, hygienic covering of surfaces is necessary to avoid infections and cross-contaminations. Measurements in chronic wounds were performed at three different areas including the center of the wound, the border of the wound and healthy skin as comparison area. For each measurement area, three vertical stacks were taken by MPT. Additionally, three different optical measuring procedures (MPT, OCT, CLSM) were used for the examination of BNC foil. Examinations of BNC foil were carried out at two different areas of healthy skin compared to a standard setup as control. The MPT evaluation revealed a distinct difference in the second harmonic generation-to-autofluorescence aging index of dermis (SAAID) behavior between the vertical stacks taken at central wound areas and wound margins as well as unaffected skin. Through BNC foil covers, MPT CLSM and OCT images were captured with good quantitative and qualitative results. Phases in chronic wounds could be matched with physiologically healing in acute wounds according to SAAID and MPT imaging. BNC provided an alternative covering for MPT, OCT, and CLSM with clear morphological images.

The comparison between near-infrared and traditional CO2 phase contrast imaging on HL-2A tokamak

The main idea of developing Near Infrared Phase Contrast Imaging (NI-PCI) diagnostic on HL-2A tokamak is presented. Compared to the traditional PCI diagnostic which injects CO2 laser beam with a wavelength of 10.6 μm into plasma, NI-PCI using 1.55 μm laser has more advantages in measuring plasma density fluctuations due to shorter wavelength. This novel diagnostic is designed to detect plasma density perturbations with a wavenumber ranging from 2 cm−1 to over 30 cm−1 without significant phase scintillation effect. Comparison of diffraction effects between 10.6 μm and 1.55 μm laser beam shows that NI-PCI has a better response than PCI with a size-limited diagnostic window on HL-2A.

New insights into the origin of remote PPG signals in visible light and infrared

Remote photoplethysmography (PPG) is an optical measurement technique with established applications in vital signs monitoring. Recently, the consensual understanding of blood volume variations (BVVs) as the origin of PPG signals was challenged, raising validity concerns about the remote SpO2 methodology. Recognizing the imperative for new opto-physiological evidence, this investigation supports the volumetric hypothesis with living skin experiments and Monte Carlo simulations of remote PPG-amplitude in visible light (VIS) and infrared (IR). Multilayered models of the skin were developed to simulate the separate contributions from skin layers containing pulsatile arterioles to the PPG signal in the 450–1000 nm range. The simulated spectra were qualitatively compared with observations of the resting and compressed finger pad, and complemented with videocapillaroscopy. Our results indicate that remote PPG systems indeed probe arterial blood. Green wavelengths probe dermal arterioles while red-IR wavelengths also reach subcutaneous BVVs. Owing to stable penetration depths, the red-IR diagnostic window promotes the invariance of SpO2 measurements to skin non-homogeneities.

Assessment of serum cardiac troponin-I over serum CPK-MB in early diagnosis of acute myocardial infarction (AMI)

Background: The early mortality rate from AMI is 30% with about half of them occurring within 1hour of disability. Although the mortality rate after admission for AMI has declined by 30% over the past decades, approximately 1 of every 25 patients who survive the initial hospitalization die in the first year after AMI. The gold standard for diagnosis of MI has been an elevated serum level of creatinine kinase – myocardial band (CK- MB), the cardiac-specific isoenzyme of CK. However, elevated CK-MB may not detect all myocardial necrosis. In patients who die suddenly after severe or silent episodes of ischemia, autopsies frequently reveal micronecrosis that was not reflected in routine CK-MB measurements. The present study was undertaken to know that serum Cardiac Troponin-I is more sensitive marker than serum CPK-MB in early diagnosis of acute myocardial infarction (AMI).Methods: The study was carried out in tertiary care hospital in Gulbarga. The study was undertaken with an aim to study that serum cardiac troponin-I (cTnl) is more sensitive than serum CK-MB in early diagnosis of acute myocardial infarction (AMI). The study was conducted on patients admitted with history of chest pain suggestive of AMI as diagnosed by WHO criteria to medicine ward of Basaveshwar Teaching and General Hospital, Gulbarga. The period of study was from June 2012 to June 2014. The sample size included 100 patients with history of chest pain suggestive of AMI, selected by simple random method.Results: Our results revealed that cardiac troponin I was more sensitive (62%) than CK-MB in overall cases admitted in between 6-24 hrs from the onset of chest pain. Maximum number (41%) of AMI patients were affected on the anterior wall followed by Inferior wall of AMI. 11 percent were affected with Antero lateral wall wereas 5 to 6 percent were affected with anteroseptal and global acute and right ventricular AMI was seen among 2 percent of patients. Anterior wall AMI was the significantly affected site with AMI (ʎ2:12.5, P:0.0004). The maximum number of acute myocardial infarctions were ST elevation myocardial infarctions. 28% of cases where CKMB is normal, the cTnI detects the AMI cases indicating its sensitivity.Conclusions: Cardiac troponin-I (cTnI) was more sensitive serum marker than CKMB in the early diagnosis of acute myocardial infarction (AMI). Anterior wall was the most significantly affected site of AMI. In the future, further improvements in analytical performance may open additional diagnostic windows.

Time-course expression profile and diagnostic potential of a miRNA panel in exosomes and total serum in acute liver injury

Circulating miRNAs have recently emerged as attractive candidates for biomarker discovery. However, they have a variant distribution in circulation, and the diagnostic significance of their compartmentalization is yet to be elucidated. This study explored the time-course expression profile and the diagnostic potential of miRNAs-122a-5p, 192-5p, 193a-3p and 194-5p in exosomal and total serum compartments in two rat models of acute liver injury (ALI)1. Exosomes were isolated and characterized in terms of morphology, size and CD-63 surface marker expression. Exosomal, serum and hepatic miRNAs were quantified using q-RT-PCR. An inverse expression pattern of hepatic and total serum miRNAs was observed following acetaminophen or thioacetamide-induced liver injury. Conversely, exosomal miRNAs expression pattern varied according to the type of injury. Overall, ROC analysis revealed superior discriminatory ability of exosomal miRNA-122a-5p following either acetaminophen or thioacetamide injury with earlier diagnostic potential and a wider diagnostic window compared to the corresponding total serum counterpart. Moreover, exosomal miRNAs showed higher correlation with ALT activity in both models. In conclusion, exosomal miRNA-122a-5p shows higher diagnostic performance with a broader diagnostic time window and an earlier diagnostic potential than its serum counterpart in ALI. Furthermore, exosomal miRNAs-122a-5p, 192-5p and 193a-3p exhibit an injury-specific signature in ALI and can be used not only as diagnostic tools in liver injury but also to differentiate between different etiologies of injury.

Isolation of Brucella abortus and Brucella melitensis from Seronegative Cows is a Serious Impediment in Brucellosis Control.

Brucellosis is a zoonosis occurring worldwide, with economic and public health impacts. Its diagnosis remains a challenge in endemic countries and basically relies on serology. The present study was carried out on two dairy cattle farms allegedly free from brucellosis, but with sporadic cases of abortion. The aim of this study was to investigate the presence of Brucella (B.) spp. in uterine discharge of seronegative cows after abortion. In farm I, B. melitensis biovar (bv) 3 was cultured from two of five cows after abortion, while in farm II, B. abortus bv 1 was cultured from three of eleven cows after abortion. These cows had been intrauterinely infected but remained seronegative until abortion and seroconverted only thereafter. Shedding of brucellae in uterine discharge of culture positive/seronegative aborting cows is a serious problem resulting in maintenance and further spread of infection. Thus, serosurveys in endemic countries have to be accompanied by molecular detection and/or culture of aborted material to close the diagnostic window and to hinder uncontrolled spread.

Reliable Serological Testing for the Diagnosis of Emerging Infectious Diseases.

Climate change, increased urbanization and international travel have facilitated the spread of mosquito vectors and the viral species they carry. Zika virus (ZIKV) is currently spreading in the Americas, while dengue virus (DENV) and chikungunya virus (CHIKV) have already become firmly established in most tropical and also many non-tropical regions. ZIKV, DENV and CHIKV overlap in their endemic areas and cause similar clinical symptoms, especially in the initial stages of infection. Infections with each of these viruses can lead to severe complications, and co-infections have been reported. Therefore, laboratory analyses play an important role in differential diagnostics. A timely and accurate diagnosis is crucial for patient management, prevention of unnecessary therapies, rapid adoption of vector control measures, and collection of epidemiological data.There are two pillars to diagnosis: direct pathogen detection and the determination of specific antibodies. Serological tests provide a longer diagnostic window than direct methods, and are suitable for diagnosing acute and past infections, for disease surveillance and for vaccination monitoring. ELISA and indirect immunofluorescence test (IIFT) systems based on optimized antigens enable sensitive and specific detection of antibodies against ZIKV, DENV and CHIKV in patient serum or plasma. In recent years, Euroimmun (Lübeck, Germany) has developed numerous test systems for the serological diagnosis of (re-)emerging diseases, including a very sensitive and specific anti-ZIKV ELISA.

Near infrared excitation and emission in rare earth MOFs via encapsulation of organic dyes.

We successfully demonstrate that metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) can be designed to be excited and emit within the biological diagnostic window (650-1450 nm). An isoreticular series of anionic rare earth MOFs with fcu topology was synthesized using 10 different rare earth elements (Y3+, Eu3+, Gd3+, Tb3+, Dy3+, Ho3+, Er3+, Tm3+, Yb3+, Lu3+) and common linear ditopic ligands. Five different cationic dye molecules were incorporated into the MOFs via ion exchange. When LDS 750, which exhibits low-energy absorption in the range 450-770 nm, is loaded into an Yb3+-MOF, it can be used as an antenna to sensitize the near-infrared (NIR) emission of Yb3+ centred at 980 nm.

Innovative and New Approaches to Laboratory Diagnosis of Zika and Dengue: A Meeting Report.

Epidemics of dengue, Zika, and other arboviral diseases are increasing in frequency and severity. Current efforts to rapidly identify and manage these epidemics are limited by the short diagnostic window in acute infection, the extensive serologic cross-reactivity among flaviviruses, and the lack of point-of-care diagnostic tools to detect these viral species in primary care settings. The Partnership for Dengue Control organized a workshop to review the current landscape of Flavivirus diagnostic tools, identified current gaps, and developed strategies to accelerate the adoption of promising novel technologies into national programs. The rate-limiting step to bringing new diagnostic tools to the market is access to reference materials and well-characterized clinical samples to facilitate performance evaluation. We suggest the creation of an international laboratory-response consortium for flaviviruses with a decentralized biobank of well-characterized samples to facilitate assay validation. Access to proficiency panels are needed to ensure quality control, in additional to in-country capacity building.