Foreign Object Research Articles

Weakly Supervised 2D Pose Adaptation and Body Part Segmentation for Concealed Object Detection.

Weakly supervised pose estimation can be used to assist unsupervised body part segmentation and concealed item detection. The accuracy of pose estimation is essential for precise body part segmentation and accurate concealed item detection. In this paper, we show how poses obtained from an RGB pretrained 2D pose detector can be modified for the backscatter image domain. The 2D poses are refined using RANSAC bundle adjustment to minimize the projection loss in 3D. Furthermore, we show how 2D poses can be optimized using a newly proposed 3D-to-2D pose correction network weakly supervised with pose prior regularizers and multi-view pose and posture consistency losses. The optimized 2D poses are used to segment human body parts. We then train a body-part-aware anomaly detection network to detect foreign (concealed threat) objects on segmented body parts. Our work is applied to the TSA passenger screening dataset containing millimeter wave scan images of airport travelers annotated with only binary labels that indicate whether a foreign object is concealed on a body part. Our proposed approach significantly improves the detection accuracy of TSA 2D backscatter images in existing works with a state-of-the-art performance of 97% F1-score, 0.0559 log-loss on the TSA-PSD test-set, and a 74% reduction in 2D pose error.

Thoraco-Abdominal Split by a Metallic Rod: A Case Report

Introduction: Impalement wounds are defined by foreign objects usually steel bars or a wooden object, piercing a body cavity in part or from one end to another and always remaining in place. Thoraco- abdominal impalements are cases of rare trauma in our exercise context. We report a case of thoraco-abdominal impalement in an 11-year-old patient as well as our therapeutic attitude in our exercise context. Observation: this is an 11-year-old student, with no medical and surgical history, received in emergency for thoraco-abdominal trauma following a play activity in the family home. Discussion: Penetrating thoraco-abdominal wounds are most often caused by gunshot wounds. Impalement is a potentially serious lesion that can be immediately life-threatening and depends on the organs affected. Our case study concerns a patient victim of a domestic accident following a playful activity within the family home. The injuring agent was a concrete rod positioned within the home without any security measures and which was used to tie up sheep intended for domestic breeding. Management of impalements must comply with rules so as not to aggravate the lesions. Conclusion: Thoracoabdominal impalement injuries are potentially serious and can be life-threatening. Its management is a challenge in countries with limited resources like ours. Good coordination of medico-surgical care allowed optimal management of the patient.

Branch Interference Sensing and Handling by Tactile Enabled Robotic Apple Harvesting

In the dynamic and unstructured environment where horticultural crops grow, obstacles and interference frequently occur but are rarely addressed, which poses significant challenges for robotic harvesting. This work proposed a tactile-enabled robotic grasping method that combines deep learning, tactile sensing, and soft robots. By integrating fin-ray fingers with embedded tactile sensing arrays and customized perception algorithms, the robot gains the ability to sense and handle branch interference during the harvesting process and thus reduce potential mechanical fruit damage. Through experimental validations, an overall 83.3–87.0% grasping status detection success rate, and a promising interference handling method have been demonstrated. The proposed grasping method can also be extended to broader robotic grasping applications wherever undesirable foreign object intrusion needs to be addressed.

Sppn-Rn101: Spatial Pyramid Pooling Network with Resnet101-Based Foreign Object Debris Detection in Airports

Over the past few years, aviation security has turned into a vital domain as foreign object debris (FOD) on the airport paved path possesses an enormous possible threat to airplanes at the time of takeoff and landing. Hence, FOD’s precise identification remains significant for assuring airplane flight security. The material features of FOD remain the very critical criteria for comprehending the destruction rate endured by an airplane. Nevertheless, the most frequent identification systems miss an efficient methodology for automated material identification. This study proffers a new FOD technique centered on transfer learning and also a mainstream deep convolutional neural network. For object detection (OD), this embraces the spatial pyramid pooling network with ResNet101 (SPPN-RN101), which assists in concatenating the local features upon disparate scales within a similar convolution layer with fewer position errors while identifying little objects. Additionally, Softmax with Adam Optimizer in CNN enhances the training speed with greater identification accuracy. This study presents FOD’s image dataset called FOD in Airports (FODA). In addition to the bounding boxes’ principal annotations for OD, FODA gives labeled environmental scenarios. Consequently, every annotation instance has been additionally classified into three light-level classes (bright, dim, and dark) and two weather classes (dry and wet). The proffered SPPN-ResNet101 paradigm is correlated to the former methodologies, and the simulation outcomes exhibit that the proffered study executes an AP medium of 0.55 for the COCO metric, 0.97 AP for the pascal metric, and 0.83 MAP of pascal metric.

Extreme Metasurfaces Enable Targeted and Protected Wireless Energy Transfer

AbstractControlling the electromagnetic properties of materials beyond those achievable with natural substances has become a reality with the advent of metamaterials. The extreme properties that metamaterials provide offer an opportunity to manipulate and tailor electromagnetic waves in an arbitrary manner. Wireless energy transfer demands reliable and stable solutions for charging batteries of electronic devices with high efficiency and no effect on people, animals, plants, etc. Motivated by this challenging problem, a novel approach of using metamaterials with extreme parameters is suggested to enable targeted wireless energy transfer with reduced impact on biological tissues. Epsilon‐near‐zero (ENZ) and epsilon‐and‐mu‐near‐zero (EMNZ) metamaterials are designed and experimentally implemented, providing an energy transmission if and only if both the transmitter and the receiver are equipped with these metamaterials. The nonexistence of these extreme parameter metamaterials in nature protects the system from the presence of other objects with “ordinary” (effective) parameters causing neither noticeable change in operation nor any detrimental effect on foreign objects. The system behind the proposed approach can be realized in virtually any frequency band by appropriate scaling and suitable choice of material. This technology will find applications in targeted wireless energy transfer systems, especially where high power is needed, including electric vehicles.

Hyperglycemic Conditions Enhance the Mechanosensitivity of Proinflammatory RAW264.7 Macrophages.

Macrophages are a primary contributor to the orchestration and severity of the foreign body response. As phagocytes and antigen-presenting cells, macrophages engage foreign objects, producing chemokines, degrading enzymes, and proinflammatory cytokines, including tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) and interleukin-6 (IL-6). Encapsulated islet transplantation (EIT) is a return of function therapy in which donor insulin-secreting cells are encased in a biomaterial and implanted into a diabetic patient to regulate blood glucose levels. However, the foreign body response by macrophages to the encapsulated islet allograft may cause rejection. Recent studies have shown that substrate stiffness affects macrophage activity, which can inform EIT capsule design. However, due to the dysregulation of glucose maintenance in diabetic patients, varying from normoglycemic to hypoglycemic or hyperglycemic conditions, it is imperative to determine if glucose dysregulation affects macrophage mechanosensitivity to EIT biomaterials. This study explores the relationship between glucose metabolism and mechanosensitivity and the ultimate impact on proinflammatory macrophage function in static hyperglycemic and normoglycemic conditions. Using a 2-dimensional (2D) polyacrylamide model of 3-order magnitude in stiffness, 2, 15, and 274 kPa Young's moduli, the effect of glycemic condition on the mechanosensitive characteristics of unstimulated and proinflammatory RAW264.7 macrophage function in vitro using lipopolysaccharide (LPS) was examined. Hyperglycemic conditions were found to impact macrophage response to substrate stiffness significantly. Notably, TNF-α secretion was significantly reduced as substrate stiffness increased in LPS-stimulated hyperglycemic conditions, whereas normoglycemic macrophages held similar secretion across all stiffnesses. Stiffness-influenced differences in cytokine secretion were also induced in IL-6 secretion by hyperglycemic conditions. Hyperglycemic conditions promoted a biphasic trend in IL-6 cytokine secretion and gene expression by proinflammatory macrophages with significantly decreased production when cultured on 15 kPa compared to production on 2 and 274 kPa. Although hyperglycemic conditions drastically increased IL-10 secretion, stiffness-influenced differences were not shown when compared to the same glycemic condition. Furthermore, under LPS stimulation, lactate secretion had an inverse relationship to TNF-α secretion. However, no significant stiffness-influenced difference was demonstrated in glucose transporter 1 (GLUT1) expression, glucose uptake, or GAPDH. These findings suggest that hyperglycemic conditions enhance the mechanosensitivity of proinflammatory macrophages and should be explored further. Impact statement The work presented increases our understanding of the effect of glycemic condition on macrophage mechanosensitivity related to substrate stiffness. This has ramifications on the design of material-based therapies, such as encapsulated islet transplantation, for type 1 diabetic patients who experience glycemic dysregulation.

CT-based data generation for foreign object detection on a single X-ray projection

Although X-ray imaging is used routinely in industry for high-throughput product quality control, its capability to detect internal defects has strong limitations. The main challenge stems from the superposition of multiple object features within a single X-ray view. Deep Convolutional neural networks can be trained by annotated datasets of X-ray images to detect foreign objects in real-time. However, this approach depends heavily on the availability of a large amount of data, strongly hampering the viability of industrial use with high variability between batches of products. We present a computationally efficient, CT-based approach for creating artificial single-view X-ray data based on just a few physically CT-scanned objects. By algorithmically modifying the CT-volume, a large variety of training examples is obtained. Our results show that applying the generative model to a single CT-scanned object results in image analysis accuracy that would otherwise be achieved with scans of tens of real-world samples. Our methodology leads to a strong reduction in training data needed, improved coverage of the combinations of base and foreign objects, and extensive generalizability to additional features. Once trained on just a single CT-scanned object, the resulting deep neural network can detect foreign objects in real-time with high accuracy.

Lipids and microparticles, physical characterization as a lung-contamination model.

Phospholipids are major components in lipid membranes in living cells which serve important biological functions. Because of their amphiphilic nature, phospholipids can, in aqueous environment, self-assemble into the bilayer structures present in cell membranes such as lung alveoli and myelin sheath. Interactions of such cell membranes with nano-objects have been important topics in the fields of colloids and biophysics, as well as biomedical fields in past decades. Given that nanoparticles (NPs) can serve as not only drug delivery carriers but also toxic foreign objects in contact with cell membranes, this work seeks to answer questions pertaining to fundamental understanding of the complex molecular interactions in NPs-phospholipid systems at different length scales, in particular, focusing on lung surfactant system.

Bronchotomy for metal foreign object removal in pediatric airway

Bronchotomy for metal foreign object removal in pediatric airway

Study the effects of ferrous materials inside wood on the propagation characteristics of acoustic emission signals

ABSTRACT This study compares the propagation characteristics of acoustic emission signals for wood containing ferrous material by implanting ferrous nails into wood specimens to investigate the acoustic emission (AE) detection method of foreign metal objects inside the wood. It obtains specimens for the comparative test by drilling holes and implanting ferrous nails into identical Zelkova schneideriana and Pinus sylvestris var. mongholica specimens. Initially, the AE source is generated by conducting pencil-lead break (PLB) tests on the specimen surfaces according to ASTM standards, and the AE signals are then collected at the specimen surface with a 1 MHz sampling frequency. The effects of ferrous materials on the propagation characteristics of AE signals are examined using FFT and EWT methods for the time–frequency analysis of the original AE signals. Finally, the signal generator produces the 150 kHz pulse train at the PLB location. The AE signal energy is calculated based on the alternating current principle to establish the corresponding AE energy attenuation function. The results showed that the proportion of AE signals in the frequency ranges of (30–60 kHz) and (150–180 kHz) increases significantly when ferrous nails are present in the specimens.

Sound-Based Intelligent Detection of FOD in the Final Assembly of Rocket Tanks

The traditional method of relying on human hearing to detect foreign object debris (FOD) events during rocket tank assembly processes has the limitation of strong reliance on humans and difficulty in establishing objective detection records. This can lead to undetected FOD entering the engine with the fuel and causing major launch accidents. In this study, we developed an automatic, intelligent FOD detection system for rocket tanks based on sound signals to overcome the drawbacks of manual detection, enabling us to take action to prevent accidents in advance. First, we used log-Mel transformation to reduce the high sampling rate of the sound signal. Furthermore, we proposed a multiscale convolution and temporal convolutional network (MS-CTCN) to overcome the challenges of multi-scale temporal feature extraction to detect suspicious FOD events. Finally, we used the proposed post-processing strategies of label smoothing and threshold discrimination to refine the results of FOD event detection and ultimately determine the presence of FOD. The proposed method was validated through FOD experiments. The results showed that the method had an accuracy rate of 99.16% in detecting FOD and had a better potential to prevent accidents compared to the baseline method.

Abdominal Trauma by Impalement. Clinical case.

Introduction: Impalement injury is one of the most spectacular and potentially dramatic rare forms of penetrating trauma. [2,3] In many cases, the impaled patient dies at the scene.[3] The patient who manages to reach the hospital alive and is hemodynamically stable has a good chance of overcoming a traumatic event. However, the non-removal of a foreign object represents the cornerstone of initial treatment, as possible vascular lesions remain compressed by the object in situ, thus avoiding irrepressible hemorrhages. Clinical case: A 32-year-old male was brought in by a paramedic after suffering electrical burns to the right thoracic limb and right pelvic limb that caused a fall from a power pole with subsequent penetrating abdominal trauma due to impalement. He denies antecedents of importance for the current condition. Upon arrival, he was hemodynamically stable, with the presence of a first-degree electrical burn in the right hand and forearm and the right thigh, as well as a metallic rod passing through the abdomen from the left groin to the right flank, for which it was decided to perform Exploratory Laparotomy who reported the following findings: Intestinal perforation of more than 50% of the lumen at jejunum level, side-to-side anastomosis was performed. During his stay on the floor of General Surgery, he had a torpid post-surgical evolution, intolerance to the oral route, abdominal distension, absence of gas channeling, and symptoms of intestinal obstruction, for which it was decided to perform a new Exploratory Laparotomy, finding intestinal stenosis at the level of the previous anastomosis was dismantled and reconstructed in side by side, on this occasion with favorable evolution and he was discharged due to improvement after 14 days of hospital stay. Discussion: Prehospital emergency medicine (PHEM) offers unique and challenging perspectives to orthodox emergency medicine. Impalements are extremely rare and often require a multidisciplinary team approach in the prehospital setting. Most cases of impalements are fatal at the scene. Patients surviving the initial trauma and arriving at the hospital alive, usually make a good recovery with multidisciplinary team management underpinning the importance of meticulous prehospital care in transporting patients with impalements safely. This case highlights the role of PHEM clinicians as experts in clinical knowledge, decision-making, leadership, team working skills, and improvisations.

A Rare Case of a Lisfranc Ligament Transection.

Ligamentous Lisfranc injuries, which mimic a surgical transection are rare. Left untreated or missed, these injuries may result in severe complications including long-term disability. The present case describes a unique mechanism of injury via a sharp object puncture through the plantar surface of the midfoot. It highlights the utility of planning staged procedures to remove a large foreign body object, reports notable intraoperative techniques, and provides a decision management guide for treating this type of injury. Extensive surgical planning may be required when encountering similar cases and knowledge of this may be useful to providers.

Quality Control of White Sweet Potato (Ipomoea batatas Linneaus) As Raw Material for Chili Sauce

Quality control is one of the important factors in maintaining the consistency of the quality of a product. The activity of controlling the quality of raw materials to ensure the quality of raw materials. Quality control starts from the receipt of raw materials until the time the raw materials will be used. Quality is used to determine the level of consumer acceptance of the product. The quality of a product is strongly influenced by the quality of the raw materials of the product. Therefore, it is necessary to have quality standards for raw materials that function as parameters and limits for an acceptable raw material which will then be processed into a product. Supervision was carried out visually with parameters of color, texture, shape, and size of white sweet potato which was carried out for 8 days. The analytical method used is the descriptive method, check sheet, and Pareto diagram. The results of this study will be compared with the quality standard of sweet potato according to SNI 01-4493-1998. Based on the results of the study, it is known that the sweet potato quality standards are set in PD. Surabraja Putra is classified based on weight, namely B (> 500 g), R (300-500 g) and TO (> 250 g) on the condition that the sweet potato is not deformed, rotten, hollow, moldy, and there are no foreign objects (soil, stems, leaves, and litter). The quality standard of sweet potato weight is set in PD. Surabraja Puta has complied with the weight quality of sweet potatoes according to SNI 01-4493-1998. However, the weight range used by PD. Surabraja Putra is larger than the weight range of sweet potatoes according to SNI. Varieties of local sweet potatoes used as raw material for chili sauce in PD. Surabraja Putra are Eski, Gaul, Asban, Melati, Manohara, and White Ase from Kuningan and Majalengka. The most common sweet potato defect found was the eski variety with a percentage of 39% and a weight of 496 kg.

Magnetoactive liquid-solid phase transitional matter

•Magnetoactive phase transitional matter (MPTM) is made of NdFeB embedded liquid metal •MPTMs can reversibly switch between solid and liquid phase •MPTMs can solder electronic components and assemble parts in hard-to-reach space •MPTMs can remove foreign objects or deliver drugs in a model stomach Magnetically actuated miniature machines can perform multimodal locomotion and programmable deformations. However, they are either solid magnetic elastomers with limited morphological adaptability or liquid material systems with low mechanical strength. Here, we report magnetoactive phase transitional matter (MPTM) composed of magnetic neodymium-iron-boron microparticles embedded in liquid metal. MPTMs can reversibly switch between solid and liquid phase by heating with alternating magnetic field or through ambient cooling. In this way, they uniquely combine high mechanical strength (strength, 21.2 MPa; stiffness, 1.98 GPa), high load capacity (able to bear 30 kg), and fast locomotion speed (>1.5 m/s) in the solid phase with excellent morphological adaptability (elongation, splitting, and merging) in the liquid phase. We demonstrate the unique capabilities of MPTMs by showing their dynamic shape reconfigurability by realizing smart soldering machines and universal screws for smart assembly and machines for foreign body removal and drug delivery in a model stomach. Magnetically actuated miniature machines can perform multimodal locomotion and programmable deformations. However, they are either solid magnetic elastomers with limited morphological adaptability or liquid material systems with low mechanical strength. Here, we report magnetoactive phase transitional matter (MPTM) composed of magnetic neodymium-iron-boron microparticles embedded in liquid metal. MPTMs can reversibly switch between solid and liquid phase by heating with alternating magnetic field or through ambient cooling. In this way, they uniquely combine high mechanical strength (strength, 21.2 MPa; stiffness, 1.98 GPa), high load capacity (able to bear 30 kg), and fast locomotion speed (>1.5 m/s) in the solid phase with excellent morphological adaptability (elongation, splitting, and merging) in the liquid phase. We demonstrate the unique capabilities of MPTMs by showing their dynamic shape reconfigurability by realizing smart soldering machines and universal screws for smart assembly and machines for foreign body removal and drug delivery in a model stomach.

Analyzing Overlaid Foreign Objects in Chest X-rays-Clinical Significance and Artificial Intelligence Tools.

The presence of non-biomedical foreign objects (NBFO), such as coins, buttons and jewelry, and biomedical foreign objects (BFO), such as medical tubes and devices in chest X-rays (CXRs), make accurate interpretation difficult, as they do not indicate known biological abnormalities like excess fluids, tuberculosis (TB) or cysts. Such foreign objects need to be detected, localized, categorized as either NBFO or BFO, and removed from CXR or highlighted in CXR for effective abnormality analysis. Very specifically, NBFOs can adversely impact the process, as typical machine learning algorithms would consider these objects to be biological abnormalities producing false-positive cases. It holds true for BFOs in CXRs. This paper examines detailed discussions on numerous clinical reports in addition to computer-aided detection (CADe) with diagnosis (CADx) tools, where both shallow learning and deep learning algorithms are applied. Our discussion reflects the importance of accurately detecting, isolating, classifying, and either removing or highlighting NBFOs and BFOs in CXRs by taking 29 peer-reviewed research reports and articles into account.

Needle Removal in the Deep Maxillofacial Region Assisted by Computerized Navigation Technique and Digital Guiding Plate.

Retention of foreign bodies frequently happened in the region of oral and maxillofacial. In very rare cases, the positions of the foreign objects moved with the movement of muscles in the oral and maxillofacial regions. Precise locations of moving objects and minimally invasive surgeries pose a great challenge to surgeons. The case of a 44-year-old female patient diagnosed with retention of the fractured needle is reported in this study. A digital guide plate was manufactured to locate the precise position of the fractured needle and preoperatively mimic the surgery processes. The computerized navigation system guided us to make an incision and precisely target the fractured needle during the surgery. Combing the technologies of the digital guiding plate and navigation system, removing the moving foreign bodies becomes objective, time-saving, and minimally invasive.

Factitious Disorder Presenting as the Intentional Swallowing of Foreign Objects

Background: Factitious disorder (FD) imposed on self is a psychiatric disorder characterized by the intentional feigning of symptoms or the self-inflicted production of symptoms in the absence of an obvious external reward. Case: This report describes a severe case of FD imposed on self in a 31-year-old male who frequently presented to several regional Emergency Departments with intentional ingestion of foreign objects, ultimately requiring 32 esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD) and 28 gastroscopy procedures over two years. Significant history of frequent suicide attempts via medication overdose and clinical suspicion of drug-seeking behavior complicated the case. Motivating factors for the patient’s behavior, suicidality in FD, and thepatient’s treatment and outcome to date will be discussed. Conclusion: There is no well-established treatment for FD documented in the literature. High-quality studies and additional reports of FD could help clinicians when managing such a challenging diagnosis.

Failure Analysis of Abnormal Cracking of the Track Circuit Reader Antenna Baffle for High-Speed Trains.

The track circuit reader (TCR) is an important part of train control systems. This paper reports a failure of the TCR antenna baffle, which is used to prevent the TCR antenna from being struck by foreign objects. The designed service life of the baffle is 4.8 million kilometers, but serious cracking was found during routine maintenance after only 0.67 million kilometers of operation. In order to avoid the hidden danger brought by the incident to the safe operation of the train, it is necessary to conduct a complete failure analysis of the failed TCR antenna baffle. Therefore, a comprehensive investigation of the base material, cleaning agents, crack morphologies, etc., was carried out, and the failure environment of the antenna baffle was verified by experiment. The final results show that the environmental stress cracking is the root cause of the failed antenna baffle, and the multiple bubbles produced by the formed process of the antenna baffle are another important cause. According to the conclusions, the solutions to prevent the reoccurrence of such failures are proposed. After these solutions are adopted, the number of failed antenna baffles is greatly reduced, which fully proves the correctness of this analysis.

A Case of Migratory Foreign Body in Left Bronchus -Scarf Pin.

Tracheobronchial foreign body aspiration is a life threatening emergency which requires immediate medical attention. Foreign body aspiration caused by sharp objects like scarf pins was more common in young girls, possibly due to casual handling of sharp objects. Most of the patients were symptomatic with cough and choking episodes. The penetration and dislodgement was the most commonly reported symptom in the majority of the patients. Here we are presenting a case of a young female with accidental swallowing of sharp scarf, following which she developed throat pain and cough. A detailed radiological examination was performed which showed that a foreign body had migrated into the left bronchus, which was removed with a bronchoscope. This case demonstrates the emergency management of a sharp foreign object that was inhaled into the airway.