Nose Region Research Articles

Validating 3D face morphing towards improving pre-operative planning in facial reconstruction surgery

ABSTRACT Pre-traumatic/pathologic 3D facial imaging is rarely available to guide craniofacial reconstruction. This study aims to independently validate the regional accuracy of a 3D morphable model to estimate face shapes from 2D photographs for craniofacial surgical planning. 3D shape estimates were generated using the Basel Face Model (BFM 2017) from 2D photographs of 100 multi-racial subjects in the Binghamton University 3D Facial Expression database. Accuracy was evaluated by the per-vertex Euclidean distance between the shape estimate and the true 3D scan within defined facial regions. The 3D estimates’ average RMS distance error across all facial regions was 2.68 ± 0.97 mm, based on photos analysed with 10,000 iterations. The eyes, cheek, chin, forehead and mouth regions fit within ~2.5 mm from the true face shape, representing only marginal perceptible error. The nose and temple regions had lower accuracy (~3.1 mm) for all subjects. Significant differences in the nose region were dependent on race (Caucasian: 2.4 mm, East-Asian: 4.8 mm) and sex (Male: 2.5 mm, Female: 3.6 mm). On average, 3D face shape estimates using the BFM yielded clinically acceptable accuracy sufficient for use in planning to guide several craniofacial reconstruction regions. However, in individual cases, considerable errors exceeded clinical limits.

Vision Loss Secondary to Facial and Periorbital Steroid Injection: A Systematic Review.

The risk of ophthalmic and retinal artery occlusions following facial and periorbital steroid injection has not been explored. This systematic review examines the prevalence, risk factors, and treatment outcomes of steroid-induced vision losses. A literature search in Evidence Based Medicine Reviews, MEDLINE, Embase, Pubmed, ClinicalTrials, and WHO ICTRP was performed for vision loss following facial and periorbital corticosteroid injections through July 2020. Of 35 case reports, series, and reviews, 49 patients (56 eyes) with steroid-induced vision loss were analyzed. Injection sites predominantly involved the nose (45%) and periocular regions (10%). The most common type of steroid is triamcinolone (54%). Most cases were unilateral, except 7 cases of bilateral vision losses, 4 of which resulted from unilateral steroid injection. Symptoms were reported during or immediately after injections in 49% of cases. Most occlusions occurred in the ophthalmic (53%) or central retinal artery (33%). Vision most commonly presented as no light perception (37%), and 90% were 20/200 or worse. Final visual outcomes varied from 20/200 or worse (56%), 20/40 or better (30%), to in between (13%). Most vision losses resulted from steroid injections in the nasal and periorbital area. Triamcinolone was the most common offending agent, likely due to large particle size, low solubility, and extensive particle aggregation. Dexamethasone has the opposite pharmacologic properties and has never been reported in association with vascular occlusion related vision loss. Careful steroid selection, injection techniques, and treatment strategies should be considered to prevent and treat artery occlusion.

Facial emotion recognition using modified HOG and LBP features with deep stacked autoencoders

Recognition of emotions using facial expression is an active research topic in the field of computer vision. In this paper, a novel feature descriptor proposed for facial expression recognition using modified Histogram of Oriented Gradients (HOG) and Local Binary Pattern (LBP) feature descriptor. Firstly, viola-Jones face detection used to detect the face region, Then, Butterworth high pass filter utilized to enhance the detected region to find the eye, nose and mouth region detection using Viola-Jones approach. Secondly, the proposed modified HOG and LBP feature descriptor are used to extract the features of the detected eye, nose and mouth regions. The extracted features of these three regions are concatenated and reduced its dimensionality using Deep Stacked AutoEncoders. Finally, multi-class Support Vector Machine is used for classification and recognition. Experimental results show that the proposed modified feature descriptors can effectively recognize emotions on CK+ dataset and JAFFE dataset.

Favre-racouchot syndrome: Case report

It is also known as nodular elastosis with cyst and comedones. The pathophysiology of disease causation is unknown, the condition may arises due to prolonged sun exposure. We report a case of 68 year old male agriculturist who presented with dark colored raised lesions along with thickening of facial skin which was increasing progressively since past three years. Physical examination showed the presence of thickened inelastic skin along with deep furrows and wrinkles involving the entire face, along with multiple open and closed comedones yellowish papules and nodules clustered especially around periocular region and dorsum of nose. On histopathological examination epidermis showed epidermal cyst formation containing laminated keratin and superficial dermis shows follicular infundibular plugging and large nodules filled with keratinous material. Keywords: Prolonged sun exposure, Bilateral, Nodular elastoidosis with cyst and comedones.

Susceptibility of primary human airway epithelial cells to Bordetella pertussis adenylate cyclase toxin in two- and three-dimensional culture conditions.

The human pathogen Bordetella pertussis targets the respiratory epithelium and causes whooping cough. Its virulence factor adenylate cyclase toxin (CyaA) plays an important role in the course of infection. Previous studies on the impact of CyaA on human epithelial cells have been carried out using cell lines derived from the airways or the intestinal tract. Here, we investigated the interaction of CyaA and its enzymatically inactive but fully pore-forming toxoid CyaA-AC– with primary human airway epithelial cells (hAEC) derived from different anatomical sites (nose and tracheo-bronchial region) in two-dimensional culture conditions. To assess possible differences between the response of primary hAEC and respiratory cell lines directly, we included HBEC3-KT in our studies. In comparative analyses, we studied the impact of both the toxin and the toxoid on cell viability, intracellular cAMP concentration and IL-6 secretion. We found that the selected hAEC, which lack CD11b, were differentially susceptible to both CyaA and CyaA-AC–. HBEC3-KT appeared not to be suitable for subsequent analyses. Since the nasal epithelium first gets in contact with airborne pathogens, we further studied the effect of CyaA and its toxoid on the innate immunity of three-dimensional tissue models of the human nasal mucosa. The present study reveals first insights in toxin–cell interaction using primary hAEC.

General correlations for gas-liquid mass transfer in laminar slug flow

Mass transfer is an important phenomenon that can be highly leveraged through hydrodynamics. Slug flow is frequently associated with the enhancement in transport phenomena, and so, mass transfer from a single Taylor bubble to the flowing liquid is numerically studied. This CFD work validates a recently published study using pure oxygen bubbles and expands it to pure bubbles of other compounds (different Schmidt numbers) for different Reynolds numbers. The simulations were performed with VOF + PLIC to track the gas-liquid interface. Flow and mass fields were solved simultaneously based on the “species transport” model and imposing a constant concentration at the interface.The results confirmed that the solute around the bubble remains in a thin layer along the nose and film regions. At the bubble rear, it accumulates in the wake due to the closed liquid recirculation characteristic of laminar flow. Local and global mass transfer coefficients were also determined for these characteristic hydrodynamic regions. The data showed a higher impact of the nose and film on the overall mass transfer, so a general correlation between Sherwood, Reynolds and Schmidt numbers was derived for each of these regions. The developed correlations offer a good prediction of the mass transfer (deviations around 10–20%).

Foreign Bodies in Ear, Nose, Throat and Maxillofacial Region: A Study on Their Clinical Profile and Complications.

The clinical picture and treatment options of foreign bodies in ENT vary widely depending on the site of involvement. Our study was a comprehensive review of both luminal and extraluminal foreign bodies in Otorhinolaryngology. A hospital based cross-sectional retrospective study was conducted to study the foreign bodies in ear, nose, throat and maxillofacial region in terms of demography, various modes of entry, site of lodgement, clinical features, treatment modalities and complications. While majority of the previous studies have focused on objects entering through natural orifices of ear, nose and throat, our study was a comprehensive review of both luminal and extraluminal foreign bodies in otorhinolaryngology. It was a retrospective study of four years duration on patients who presented with foreign bodies in OPD and emergency ward. Relevant data were tabulated and clinical and radiological documentation of interesting case scenarios have been depicted. The commonest age group affected was 0-10years with 111 (58.52%) out of 190 cases. The most common site was aerodigestive tract ( 40%), followed by ears (31%), nose (26%) and maxillofacial region (3%). Insects, vegetable seeds and coins were the most common FBs in ear, nose and throat respectively. Foreign bodies have shown seasonal, geographic, socioeconomic and occupational variations in their distribution. Patient's age, type of foreign body, chance of migration to deeper tissue planes, failed unskilled removal attempts, delay in diagnosis and presence of comorbidities can complicate chances of removal.

A novel approach to embed eye shields in customized bolus on nasal dorsum treatment for electron radiotherapy

We aim to demonstrate the unique use of embedded lead eye shields in an electron wax bolus when treating the nasal dorsum. A patient presented to the clinic with squamous cell carcinoma of the nasal dorsum requiring treatment with en face electrons. A 3D customized wax bolus was designed and imported into the treatment planning system (TPS) to calculate the dose distribution. Due to high lens dose, the bolus was customized further to create 2 milled open slots in the wax, over the lens of eye, to allow lead sheets totaling 4 mm to be slid into the wax. The patient was brought back to the clinic to be scanned with the wax bolus fitting snugly over the nose, eyes, and cheek regions. The 3D milled insert holes were contoured on the CT in the TPS, assigned HU of 2758, to mimic the lead insertion. The lens dose with lead inserts was compared to the plan without lead insert. To further confirm the lens dose, EBT3 films were placed on the right and left eye under the bolus, and nose dorsum on the first day of treatment. The maximum dose of right lens, as calculated in the TPS with the simulated lead shields in place, decreased from 989.5cGy to 457cGy. The maximum dose of left lens decreased from 1085.4cGy to 501cGy. The dose readings from EBT3 films were in good agreement with the TPS, with deviation of 3.32%, 0.26%, and 3.44% for right lens, left lens, and nose, respectively. Daily positioning deviations compared to the plan were 0.65 ± 0.16cm and 0.63 ± 0.29cm for right eye and left eye, respectively. This novel device demonstrated the feasibility, in terms of dose calculation accuracy in the TPS and fabrication, of using customized bolus with lead inserts to conveniently shield the lens of the eyes in an electron treatment for the nose, enabling a streamlined daily setup.

Long-term facial changes and clinical correlations in patients with treated acromegaly: a cohort study.

Facial abnormality is the most significant feature in acromegaly patients. However, it is unclear whether and how patient facial appearance improves after treatment. This study aimed to identify 3D facial changes in acromegaly patients after surgical treatment. This study included 30 acromegaly patients who underwent resection of a pituitary GH adenoma. The location and extent of facial changes were identified by comparing baseline and 2-year follow-up 3D images of the face. Relationships between facial changes and GH and IGF-1 were evaluated with simple or multivariable linear regression models. Significant soft tissue improvements were observed in acromegaly patients with complete remission, especially in the nose and lip region. Significant reductions in nasal width (3.46 mm, P < 0.001), tip protrusion (1.18 mm, P = 0.003), face curve length (3.89 mm, P = 0.004) and vermilion area (1.42 cm3, P = 0.001) were observed at the 2-year follow-up. Further, changes in nasal width were associated with decreases in GH (β = 4.440, P = 0.017), the GH nadir (β = 4.393, P = 0.011) and IGF-1 (β = 5.263, P = 0.002). The associations were maintained after adjusting for confounders. Acromegaly patients achieved considerable facial improvements after surgical treatment. The change in nose width was associated with GH and IGF-1 decrease. Better control of patient hormone levels after surgery improves patient facial recovery.

Aerothermodynamic design and performance analysis of modified nose cones for space reentry vehicles

ABSTRACT Reentry vehicles are blunt-nosed bodies designed primarily to protect them from high heating loads experienced while returning from space. The main intention of this present work is to alleviate the aerodynamic heating of the reentry vehicles by suggesting new geometrical considerations. This proposal implements the surface augmentation of the various conventional nose cones by creating some spherical protrusions over the nose region. This project presents the role of spherical protrusions over the nose part in order to reduce the aerodynamic heating of space reentry vehicles. A comparative numerical study has been made on the existing and proposed reentry bodies to find the degree of reduction in aerodynamic heating. From the numerical simulations, it has been observed that there is a significant alleviation of aerodynamic heating in the proposed nose cone model than in the conventional blunt body. From this simulation analysis, a reduction in aerodynamic heating of about 11% and 35% was observed in the chosen modified spherical and parabolic winged reentry models during hypersonic conditions. This numerical investigation perspicuously explains the importance of placing spherical protrusions over the conventional blunt-nosed reentry vehicles in order to alleviate the maximum degree of aerodynamic heating.

Facial Asymmetry in Nonsyndromic and Muenke Syndrome–Associated Unicoronal Synostosis: A 3-Dimensional Study Based on Facial Surfaces Extracted From CT Scans

To quantify soft tissue facial asymmetry (FA) in children with nonsyndromic and Muenke syndrome-associated unicoronal synostosis (NS-UCS and MS-UCS), hypothesizing that MS-UCS presents with significantly larger FA than NS-UCS. Retrospective cohort study. Twenty-one children (mean age: 0.6 years; range: 0.1-1.4 years) were included in the study (NS-UCS = 14; MS-UCS = 7). From presurgical computed tomography scans, facial surfaces were constructed for analysis. A landmark guided atlas was deformed to match each patient's surface, obtaining spatially detailed left-right point correspondence. Facial asymmetry was calculated in each surface point across the face, as the length (mm) of an asymmetry vector, with its Cartesian components providing 3 directions. Mean FA was calculated for the full face, and the forehead, eye, nose, cheek, mouth, and chin regions. For the full face, a significant difference of 2.4 mm (P = .001) was calculated between the 2 groups, predominately in the transverse direction (1.5 mm; P < .001). The forehead and chin regions presented with the largest significant difference, 3.5 mm (P = .002) and 3.2 mm (P < .001), respectively; followed by the eye (2.4 mm; P = .004), cheek (2.2 mm; P = .004), nose (1.7 mm; P = .001), and mouth (1.4 mm; P = .009) regions. The transverse direction presented with the largest significant difference in the forehead, chin, mouth, and nose regions, the sagittal direction in the cheek region, and the vertical direction in the eye region. Muenke syndrome-associated unicoronal synostosis presented with significantly larger FA in all regions compared to NS-UCS. The largest significant differences were found in the forehead and chin regions, predominantly in the transverse direction.

Experimental study of the flow structure around Taylor bubbles in the presence of dispersed bubbles

This work presents an experimental study focusing on the interactions between the dispersed and Taylor bubbles in a slug flow pattern. In order to better investigate these interactions, a quasi-real slug flow was studied, where a single Taylor bubble is injected in a bubbly flow background stream, under controlled and repeatable conditions, controlling the bubbly flow superficial gas and liquid velocity, and also the Taylor bubble length. In this way, ensemble averaged results can be obtained over several Taylor bubbles. The flow was analyzed through the laser diode photocell, high-speed camera imaging and PIV techniques. Results revealed that the terminal Taylor bubble velocity is affected by the gas volume fraction of the bubbly background flow. Ensemble average velocity profiles are presented for Taylor bubble nose and tail regions. Since the experimental apparatus used in the present work allowed a large number of instantaneous PIV acquisitions, the turbulent statistics around the Taylor bubble can also be calculated. These experimental results can be used for the implementation and validation of multidimensional CFD models for flows with different interface length scales.

Manifestations of Tuberculosis in Ear, Nose, Throat, Head and Neck Region – A Retrospective Study

Introduction &#x0D; Tuberculosis can involve any organ or site. Otorhinolaryngologist may encounter tuberculosis affecting lymph nodes, ear, larynx, deep neck spaces, salivary glands etc. which can mimic other chronic granulomatous conditions or malignancy. To ensure early diagnosis, it is important to recognize its cardinal signs and symptoms and to be aware of potential pitfalls in diagnosis. This study was done to learn the clinical presentation of tuberculosis in ear, nose, throat and head and neck region, and to assess the effectiveness of various investigations and treatment done for the same.&#x0D; Materials and Methods &#x0D; A retrospective study done in our institution involving 120 patients suffering from tuberculosis in ear, nose, throat and head and neck region who attended pulmonary medicine or ENT OPD or ward between January 2008 to December 2017 that is, 10 years. Study period for data collection and analysis was 1 month.&#x0D; Results&#x0D; Total 120 patients-69 males and 51 females. Most common site was cervical lymph nodes(77.5% patients), followed by larynx(8.3%),middle ear(7.5%),deep neck spaces(2.5%) and salivary glands and nose(1.7% each). Histopathology was highly sensitive(99. 1%).All except one patient responded to first-line antitubercular drugs, the other patient was given treatment for MDR-TB to which he responded.&#x0D; Conclusion&#x0D; Tuberculosis can involve any site in the head and neck region, most common being cervical lymph nodes mainly presenting as neck swelling. Variable nature of manifestations of tuberculosis makes it essential to have high degree of suspicion for early diagnosis.

Automatic Extraction of Facial Regions using CLM for the Application of Face Recognition

Facial Image processing is an active research area which involves various applications such as face detection, face recognition, person identification and also demographic information collection that is age, gender and race from the face. In general, all these applications fall under either holistic approach or local approach. In holistic approach, the whole face image is used for further processing. In local approach, the face is divided into various blocks which may contains the facial regions like eyes, eye brows, mouth, nose, cheek and chin regions. In order to develop a robust algorithm against scale, illumination, pose and expression issues, a component based or part based approaches were developed. For component based approach, the extraction of various face parts needs an automatic method to crop the facial regions closest to the manual cropping. The method of automatically extracting various facial parts is addressed in this paper. The Constrained Local Model (CLM) approach is used to identify the facial landmarks which in turn used to segregate the different facial parts. The performance of proposed approach is evaluated by ground truth of the respective facial components. The correspondence between the automatic extracted facial regions and ground truth is evaluated by SIFT descriptor. Experimental results on matching manually cropped facial regions against automatically extracted regions show that the CLM approach achieves promising performance. The extraction of various facial region will be very useful in Face recognition.

Shear dispersion in a porous medium. Part 2. An intrusion with a growing shape

Abstract

Component-based face recognition using statistical pattern matching analysis.

The aim of this research is to develop a fusion concept to component-based face recognition algorithms for features analysis of binary facial components (BFCs), which are invariant to illumination, expression, pose variations and partial occlusion. To analyze the features, using statistical pattern matching concepts, which are the combination of Chi-square (CSQ), Hu moment invariants (HuMIs), absolute difference probability of white pixels (AbsDifPWPs) and geometric distance values (GDVs) have been proposed for face recognition. The individual grayscale face image is cropped by applying the Viola–Jones face detection algorithm from a face database having variations in illumination, appearance, pose and partial occlusion with complex backgrounds. Doing illumination correction through histogram linearization technique, the grayscale face components such as eyes, nose and mouth regions are extracted using the 2D geometric positions. The binary face image is created by applying cumulative probability distribution function with Otsu adaptive thresholding method and then extracted BFCs such as eyes, nose and mouth regions. Five statistical pattern matching tools such as the standard deviation of CSQ values with probability of white pixels (PWPs), standard deviation of HuMIs with Hu’s seven moment invariants, AbsDifPWPs and GDVs are developed for recognition purpose. GDVs are determined between two similar facial corner points (FCPs) and nine FCPs are extracted from binary whole face and BFCs. Pixel Intensity Values (PIVs) which are determined using L2 norms from grayscale values of the whole face and grayscale values of the face components. Experiment is performed using BioID Face Database on the basis of these pattern matching tools and appropriate threshold values with logical and conditional operators and gives the best expected results from true positive rate perspective.

Itch in Organs Beyond the Skin.

The purpose of this review was to explore mechanisms, causes, and therapies of itchy conditions involving organs beyond the skin including the eyes, ears, nose, and genital region. Conditions which cause itch in these locations vary from skin diseases that extend to these areas (i.e., atopic dermatitis, seborrheic dermatitis, and psoriasis) to allergic conditions (i.e., allergic rhinitis and conjunctivitis) and to neuropathic conditions that relate to afferent nerve fiber damage (i.e., lumbosacral radiculopathies in genital disease) as well as some psychological components. Similar to the skin, itch in these locations involves a complex interaction between epithelial cells, unmyelinated C nerve fibers, and cytokines. There is also a significant component of neural sensitization phenomena. Mechanisms of itch beyond the skin are currently an understudied topic that affects millions of patients. Future research should be done in order to further understand the pathophysiology of itch in these body sites.

Interpretation biases and visual attention in the processing of ambiguous information in chronic pain.

Theories propose that interpretation biases and attentional biases might account for the maintenance of chronic pain symptoms, but the interactions between these two forms of biases in the context of chronic pain are understudied. To fill this gap, 63 participants (40 females) with and without chronic pain completed an interpretation bias task that measures participants' interpretation styles in ambiguous scenarios and a novel eye-tracking task where participants freely viewed neutral faces that were given ambiguous pain/health-related labels (i.e. 'doctor', 'patient' and 'healthy people'). Eye movements were analysed with the Hidden Markov Models (EMHMM) approach, a machine-learning data-driven method that clusters people's eye movements into different strategy subgroups. Adults with chronic pain endorsed more negative interpretations for scenarios related to immediate bodily injury and long-term illness than healthy controls, but they did not differ significantly in terms of their eye movements on ambiguous faces. Across groups, people who interpreted illness-related scenarios in a more negative way also focused more on the nose region and less on the eye region when looking at patients' and healthy people's faces and, to a lesser extent, doctors' faces. This association between interpretive and attentional processing was particularly apparent in participants with chronic pain. In summary, the present study provided evidence for the interplay between multiple forms of cognitive biases. Future studies should investigate whether this interaction might influence subsequent functioning in people with chronic pain.

First cases of myxomatosis in Iberian hares (Lepus granatensis) in Portugal

Myxomatosis was detected in Iberian hares (Lepus granatensis) in Portugal, October 2018, following its emergence in Spain 3 months earlier. Here, we describe the epidemiological, molecular and anatomo-histopathological data of...

Leading-edge bluntness effects in hypervelocity flat plate flow

The combined effects of leading-edge bluntness and high enthalpy are examined for hypersonic flat plate flow. Experimental pressure and heat transfer data are presented for both sharp and blunt leading-edge flat plates. For the sharp leading-edge flows, the data are in agreement with perfect gas theory. For the blunt leading-edge flows, the low and high enthalpy pressure data approach the perfect gas blast wave theory as the flow proceeds downstream, consistent with earlier studies at low enthalpy. Toward the front of the plate, the heat transfer data lie above the corresponding values obtained with the sharp leading-edge configuration. The difference between sharp and blunt leading-edge heat transfer levels appears to be smaller at high enthalpy. This seems to be due to dissociation which occurs in the nose region, thus reducing the shock stand-off distance and increasing the chemical potential enthalpy of the flow. When the presence of dissociated species in the flow is accounted for, the data close to the leading-edge are seen to compare well with perfect gas bluntness–viscous similitudes. Farther downstream, the measured heat transfer values are greater than the perfect gas theoretical predictions for blunt leading-edge flow, and closer to both the corresponding predictions at chemical equilibrium, and sharp leading-edge theory for perfect gas flow.