Subtraction Method Research Articles

A new method to quantify innervation of the ulnar intrinsic hand muscles by the anterior interosseous nerve in Martin‐Gruber anastomosis and nerve transfer surgery

It is important to quantify the amount of crossover innervation from the anterior interosseous nerve (AIN) through Martin-Gruber anastomosis (MGA) particularly in patients with high ulnar nerve injury who undergo nerve transfer surgery. The objective of this study is to describe a novel electrophysiological method for quantifying innervation from the AIN that can be done using conventional nerve conduction study setup and commonly available software for analysis. Seven subjects with MGA and nine patients who had undergone AIN to ulnar nerve transfer underwent conventional motor nerve conduction studies. Recording was done over the hypothenar and first dorsal interosseous muscles while stimulating the median and ulnar nerves at the wrist and elbow. Datapoint-by-datapoint subtraction of the compound muscle action potentials evoked at the elbow and wrist was performed after they had been onset-aligned. The results were compared to the collision technique and innervation ratio method. Results from the digital subtraction method were highly correlated with the collision technique (r= 0.96, p< 0.05). In contrast, its correlation with the innervation ratio method is substantially lower. In comparison to previously described techniques, the digital subtraction method has a number of practical advantages. It uses conventional nerve conduction study setup, and the added step of digital alignment and subtraction can be done through commonly available software. With the increasing use of nerve transfer surgery in severe high ulnar nerve injury, this could be a useful method to identify the presence of MGA prior to surgery and for evaluating nerve recovery following surgery.

Unusual magnetic transition and enhanced diamagnetism in highly oriented pyrolytic graphite with long-range stacking-order

The recent observations of unusual superconductive effects in highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) and twisted bi-layer, tri-layer and multilayer graphene materials have attracted an important attention. In this work we present a novel investigation on the relationship between structural ordering and magnetism in HOPG. Orientation dependent X-ray diffraction and temperature dependent magnetometry allowed for the identification of those HOPG samples exhibiting a long-range ordering along the c-axis. ZFC and FC magnetic curves acquired from T ~ 2 K to 300 K revealed a significant temperature-dependent variation of the diamagnetic component. By analyzing the ZFC/FC magnetic-curves (through magnetic moment subtraction methods) we identify the presence of a weak magnetic transition in the T range from 200 K to 2 K. The possible origin of the observed magnetization-trend is interpreted in relation to contributions arising from 1) disorder-rich locally-twisted-interfaces and 2) those internal graphitic sublattices exhibiting negative thermal expansion. Interestingly, magnetization against field measurements acquired at T ~ 50 K (max. field of 150 Oe) revealed the presence of a weak ferromagnetic-like hysteresis. Disappearance of the unusual ZFC/FC signal-splitting was instead found in those magnetic curves acquired from other HOPG samples with higher degree of disorder (short-range-ordering along the c-axis). This second category of samples was found to exhibit a disorder-mediated re-entrant spin-glass-like ferromagnetic behavior.

Biomimetic Implant Surfaces and Their Role in Biological Integration-A Concise Review.

Background: The increased use of dental implants in oral rehabilitation has been followed by the development of new biomaterials as well as improvements in the performance of biomaterials already in use. This triggers the need for appropriate analytical approaches to assess the biological and, ultimately, clinical benefits of these approaches. Aims: To address the role of physical, chemical, mechanical, and biological characteristics in order to determine the critical parameters to improve biological responses and the long-term effectiveness of dental implant surfaces. Data sources and methods: Web of Science, MEDLINE and Lilacs databases were searched for the last 30 years in English, Spanish and Portuguese idioms. Results: Chemical composition, wettability, roughness, and topography of dental implant surfaces have all been linked to biological regulation in cell interactions, osseointegration, bone tissue and peri-implant mucosa preservation. Conclusion: Techniques involving subtractive and additive methods, especially those involving laser treatment or embedding of bioactive nanoparticles, have demonstrated promising results. However, the literature is heterogeneous regarding study design and methodology, which limits comparisons between studies and the definition of the critical determinants of optimal cell response.

Using Artificial Intelligence for the Early Detection of Micro-Progression of Pressure Injuries in Hospitalized Patients: A Preliminary Nursing Perspective Evaluation.

This study established a predictive model for the early detection of micro-progression of pressure injuries (PIs) from the perspective of nurses. An easy and programing-free artificial intelligence modeling tool with professional evaluation capability and it performed independently by nurses was used for this purpose. In the preliminary evaluation, the model achieved an accuracy of 89%. It can bring positive benefits to clinical care. Only the overfitting issue and image subtraction method remain to be addressed.

Characterization of the impurity features deposited on the boronization tungsten tiles exposed in KSTAR tokamak using laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy

• The boron and other impurity elements such as: carbon, silicon, calcium and copper deposition on the surface of tungsten divertor tiles removed from KSTAR has been measured by LIBS. • A subtraction method is proposed to eliminate the W line contribution for B deposition measurement. • The lateral-distribution of the boron and carbon on the three tungsten castellated tiles (Rounded, Chamfered and Double chamfered) were carried out at 10 −5 mbar vacuum condition. Boronization is an important wall conditioning procedure for realizing the steady-state high performance operation of tokamaks such as KSTAR and ITER. The measurement of boron and its distribution on the first wall and divertor has a significant impact on studying the plasma-wall interaction (PWI) such as impurity generation, transportation and deposition behaviors. In this study, the laser-induced breakdown spectroscopic (LIBS) diagnostic method was applied in the lab for investigating the boron impurity deposited on the surface of different shaped tungsten (W) castellated tiles which were removed from the divertor region in the Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR). Meanwhile, other various impurity elements comprising carbon, silicon, calcium and copper were also observed. A subtraction method is proposed to eliminate the W line contribution for B deposition measurement. The depth profile of the impurity elements in the deposited layer also has been studied by the variation of spectral intensity with consecutive laser pulses. The lateral-distribution of the boron and carbon on the three tungsten castellated tiles (Rounded, Chamfered and Double chamfered) were carried out at 10 −5 mbar vacuum condition. The distribution features of the impurities on the three different shaped tungsten tiles provide valuable information to understand PWI process in KSTAR. This study demonstrates that LIBS is a potential diagnostic approach for monitoring the impurity deposition in tokamak such as KSTAR or ITER.

A Novel Driving Noise Analysis Method for On-Road Traffic Detection.

Effective noise reduction and abnormal feature extraction are important for abnormal sound detection occurring in urban traffic operations. However, to improve the detection accuracy of continuous traffic flow and even overlapping vehicle bodies, effective methods capable to achieve accurate signal-to-noise ratio and appropriate characteristic parameters should be explored. In view of the disadvantages of traditional traffic detection methods, such as Short-Time Energy (STE) and Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC), this study adopts an improved spectral subtraction method to analyze traffic noise. Through the feature fusion of STE and MFCC coefficients, an innovative feature parameter, E-MFCC, is obtained, assisting to propose a traffic noise detection solution based on Triangular Wave Analysis (TWA). APP Designer in MATLAB was used to establish a traffic detection simulation platform. The experimental results showed that compared with the accuracies of traffic detection using the traditional STE and MFCC methods as 67.77% and 76.01%, respectively, the detection accuracy of the proposed TWA is significantly improved, attaining 91%. The results demonstrated the effectiveness of the traffic detection method proposed in solving the overlapping problem, thus achieving accurate detection of road traffic volume and improving the efficiency of road operation.

Application of Gesture Estimation Method Based on Computer

This paper will study the computer vision pose estimation algorithm and apply it to fall detection. At present, the problem of aging cannot be ignored. There are more and more elderly people living alone. Due to their poor physical fitness, they are very easy to fall in daily life and bring great harm to the body and mind of the elderly. Therefore, they are in great need of means to monitor the daily life of the elderly in real time and make judgments on fall events. Driven by the rapid development of computer vision technology, human pose estimation has been widely used in fields such as motion recognition, motion posture scoring, and assisted rehabilitation therapy. The core of pose estimation is to detect the joint information and bone information of the human body from the image, and connect them to form a bone image to help the computer understand the human body information. The use of pose estimation for fall detection requires the extraction of human joint point information and bone information. In order to extract human joint point coordinates and bone images from video sequences, this paper has done a lot of research on computer vision pose estimation. First, the background subtraction method is studied. After that, the openpose pose estimation algorithm is studied. then studied the attitude estimation of Azure Kinect DK depth camera, focusing on its TOF principle and body tracking principle. After comparison, it is found that traditional pose estimation such as openpose is based on optical RGB images. In this paper, we mainly use Azure Kinect DK depth camera for fall detection. In the fall detection method, this paper uses the threshold method combined with pattern recognition method to detect falls. The thresholding method uses the head fall speed and the body tilt angle. The tilt angle of the upper body is used to solve the bending and squatting errors. The pattern recognition method transforms fall detection into two classification problems, fall and no-fall, and uses a support vector machine binary classification method combined with a directed gradient histogram to extract features from skeletal images for classification. The final experimental data show that this paper implements fall detection based on human posture estimation using Azure Kinect DK depth camera with high accuracy and practicality.

Temporal information-guided dynamic dual-tracer PET signal separation network.

The difficulty of dynamic dual-tracer positron emission tomography (PET) technology is to separate the complete single-tracer information from mixed dual-tracer. Traditional methods cannot separate single-injection single-scan dynamic dual-tracer PET images. In this paper, we propose a deep learning framework based on gated recurrent unit (GRU) network and evaluate its performance with simulation experiments and realistic monkeydata. The proposed single-scan dynamic dual-tracer PET image separation network consists of three parts, including encoder, separation, and decoder module. Encoder part is to map the mixed time activity curves (TACs) from the low-dimensional space to the high-dimensional space to get mixed weight vector matrix. Separation part is to capture the temporal information of mixed weight vector matrix using bi-directional GRU (bi-GRU) layer to obtain the single-tracer masks, and the decoding part remaps the high-dimensional single-tracer weight vector matrix to the low-dimensional space to obtain two separated single tracers. In the simulation experiments under different tracers, phantoms, noise levels, arterial input function (AIF), and k-parameter with Gaussian random, compared to the stacked auto encoder network and traditional background subtraction method, GRU-based network has better performance with low bias and mean squared error. In the realistic study, the image results of GRU network have higher mean structural similarity and peak signal to noiseratio. This study demonstrates the feasibility of temporal information-guided neural network in single-injection single-scan dynamic dual-tracer PET images separation. The GRU-based network uses TAC temporal information without AIFs to make the separation results more robust and accurate, which significantly outperforms state-of-the-art method qualitatively andquantitatively.

Prediction of bio-heat and mass transportation in radiative MHD Walter-B nanofluid using MANFIS model

This research article discusses the heat and mass transportation of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) flow of Walter-B nanofluid containing the gyrotactic microorganisms over a curved surface with warm radiation. The mathematical model of the physical flow problem has been formulated, and the analog equations have been normalized into dimensionless equations through similarity practice. The succeeding equations resolved analytically by Homotopy Perturbation Method (HPM) and numerically by Runge–Kutta–Fehlberg’s fourth fifth-order (RKF-45) technique by adopting shooting method via MATLAB and MAPLE software The impacts of various involved parameters on speed, temperature, focus and motile microorganisms of density distributions have been delineated through graphs. The patterns of skin friction coefficient Cfx, Nusselt number (Nux), Sherwood number (Shx) and motile microorganisms’ flux (Nhx) have been examined via tables and graphs. Finally, analyses of Cfx, Nux, Shx and Nhx executed with the aid of Multi output adaptive neuro fuzzy inference system (MANFIS). In MANFIS, the grid partitioning method (GPM) and subtractive clustering method (SCM) have been used to calculate the physical quantities (Cfx, Nux, Shx and Nhx), and the stability analysis has been performed with the assistance of GPM and SCM. The predicted results show that MANFIS-SCM is more accurate and efficient compared to the other existing technique.

Scoping Out the Uncertain Simplification (Complication?) Effects of VATs, BATs and Consumed Income Taxes

Of the many things we do not know about a national, broad-based consumption tax, this article addresses only one of the important uncertainties: the impact of a consumption tax on the overall intricacy of the federal revenue system. More specifically, this article examines some important issues regarding the effects on tax system complexity of the three principal candidates for a national consumption tax-the European-style, credit method value added tax (VAT), the subtraction method VAT, and the consumed income tax.Under a credit method VAT, a business subtracts the VAT paid on its purchases (including capital expenditures) from the VAT it collects on sales and either remits to the government the tax collected in excess of tax paid or receives from the government a refund of tax paid in excess of tax collected. This system effectively taxes each business on the value that it adds to goods and services. Under a subtraction method VAT, a business deducts business purchases, including capital outlays, from sales and pays tax on the difference. A subtraction method VAT, sometimes called a business activities tax (BAT), differs from a single-rate credit method VAT only in computation procedure, and the two taxes produce the same revenue if imposed at the same rate. Businesses are usually required to settle VAT accounts with the government more often than annually.

3D printed rotor blades for a research wind turbine: Aerodynamic and structural design and testing

This study combines the design, the 3D printing and the testing of a small 3-bladed wind turbine rotor for research and teaching purposes. The objective is the additive manufacturing of a rotor with a radius of one meter, as an alternative to subtractive methods, such as computerized milling. The blade design is developed using freely available software packages. The aerodynamic considerations include the airfoil selection, the calculation of the blade geometry and the simulation of the ultimate load cases. The structural considerations are focussed on the printable materials, the infill structures and the retrofit of a load-carrying spar. The rotor blades are 3D printed with the BigRep One at the maker space of the TH Wildau. The structural integrity of the prototype blade is tested in terms of the ultimate root bending moments and the centrifugal forces at the HTW Berlin. The aerodynamic run-up tests are performed at the large wind tunnel of the TU Berlin measuring the power curves. The successful prototype paves the way for follow-up projects, such as open field tests and the 3D printing of larger rotor blades.

Automatic thresholding method for high-throughput digital polymerase chain reaction fluorescence images with uneven illumination

The demand for nucleic acid detection is increasing worldwide as people are impacted by infectious diseases. Digital polymerase chain reaction (dPCR), which is a revolutionized nucleic acid absolute quantitative analysis technology, plays a significant role in the detection of genetic material. However, the traditional threshold-based methods fail to obtain high-accuracy segmentation results and real-time performance from dPCR fluorescence images with uneven illumination. Therefore, we proposed a robust two-stage automatic thresholding method to deal with dPCR fluorescence images. This method adopts the background subtraction method and the improved Otsu method to extract reaction chambers of dPCR images in two stages. Especially for the second stage, the peak-weaken method based on the improved Otsu method greatly improves the real-time segmentation of uneven illumination regions. Our method significantly improves the accuracy and processing speed of the dPCR image segmentation compared to several mainstream methods. This method could effectively segment the reaction chambers of dPCR images in complex environments. The average precision rate is 99.71%, the execution time is 0.139 s. Experimental results demonstrate that our proposed strategy has superior segmentation performance for high-throughput dPCR fluorescence images with uneven illumination.

Fast subpixel displacement measurement, part 1: one-dimensional analysis, simulation, and experiment

Many image processing applications require a quantitative estimation of the underlying correspondence (of the relative position in space) between two or more images. Here, we propose a unique, less numerically intensive method, which we refer to as the subtraction method (SM), to measure in-plane object motion with subpixel accuracy. This method can be usefully employed in conjunction with the correlation method (CM) to provide fine motion information very quickly (∼100 times faster). We first review the CM, then, demonstrate, explain, and examine the proposed SM using analytic functions, standard digital images, and using both simulated and experimental data. Specifically, subpixel motion results for Gaussian functions, four different standard images, and speckle images are examined. Performance is compared to that of the CM. Experimentally, images are captured using both optical and THz imaging systems. A high-resolution megapixel camera is used in the optical system and a low-resolution camera with 16 × 16 pixels is used to perform the THz measurements. One-dimensional subpixel motion in both x and y is examined and analyzed. The results demonstrate that the method can be flexibly used in different areas.

Sticking - pulling strategy for assessment of combined medicine for management of tough symptoms in COVID-19 Pandemic using different windows of spectrophotometric Platform-Counterfeit products' detection

This study presents a comprehensive comparative study of different green spectrophotometric approaches without any physical separation on processing a ternary mixture of Aceclofenac (ACE), Paracetamol (PAR) and Rabeprazole (RAB) in combined medicine for managing tough symptoms in the COVID-19 Pandemic. The different univariate complementary resolutions according to the response used for the assay of the cited drugs after applying the processing steps were implemented using successive in-silico sample enrichment for resolving the ternary mixture via different windows of spectrophotometric platform using sticking - pulling strategy (SPS). Window I; based on manipulation of the data of zero order absorption spectrum of the mixture using novel Extended absorbance difference (EAD) and Absorbance difference (AD) methods coupled with corresponding spectrum subtraction method (SS). Window III; based on manipulation of the data of ratio spectra via Constant value coupled with constant subtraction (CV-CS) and novel Induced dual amplitude difference (IDAD) method coupled with corresponding spectrum subtraction method (SS). Finally, window IV; based on manipulation of the data of derivative of the ratio spectrum of the mixture via novel Factorized derivative ratio null contribution (FDD-NC) and Factorized unlimited derivative ratio (FUDD) methods coupled with corresponding spectrum subtraction method (SS). Synthetic mixtures and commercial medicine were constructively analyzed using the proposed methods while maintaining calibration graphs to be linear over ranges; 4.0–40.0 µg/mL for ACE, 2.0–14.0 µg/mL for PAR and 4.0–30.0 µg/mL for RAB. Moreover, methods' validation was confirmed via performing exhaustive statistical treatment of the experimental findings. The proposed methodologies can be used for the routine analysis of the cited drugs in quality control laboratories. Additionally, Spectral Similarity Index (SSI) was calculated to detect counterfeit products and methods’ greenness profile was finally guaranteed through analytical greenness (AGREE) metric assessment tool.

A Comparative Study on Subtractive Manufacturing and Additive Manufacturing

In recent days, additive manufacturing (AM) plays a vital role in manufacturing a component compared to subtractive manufacturing. AM has a wide advantage in producing complex parts and revolutionizing logistics panorama worldwide. Many researchers compared this emerging manufacturing methodology with the conventional methodology and found that it helps in meeting the demand, designing highly complex components, and reducing wastage of materials, and there are a wide variety of AM processes. The process of making the components in full use of technology with several manufacturing applications to meet the above is studied along with the properties of AM, and subsequently, the advantages of AM over the subtractive methods are described. In this paper, the achievements in this manner with considerable gains are studied and are concluded as a paradigm shift to fulfil the AM potential.

Uncertainty of LiF thermoluminescence at low dose levels: Experimental results

The LiF:Mg,Ti (TLD-100) thermoluminescence (TL) detectors are widely used in many dosimetric applications, particularly in personal dosimetry area. In the present study, the uncertainty of TLD-100 measurements at the low dose levels has been assessed for different TL readout analysis methods. The criteria used to evaluate the minimum measurable dose (MMD) have been also investigated. It has been found that between-sample variations and the precision of the TL measurements were the significant uncertainty components. However, the precision of the measurement is critically dependent on the TL readout analysis and background (BG) subtraction methods. The estimation of the MMD based on the 3σBG approach may lead to inaccurate measurements. On the other hand, a new criterion for evaluating the MMD based on the signal-to-noise ratio and can be evaluated from the glow-curve deconvolution analysis has been established. It has been shown that the implementation of this criterion ensures acceptable levels for both the precision and trueness of TL measurements.

Online measurement of fill level of disc pelletizers using RGB-D camera

Vision-based technique for fill level measurement in pelletization is widely used in industries and is crucial to ensure high-quality production. However, the existing approaches are 2D-vision-based and majorly designed for rotary drums. Nevertheless, for disc pelletizers, it remains an under-study and challenging problem due to the complex structure of apparatus and granules kinetics in disc. In this work, an online fill level measurement method for disc pelletizers by an RGB-D camera is proposed. Firstly, a background depth data subtraction and automatic granular area identification method are developed to obtain the 3D pointe cloud data of the granular area by machine learning and model-based processes; thereafter, a proportion conversion algorithm is developed to real-time calculate the granular pile volume and fill level. Extensive experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach with an average relative error of 5.42%, which meets the requirements in industries.

Comparative study by life cycle assessment of an air ejector and orifice plate for experimental measuring stand manufactured by conventional manufacturing and additive manufacturing

An integral part of the rapid development of modern technologies is additive manufacturing (AM) or three-dimensional (3D) printing, which produces specific products that can replace the classic subtractive methods of machining or conventional manufacturing (CM). This study assessed the manufacturing processes of these two methods during the production of an air ejector and a centric orifice plate using the life cycle assessment (LCA) with the cradle-to-grave method, supported by experimental measurements. In general, the study serves as a tool for the companies for the development of circular economy. This study is specifically focused on and conducted for the industrial sector in the Czech Republic. This study presents a comprehensive assessment of the energy and material flows during the processes of mining, production of semi-finished products, processing of byproducts, and subsequent recycling. Moreover, it includes an assessment of the production of emissions and their effect and impact on the environment and, subsequently, the social aspect. It was found that from a primary energy demand (PED) perspective, AM single build is 30% more demanding in the case without recycling and 27.5% more demanding with the inclusion of the end-of-life phase. Moreover, the impact of AM is greater in four out of six impact categories for the ReCiPe 2016v 1.1 methodology. In addition, for the CML 2001 – Aug. 2016 methodology, AM is greater in four out of five categories. Finally, AM is greater in four out of four impact categories for the EF 3.0 methodology. The study highlights the hypothesis based on the production time for the full build, where from a PED perspective, AM with the end-of-life phase is only 2.76% and 3.89% more demanding with and without the offsetting of time deviation, respectively. The results of this study discuss the potential development and reduction of the burden on the environment during the life cycle of AM, especially during the cooling AM and the production of metallic powder. Although previous studies compared AM and CM were conducted, common and simple rotating components were virtually absent. This study aims to address this problem and arouse interest in the development of the issues presented.

Subtraction coronary CT angiography in patients with high heart rate

All the previous subtraction coronary CT angiography (CCTA) had strict heart rate (HR) inclusion criteria. In this study, a new subtraction method was applied to patients with various HR. The post-contrast scan time was respectively 3.5 s after ascending aorta peak enhancement while HR >80 bpm, 4 s while 65≤ HR ≤80 bpm and 4.5 s while HR <65 bpm. Forty-six patients who underwent the new subtraction protocol were enrolled and patients were stratified into the high HR group (≥70 bpm) and low HR group (<70 bpm). Eighteen patients with 15 severe calcification segments and 25 stent segments further received invasive coronary angiography (ICA). In all included patients, the coronary artery enhancement was compared between the high and low HR groups. In patients with ICA performed, the image quality improvement and diagnostic effectiveness for detection of significant coronary segments stenosis (>50%) were compared between the conventional CCTA and subtraction CCTA and between the high HR group and low HR group, respectively. All enrolled patients got sufficient coronary artery enhancement. In patients with ICA performed, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis showed that the area under the curve (AUC) for the diagnosis of significant stenosis was 0.93 in subtraction CCTA and 0.73 in conventional CCTA (p < 0.05). Furthermore, there were no significant differences in image quality improvement, specificity, positive predictive value and accuracy between the high HR group and low HR group. The new subtraction CCTA method broadened the clinical availability for patients with high HR.

A male-specific sex marker for the endangered western sawshelled turtle (Myuchelys bellii) using in silico whole-genome subtraction

Artificial incubation of eggs for the mass release of hatchlings is a common conservation intervention for imperilled turtle species. Programs designed to reinforce wild populations need to ensure that they are releasing appropriate male to female ratios into the wild. In many turtle species, the sex of juveniles cannot be identified using external morphology until they approach sexual maturity. For the endangered western sawshelled turtle, Myuchelys bellii, sexual dimorphism does not occur until at least 6 years of age. We aimed to develop a molecular test to identify the sex of M. bellii during the life stages where they cannot be sexed morphologically—embryos, hatchlings and small juveniles. We used in silico whole-genome subtraction of a female M. bellii (XX) from a male (XY) to identify a Y chromosome-specific sequence which we characterized and developed into a PCR sex test. Our research is the first to use a whole-genome subtraction method in-silico to successfully establish sex chromosome markers in a freshwater turtle species. Developing this technology provides an opportunity for conservation programs to ensure that populations are supplemented with a proportionate number of male and female hatchlings. Further, it allows large scale measurement of naturally occurring sex ratios in hatchlings and small juveniles, which in turn enables estimates of sex ratios within wild populations free from age-at-maturity bias. The application of sex-specific marker technology also provides an opportunity to quantify the influence of sex on behaviour, movement and survival in the segment of populations that cannot be morphologically sexed.