A local increase in red blood cell aggregation can trigger deep vein thrombosis: evidence based on quantitative cellular ultrasound imaging.

BACKGROUND: Recurrent deep vein thrombosis (DVT) risk factors include a first idiopathic DVT, strongly suggesting the existence of undiagnosed and/or unidentified prothrombotic abnormalities. OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the impact of locally increased red blood cell (RBC) aggregation on DVT pathogenesis in a rabbit model. METHODS: DVT presence, flow and aggregation were measured in situ with ultrasound. Greatly enhanced aggregation was achieved by covalent linkage of Pluronic F98 to the RBC surface; coating with Pluronic F68, which very mildly enhances aggregation, was used as a coating control. On day 1, endothelial damage and a partial stenosis were surgically created on the left femoral vein whereas the right femoral vein was not manipulated. RESULTS: A thrombus was formed within 30 min in six out of seven left femoral veins of animals receiving a 30% volume blood exchange with F98-coated RBC, whereas a thrombus occurred in only one out of seven veins in F68-transfused controls. In vivo imaging using quantitative ultrasound confirmed increased aggregation in the thrombosed veins of the F98 group compared with the F68 group and the contralateral vessel. For each group, five animals were followed for 2 weeks before being killed. In F98-transfused animals, lysis of clots occurred and the presence of chronic thrombi totally occluding the vein in three out of five animals was confirmed by histology. Conversely, in the F68 group, a single disorganized blood clot was observed in one out of five animals. CONCLUSIONS: A marked increase in RBC aggregation promotes thrombosis in rabbit femoral veins, confirming a pathophysiological role of locally altered hemorheology in the onset of DVT.

[Differential accumulation of the new high-affinity phosphate transporter candidated gene fragment in rice roots in response to phosphorus deficiency stress].

Phosphate is a major constraint to crop production, and phosphate uptake in plant is mainly by high-affinity phosphate transporter under phosphate deficiency condition. Using RT-PCR, a 1,178 bp phosphate transporter gene fragment OjPT1 was cloned from roots of Jingxi17 (Oryza sativa L. ssp. japanica) supplied with no phosphate. The comparison of this sequence with ones in GenBank indicated that it shared about 70% similarity at amino acid level with other phosphate transporters in higher plants, such as Arabidopsis thaliana, potate, tamato, Medicago truncatula and Catharanthus roseus, and high similarity with phosphate transporters in Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Neurospora crassa. RT-PCR assay showed that the OjPT1 transcripts were induced under phosphate deficiency condition. This gene fragment OjPT1 has been deposited in GenBank (accession No. AF249619).

Design and fabrication of a 24-channel acousto-optic spatial light modulator.

Acousto-optic (AO) devices are important spatial light modulators. They can be used as light-beam deflectors, rf true-time-delay lines, etc. To increase their spur-free dynamic range, we present what to our knowledge is a novel multichannel AO device structure, in which different channels have different carrier frequencies, so a wideband signal can automatically be decomposed into a set of narrow-band signals. Design, fabrication, and testing of this 24-channel, 10-mus AO spatial light modulator are addressed.

Implementation of a non-zero-order joint-transform correlator by use of phase-shifting techniques.

The implementation of non-zero-order joint-transform correlators (JTC's) is presented. The zero-order spectra (i.e., the autocorrelation power spectra) are removed from the joint-transform power spectrum by use of phase-shifting techniques by which the output diffraction and input spatial domain can more efficiently be utilized. Applications of the phase-shifting techniques to both conventional JTC's and phase-transformed input JTC's (PJTC's) are discussed. Compared with the conventional JTC, the PJTC has the advantages of higher light efficiency, a better signal-to-clutter ratio, and the simplicity to realize phase shifting. We anticipate that the proposed non-zero-order JTC's should have a significant impact on the future development of more efficient JTC's.

Performance of a phase-transformed input joint transform correlator.

Conventionally a detected image is represented by an intensity array owing to the square-law nature of most detectors. However, this does not mean that we have to restrict ourselves to using intensity images for the correlation process. Transforming intensity images into phase images before correlation, which can be easily realized by a phase-modulation spatial light modulator, offers an alternative approach for high-performance pattern recognition. A phase-transformed input joint transform correlator is investigated in detail in terms of pattern discriminability, detection efficiency, and noise robustness. We show that the phase-transformed joint transform correlator has higher pattern discriminability and detection efficiency than the conventional joint transform correlator, and it also offers a better trade-off between the pattern discriminability and noise tolerance. A proof-of-concept experiment is also provided.

Phase-encoded input joint transform correlator with improved pattern discriminability.

The concept of using phase-encoded input representation in a joint transform correlator is presented, in which we show that the phase-encoded input joint transform correlator is an optimal filtering system that improves detection efficiency and pattern discriminability.

Design of a bipolar composite filter by a simulated annealing algorithm.

We present the design of a bipolar composite filter (BCF) by a simulated annealing algorithm. By minimizing the energy function of the system, we construct an out-of-plane rotation-invariant bipolar filter. We show that the BCF offers high pattern discrimination capability and can easily be implemented with an electronically addressed spatial light modulator.

Dynamic fiber specklegram sensing.

We introduce a concept of dynamic sensing that uses fiber speckle fields. By autonomously updating the fiber speckle patterns (i.e., using a moving reference to perform frame-to-frame comparison) on an electronically addressable spatial light modulator, we can exploit the dynamic fiber status. In other words, by joint transforming the rapidly changing speckle patterns from a sensing fiber, we can determine the dynamic aspects of the fiber status. For demonstration, dynamic displacement sensing is illustrated in which we have observed that the rate change and the trend of the fiber perturbation can indeed be detected. We note that the dynamic sensing technique can be applied to a variety of sensing parameters, e.g., strain, stress, temperature, and possibly seismic monitoring.

Angle-dependent diffraction efficiency in a thick photorefractive hologram.

The diffraction from a thick photorefractive hologram is shown to be angular dependent, which originates mainly from the angle-dependent effective electro-optic coefficient of a photorefractive crystal. The angle dependency of the diffraction causes a nonuniform diffraction over the pixel positions or the spatial frequency contents of a hologram image in a page-oriented holographic system, resulting in a deteriorated reconstructed image. In addition, owing to the angular variations in diffraction, the wavelength-multiplexing scheme should be a better choice than angular one.

Application of position encoding to a complex joint transform correlator.

Because a joint transform correlator can be used as a general optical signal processor, complex-impulse-response implementations in the spatial domain are often requested. We introduce a position-encoding technique with which complex-valued references for the joint transform correlator can be obtained with an amplitude-modulated spatial light modulator. A proof-of-concept experiment is also provided.

Temperature-compensated fiber specklegram strain sensing with an adaptive joint transform correlator.

A temperature-compensated fiber specklegram strain sensor with an adaptive joint transform correlator (JTC) is presented. By exploiting the dual-channel correlation of the fiber specklegram JTC, we can measure the temperature-compensated strain. Experimental results have shown that the strain sensitivity can be as high as 0.1 µstrain/1°C.

Multilayer associative memory and its hybrid optical implementation.

We propose a multilayer associative memory with a winner-take-all operation on the inner product between an input and stored exemplars. The winner-take-all operation is performed by a unit-step operation with an adaptive-threshold strategy. We show that the multilayer-associative-memory unit-step operation with an adaptive-threshold strategy has a high noise immunity and a large storage capacity, and it is also capable of extending to a gray-level associative memory with a phase-representation technique. A hybrid optical implementation with a proof-of-concept experiment is also provided.

Analysis of a fiber specklegram sensor by using coupled-mode theory.

The performance of the fiber specklegram sensor (FSS) by use of the waveguide coupled-mode theory is analyzed. The analyses are based on the microbending effect on the sensing fiber, in which we have found that the sensitivity of the FSS is affected by the core diameter and the bending geometry. Experimental confirmations of the analyses are also provided in which we have shown that experimental data are consistent with the analyses.

Kinoform-based Nipkow disk for a confocal microscope.

A kinoform-based Nipkow-disk system, as applied to a real-time confocal microscope, is presented. The major advantage of this technique must be its high light efficiency (e.g., >80%), which significantly improves the performance of a confocal microscope. Our preliminary experiment indicates that there are potential applications to three-dimensional microscopic imaging as well as to object surface detection.

Unipolar interpattern association neural networks.

A method for constructing a unipolar interconnection weight matrix (IWM) of the interpattern association (IPA) model is presented. By a search of the redundant interconnection links, a method that removes all negative links is introduced. Since the IWM is unipolar, the difficulty of implementing positive and negative IWM's can be avoided. Computer simulation and experimental results show that the unipolar IWM IPA neural network performs better than the bipolar IWM IPA model.

Multimode fiber sensing by using mean-absolute speckle-intensity variation.

We present a fiber-sensing technique that detects the mean-absolute speckle-intensity variation between the updated and the reference speckle pattern for determining the environmental perturbation factor (e.g., displacement, temperature, pressure, acoustic wave). We show that the proposed technique is highly sensitive and simple. One of the major advantages of the proposed technique is that it can perform a fast-response measurement with off-the-shelf electronic hardware. Experimental data for submicrometer displacement as well as temperature measurement are provided. To extend the dynamic range of the proposed technique, one can use an updated reference speckle pattern.