hydatid cyst is a zoonotic disease that is common in the mediterranean region. thoracic wall, rib or extrapulmonary intrathoracic localization of the cysts is very rare. giant extrapulmonary intrathoracic hydatid cysts can lead to both diagnostic and treatment difficulties and can be confused with tumor. we present a case of a hydatid cyst with thoracic wall involvement mimicking tumor. we conf...

Modern spark ignited (SI) internal combustion engines maintain their air-to-fuel ratio (AFR) at a desired level to maximize the three-way catalyst conversion efficiency and durability. However, maintaining the engine AFR during its transient operation is quite challenging due to rapid changes of driver demand or engine throttle. Conventional transient AFR control is based upon the inverse dynam...

Background: Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is an inherited X-linked disorder with an incidence of 1 in 3,500 male births. Early treatment of DMD cardiomyopathy is under investigation and echocardiographic analysis of strain patterns may provide measures to better quantify early treatment outcomes. Methods: We compared cardiac function in 3, 9 and 12 month old dystrophin deficient mdx mice to...

BACKGROUND The leptin receptor-deficient db/db mouse is a well-established type II diabetes animal model used to investigate diabetic cardiomyopathy. Previous reports have documented diabetic cardiomyopathy is accompanied by cardiac structural and functional abnormalities. To better elucidate early or subtle changes in cardiac performance in db/db mice, we used speckle tracking echocardiography...

The quantitative estimation of regional cardiac deformation from 3D image sequences has important clinical implications for the assessment of myocardial viability. The validation of such image-derived estimates, however, is a non-trivial problem as it is very difficult to obtain ground truth. In this work we present an approach to validating strain estimates derived from 3D cine-Magnetic Resona...

Background Regional ventricular elasticity is altered in ischemic heart disease and LV hypertrophy, potentially contributing to and sustaining a ventricular remodeling process. Conventional methods to measure regional ventricular elasticity in preclinical animal models require high fidelity ventricular pressure measurement, sonomicrometry transducers and dynamic modulation of preload. These pro...

We present a new approach to analyze the deformation of the left ventricle of the heart, based on a parametric model that gives a compact representation of a set of points in a 3D image. We present four diierent approaches to tracking surfaces in a sequence of 3D cardiac images. Following tracking, we then infer quantitative parameters which are useful for the physician, such as the variation o...

Respiratory motion is a major obstacle in radiation therapy of thoracic and abdominal tumors. Techniques to cope with it such as gating and tracking techniques are based on the use of breathing signals that can be acquired easily and in real-time. These signals represent only surrogates of the motion of the inner organs and tumors. Consequently, methods are needed to estimate respiratory motion...

In recent years, the role of arterial stiffness in the development of cardiovascular diseases has been explored more extensively. Local arterial stiffness may be gauged via ultrasound, measuring pulse transit time relative to changing vessel diameters and distending pressures. Recently, direct vessel-wall tracking systems have been devised based on new ultrasonographic methodologies, such as ti...

Existing large scale display systems generally adopt an indirect approach to user interaction. This is due to the use of standard desktop-oriented devices, such as a mouse on a desk, to control the large wall-sized display. By using an infrared laser pointer and an infrared tracking device, a more direct interaction with the large display can be achieved, thereby reducing the cognitive load of ...