Ultrasonic wavefield imaging (UWI) provides insightful spatial information about ultrasonic wave propagation in planar (2-D) space for nondestructive evaluation and structural health monitoring (NDE-SHM) applications. In all materials, the wavefronts of the incident and reflected waves propagate with unique patterns that may be represented by parametrized polar curves in 2-D geometric space. In this paper, a spatial ultrasonic wavefront characterization method based on a parametric curve laser scan is proposed to characterize the spatial ultrasonic wavefront for both isotropic and anisotropic materials. Three parametric curves (circular, hyperbolic, and cyclic-harmonic curves) were considered. Two wavefront characterization process were carried out, namely (i) deciding the parametric equation of the closed-form geometric plane curve via UWI, and (ii) measuring and updating the ultrasound via laser ultrasonic interrogation system (LUIS) and quantifying the values(s) of the predicted parametric curve equation using a temporal cross-correlation technique. The proposed method was tested on pristine aluminum and cross-ply CFRP plates to characterize the spatial incident and reflected wavefronts of the plates. The non-fiber direction region (105°⩽ϕS⩽165°) and the fiber direction region (165°⩽ϕS⩽195°) of the cross-ply CFRP plate were considered in the test. The laser circle scan and the laser cyclic-harmonic curve scan showed the ability to characterize the incident wavefronts of the S0 and A0 modes in the aluminum plate and the CFRP plate, respectively, followed by the laser hyperbolic curve scan. With the promising results obtained in the proposed method, the integration of the parametric curve scanning method into LUIS may provide a new approach to damage detection and useful information for ultrasonic algorithm design in NDE-SHM applications.Therapeutic ultrasound is a promising non-invasive method for inducing various beneficial biological effects in the human body. TH5427 mw In cancer treatment applications, high-power ultrasound is focused at a target tissue volume to ablate the malignant tumour. The success of the procedure depends on the ability to accurately focus ultrasound and destroy the target tissue volume through coagulative necrosis whilst preserving the surrounding healthy tissue. Patient-specific treatment planning strategies are therefore being developed to increase the efficacy of such therapies, while reducing any damage to healthy tissue. These strategies require to use high-performance computing methods to solve ultrasound wave propagation in the body quickly and accurately. For realistic clinical scenarios, all numerical methods which employ volumetric meshes require several hours or days to solve the full-wave propagation on a computer cluster. The boundary element method (BEM) is an efficient approach for modelling the wave field because only the boundaries of the hard and soft tissue regions require discretisation. This paper presents a multiple-domain BEM formulation with a novel preconditioner for solving the Helmholtz transmission problem (HTP). This new formulation is efficient at high-frequencies and where high-contrast materials are present. Numerical experiments are performed to solve the HTP in multiple domains comprising (i) human ribs, an idealised abdominal fat layer and liver tissue, (ii) a human kidney with a perinephric fat layer, exposed to the acoustic field generated by a high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) array transducer. The time required to solve the equations associated with these problems on a single workstation is of the order of minutes. These results demonstrate the great potential of this new BEM formulation for accurately and quickly solving ultrasound wave propagation problems in large anatomical domains which is essential for developing treatment planning strategies.

T helper 17 (Th17) cell responses were involved in the pathophysiology of primary Sjögren’s syndrome (pSS). IL-38 has been reported to inhibit the secretion of chemokines involved in Th17 pathway. This study aimed to explore the regulation of Th17 response by IL-38 in pSS.

Twenty-four pSS patients, 15 non-pSS control, and 13 health subjects were recruited. The expression of IL-38 and Th17 cytokines were detected and compared between pSS and controls. Human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) and minor salivary gland mononuclear cells (MSGMs) were purified and stimulated by IL-38. The differentiation and function of Th17 cells were evaluated by PCR and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA).

The pSS patients presented with significantly lower expression of IL-38 and higher Th17 cytokines (IL-17 and IL-23) compared with both non-pSS and healthy controls. The IL-38 inhibited the differentiation and function of Th17 responses from PBMCs and MSGMs. The IL-38 treatment could inhibit the Th17 response in mice model.

IL-38 inhibits T helper 17 type responses in pSS, suggesting that IL-38 may be used as potential treatment target in pSS.

IL-38 inhibits T helper 17 type responses in pSS, suggesting that IL-38 may be used as potential treatment target in pSS.

DAWN and DEFUSE-3 trials demonstrated the benefit of endovascular thrombectomy in late-presenting acute ischemic strokes due to anterior circulation large vessel occlusion. The aim of our study is to evaluate results of endovascular thrombectomy in large intracranial vessel occlusion without perfusion CT patient selection.

we reviewed our prospectively collected endovascular databases for patients with an acute stroke from March 2016 to October 2018, treated after 6 h from stroke onset, without perfusion CT selection. Baseline characteristics, procedural data, and outcomes were evaluated. A good outcome was defined as a 90-day modified Rankin Scale score of 0-2. The association between clinical and procedural parameters and functional outcome was assessed.

out of 212 patients 55 were treated after 6 h from stroke onset, 49 of which for an anterior circulation occlusion. 18/49 were functional independent at 90 days (mRS 0-2), Successful recanalization (mTICI 2b to 3) was achieved in 38/49 patients (77 %).