PURPOSE To compare an optimized water selective balanced steady-state free precession sequence (WS-bSSFP) with conventional magnetic resonance (MR) sequences in imaging cartilage of osteoarthritic knees. MATERIALS AND METHODS Flip angles of sagittal and axial WS-bSSFP sequences were optimized in three volunteers. Subsequently, the knees of 10 patients with generalized osteoarthritis were imag...

Background Edema-sensitive T2-weighted cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) based on fast spin-echo (FSE) imaging is a useful modality to detect acute myocardial injury. Conventional T2-weighted CMR uses three inversion-recovery (IR) pulses, the first two to null the blood signal, and the last one (STIR) to null fat signal, but suffers from reduced myocardial signal and signal dropout. We compared ...

BACKGROUND There appears to be a dearth of published literature on the biopsychosocial predictors of community reintegration (CR) among stroke survivors. This study aims to investigate the clinical and psychosocial predictors of CR among stroke survivors three months post in-hospital discharge. METHODS Fifty-two stroke survivors took part in this prospective exploratory study. The participant...

Fast spin-echo (FSE) pulse sequences enable T2-weighted imaging in a fraction of the time required for T2-weighted conventional spin-echo (CSE) imaging. Due to concerns that the altered contrast characteristics of FSE may interfere with the visualization of multiple sclerosis (MS) lesions, the sensitivity of T2-weighted FSE sequences was compared to comparably weighted CSE sequences in the imag...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Echo-planar diffusion-weighted and fluid-attenuated inversion-recovery (FLAIR) imaging have both proved valuable for detecting acute ischemic infarcts, but little is known about the value of diffusion-weighted imaging beyond the acute infarct period. Furthermore, no direct comparison of the techniques has been published. We compared the diagnostic utility of diffusion-wei...

Two experiments were conducted to investigate the potential for Forsythia suspensa extract (FSE) to substitute for antibiotic in broiler chicken. First, a well-diffusion assay procedure and a 2-fold dilution method were used to determine the bacteriostatic activity of FSE on Escherichia coli K88, staphylococcus aureus, and salmonella was assayed. An inhibitory effect of FSE was observed on the ...

The coordination of dynamic neural activity within and between neural networks is believed to underlie normal cognitive processes. Conversely, cognitive deficits that occur following neurological insults may result from network discoordination. We hypothesized that cognitive outcome following febrile status epilepticus (FSE) depends on network efficacy within and between fields CA1 and CA3 to d...

BACKGROUND Four constructs are encompassed by the term "falls-related psychological concerns" (FrPC); "fear of falling" (FOF), "falls-related self-efficacy" (FSe), "balance confidence" (BC) and "outcome expectancy" (OE). FrPC are associated with negative consequences including physical, psychological, and social. Identifying factors associated with FrPC could inform interventions to reduce thes...

This paper introduces TODIM-FSE, a multicriteria method for classifying alternatives based on Prospect Theory. TODIM-FSE therefore relies on the TODIM method combined with the Fuzzy Synthetic Evaluation approach. TODIM-FSE makes use of the innovative “contribution” concept, not used previously for multicriteria classification purposes. This notion is central to the classification procedure of T...