Imaging with spoiled, balanced or nonbalanced gradient echo (GRE) refers to a class of fast imaging sequences that use a dynamic equilibrium or steady state signal for imaging. As originally introduced in 1958 by Carr (1) for NMR spectroscopy, a dynamic equilibrium or steadystate can be established by a train of radio-frequency (RF) excitation pulses interleaved by periods of ‘free precession’,...

Premature spoilage and varying product quality due to microbial contamination still constitute major problems in the production of microfiltered and pasteurized extended shelf life (ESL) milk. Spoilage-associated bacteria may enter the product either as part of the raw milk microbiota or as recontaminants in the dairy plant. To identify spoilage-inducing bacteria and their routes of entry, we a...

The effects of storage period and aerobic deterioration on the bacterial community were examined in Italian ryegrass (IR), guinea grass (GG), and whole-crop maize (WM) silages. Direct-cut forages were stored in a laboratory silo for 3, 7, 14, 28, 56, and 120 d without any additives; live counts, content of fermentation products, and characteristics of the bacterial community were determined. 2,...

A method for optimizing MR imaging pulse sequence parameters in a statistical framework is presented. Parameters are defined to be optimal when the resulting scalar images yield optimal image segmentations using Bayesian pixel classification. Thus, Bayes risk is used as the objective function to minimize. Approximations are made to give a tractable solution in a four-step procedure. A sample ca...

There are physical Majorana phases in the lepton flavor mixing matrix when neutrinos are Majorana fermions. In the case of two degenerate neutrinos, the physical Majorana phase plays the crucial role for the stability of the maximal flavor mixing between the second and the third generations against quantum corrections. The physical Majorana phase of π guarantees the maximal mixing to be stable ...

UTE Technique Spoiled GE Multi-spin echo Spoiled GE k-space encoding Cartesian Cartesian 3D radial Excitation slice selective slice selective non-selective Flip angle [°] 20 90 10 Echo time [ms] 2 8.1 0.05 Repetition time [ms] 3.8 625 4.7 Pixel BW [Hz] 500 240 800 # echoes 1 16 1 Acquired res. [mm3] 2.5x2.5x5 0.4x0.4x1 0.8x0.8x0.8 Recon res. [mm3] 1.5x1.5x5 0.4x0.4x1 0.5x0.5x0.5 Field of view [...