Lockdown in addition to their outcomes on hospital emergency section attendance

The proposed sensors, therefore, serve as an enabling optical immunosensing technique offering excellent potential for developing novel lipidomic analytical tools. © 2020 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement.We compared eleven OCT devices in their ability to quantify retinal layer thicknesses under different signal-strength conditions, using a commercially available phantom eye. We analyzed a medium-intensity 50 µm layer in an identical manner for all devices, using the provided log-scale images and a reconstructed linear-scale tissue reflectivity metric. Thickness measurements were highly comparable when the data were analyzed in an identical manner. With optimal signal strength, the thickness of the 50 µm layer was overestimated by a mean of 4.3 µm in the log-scale images and of 2.7 µm in the linear-scale images. © 2020 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement.The early detection of microvascular changes in cancer diagnosis is needed in the clinic. A change in the vascular bifurcation density is a biomarker for the sprouting activity. Here, Optical-Resolution PhotoAcoustic Microscopy is used for quantitative vascular bifurcation mapping in 2D after the creation of Virtual Tubes out of Bifurcations. In stacks of OR-PAM images of the hemoglobin distribution, bifurcations become tubes and are selected by the 3D tubeness filter. These fast analyses will be compared to a classical approach and are easier to implement for functional analysis of the vascular bifurcation density in healthy and diseased tissues. © 2020 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement.Perturbation of normal corneal water content is a common manifestation of many eye diseases. Terahertz (THz) imaging has the potential to serve as a clinical tool for screening and diagnosing such corneal diseases. In this study, we first investigate the diffusive properties of a corneal phantom using simultaneous THz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS) and gravimetric measurements. We will then utilize a variable-thickness diffusion model combined with a stratified composite-media model to simulate changes in thickness, hydration profile, and the THz-TDS signal as a function of time. The simulated THz-TDS signals show very good agreement with the reflection measurements. Results show that the THz-TDS technique can be used to understand water diffusion dynamics in corneal phantoms as a step towards future in vivo quantitative hydration sensing. Selleckchem Dihydromyricetin © 2020 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement.Deep learning based on convolutional neural network (CNN) has shown promising results in various vision-based applications, recently also in camera-based vital signs monitoring. The CNN-based photoplethysmography (PPG) extraction has, so far, been focused on performance rather than understanding. In this paper, we try to answer four questions with experiments aiming at improving our understanding of this methodology as it gains popularity. We conclude that the network exploits the blood absorption variation to extract the physiological signals, and that the choice and parameters (phase, spectral content, etc.) of the reference-signal may be more critical than anticipated. The availability of multiple convolutional kernels is necessary for CNN to arrive at a flexible channel combination through the spatial operation, but may not provide the same motion-robustness as a multi-site measurement using knowledge-based PPG extraction. We also find that the PPG-related prior knowledge may still be helpful for the CNN-based PPG extraction, and recommend further investigation of hybrid CNN-based methods that include prior knowledge in their design. © 2020 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement.Measuring alterations in bacteria upon antibiotic application is important for basic studies in microbiology, drug discovery, clinical diagnosis, and disease treatment. However, imaging and 3D time-lapse response analysis of individual bacteria upon antibiotic application remain largely unexplored mainly due to limitations in imaging techniques. Here, we present a method to systematically investigate the alterations in individual bacteria in 3D and quantitatively analyze the effects of antibiotics. Using optical diffraction tomography, in-situ responses of Escherichia coli and Bacillus subtilis to various concentrations of ampicillin were investigated in a label-free and quantitative manner. The presented method reconstructs the dynamic changes in the 3D refractive-index distributions of living bacteria in response to antibiotics at sub-micrometer spatial resolution. © 2020 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement.Changes in mucosal microvascular networks, called intraepithelial papillary capillary loops (IPCL), are an important key factor for diagnosing early-stage oral cancer in vivo. Nevertheless, there are a lack of tools to quantify these changes objectively. This is the first study to quantify the IPCL changes in vivo to differentiate benign or malignant oral lesions by the optical coherence tomography (OCT) technique. K14-EGFP-miR-211-GFP transgenic mice were inducted by 4-Nitroquinoline-1-oxide to produce oral carcinogenesis in different stages, including normal, premalignancy and cancer. The results showed significant differentiation between benign or malignant lesions by OCT quantitative parameters, including epithelial thickness, IPCL density, radius and tortuosity. © 2020 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement.When detected early, colorectal cancer can be treated with minimally invasive flexible endoscopy. However, since only specialized experts can delineate margins and perform endoscopic resections of lesions, patients still often undergo colon resections. To better assist in the performance of surgical tasks, a robotized flexible interventional endoscope was previously developed, having two additional side channels for surgical instrument. We propose to enhance the imaging capabilities of this device by combining it with optical coherence tomography (OCT). For this purpose, we have developed a new steerable OCT instrument with an outer diameter of 3.5 mm. The steerable instrument is terminated with a 2 cm long transparent sheath to allow three-dimensional OCT imaging using a side-focusing optical probe with two external scanning actuators. The instrument is connected to an OCT imaging system built around the OCT Axsun engine, with a 1310 nm center wavelength swept source laser and 100 kHz A-line rate. Once inserted in one of the side channels of the robotized endoscope, bending, rotation and translation of the steerable OCT instrument can be controlled by a physician using a joystick.