Digital Commons Network^™

Hydraulic Architecture Explains Species Moisture Dependency But Not Mortality Rates Across A Tropical Rainfall Gradient, Alexandria L. Pivovaroff, Brett T. Wolfe, Nate Mcdowell, Bradley Christoffersen, Stuart Davies, L. Turin Dickman, Charlotte Grossiord, Riley T. Leff, Alistair Rogers, Shawn P. Serbin, S. Joseph Wright, Jin Wu, Chonggang Xu, Jeffrey Q. Chambers

Faculty Publications

Intensified droughts are affecting tropical forests across the globe. However, the underlying mechanisms of tree drought response and mortality are poorly understood. Hydraulic traits and especially hydraulic safety margins (HSMs), that is, the extent to which plants buffer themselves from thresholds of water stress, provide insights into species-specific drought vulnerability. We investigated hydraulic traits during an intense drought triggered by the 2015–2016 El Niño on 27 canopy tree species across three tropical forest sites with differing precipitation. We capitalized on the drought event as a time when plant water status might approach or exceed thresholds of water stress. We investigated …

Sabre: The Silicon Array For Branching Ratio Experiments, E. C. Good, B. Sudarsan, K. T. Macon, C. M. Deibel, L. T. Baby, J. C. Blackmon, C. Benetti, J. C. Esparza, N. Gerken, K. Hanselman, G. W. Mccann, A. B. Morelock, J. F. Perello, K. H. Pham, E. Rubino, E. Temanson, I. Wiedenhöver

Faculty Publications

The Silicon Array for Branching Ratio Experiments (SABRE) has been developed for use to study reactions of interest to nuclear structure and astrophysics. The array has been incorporated into the Super Enge Split-Pole Spectrograph (SE-SPS) experimental setup at Florida State University's John D. Fox accelerator laboratory to detect charged-particle decays in coincidence with reaction products detected by the SE-SPS focal plane detector. Its construction and electronics processing are discussed, as well as the commissioning data used to validate its performance.

Molecular Evolution Of Ecological Specialisation: Genomic Insights From The Diversification Of Murine Rodents, Emily Roycroft, Anang Achmadi, Colin M. Callahan, Jacob A. Esselstyn, Jeffrey M. Good, Adnan Moussalli, Kevin C. Rowe

Faculty Publications

Adaptive radiations are characterized by the diversification and ecological differentiation of species, and replicated cases of this process provide natural experiments for understanding the repeatability and pace ofmolecular evolution.During adaptive radiation, genes related to ecological specialization may be subject to recurrent positive directional selection. However, it is not clear to what extent patterns of lineage-specific ecological specialization (includingphenotypic convergence) are correlatedwithsharedsignatures of molecular evolution. To test this, we sequenced whole exomes from a phylogenetically dispersed sample of 38 murine rodent species, a group characterized bymultiple, nested adaptive radiations comprising extensive ecological and phenotypic diversity.We found that genes associatedwithimmunity, reproduction, diet, …

Variation In Soil-Test-Based Phosphorus And Potassium Rate Recommendations Across The Southern Usa, Hailin Zhang, Joao Antonangelo, John Grove, Deanna Osmond, Nathan A. Slaton, Shannon Alford, Robert Florence, Gobena Huluka, David Herring Hardy, Jason Lessl, Rory Maguire, Rao Mylavarapu, J. Larry Oldham, Eugenia M. Pena-Yewtukhiw, Tony Provin, Leticia Sonon, David Sotomayor, Jim Wang

Faculty Publications

Thirteen states associated with the Southern Extension and Research Activities Information Exchange Group-6 (SERA-IEG-6) agreed to share their soil test based P and K rate recommendations for nine major crops. The objectives were to compare fertilizer P and K rate recommendations, to look for opportunities to rationalize similar recommendations across state lines, and to examine challenges to the development of a cooperative regional approach to P and K recommendations. Mehlich-3 (eight states), Mehlich-1 (five states), or Lancaster (one state) extractions were the basis of plant available soil P (STP) and K (STK) assessment. Fertilizer recommendation philosophies (sufficiency, build and maintain, …

Optimizing Genomic-Enabled Prediction In Small-Scale Maize Hybrid Breeding Programs: A Roadmap Review, Roberto Fritsche-Neto, Giovanni Galli, Karina Lima Reis Borges, Germano Costa-Neto, Filipe Couto Alves, Felipe Sabadin, Danilo Hottis Lyra, Pedro Patric Pinho Morais, Luciano Rogério Braatz De Andrade, Italo Granato, Jose Crossa

Faculty Publications

The usefulness of genomic prediction (GP) for many animal and plant breeding programs has been highlighted for many studies in the last 20 years. In maize breeding programs, mostly dedicated to delivering more highly adapted and productive hybrids, this approach has been proved successful for both large- and small-scale breeding programs worldwide. Here, we present some of the strategies developed to improve the accuracy of GP in tropical maize, focusing on its use under low budget and small-scale conditions achieved for most of the hybrid breeding programs in developing countries. We highlight the most important outcomes obtained by the University …

Prophecy: Connecting People To Jesus, Merlin D. Burt

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Perspective: The Importance Of Water Security For Ensuring Food Security, Good Nutrition, And Well-Being, Sera L. Young, Edward A. Frongillo Jr., Zeina Jamaluddine, Hugo Melgar-Quiñonez, Rafael Pérez-Escamilla, Claudia Ringler, Asher Y. Rosinger

Faculty Publications

Water security is a powerful concept that is still in its early days in the field of nutrition. Given the prevalence and severity of water issues and the many interconnections between water and nutrition, we argue that water security deserves attention commensurate with its importance to human nutrition and health. To this end, we first give a brief introduction to water insecurity and discuss its conceptualization in terms of availability, access, use, and stability. We then lay out the empirical grounding for its assessment. Parallels to the food-security literature are drawn throughout, both because the concepts are analogous and food …

Rabies Postexposure Prophylaxis In The United States: Opportunities To Improve Access, Coordination, And Delivery, Gavin T. Howington, Huy-Binh Nguyen, P Brandon Bookstaver, Peter Akpunonu, Joshua T. Swan

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Deference Is Dead, Long Live Chevron, Nathan D. Richardson

Faculty Publications

Chevron v. NRDC has stood for more than 35 years as the central case on judicial review of administrative agencies’ interpretations of statutes. Its contours have long been debated, but more recently it has come under increasing scrutiny, with some—including two sitting Supreme Court Justices—calling for the case to be overturned. Others praise Chevron, calling deference necessary or even inevitable. All seem to agree the doctrine is powerful and important.

This standard account is wrong, however. Chevron is not the influential doctrine it once was and has not been for a long time. It has been eroded from the outside …

Resuspension, Redistribution, And Deposition Of Oil-Residues To Offshore Depocenters After The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, Arne R. Diercks, Isabel C. Romero, Rebekka A. Larson, Patrick Schwing, Austin Harris, Samantha Bosman, Jeffrey P. Chanton, Gregg Brooks

Faculty Publications

The focus of this study was to determine the long-term fate of oil-residues from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon (DwH) oil spill due to remobilization, transport, and re-distribution of oil residue contaminated sediments to down-slope depocenters following initial deposition on the seafloor. We characterized hydrocarbon residues, bulk sediment organic matter, ease of resuspension, sedimentology, and accumulation rates to define distribution patterns in a 14,300 km2 area southeast of the DwH wellhead (1,500 to 2,600 m water depth). Oil-residues from the DwH were detected at low concentrations in 62% of the studied sites at specific sediment layers, denoting episodic deposition of oil-residues …

Blockumulus: A Scalable Framework For Smart Contracts On The Cloud, Nikolay Ivanov, Qiben Yan, Qingyang Wang

Faculty Publications

Public blockchains have spurred the growing popularity of decentralized transactions and smart contracts, especially on the financial market. However, public blockchains exhibit their limitations on the transaction throughput, storage availability, and compute capacity. To avoid transaction gridlock, public blockchains impose large fees and per-block resource limits, making it difficult to accommodate the ever-growing high transaction demand. Previous research endeavors to improve the scalability and performance of blockchain through various technologies, such as side-chaining, sharding, secured off-chain computation, communication network optimizations, and efficient consensus protocols. However, these approaches have not attained a widespread adoption due to their inability in delivering a …

Comparing Dietary Score Associations With Lipoprotein Particle Subclass Profiles: A Cross-Sectional Analysis Of A Middle-To Older-Aged Population, Seán R. Millar, Pilar Navarro, Janas M. Harrington, Nitin Shivappa Mbbs, Mph, Ph.D., James Hébert Scd, Ivan J. Perry, Catherine M. Phillips

Faculty Publications

Background and objectives: Lipoprotein particle concentrations and size are associated with increased risk for atherosclerosis and premature cardiovascular disease. Studies also suggest that certain dietary behaviours may be cardioprotective. Limited comparative data regarding any dietary score/index-lipoprotein particle subclass associations exist. Thus, our objective was to assess relationships between the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH), Health Eating Index-2015 (HEI-2015), Mediterranean Diet (MD) and Energy-adjusted Dietary Inflammatory Index (E-DII™) scores and plasma lipids and lipoprotein profiles to test the hypothesis that healthier diet (better quality and more anti-inflammatory) would be associated with a more favourable lipoprotein profile.

Materials and methods: This …

Investigating Developmental Changes In Scalp-To-Cortex Correspondence Using Diffuse Optical Tomography Sensitivity In Infancy, Xiaoxue Fu, John E. Richards

Faculty Publications

Significance: Diffuse optical tomography (DOT) uses near-infrared light spectroscopy (NIRS) to measure changes in cerebral hemoglobin concentration. Anatomical interpretations of NIRS data require accurate descriptions of the cranio-cerebral relations and DOT sensitivity to the underlying cortical structures. Such information is limited for pediatric populations because they undergo rapid head and brain development.

Aim: We aim to investigate age-related differences in scalp-to-cortex distance and mapping between scalp locations and cortical regions of interest (ROIs) among infants (2 weeks to 24 months with narrow age bins), children (4 and 12 years), and adults (20 to 24 years).

Approach: We …

Uranium Integral Fission Product Yields For A Spectrally-Shaped 14.1 Mev Neutron Source At The National Ignition Facility, Nicholas J. Quartemont, N. Gharibyan, K. Moody, James E. Bevins

Faculty Publications

This paper describes the experimental results for an energy tuning assembly created to modify the National Ignition Facility deuterium–tritium fusion neutron source into a notional thermonuclear and prompt fission neutron spectrum, which has applications in integral measurements, nuclear data benchmarks, and radiation effects on microelectronics. The Monte Carlo neutron transport utilized MCNP5 to estimate the ETA-modified fluence using the ENDF-B/VIII.0 and IRDFF-II continuous energy nuclear data libraries, and SCALE Sampler was used to estimate the systematic nuclear data covariance using ENDF-B/VII.1 and IRDFF-II in a 252-group structure. The experiment fielded eight activation foils and a highly enriched uranium sample. This …

Estimating Turbulence Distribution Over A Heterogeneous Path Using Time‐Lapse Imagery From Dual Cameras, Benjamin Wilson, Santasri Bose-Pillai, Jack E. Mccrae, Kevin J. Keefer, Steven T. Fiorino

Faculty Publications

Knowledge of turbulence distribution along an experimental path can help in effective turbulence compensation and mitigation. Although scintillometers are traditionally used to measure the strength of turbulence, they provide a path-integrated measurement and have limited operational ranges. A technique to profile turbulence using time-lapse imagery of a distant target from spatially separated cameras is presented here. The method uses the turbulence induced differential motion between pairs of point features on a target, sensed at a single camera and between cameras to extract turbulence distribution along the path. The method is successfully demonstrated on a 511 m almost horizontal path going …

On Using The Bmcsl Equation Of State To Renormalize The Onsager Theory Approach To Modeling Hard Prolate Spheroidal Liquid Crystal Mixtures, Donya Ohadi, David S. Corti, Mark J. Uline

Faculty Publications

Modifications to the traditional Onsager theory for modeling isotropic–nematic phase transitions in hard prolate spheroidal systems are presented. Pure component systems are used to identify the need to update the Lee–Parsons resummation term. The Lee–Parsons resummation term uses the Carnahan–Starling equation of state to approximate higher-order virial coefficients beyond the second virial coefficient employed in Onsager’s original theoretical approach. As more exact ways of calculating the excluded volume of two hard prolate spheroids of a given orientation are used, the division of the excluded volume by eight, which is an empirical correction used in the original Lee–Parsons resummation term, must …

Loosening Control—A Hybrid Approach To Controlling Heterogeneous Swarms, Lukas Esterle, David W. King

Faculty Publications

Large pervasive systems, deployed in dynamic environments, require flexible control mechanisms to meet the demands of chaotic state changes while accomplishing system goals. As centralized control approaches may falter in environments where centralized communication and knowledge may be impossible to implement, researchers have proposed decentralized control methods that leverage agent-driven, self-organizing behaviors, to achieve reliable, flexible systems. This article presents and compares the performance of three decentralized control approaches in the online multi-object k-assignment problem. In this domain, a set of sensors is tasked to detect and track an unknown and changing set of targets. Results show that a …

Strengthening Criteria Independence Through Optimization Of Alternative Value Ratio Comparisons, Joseph P. Kristbaum, Frank W. Ciarallo

Faculty Publications

Every decision maker’s internal scale is different based on a myriad of possible factors unique to that decision maker. Conflicting criteria within and between alternatives in multicriteria decision making can create negative effects within the weighting schemes and amplify preference biases and scale disparities between decision makers in a group decision context. Additionally, the weighting of group decision-making frameworks can intensify the already skewed criteria values. When making judgments against requirements, it may be preferable to reduce scale trend distortions between decision makers as much as possible. Previous research supports that certain information presentation modes can significantly reduce preference bias …

An Evidence-Based Review Of The Pathophysiology, Treatment, And Prevention Of Exercise-Associated Muscle Cramps, Kevin C. Miller, Brendon P. Mcdermott, Susan W. Yeargin, Aidan Fiol, Martin P. Schwellnus

Faculty Publications

Exercise-associated muscle cramps (EAMCs) are common and frustrating for athletes and the physically active. We critically appraised the EAMC literature to provide evidence based treatment and prevention recommendations. Although the pathophysiology of EAMCs appears controversial, recent evidence suggests that EAMCs are due to a confluence of unique intrinsic and extrinsic factors rather than a singular cause. The treatment of acute EAMCs continues to include self-applied or clinician-guided gentle static stretching until symptoms abate. Once the painful EAMCs are alleviated, the clinician can continue treatment on the sidelines by focusing on patient-specific risk factors that may have contributed to the onset …

Concentrations, Ratios, And Sinking Fluxes Of Major Bioelements At Ocean Station Papa, Montserrat Roca-Martí

Faculty Publications

Fluxes of major bioelements associated with sinking particles were quantified in late summer 2018 as part of the EXport Processes in the Ocean from RemoTe Sensing (EXPORTS) field campaign near Ocean Station Papa in the subarctic northeast Pacific. The thorium-234 method was used in conjunction with size-fractionated (1–5, 5–51, and >51 μm) concentrations of particulate nitrogen (PN), total particulate phosphorus (TPP), biogenic silica (bSi), and particulate inorganic carbon (PIC) collected using large volume filtration via in situ pumps. We build upon recent work quantifying POC fluxes during EXPORTS. Similar remineralization length scales were observed for both POC and PN across …

Clinical Correlations Of Polycomb Repressive Complex 2 In Different Tumor Types, Maksim Erokhin, Olga Chetverina, Balázs Győrffy, Victor V. Tatarskiy, Vladic Mogila, Alexander A. Shtil, Igor Roninson, Jerome Moreaux, Pavel Georgiev, Giacomo Cavalli, Darya Chetverina

Faculty Publications

PRC2 (Polycomb repressive complex 2) is an evolutionarily conserved protein complex required to maintain transcriptional repression. The core PRC2 complex includes EZH2, SUZ12, and EED proteins and methylates histone H3K27. PRC2 is known to contribute to carcinogenesis and several small molecule inhibitors targeting PRC2 have been developed. The present study aimed to identify the cancer types in which PRC2 targeting drugs could be beneficial. We queried genomic and transcriptomic (cBioPortal, KMplot) database portals of clinical tumor samples to evaluate clinical correlations of PRC2 subunit genes. EZH2, SUZ12, and EED gene amplification was most frequently found in prostate cancer, whereas lymphoid …

Review Of The Analysis Of 234Th In Small Volume (2–4 L) Seawater Samples: Improvements And Recommendations, Samantha J. Clevenger, Claudia Benitez-Nelson, Jessica Drysdale, Steven Pike, Viena Puigcorbé, Ken O. Buesseler

Faculty Publications

Schools may be one important context where adolescents learn and shape the behaviors necessary for promoting global inclusivity in adulthood. Given the importance of bystanders in halting bullying and peer aggression, the focus of this study is on both moral judgments regarding one type of bullying, social exclusion, and factors that are associated with bystander intervention. The study includes 896 adolescents, who were 6th (N = 450, M_age = 11.73), and 9th (N = 446, M_age = 14.82) graders, approximately evenly divided by gender. Participants were primarily European–American (63.3%). Results revealed that girls and participants who …

Topology And Ground State Control In Open-Shell Donor-Acceptor Conjugated Polymers, Kevin S. Mayer, Daniel J. Adams, Naresh Eedugurala, Molly M. Lockart, Paramasivam Mahalingavelar, Lifeng Huang, Luke A. Galuska, Eric R. King, Xiaodan Gu, Michael K. Bowman, Jason D. Azoulay

Faculty Publications

Donor-acceptor (DA) conjugated polymers (CPs) with narrow bandgaps and open-shell (diradical) character represent an emerging class of materials whose rich behavior emanates from their collective electronic properties and diminished electron pairing. However, the structural and electronic heterogeneities that define these materials complicate bandgap control at low energies and connections linking topology, exchange interactions, and (opto)electronic functionality remain nascent. To address these challenges, we demonstrate structurally rigid and strongly π-conjugated copolymers comprised of a solubilizing thiadiazoloquinoxaline acceptor and cyclopenta[2,1-b:3,4-b′]dithiophene or dithieno[3,2-b:2′,3′-d]thiophene donors. Atom-specific substitution modulates local aromatic character within the donor resulting in dramatic differences in structural, physicochemical, electronic, and magnetic …

An Exhaustive Survey On P4 Programmable Data Plane Switches: Taxonomy, Applications, Challenges, And Future Trends, Elie Kfoury, Jorge Crichigno, Elias Bou-Harb

Faculty Publications

High-throughput proteomic profiling using antibody or aptamer-based affinity reagents is used increasingly in human studies. However, direct analyses to address the relative strengths and weaknesses of these platforms are lacking. We assessed findings from the SomaScan1.3K (N = 1301 reagents), the SomaScan5K platform (N= 4979 reagents), and the Olink Explore (N = 1472 reagents) profiling techniques in 568 adults from the Jackson Heart Study and 219 participants in the HERITAGE Family Study across four performance domains: precision, accuracy, analytic breadth, and phenotypic associations leveraging detailed clinical phenotyping and genetic data. Across these studies, we show evidence supporting more reliable protein …

The Community Health Worker (Chw) Common Indicators Project: Engaging Chws In Measurement To Sustain The Profession, Keara Rodela, Noelle Wiggins, Kenneth Maes, Teresa Campos-Dominguez, Victoria Adewumi, Pennie Jewell, Susan Mayfield-Johnson

Faculty Publications

Despite progress in documenting the outcomes of Community Health Worker interventions, the lack of standardized measures to assess CHW practice has made it difficult for programs to conduct reliable evaluations, and impossible to aggregate data across programs and regions, impeding commitment to sustainable, long-term financing of CHW programs. In addition, while CHWs have sometimes been involved as data collectors, they have seldom been engaged as full partners in all stages of evaluation and research. This manuscript details the current work being done by the CI Project, demonstrating how CHWs are able to contribute to the integrity, sustainability, and viability of …

Measurement Of The Iron Spectrum In Cosmic Rays From 10 Gev/N To 2.0 Tev/N With The Calorimetric Electron Telescope On The International Space Station, O. Adriani, Y. Akaike, K. Asano, Y. Asaoka, E. Berti, G. Bigongiari, W. R. Binns, M. Bongi, P. Brogi, A. Bruno, J. H. Buckley, N. Cannady, G. Castellini, C. Checchia, M. L. Cherry, G. Collazuol, K. Ebisawa, H. Fuke, S. Gonzi, T. G. Guzik, T. Hams, K. Hibino, M. Ichimura, K. Ioka, W. Ishizaki, M. H. Israel, K. Kasahara, J. Kataoka, R. Kataoka, Y. Katayose, C. Kato, N. Kawanaka, Y. Kawakubo, K. Kobayashi, K. Kohri, H. S. Krawczynski, J. F. Krizmanic, J. Link, P. Maestro, P. S. Marrocchesi, A. M. Messineo, J. W. Mitchell, S. Miyake, A. A. Moiseev, M. Mori, N. Mori, H. M. Motz, K. Munakata, S. Nakahira, J. Nishimura, G. A. De Nolfo, S. Okuno, J. F. Ormes, N. Ospina, S. Ozawa, L. Pacini, P. Papini, B. F. Rauch, S. B. Ricciarini, K. Sakai, T. Sakamoto, M. Sasaki, Y. Shimizu, A. Shiomi, P. Spillantini, F. Stolzi, S. Sugita, A. Sulaj, M. Takita, T. Tamura, T. Terasawa, S. Torii, Y. Tsunesada, Y. Uchihori, E. Vannuccini, J. P. Wefel, K. Yamaoka, S. Yanagita, A. Yoshida, K. Yoshida

Faculty Publications

The Calorimetric Electron Telescope (CALET), in operation on the International Space Station since 2015, collected a large sample of cosmic-ray iron over a wide energy interval. In this Letter a measurement of the iron spectrum is presented in the range of kinetic energy per nucleon from 10 GeV/n to 2.0 TeV/n allowing the inclusion of iron in the list of elements studied with unprecedented precision by space-borne instruments. The measurement is based on observations carried out from January 2016 to May 2020. The CALET instrument can identify individual nuclear species via a measurement of their electric charge with a dynamic …

The Seasonal Flux And Fate Of Dissolved Organic Carbon Through Bacterioplankton In The Western North Atlantic, Nicholas Baetge, Michael J. Behrenfeld, James Fox, Kimberly H. Halsey, Kristina D.A. Mojica, Anai Novoa, Brandon M. Stephens, Craig A. Carlson

Faculty Publications

The oceans teem with heterotrophic bacterioplankton that play an appreciable role in the uptake of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) derived from phytoplankton net primary production (NPP). As such, bacterioplankton carbon demand (BCD), or gross heterotrophic production, represents a major carbon pathway that influences the seasonal accumulation of DOC in the surface ocean and, subsequently, the potential vertical or horizontal export of seasonally accumulated DOC. Here, we examine the contributions of bacterioplankton and DOM to ecological and biogeochemical carbon flow pathways, including those of the microbial loop and the biological carbon pump, in the Western North Atlantic Ocean (∼39–54°N along ∼40°W) …

Biogenic Sinking Particle Fluxes And Sediment Trap Collection Efficiency At Ocean Station Papa, Margaret Estapa, Ken Buesseler, Collen A. Durkin, Melissa Omand, Claudia Benitez-Nelson, Montserrat Rocca-Martí, Elly Breves, R. P. Kelly, Steve Pike

Faculty Publications

Comprehensive field observations characterizing the biological carbon pump (BCP) provide the foundation needed to constrain mechanistic models of downward particulate organic carbon (POC) flux in the ocean. Sediment traps were deployed three times during the EXport Processes in the Ocean from RemoTe Sensing campaign at Ocean Station Papa in August–September 2018. We propose a new method to correct sediment trap sample contamination by zooplankton “swimmers.” We consider the advantages of polyacrylamide gel collectors to constrain swimmer influence and estimate the magnitude of possible trap biases. Measured sediment trap fluxes of thorium-234 are compared to water column measurements to assess trap …

Elite Cues And The Rapid Decline Of Trust In Science Agencies On Covid-19, Lawrence C. Hamilton, Thomas G. Safford

Faculty Publications

The COVID-19 pandemic has been marked by political divisions in US public trust of scientists. Such divisions are well known on other science topics, but regarding COVID-19 they arose suddenly, with disastrous results. Public distrust of scientists has been variously explained in terms of conflicts with belief systems, psychology, peer influences, or communication from elites. Three surveys conducted from March to July 2020 in the US state of New Hampshire observed changing perceptions on COVID-19, providing a test of alternative explanations. Over this period trust in science agencies such as the CDC for information on the coronavirus fell dramatically among …

St-V-Net: Incorporating Shape Prior Into Convolutional Neural Netwoks For Proximal Femur Segmentation, Chen Zhao, Joyce H. Keyak, Jinshan Tang, Tadashi S. Kaneko, Sundeep Khosla, Shreyasee Amin, Elizabeth J. Atkinson, Lan-Juan Zhao, Michael J. Serou, Chaoyang Zhang, Hui Shen, Hong-Wen Deng, Weihua Zhou

Faculty Publications

We aim to develop a deep-learning-based method for automatic proximal femur segmentation in quantitative computed tomography (QCT) images. We proposed a spatial transformation V-Net (ST-V-Net), which contains a V-Net and a spatial transform network (STN) to extract the proximal femur from QCT images. The STN incorporates a shape prior into the segmentation network as a constraint and guidance for model training, which improves model performance and accelerates model convergence. Meanwhile, a multi-stage training strategy is adopted to fine-tune the weights of the ST-V-Net. We performed experiments using a QCT dataset which included 397 QCT subjects. During the experiments for the …