UltrasonicsPub Date : 2024-10-10DOI: 10.1016/j.ultras.2024.107488
Min He , Hong Zhu , Jingsong Dong , Wenzhen Lin , Boyi Li , Ying Li , Dean Ta
{"title":"Low-intensity pulsed ultrasound improves metabolic dysregulation in obese mice by suppressing inflammation and extracellular matrix remodeling","authors":"Min He , Hong Zhu , Jingsong Dong , Wenzhen Lin , Boyi Li , Ying Li , Dean Ta","doi":"10.1016/j.ultras.2024.107488","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ultras.2024.107488","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Chronic inflammation in white adipose tissue is crucial in obesity and related metabolic disorders. Low-intensity pulsed ultrasound (LIPUS) is renowned for its anti-inflammatory effects as a non-invasive treatment, yet its precise role in obesity has been uncertain. Our study investigates the therapeutic effect of LIPUS and its underlying mechanism on obesity in mice, thereby offering a novel approach for non-invasive treatment of obesity and associated metabolic disorders for human. Male C57BL/6J mice aged 10 weeks were fed a high-fat diet (HFD) for 8 weeks to establish obesity model, then underwent 8 weeks of LIPUS (frequency: 1.0 MHz, duty cycle: 20 %, I<sub>sata</sub>: 58–61 mW/cm<sup>2</sup>, 20 min per day) stimulation of the epididymal white adipose tissue. Fat and lean mass were measured using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), while energy homeostasis was evaluated using metabolic cages. Insulin resistance was assessed using glucose tolerance tests (GTT) and insulin tolerance tests (ITT). Regulatory mechanisms were explored using RNA sequencing. Results showed that LIPUS significantly reduced obesity markers in obese mice, including body and adipose tissue weight, and improved insulin resistance, without affecting food intake. RNA sequencing showed 250 up-regulated and 351 down-regulated genes between HFD-LIPUS group and HFD-Sham group, suggesting anti-inflammatory action. Quantitative PCR confirmed reduced pro-inflammatory gene expression and macrophage infiltration in eWAT. Gene set enrichment analysis showed decreased NF-κB signaling and extracellular matrix-receptor interactions in LIPUS-treated mice. Thus, LIPUS effectively mitigates metabolic dysregulation in HFD-induced obesity through inflammation suppression and extracellular matrix remodeling, which provides a potential physical therapy for metabolic syndrome in clinic.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":23522,"journal":{"name":"Ultrasonics","volume":"145 ","pages":"Article 107488"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2024-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142445872","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
UltrasonicsPub Date : 2024-10-05DOI: 10.1016/j.ultras.2024.107485
Bo Hu , Tribikram Kundu
{"title":"Damage detection and localization in plate-like structures using sideband peak count (SPC) technique","authors":"Bo Hu , Tribikram Kundu","doi":"10.1016/j.ultras.2024.107485","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ultras.2024.107485","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper addresses the critical issue of detecting and localizing damage in plate-like structures, which are commonly encountered in aerospace, marine and other engineering applications. To address this challenge, the current study introduces the sideband peak count (SPC) technique as the foundation for diagnostic imaging for damage detection in plate structures. The proposed damage detection algorithm requires only a limited number of sensor responses, streamlining the detection process. It does not rely on a reference baseline, thereby enhancing its efficiency and accuracy. This approach enables rapid and precise identification of damage and its location within the plate structure. To validate the effectiveness and applicability of the proposed method, finite element simulation results are utilized. These results demonstrate the capability of the proposed technique to accurately detect and localize damage, providing a promising solution for enhancing the structural health monitoring of plate-like structures in various engineering domains.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":23522,"journal":{"name":"Ultrasonics","volume":"145 ","pages":"Article 107485"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2024-10-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142401468","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
UltrasonicsPub Date : 2024-10-03DOI: 10.1016/j.ultras.2024.107483
Siddhesh Raorane, Tadeusz Stepinski, Pawel Packo
{"title":"A semi-analytical framework for predicting far-field responses of complex elastic waves emitters","authors":"Siddhesh Raorane, Tadeusz Stepinski, Pawel Packo","doi":"10.1016/j.ultras.2024.107483","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ultras.2024.107483","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Applications of guided waves in various fields of engineering and science rely on elastic wave emitters for wave generation. Accurate prediction and understanding of the far-field responses of these wave emitters are crucial for the reliable and efficient application of guided waves-based technologies. In this paper, we propose a novel semi-analytical framework capable of predicting the far-field response of complex wave emitters of arbitrary shape and internal structure in any type of substrate. This framework is general, and is not confined to specific methods, enhancing its versatility. We applied the proposed semi-analytical framework to predict the directivity patterns of two different macro-fiber composite transducers, accurately modeled using their exact topologies. The framework’s validity was experimentally confirmed by comparing the predicted directivity patterns with the results obtained from experimental measurements.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":23522,"journal":{"name":"Ultrasonics","volume":"145 ","pages":"Article 107483"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2024-10-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142393667","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
UltrasonicsPub Date : 2024-10-03DOI: 10.1016/j.ultras.2024.107474
Di Xiao, Alfred C.H. Yu
{"title":"Beamforming-integrated neural networks for ultrasound imaging","authors":"Di Xiao, Alfred C.H. Yu","doi":"10.1016/j.ultras.2024.107474","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ultras.2024.107474","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Sparse matrix beamforming (SMB) is a computationally efficient reformulation of delay-and-sum (DAS) beamforming as a single sparse matrix multiplication. This reformulation can potentially dovetail with machine learning platforms like TensorFlow and PyTorch that already support sparse matrix operations. In this work, using SMB principles, we present the development of beamforming-integrated neural networks (BINNs) that can rationally infer ultrasound images directly from pre-beamforming channel-domain radiofrequency (RF) datasets. To demonstrate feasibility, a toy BINN was first designed with two 2D-convolution layers that were respectively placed both before and after an SMB layer. This toy BINN correctly updated kernel weights in all convolution layers, demonstrating efficiency in both training (PyTorch – 133 ms, TensorFlow – 22 ms) and inference (PyTorch – 4 ms, TensorFlow – 5 ms). As an application demonstration, another BINN with two RF-domain convolution layers, an SMB layer, and three image-domain convolution layers was designed to infer high-quality B-mode images <em>in vivo</em> from single-shot plane-wave channel RF data. When trained using 31-angle compounded plane wave images (3000 frames from 22 human volunteers), this BINN showed mean-square logarithmic error improvements of 21.3 % and 431 % in the inferred B-mode image quality respectively comparing to an image-to-image convolutional neural network (CNN) and an RF-to-image CNN with the same number of layers and learnable parameters (3,777). Overall, by including an SMB layer to adopt prior knowledge of DAS beamforming, BINN shows potential as a new type of informed machine learning framework for ultrasound imaging.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":23522,"journal":{"name":"Ultrasonics","volume":"145 ","pages":"Article 107474"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2024-10-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142393678","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
UltrasonicsPub Date : 2024-09-30DOI: 10.1016/j.ultras.2024.107480
Huan Wang , Xiucheng Liu , Bin Wu , Xiang Gao , Yao Liu , Cunfu He
{"title":"A new theoretical model for high-order harmonics of SH0 mode ultrasonic guided waves based on magnetostrictive mechanism","authors":"Huan Wang , Xiucheng Liu , Bin Wu , Xiang Gao , Yao Liu , Cunfu He","doi":"10.1016/j.ultras.2024.107480","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ultras.2024.107480","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In recent years, it was found that magnetostrictive ultrasonic guided wave transducers experimentally excited nonlinear harmonic components under a certain combination of dynamic and static magnetic fields. However, a satisfactory model for the relevant excitation mechanisms is not available. In this study, a new magnetostrictive guided wave excitation model was established and the causes for harmonics generation were analyzed. In addition, the calculation results of the model were obtained under different magnetic field parameters. We firstly changed the calculation conditions of magnetostrictive strain in the model and then theoretically calculated the odd and even harmonics of SH<sub>0</sub> mode ultrasonic guided waves for the first time. Furthermore, the accuracy of the model was experimentally verified. By changing the strength ratio of the dynamic magnetic field to the static magnetic field (<em>H<sub>D</sub>/H<sub>S</sub></em>), the excitation amplitudes of odd and even harmonics could be regulated with a magnetostrictive sensor. As the ratio of <em>H<sub>D</sub>/H<sub>S</sub></em> increased, the normalized amplitude of the second harmonic firstly increased and then decreased, whereas the normalized amplitude of the third harmonic showed an exponential growth with different curvatures. This study enriched the theory of magnetostrictive guided wave excitation and provided a theoretical basis for the applications of magnetostrictive sensors.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":23522,"journal":{"name":"Ultrasonics","volume":"145 ","pages":"Article 107480"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2024-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142393666","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
UltrasonicsPub Date : 2024-09-30DOI: 10.1016/j.ultras.2024.107484
Jiung Yoo , Dong-Gi Song , Kyung-Young Jhang
{"title":"Compensation of system nonlinearity in the measurement of acoustic nonlinearity parameters","authors":"Jiung Yoo , Dong-Gi Song , Kyung-Young Jhang","doi":"10.1016/j.ultras.2024.107484","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ultras.2024.107484","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The acoustic nonlinearity parameter is determined from the amplitudes of the fundamental and second harmonic component of the acoustic wave propagating through the material. However, the generally used through-transmission based measurements with PZT transducers contain high system nonlinearity, so that the received second harmonic component includes an extra component caused by the transducer, which significantly decrease the reliability of measurements. In this study, we proposed a novel method to reduce the system nonlinearity in the conventional through-transmission based measurements by adding a simple process in which the transmitting and receiving transducers are in direct contact without a specimen. The proposed method was experimentally validated for two materials, Al6061-T6 and Fused Silica. For both materials, several specimens with different thickness were prepared, and the measurement results showed that the magnitude of the second harmonic was proportional to the thickness, but there was an offset due to system nonlinearity. On the other hand, after applying the proposed technique, the offsets were greatly reduced, and furthermore, this performance was maintained even when the transducer setup was changed, and the ratio of nonlinearity parameters measured for the two materials was in good agreement with the known literature value.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":23522,"journal":{"name":"Ultrasonics","volume":"145 ","pages":"Article 107484"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2024-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142393679","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
UltrasonicsPub Date : 2024-09-30DOI: 10.1016/j.ultras.2024.107479
Kanta Miura , Hiromi Shidara , Takuro Ishii , Koichi Ito , Takafumi Aoki , Yoshifumi Saijo , Jun Ohmiya
{"title":"Image quality improvement in single plane-wave imaging using deep learning","authors":"Kanta Miura , Hiromi Shidara , Takuro Ishii , Koichi Ito , Takafumi Aoki , Yoshifumi Saijo , Jun Ohmiya","doi":"10.1016/j.ultras.2024.107479","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ultras.2024.107479","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In ultrasound image diagnosis, single plane-wave imaging (SPWI), which can acquire ultrasound images at more than 1000 fps, has been used to observe detailed tissue and evaluate blood flow. SPWI achieves high temporal resolution by sacrificing the spatial resolution and contrast of ultrasound images. To improve spatial resolution and contrast in SPWI, coherent plane-wave compounding (CPWC) is used to obtain high-quality ultrasound images, i.e., compound images, by coherent addition of radio frequency (RF) signals acquired by transmitting plane waves in different directions. Although CPWC produces high-quality ultrasound images, their temporal resolution is lower than that of SPWI. To address this problem, some methods have been proposed to reconstruct a ultrasound image comparable to a compound image from RF signals obtained by transmitting a small number of plane waves in different directions. These methods do not fully consider the properties of RF signals, resulting in lower image quality compared to a compound image. In this paper, we propose methods to reconstruct high-quality ultrasound images in SPWI by considering the characteristics of RF signal of a single plane wave to obtain ultrasound images with image quality comparable to CPWC. The proposed methods employ encoder–decoder models of 1D U-Net, 2D U-Net, and their combination to generate the high-quality ultrasound images by minimizing the loss that considers the point spread effect of plane waves and frequency spectrum of RF signals in training. We also create a public large-scale SPWI/CPWC dataset for developing and evaluating deep-learning methods. Through a set of experiments using the public dataset and our dataset, we demonstrate that the proposed methods can reconstruct higher-quality ultrasound images from RF signals in SPWI than conventional method.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":23522,"journal":{"name":"Ultrasonics","volume":"145 ","pages":"Article 107479"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2024-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142376105","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
UltrasonicsPub Date : 2024-09-29DOI: 10.1016/j.ultras.2024.107482
Chandni A P, Suchitra Vattapparambil Chandran, Binitha N. Narayanan
{"title":"An environmentally sustainable ultrasonic-assisted exfoliation approach to graphene and its nanocompositing with polyaniline for supercapacitor applications","authors":"Chandni A P, Suchitra Vattapparambil Chandran, Binitha N. Narayanan","doi":"10.1016/j.ultras.2024.107482","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ultras.2024.107482","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In the present work, a green high-yielding method for the preparation of graphene is introduced via ultrasonic-assisted liquid phase exfoliation (LPE) of graphite in a green solvent medium, since the common preparation method of graphene via graphite oxide is hazardous. A high concentration of 3.2 mg/ml graphene is achieved here in a comparatively short duration of 3 h ultrasonication. By using a mixed solvents strategy (acetophenone and isopropyl alcohol, 1:19 V/V), surface energy requirements needed for the exfoliation of graphite are satisfied here with acetophenone, where isopropyl alcohol further facilitated the exfoliation via non-conventional CH-π and OH-π interactions. Turbostratic graphene in high-yield (16 %) in a simple means of ultrasonic assisted LPE is the added attraction of the present procedure. The less-defective structure of graphene, its few-layered turbostratic nature, and edge functionalization of the sheets are evident from the material characterization via Raman spectroscopy, XRD, TEM-SAED, and XPS analyses. Here, we report a combination of the attractive conducting polymer polyaniline (PANI) with the as-prepared graphene for supercapacitor applications, where the PANI/graphene nanocomposites with different aniline concentrations (PANI1.125/G, PANI4.5/G, and PANI9/G) have been prepared via in-situ polymerization of aniline in the graphene dispersion. The structure and morphology of the nanocomposites are investigated using different characterization techniques which revealed that the molecular structure of the PANI is retained in the nanocomposites even with a strong interaction with graphene. FESEM and TEM images revealed the good coverage of graphene sheets with PANI that limit the volume change of PANI during the repeated charge-discharge processes. Electrochemical studies showed that PANI4.5/G has the highest specific capacitance of 126.16 mF/cm<sup>2</sup> at a current density of 1 mA/cm<sup>2</sup>, resulting from the perfect combination of the pseudocapacitance behavior of the PANI along with the electrical double layer capacitance of graphene. A symmetric supercapacitor device is also fabricated with PANI4.5/G, which showed the highest areal capacitance of 116.38 mF/cm<sup>2</sup> similar to that with three-electrode studies and also good cycling stability with 87 % capacitance retention in the specific capacitance after 6000 cycles. It also exhibited an energy density of 16 µWh/cm<sup>2</sup> (0.29 Wh/kg) and a power density of 3.99 mW/cm<sup>2</sup> (72.72 W/kg).</div></div>","PeriodicalId":23522,"journal":{"name":"Ultrasonics","volume":"145 ","pages":"Article 107482"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2024-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142393668","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
UltrasonicsPub Date : 2024-09-29DOI: 10.1016/j.ultras.2024.107478
Sourav Banerjee
{"title":"Quantum analogous spin states of ultrasonic guided waves","authors":"Sourav Banerjee","doi":"10.1016/j.ultras.2024.107478","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ultras.2024.107478","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In quantum mechanics, spin is a physical property that dominates the topological behaviors. While manifesting the spin states they reveal complex interaction of physical parameters in a topological media. The guided waves’ inherent spin states are made of real physical spin angular momentum from the superposition of elastic waves. Thus, here the elastic spin state that naturally manifests by the ultrasonic guided waves in an elastic wave guide is explained through quantum analogous perspective. Guided wave modes are the superposition of two longitudinally polarized and two transverse polarized elastic wave potentials propagating in diverging and converging pattern. Spin nature of transverse waves is well known. Spin nature of longitudinal waves is also recently being explored. However, due to the unique modal superposition of guided Rayleigh-Lamb wave modes the physical understanding of spin state is incomplete for the guided waves in a bounded media. Unlike only one hybrid spin states described in earlier works, guided waves may manifest total six with four well defined hybrid spin states explicitly derived and explained in this article. These six spin states play crucial role in the physics of spin-momentum locking of guided waves. Two spin states originated from the interaction of similar potentials and four hybris spin states originated from the interaction of potentials with different directions of wave vector and polarization vector, as emerged in guided waves. Understanding from fundamentals and exploiting the phenomena of spin-momentum locking in guided waves may have several applications in nondestructive evaluation.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":23522,"journal":{"name":"Ultrasonics","volume":"146 ","pages":"Article 107478"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2024-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142540153","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
UltrasonicsPub Date : 2024-09-26DOI: 10.1016/j.ultras.2024.107481
Haowei Tai , Kourosh Kalayeh , James A. Ashton-Miller , John O. DeLancey , J. Brian Fowlkes
{"title":"Urethral tissue characterization using multiparametric ultrasound imaging","authors":"Haowei Tai , Kourosh Kalayeh , James A. Ashton-Miller , John O. DeLancey , J. Brian Fowlkes","doi":"10.1016/j.ultras.2024.107481","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ultras.2024.107481","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>A decrease in urethral closure pressure is one of the primary causes of stress urinary incontinence in women. Atrophy of the urethral muscles is a primary factor in the 15 % age-related decline in urethral closure pressure per decade. Incontinence not only affects the well-being of women but is also a leading cause of nursing home admission. The objective of this research was to develop a noninvasive test to assess urethral tissue microenvironmental changes using multiparametric ultrasound (mpUS) imaging technique. Transperineal B-scan ultrasound (US) data were captured using clinical scanners equipped with curvilinear or linear transducers. Imaging was performed on volunteers from our institution medical center (n = 15, 22 to 76 y.o.) during Valsalva maneuvers. After expert delineation of the region of interest in each frame, the central axis of the urethra was automatically defined to determine the angle between the urethra and the US beam for further analysis. By integrating angle-dependent backscatter with radiomic texture feature analysis, a mpUS technique was developed to identify biomarkers that reflect subtle microstructural changes expected within the urethral tissue. The process was repeated when the urethra and US beam were at a fixed angle. Texture selection was conducted for both angle-dependent and angle-independent results to remove redundancies. Ultimately, a distinct biomarker was derived using a random forest regression model to compute the urethra score based on features selected from both processes. Angle-dependent backscatter analysis shows that the calculated slope of US mean image intensity decreased by 0.89 (±0.31) % annually, consistent with the expected atrophic disorganization of urethral tissue structure and the associated reduction in urethral closure pressure with age. Additionally, textural analysis performed at a specific angle (i.e., 40 degrees) revealed changes in gray level nonuniformity, skewness, and correlation by 0.08 (±0.04) %, −2.16 (±1.14) %, and −0.32 (±0.35) % per year, respectively. The urethra score was ultimately determined by combining data selected from both angle-dependent and angle-independent analysis strategies using a random forest regression model with age, yielding an R<sup>2</sup> value of 0.96 and a p-value less than 0.001. The proposed mpUS tissue characterization technique not only holds promise for guiding future urethral tissue characterization studies without the need for tissue biopsies or invasive functional testing but also aims to minimize observer-induced variability. By leveraging mpUS imaging strategies that account for angle dependence, it provides more accurate assessments. Notably, the urethra score, calculated from US images that reflect tissue microstructural changes, serves as a potential biomarker providing clinicians with deeper insight into urethral tissue function and may aid in diagnosing and managing related conditions while helping to determine the causes","PeriodicalId":23522,"journal":{"name":"Ultrasonics","volume":"145 ","pages":"Article 107481"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2024-09-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142354736","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}