Diagnosis based on electromagnetic navigational bronchoscopyguided biopsied peripheral lung lesions in a 10-year-old girl:A case report

BACKGROUND Electromagnetic navigational bronchoscopy(ENB)is an emerging diagnostic tool that enables practitioners to biopsy peripheral lung tissues that were previously only accessible under computed tomography(CT)guidance.However,few studies have investigated ENB use in children.Here,we report a case of a 10-yearold girl with peripheral lung lesions who complained of a 7-d persistent fever.She was diagnosed with Streptococcus parasanguinis infection based on findings obtained using ENB-guided transbronchial lung biopsy(TBLB).CASE SUMMARY A 10-year-old girl presented with constitutional symptoms of cough and fever of 7 days’duration.Chest CT scans detected peripheral lung lesions and no endobronchial lesions.TBLB performed under the guidance of an ENB Lungpro navigation system was safe,well-tolerated,and effective for biopsying peripheral lung lesions.Examination of biopsied samples indicated the patient had a pulmonary Streptococcus parasanguinis infection,which was treated with antibiotics instead of more invasive treatment interventions.The patient’s symptoms resolved after she received a 3-wk course of oral linezolid.Comparisons of pretreatment and post-treatment CT scans revealed absorption of some lung lesions within 7 mo of hospital discharge.CONCLUSION ENB-guided TBLB biopsying of peripheral lung lesions in this child is a safe,well-tolerated,and effective alternative to conventional interventions.

Morphological Evolution and Its Response to the Navigational Improvements in the North Passage,Yangtze Estuary

By use of bathymetric chart, recent change of the riverbed in the North Passage of the Yangtze Estuary has been studied in this paper. The main channel of the upper, middle and lower （section） in the North Passage has been successively eroded and its groin field significantly deposited. At the same time, sediment has been deposited on the entrance region. Erosion and deposition had responded rapidly to the construction of the regulation engineering. There was about one year duration of lagging between erosion in the deep channel and the construction of the regulation engineering. The siltation lag of time in the groin field varied with the initial depth, but the average deposited thickness was about 0.5 m per year. Volumetric analysis demonstrates that there is a increasing trend of siltation in the North Passage after 2002, because of the difference in duration and quantity between erosion in the deep channel and deposition in the groin field. The water volume of the North Passage was reduced by =9% （280 million m^3） between 2002 and 2006. Sediment budget reveals that the main sediment deposited in the North Passage takes its source from the river and the ocean. The decreasing water volume was attributable to shoaling in the groin field. Its triggering factors for increased sedimentation are the navigational improvements（jetties and groins） after 1998, which altered the passage boundary and destroyed the equilibrium state on the average ebb and flood sediment fluxes. The establishment of a stable estuary is attributed to a reduction in depth of the groin field. The forecast on the sediment deposition quantity and continuous infilling time in the groin system is about 325 × 10^6m^3 and 6 - 7 years, respectively.

Eye Tracking during High Speed Navigation at Sea--Field Trial in Search of Navigational Gaze Behaviour

Purpose: Professional high speed sea navigational procedures are based on turn points, courses, dangers and steering cues in the environment. Since navigational aids have become less expensive and due to the fact that electronic sea charts can be integrated with both radar and transponder information, it may be assumed that traditional navigation by using paper based charts and radar will play a less significant role in the future, especially among less experienced navigators. Possible navigational differences between experienced and non-experienced boat drivers is thus of interest with regards to their use of navigational aids. It may be assumed that less experienced navigators rely too much on the information given by the electronic sea chart, despite the fact that it is based on GPS information that can be questioned, especially in littoral waters close to land. Method: This eye tracking study investigates gaze behaviour from 16 ex perienced and novice boat drivers during high speed navigation at sea. Results: The results show that the novice drivers look at objects that are close to themselves, like instrumentation, while the experienced look more at objects far away from the boat. This is in accordance with previous research on car drivers. Further, novice boat drivers used the electronic navigational aids to a larger extent than the experienced, especially during high speed conditions. The experienced drivers focused much of their attention on objects outside the boat. Conclusions: The findings verify that novice boat drivers tend to rely on electronic navigational aids. Experienced drivers presumably use the navigational aids to verify what they have observed in the surrounding environment and further use the paper based sea chart to a larger extent than the novice drivers.

Research on the navigational risk of liquefied natural gas carriers in an inland river based on entropy:A cloud evaluation model

Due to the flammability and explosive nature of liquefied natural gas(LNG),an extremely strict process is followed for the transporta-tion of LNG carriers in China.Particularly,no LNG carriers are operating in inland rivers within the country.Therefore,to ensure the future navigation safety of LNG carriers entering the Yangtze River,the risk sources of LNG carriers’navigation safety must be identi-fied and evaluated.Based on the Delphi and expert experience method,this paper analyses and discusses the navigation risk factors of LNG carriers in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River from four aspects(human,ship,environment and management),identifies 12 risk indicators affecting the navigation of LNG carriers and establishes a risk evaluation index system.Further,an entropy weight fuzzy model is utilized to reduce the influence of subjective judgement on the index weight as well as to conduct a segmented and overall evaluation of LNG navigation risks in the Baimaosha Channel.Finally,the cloud model is applied to validate the consistent feasibility of the entropy weight fuzzy model.The research results indicate that the method provides effective technical support for further study on the navigation security of LNG carriers in inland rivers.

Unexpected divergence in magnetoreceptor MagR from robin and pigeon linked to two sequence variations

Birds exhibit extraordinary mobility and remarkable navigational skills,obtaining guidance cues from the Earth’s magnetic field for orientation and long-distance movement.Bird species also show tremendous diversity in navigation strategies,with considerable differences even within the same taxa and among individuals from the same population.The highly conserved iron and iron-sulfur cluster binding magnetoreceptor(MagR)protein is suggested to enable animals,including birds,to detect the geomagnetic field and navigate accordingly.Notably,MagR is also implicated in other functions,such as electron transfer and biogenesis of iron-sulfur clusters,raising the question of whether variability exists in its biochemical and biophysical features among species,particularly birds.In the current study,we conducted a comparative analysis of MagR from two different bird species,including the migratory European robin(Erithacus rubecula)and the homing pigeon(Columba livia).Sequence alignment revealed an extremely high degree of similarity between the MagRs of these species,with only three sequence variations.Nevertheless,two of these variations underpinned significant differences in metal binding capacity,oligomeric state,and magnetic properties.These findings offer compelling evidence for the marked differences in MagR between the two avian species,potentially explaining how a highly conserved protein can mediate such diverse functions.

Two-Staged Method for Ice Channel Identification Based on Image Segmentation and Corner Point Regression

Identification of the ice channel is the basic technology for developing intelligent ships in ice-covered waters,which is important to ensure the safety and economy of navigation.In the Arctic,merchant ships with low ice class often navigate in channels opened up by icebreakers.Navigation in the ice channel often depends on good maneuverability skills and abundant experience from the captain to a large extent.The ship may get stuck if steered into ice fields off the channel.Under this circumstance,it is very important to study how to identify the boundary lines of ice channels with a reliable method.In this paper,a two-staged ice channel identification method is developed based on image segmentation and corner point regression.The first stage employs the image segmentation method to extract channel regions.In the second stage,an intelligent corner regression network is proposed to extract the channel boundary lines from the channel region.A non-intelligent angle-based filtering and clustering method is proposed and compared with corner point regression network.The training and evaluation of the segmentation method and corner regression network are carried out on the synthetic and real ice channel dataset.The evaluation results show that the accuracy of the method using the corner point regression network in the second stage is achieved as high as 73.33%on the synthetic ice channel dataset and 70.66%on the real ice channel dataset,and the processing speed can reach up to 14.58frames per second.

High-Precision Doppler Frequency Estimation Based Positioning Using OTFS Modulations by Red and Blue Frequency Shift Discriminator

Orthogonal Time Frequency and Space(OTFS) modulation is expected to provide high-speed and ultra-reliable communications for emerging mobile applications, including low-orbit satellite communications. Using the Doppler frequency for positioning is a promising research direction on communication and navigation integration. To tackle the high Doppler frequency and low signal-to-noise ratio(SNR) in satellite communication, this paper proposes a Red and Blue Frequency Shift Discriminator(RBFSD) based on the pseudo-noise(PN) sequence.The paper derives that the cross-correlation function on the Doppler domain exhibits the characteristic of a Sinc function. Therefore, it applies modulation onto the Delay-Doppler domain using PN sequence and adjusts Doppler frequency estimation by red-shifting or blue-shifting. Simulation results show that the performance of Doppler frequency estimation is close to the Cramér-Rao Lower Bound when the SNR is greater than -15dB. The proposed algorithm is about 1/D times less complex than the existing PN pilot sequence algorithm, where D is the resolution of the fractional Doppler.

Free-walking:Pedestrian inertial navigation based on dual foot-mounted IMU

The inertial navigation system(INS),which is frequently used in emergency rescue operations and other situations,has the benefits of not relying on infrastructure,high positioning frequency,and strong real-time performance.However,the intricate and unpredictable pedestrian motion patterns lead the INS localization error to significantly diverge with time.This paper aims to enhance the accuracy of zero-velocity interval(ZVI)detection and reduce the heading and altitude drift of foot-mounted INS via deep learning and equation constraint of dual feet.Aiming at the observational noise problem of low-cost inertial sensors,we utilize a denoising autoencoder to automatically eliminate the inherent noise.Aiming at the problem that inaccurate detection of the ZVI detection results in obvious displacement error,we propose a sample-level ZVI detection algorithm based on the U-Net neural network,which effectively solves the problem of mislabeling caused by sliding windows.Aiming at the problem that Zero-Velocity Update(ZUPT)cannot suppress heading and altitude error,we propose a bipedal INS method based on the equation constraint and ellipsoid constraint,which uses foot-to-foot distance as a new observation to correct heading and altitude error.We conduct extensive and well-designed experiments to evaluate the performance of the proposed method.The experimental results indicate that the position error of our proposed method did not exceed 0.83% of the total traveled distance.

Detection method of forward-scatter signal based on Rényi entropy

The application scope of the forward scatter radar(FSR)based on the Global Navigation Satellite System(GNSS)can be expanded by improving the detection capability.Firstly,the forward-scatter signal model when the target crosses the baseline is constructed.Then,the detection method of the for-ward-scatter signal based on the Rényi entropy of time-fre-quency distribution is proposed and the detection performance with different time-frequency distributions is compared.Simula-tion results show that the method based on the smooth pseudo Wigner-Ville distribution(SPWVD)can achieve the best perfor-mance.Next,combined with the geometry of FSR,the influence on detection performance of the relative distance between the target and the baseline is analyzed.Finally,the proposed method is validated by the anechoic chamber measurements and the results show that the detection ability has a 10 dB improvement compared with the common constant false alarm rate(CFAR)detection.

A novel approach for navigational safety evaluation of inland waterway ships under uncertain environment

This paper proposes a safety evaluation model of inland waterway ship navigation based on the fuzzy theory and evidential reasoning(ER)approach.The proposed model is a three-level hierarchical system consisting of 18 indicators that are identified and determined through literature review and expert surveys.By using fuzzy theory,the factors of the index level are converted into belief distributions,and the information of indicators within each level is merged by using the ER approach so that the evaluation of the ship’s navigation safety can be realized.This model can deal with multi-source information and both qualitative and quantitative indicators in an integrated framework.Some case studies on the safety status of ships navigating in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River during dry season are conducted to validate the feasibility and practicability of the proposed model.The results show that the risk levels obtained from the proposed model are consistent with the real-life situation to a large extent.The novel model proposed in this study provides a useful reference for maritime safety management and will help managers and decision-makers in the risk prevention and early warning of inland waterway transportation accidents.

BDSec:Security Authentication Protocol for BeiDou-Ⅱ Civil Navigation Message

Due to the lack of authentication mechanism in BeiDou navigation satellite system(BDS),BD-Ⅱ civil navigation message(BDⅡ-CNAV) are vulnerable to spoofing attack and replay attack.To solve this problem,we present a security authentication protocol,called as BDSec,which is designed by using China’s cryptography Shangyong Mima(SM) series algorithms,such as SM2/4/9 and Zu Chongzhi(ZUC)algorithm.In BDSec protocol,both of BDⅡ-CNAV and signature information are encrypted using the SM4 algorithm(Symmetric encryption mechanism).The encrypted result is used as the subject authentication information.BDSec protocol applies SM9 algorithm(Identity-based cryptography mechanism) to protect the integrity of the BDⅡ-CNAV,adopts the SM2 algorithm(Public key cryptosystem) to guarantee the confidentiality of the important session information,and uses the ZUC algorithm(Encryption and integrity algorithm) to verify the integrity of the message authentication serial number and initial information and the information in authentication initialization sub-protocol respectively.The results of the SVO logic reasoning and performance analysis show that BDSec protocol meets security requirements for the dual user identity authentication in BDS and can realize the security authentication of BDⅡ-CNAV.

Method of improving pedestrian navigation performance based on chest card

With the development of positioning technology,loca-tion services are constantly in demand by people.As a primary location service pedestrian navigation has two main approaches based on radio and inertial navigation.The pedestrian naviga-tion based on radio is subject to environmental occlusion lead-ing to the degradation of positioning accuracy.The pedestrian navigation based on micro-electro-mechanical system inertial measurement unit(MIMU)is less susceptible to environmental interference,but its errors dissipate over time.In this paper,a chest card pedestrian navigation improvement method based on complementary correction is proposed in order to suppress the error divergence of inertial navigation methods.To suppress atti-tude errors,optimal feedback coefficients are established by pedestrian motion characteristics.To extend navigation time and improve positioning accuracy,the step length in subsequent movements is compensated by the first step length.The experi-mental results show that the positioning accuracy of the pro-posed method is improved by more than 47%and 44%com-pared with the pure inertia-based method combined with step compensation and the traditional complementary filtering com-bined method with step compensation.The proposed method can effectively suppress the error dispersion and improve the positioning accuracy.

Anti-Spoofing:Integrated Information Authentication of BeiDou-ⅡCivil Navigation Message

The BeiDou-Ⅱcivil navigation message(BDⅡ-CNAV)is transmitted in an open environment and no information integrity protection measures are provided.Hence,the BDⅡ-CNAV faces the threat of spoofing attacks,which can lead to wrong location reports and time indication.In order to deal with this threat,we proposed a scheme of anti-spoofing for BDⅡ-CNAV based on integrated information authentication.This scheme generates two type authentication information,one is authentication code information(ACI),which is applied to confirm the authenticity and reliability of satellite time information,and the other is signature information,which is used to authenticate the integrity of satellite location information and other information.Both authentication information is designed to embed into the reserved bits in BDⅡ-CNAV without changing the frame structure.In order to avoid authentication failure caused by public key error or key error,the key or public key prompt information(KPKPI)are designed to remind the receiver to update both keys in time.Experimental results indicate that the scheme can successfully detect spoofing attacks,and the authentication delay is less than 1%of the transmission delay,which meets the requirements of BDⅡ-CNAV information authentication.

A data and physical model dual-driven based trajectory estimator for long-term navigation

Long-term navigation ability based on consumer-level wearable inertial sensors plays an essential role towards various emerging fields, for instance, smart healthcare, emergency rescue, soldier positioning et al. The performance of existing long-term navigation algorithm is limited by the cumulative error of inertial sensors, disturbed local magnetic field, and complex motion modes of the pedestrian. This paper develops a robust data and physical model dual-driven based trajectory estimation(DPDD-TE) framework, which can be applied for long-term navigation tasks. A Bi-directional Long Short-Term Memory(Bi-LSTM) based quasi-static magnetic field(QSMF) detection algorithm is developed for extracting useful magnetic observation for heading calibration, and another Bi-LSTM is adopted for walking speed estimation by considering hybrid human motion information under a specific time period. In addition, a data and physical model dual-driven based multi-source fusion model is proposed to integrate basic INS mechanization and multi-level constraint and observations for maintaining accuracy under long-term navigation tasks, and enhanced by the magnetic and trajectory features assisted loop detection algorithm. Real-world experiments indicate that the proposed DPDD-TE outperforms than existing algorithms, and final estimated heading and positioning accuracy indexes reaches 5° and less than 2 m under the time period of 30 min, respectively.

A dual adaptive unscented Kalman filter algorithm for SINS-based integrated navigation system

In this study, the problem of measuring noise pollution distribution by the intertial-based integrated navigation system is effectively suppressed. Based on nonlinear inertial navigation error modeling, a nested dual Kalman filter framework structure is developed. It consists of unscented Kalman filter (UKF)master filter and Kalman filter slave filter. This method uses nonlinear UKF for integrated navigation state estimation. At the same time, the exact noise measurement covariance is estimated by the Kalman filter dependency filter. The algorithm based on dual adaptive UKF (Dual-AUKF) has high accuracy and robustness, especially in the case of measurement information interference. Finally, vehicle-mounted and ship-mounted integrated navigation tests are conducted. Compared with traditional UKF and the Sage-Husa adaptive UKF (SH-AUKF), this method has comparable filtering accuracy and better filtering stability. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is verified.

Maximum Correntropy Criterion-Based UKF for Loosely Coupling INS and UWB in Indoor Localization

Indoor positioning is a key technology in today’s intelligent environments,and it plays a crucial role in many application areas.This paper proposed an unscented Kalman filter(UKF)based on the maximum correntropy criterion(MCC)instead of the minimummean square error criterion(MMSE).This innovative approach is applied to the loose coupling of the Inertial Navigation System(INS)and Ultra-Wideband(UWB).By introducing the maximum correntropy criterion,the MCCUKF algorithm dynamically adjusts the covariance matrices of the system noise and the measurement noise,thus enhancing its adaptability to diverse environmental localization requirements.Particularly in the presence of non-Gaussian noise,especially heavy-tailed noise,the MCCUKF exhibits superior accuracy and robustness compared to the traditional UKF.The method initially generates an estimate of the predicted state and covariance matrix through the unscented transform(UT)and then recharacterizes the measurement information using a nonlinear regression method at the cost of theMCC.Subsequently,the state and covariance matrices of the filter are updated by employing the unscented transformation on the measurement equations.Moreover,to mitigate the influence of non-line-of-sight(NLOS)errors positioning accuracy,this paper proposes a k-medoid clustering algorithm based on bisection k-means(Bikmeans).This algorithm preprocesses the UWB distance measurements to yield a more precise position estimation.Simulation results demonstrate that MCCUKF is robust to the uncertainty of UWB and realizes stable integration of INS and UWB systems.

Navigation Finsler metrics on a gradient Ricci soliton

In this paper,we study a class of Finsler metrics defined by a vector field on a gradient Ricci soliton.We obtain a necessary and sufficient condition for these Finsler metrics on a compact gradient Ricci soliton to be of isotropic S-curvature by establishing a new integral inequality.Then we determine the Ricci curvature of navigation Finsler metrics of isotropic S-curvature on a gradient Ricci soliton generalizing result only known in the case when such soliton is of Einstein type.As its application,we obtain the Ricci curvature of all navigation Finsler metrics of isotropic S-curvature on Gaussian shrinking soliton.

Cognitive Navigation for Intelligent Mobile Robots:A Learning-Based Approach With Topological Memory Configuration

Autonomous navigation for intelligent mobile robots has gained significant attention,with a focus on enabling robots to generate reliable policies based on maintenance of spatial memory.In this paper,we propose a learning-based visual navigation pipeline that uses topological maps as memory configurations.We introduce a unique online topology construction approach that fuses odometry pose estimation and perceptual similarity estimation.This tackles the issues of topological node redundancy and incorrect edge connections,which stem from the distribution gap between the spatial and perceptual domains.Furthermore,we propose a differentiable graph extraction structure,the topology multi-factor transformer(TMFT).This structure utilizes graph neural networks to integrate global memory and incorporates a multi-factor attention mechanism to underscore elements closely related to relevant target cues for policy generation.Results from photorealistic simulations on image-goal navigation tasks highlight the superior navigation performance of our proposed pipeline compared to existing memory structures.Comprehensive validation through behavior visualization,interpretability tests,and real-world deployment further underscore the adapt-ability and efficacy of our method.

Effect of navigation endoscopy combined with threedimensional printing technology in the treatment of orbital blowout fractures

●AIM:To explore the combined application of surgical navigation nasal endoscopy(NNE)and three-dimensional printing technology(3DPT)for the adjunctive treatment of orbital blowout fractures(OBF).●METHODS:Retrospective analysis was conducted on the data of patients with OBF who underwent surgical treatment at the Affiliated Eye Hospital of Nanchang University between July 2012 and November 2022.The control group consisted of patients who received traditional surgical treatment(n=43),while the new surgical group(n=52)consisted of patients who received NNE with 3DPT.The difference in therapeutic effects between the two groups was evaluated by comparing the duration of the operation,best corrected visual acuity(BCVA),enophthalmos difference,recovery rate of eye movement disorder,recovery rate of diplopia,and incidence of postoperative complications.●RESULTS:The study included 95 cases(95 eyes),with 63 men and 32 women.The patients’age ranged from 5 to 67y(35.21±15.75y).The new surgical group and the control group exhibited no statistically significant differences in the duration of the operation,BCVA and enophthalmos difference.The recovery rates of diplopia in the new surgical group were significantly higher than those in the control group at 1mo[OR=0.03,95%CI(0.01–0.15),P<0.0000]and 3mo[OR=0.11,95%CI(0.03–0.36),P<0.0000]postoperation.Additionally,the recovery rates of eye movement disorders at 1 and 3mo after surgery were OR=0.08,95%CI(0.03–0.24),P<0.0000;and OR=0.01,95%CI(0.00–0.18),P<0.0000.The incidence of postoperative complications was lower in the new surgical group compared to the control group[OR=4.86,95%CI(0.95–24.78),P<0.05].●CONCLUSION:The combination of NNE and 3DPT can shorten the recovery time of diplopia and eye movement disorder in patients with OBF.

Research on the navigation method of large-scale differential tail-control improvised guided munitions based on rotational speed constraints

In the process of launching guided projectile under the conventional system, it is difficult to effectively obtain the precise navigation parameters of the projectile in the high dynamic environment. Aiming at this problem, this paper describes a new system of guided ammunition based on tail spin reduction. After analyzing the mechanism of the ammunition's tail spin reduction, a navigation method of large scale difference tail control simple guided ammunition based on speed constraint is proposed. In this method,the corresponding navigation constraints can be carried out by combining the rotation speed state of the ammunition itself, and the optimal solution of navigation parameters during the flight of the missile can be obtained by Extended Kalman Filter(EKF). Finally, the performance of the proposed method was verified by the simulation environment, and the hardware-in-the-loop simulation test and flight test were carried out to verify the performance of the method in the real environment. The experimental results show that the proposed method can achieve the optimal estimation of navigation parameters for simple guided ammunition with large-scale difference tail control. Under the conditions of simulation test and hardware-in-loop simulation test, the position and velocity errors calculated by the method in this paper converged. Under the condition of flight test, the spatial average error calculated by the method described in this paper is 6.17 m, and the spatial error of the final landing point is 3.50 m.Through this method, the accurate acquisition of navigation parameters in the process of projectile launching is effectively realized.