Quantitative Estimation of Groundwater Leakage from Namco Lake by SAR Monitoring

Objective This study focused on the Namco, the largest lake on the Tibet plateau as well as the highest large lake in the world. A large imbalance between water input and output of this lake has attracted great attention in the field of hydrogeology during recent years. As there is no surface outflow from Namco, the large water imbalance can only be explained by water seepage. Synthetic aperture radar （SAR） image data were used for the first time in combination with hydrological data actually measured in the field and meteorological station data, to quantitatively acquire the information of surface fluctuation, water storage variation, and to estimate groundwater leakage from Namco Lake. The results provide theoretical support and data for further understanding the processes and extent of water resource response to global climate change, and also provide a scientific basis for rational development and utilization of water resource in the Tibetan Plateau.

Impact of cavitation on lesion formation induced by high intensity focused ultrasound

High intensity focused ultrasound（HIFU） has shown a great promise in noninvasive cancer therapy. The impact of acoustic cavitation on the lesion formation induced by HIFU is investigated both experimentally and theoretically in transparent protein-containing gel and ex vivo liver tissue samples. A numerical model that accounts for nonlinear acoustic propagation and heat transfer is used to simulate the lesion formation induced by the thermal effect. The results showed that lesions could be induced in the samples exposed to HIFU with various acoustic pressures and pulse lengths. The measured areas of lesions formed in the lateral direction were comparable to the simulated results, while much larger discrepancy was observed between the experimental and simulated data for the areas of longitudinal lesion cross-section. Meanwhile,a series of stripe-wiped-off B-mode pictures were obtained by using a special imaging processing method so that HIFUinduced cavitation bubble activities could be monitored in real-time and quantitatively analyzed as the functions of acoustic pressure and pulse length. The results indicated that, unlike the lateral area of HIFU-induced lesion that was less affected by the cavitation activity, the longitudinal cross-section of HIFU-induced lesion was significantly influenced by the generation of cavitation bubbles through the temperature elevation resulting from HIFU exposures. Therefore, considering the clinical safety in HIFU treatments, more attention should be paid on the lesion formation in the longitudinal direction to avoid uncontrollable variation resulting from HIFU-induced cavitation activity.