Effects of Acute Physical Fatigue on Gaze Behavior and Performance During a Badminton Game

In badminton, the ability to quickly gather relevant visual information is one of the most important determinants of performance. However, gaze behavior has never been investigated in a real-game setting (with fatigue), nor related to performance. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of fatigue on gaze behavior during a badminton game setting, and to determine the relationship between fatigue, performance and gaze behavior. Nineteen novice badminton players equipped with eye-tracking glasses played two badminton sets: one before and one after a fatiguing task. The duration and number of fixations for each exchange were evaluated for nine areas of interest. Performance in terms of points won or lost and successful strokes was not impacted by fatigue, however fatigue induced more fixations per exchange on two areas of interest (shuttlecock and empty area after the opponent's stroke). Furthermore, two distinct gaze behaviors were found for successful and unsuccessful performance: points won were associated with fixations on the boundary lines and few fixation durations on empty area before the participant's stroke; successful strokes were related to long fixation durations, few fixation durations on empty area and a large number of fixations on the shuttlecock, racket, opponent's upper body and anticipation area. This is the first study to use a mobile eye-tracking system to capture gaze behavior during a real badminton game setting: fatigue induced changes in gaze behavior, and successful and unsuccessful performance were associated with two distinct gaze behaviors.

7 Tesla (T) human cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging using FLASH and SSFP to assess cardiac function: validation against 1.5 T and 3 T

We report the first comparison of cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging (CMR) at 1.5 T, 3 T and 7 T field strengths using steady state free precession (SSFP) and fast low angle shot (FLASH) cine sequences. Cardiac volumes and mass measurements were assessed for feasibility, reproducibility and validity at each given field strength using FLASH and SSFP sequences. Ten healthy volunteers underwent retrospectively electrocardiogram (ECG) gated CMR at 1.5 T, 3 T and 7 T using FLASH and SSFP sequences. B1 and B0 shimming and frequency scouts were used to optimise image quality. Cardiac volume and mass measurements were not significantly affected by field strength when using the same imaging sequence (P > 0.05 for all parameters at 1.5 T, 3 T and 7 T). SSFP imaging returned larger end diastolic and end systolic volumes and smaller left ventricular masses than FLASH imaging at 7 T, and at the lower field strengths (P < 0.05 for each parameter). However, univariate general linear model analysis with fixed effects for sequence and field strengths found an interaction between imaging sequence and field strength (P = 0.03), with a smaller difference in volumes and mass measurements between SSFP and FLASH imaging at 7 T than 1.5 T and 3 T. SSFP and FLASH cine imaging at 7 T is technically feasible and provides valid assessment of cardiac volumes and mass compared with CMR imaging at 1.5 T and 3 T field strengths.

Comparison between eight- and sixteen-channel TEM transceive arrays for body imaging at 7 T

Eight- and sixteen-channel transceive stripline/TEM body arrays were compared at 7 T (297 MHz) both in simulation and experiment. Despite previous demonstrations of similar arrays for use in body applications, a quantitative comparison of the two configurations has not been undertaken to date. Results were obtained on a male pelvis for assessing transmit, signal to noise ratio, and parallel imaging performance and to evaluate local power deposition versus transmit B(1) (B(1) (+) ). All measurements and simulations were conducted after performing local B(1) (+) phase shimming in the region of the prostate. Despite the additional challenges of decoupling immediately adjacent coils, the sixteen-channel array demonstrated improved or nearly equivalent performance to the eight-channel array based on the evaluation criteria. Experimentally, transmit performance and signal to noise ratio were 22% higher for the sixteen-channel array while significantly increased reduction factors were achievable in the left-right direction for parallel imaging. Finite difference time domain simulations demonstrated similar results with respect to transmit and parallel imaging performance, however, a higher transmit efficiency advantage of 33% was predicted. Simulations at both 3 and 7 T verified the expected parallel imaging improvements with increasing field strength and showed that, for a specific B(1) (+) shimming strategy used, the sixteen-channel array exhibited lower local and global specific absorption rate for a given B(1) (+) .

RF Magnetic Signal Localization at Very High Magnetic Field Systems

The impetus of this work originated from the advent of high magnetic field magnetic resonance imaging scanners with B0 fields of 4T, 7T, and 9.4T. These ultrahigh magnetic field systems generally improve the signal to noise ratios. However, B1 field non-uniformity also occurs due to the increased RF field frequencies when wavelengths in the head become shorter than its size. As interest in multiple channel transmission line coils increases, the control of the amplitude and phase of individual coil elements is required in order to develop desired B1 field. The choice of the excitation of the coil elements may be determined by convex optimization. Convex optimization is used provides results very fast, when the problem is formulated globally. In addition, convex optimization provides better signal to noise (SNR) ratio when anatomic specific regions are investigated. In this paper, simulation and experimental results are discussed at 9.4T systems based on the number of elements. The primary objective of this study is to increase the signal in a specific target region and decrease the signal and noise in the outside region termed the suppression region. The convex formulations are minimizing the maximum field point in the suppression region while keeping the center of target maximum. Based on this min-max optimization criterion, an iteration method which modifies the selection of suppression fields is also performed to produce better results. The results of the localization on FDTD human data at 9.4T are shown in Fig. 1. In these figures, the axial slices of the center of human head model provided by XFDTD are used after manipulating with MATLAB and the 16 channel head coil is excited. Figure 1 shows an improvement of the homogeneity in the suppression region when the target region is at center. In Fig. 2, received signal localizations are obtained for three different regions of interest (ROI) after using the convex optimization. Note that the selection of ROI is limited by the geometric setting of phantom in the 8-channel TEM head coil. Convex optimization with an iterative method was performed on both the human head and phantom models with operating frequency 400 MHz to design coil channel excitation parameters. By applying the iterative method to the convex optimization, more homogeneous B1 fields are obtained in the suppression region for 9.4T system.