An anatomical observational, retrospective and cross-sectional study of the Venotomographies performed at CIMED was carried out from January 2014 to the present, with 105 studies of patients of both sexes. The study methodology was multislice computed venotomography, which allowed to achieve a live anatomical study in several observational planes and making virtual dissections. The aim is demonstrating by means of virtual anatomy how the reticular hypodermic venous system (RHVS) connects the main superficial venous trunks to each other, to the perforating venous system and through them to the deep venous system.The scanner used was a 64-detector Phillips multislice tomograph and the program chosen was Phillips' IntelliSpace Portal. To determine the characteristics of RHVS, it was divided the studied population into three groups: 1- without venous pathology, 2- with venous hypertension due to obstruction or compression, 3- in varicose recurrence.Discussion and conclusions: The MCVT has proven to be a versatile and effective method of observing the entire superficial venous system in detail. The RHVS integrates both truncal venous systems, saphenous vein magna, saphenous vein parva and its main tributaries. It integrates all perforating veins with the reticular venous system. And it links the superficial venous system and the perforator with the deep venous system. This conclude affirming that the entire superficial venous system is a single anatomical unit integrated by the RHVS.The procedure used allowed to demonstrate that the RHVS produces a true integration of the entire superficial venous system, perforating venous system and through this to the deep venous system as well.


Anti-contagion measures restricting individual freedom, such as social distancing and wearing a mask, are crucial to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. Decision-making patterns and attitudes about uncertainty can highly influence the adherence to these restrictive measures. Here we investigated the relationship between risky behavior and individual preferences for immediate vs. delayed reward, as indexed by temporal discounting (TD), as well as the association between these measures and confidence in the future, perceived risk and confidence in the containment measures. These measures were collected through an online survey administered on 353 participants at the end of the more restrictive phase of the first Italian lockdown. The results showed an unexpected inverse relationship between the individual pattern of choice preferences and risky behavior, with an overall greater adherence to containment measures in more discounter participants. These findings were interpreted in terms of a reframing process in which behaviors aimed at protecting oneself from contagion turn into immediate gains rather than losses. Interestingly, an excessive confidence in a better future was correlated with a higher tendency to assume risky behavior, thereby highlighting the downside of an overly and blindly optimistic view. The COVID-19 outbreak represents an unprecedented health emergency that has required and still requires adoption of strict containment measures in order to prevent an uncontrolled virus spread and the possible severe outcome associated with contagion. COVID-19 is severely affecting peoples’ lives on multiple levels and its consequences in terms of physical and psychological health are yet to be fully quantified. Nevertheless, some studies have begun to highlight the severity of the psychological effects determined by the pandemic outbreak. For example, moderate to severe psychological distress was reported in 53.8% of the study population involved in the recent study by Wang and colleagues on the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, and severe symptoms of anxiety were additionally reported in about one third of the participants  along wiTo face the pandemic crisis, countries have adopted a series of strict containment measures such as social distancing, isolation, hand hygiene and mandatory indications of wearing protective masks. If, on one hand, these measures have a strong role in limiting the spread of the viral infection, they impose a massive change in lifestyle which has the potential of lasting for months or even years to come .For these reasons, it is of crucial importance to understand the psychological mechanisms that facilitate or prevent the adherence and the commitment to these measures. Here, we sought to investigate this question by focusing on a specific decision-making phenomenon, known as temporal discounting (TD), that has been massively studied across several fields of investigation for its pervasiveness in daily life decision scenarios and implication for economic , clinicaOn this basis, the individual pattern of intertemporal choice may be strongly implicated in the compliance with containment measures during the current pandemic outbreak. For example, discounting behavior may encourage the pursuit of immediate benefits  at the expense of long-term goals . In contrast, farsighted behavior might favor the adherence to restrictive measures due to the temporary postponement of short-term benefits  in favor of a future greater benefit Within this framework, the main aim of the present research was to investigate the association between the pattern of adherence to containment measures for COVID-19 and individual discounting functions. In particular, we sought to examine the extent to which patterns of individual preference for immediate vs. delayed rewards during intertemporal choices  were associated with the individual risky behavior (Contagion Risk Index) against the restrictive containment measures during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.At the same time, it is important to note that the COVID-19 pandemic strongly impacts everyday life, by influencing the perceived level of safety and uncertainty about both the present and the future. For example, the perceived level of risk may impact upon the willingness to adhere to containment measures. A recent study, for example, employed a task measuring the delay discounting of containment measures as a function of the perceived risk, showing that the perception of risk influences the discounting of compliance with isolation . SimilarFor these purposes, we employed an online survey system to administer and collect data about preference patterns during intertemporal choices and self-reported measures of compliance with restrictive containment measures for COVID-19, as well as attitudes about uncertainty associated with the pandemic outbreak. The results suggest that both the pattern of intertemporal choices and the attitudes about uncertainty of the pandemic outbreak played a critical role in determining the level of adherence to the containment measures during the first Italian lockdown.The study involved a sample of 353 participants . In accordance with the ethical standards of the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki, all participants gave informed consent prior to study participation and were informed that data were stored and treated anonymously and of their right to discontinue participation at any time. The sample was prominently composed of master’s and bachelor’s degree students from the “G. D’Annunzio” University of Chieti-Pescara (employment level: students (81%), workers (11%), other (8%); Italy’s region of origin: Central (56%), South (40%), North (4%)). With respect to the educational level, most of the participants reported having high school degree . During the first lockdown, 80% of the participants reported being housed with their family of origin, 9% with roommates in shared flats, 7% with their partner and 4% alone. The great majority of participants (99%) reported not having contracted the COVID-19 infection, 1% suspected an infection. 2% of the sample reported to have completed a COVID-19 quarantine, as required by the Italian legislation in case of contact with infected people. A substantial change in their life routine was reported by 90% of participants.An online survey was administered at the end of the more restrictive phase of the Italian lockdown (May 2020) using the Qualtrics software . After obtaining informed consent, a set of questions were administered to obtain demographical information, including age, gender, education level, working status and location. A second set of items were administered to collect information about the degree of adherence to containment measures and the level of risk assumed during the pandemic outbreak. These questions were specifically aimed at assessing the frequency of behaviors such as going out , hand sanitation, use of protection devices . A set of items were additionally administered to investigate the individual attitudes about uncertainty, including: the level of risk perception (i) before (prior to March 2020) and (ii) during the lockdown period ; the level of confidence (iii) in the future and (iv) in the perceived effectiveness of the containment measures. A comprehensive list of the survey items is provided in Anxiety and depression symptoms were also assessed using the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory  and theIn the final section of the survey, a 27-item Monetary Choice questionnaire MCQ-, ,19) was  was 19])As described above, the questionnaire was divided into sub-sections, each assessing a specific aspect: risk perception during and before the first Italian lockdown period, confidence in the future, and confidence in the effectiveness of containment measures. In the section investigating attitudes about uncertainty, participants were asked to express their level of agreement with each item on a 10-point Likert scale (ranging from 1 for complete disagreement to 10 for complete agreement). Half of the items were formulated in a reverse manner and the relative score was converted before computation of the global score. For each participant, the global score of risk perception was computed by summing the individual scores of each item and then normalizing the resulting value in a range from 0 to 1. A similar analysis was adopted for the Risk Index. In this case, each item expressed the frequency of a certain behavior  Since these scales were nonhomogeneous across different items, each item was first transformed into a scale ranging from 0 to 1 and then mediated across the items of the section to obtain a general index of contagion risk behavior (Contagion Risk Index).V is the present value of the delayed reward A at delay D, and k is a free parameter that determines the discount rate. High k values are associated with steep discounting functions, i.e., the preference for small immediate over larger delayed rewards or discounter behavior, while low k values are associated with higher delay tolerance, i.e., the tendency to prefer large delayed rewards or farsighted behavior (see [p > 0.20). Choice data from the MCQ were analyzed using a standard routine based on R syntax . The rouior , as well as the other collected measures, including the index of risk perception before and during the Italian lockdown, the index of confidence in the future and in containment measures, the scores of anxiety (STAI) and depression (CES-D), were assessed through Pearson correlation analyses and corrected for multiple comparisons using the False Discovery Rate (FDR) correction ,29,30. AA series of moderation analyses were also conducted on the basis of the correlational results using the Process routine for SPSS ,34. ModeAs illustrated in The results of correlation analyses conducted between the Contagion Risk Index and the other measures of interest are summarized in As quantified by the correlational results, with the only exception of the anxiety score, a statistically significant correlation was found between Contagion Risk Index and the other measures collected in the survey, including the pattern of preferences during the intertemporal choice task and the indices of attitudes about uncertainty of the pandemic situation. p = 0.044), which was employed to ensure that the effect was not dragged by the presence of outliers  and during  the lockdown was found to be negatively correlated with the Contagion Risk Index, thus suggesting that a lower perception of risk was associated with higher frequency of risky behavior. Along the same lines, proneness to risk was found to be negatively associated with the perceived effectiveness of the containment measures. In other words, participants with high confidence in the effectiveness of the containment measures were generally more inclined to adhere to the imposed restrictions and therefore less frequently reported risky behavioral pattern. Interestingly, the measure of confidence in a better future was positively correlated with the Contagion Risk Index, suggesting that participants with a positive feeling about the pandemic crisis and with the belief that the pandemic outbreak would soon come to an end appeared to assume a higher contagion risk. Similarly, the index of risk perception before  was found between the Contagion Risk Index and the depression score (CES-D), indicating that participants with more severe symptoms of depression were less inclined to expose themselves to potential risk of contagion.Finally, a negative correlation  as independent variable, and the other measures of interest as moderators. The subject-specific discount rate was treated as an independent variable on the basis of its trait-like definition, while the variables indexing the attitudes about pandemic-related uncertainty, such as risk perception, were treated as potential modulators  of the association between trait-like discounting functions and the pattern of risky behavior during the pandemic outbreak. p = 0.03) as moderator. These findings indicate that the negative relationship between individual discount rates and the contagion risk index was moderated by individual perception of contagion risk.As illustrated in p = 0.70). Said differently, independently from the pattern of preferences towards small/immediate vs. large/delayed rewards, participants that expressed a strong feeling of risk and concern for the pandemic condition were more inclined to adopt protection behavioral strategies and to adhere to containment measures. On the other hand, participants with a medium (p = 0.02) or low (p = 0.002) level of risk perception were less inclined to adopt a protective behavioral pattern and this was more evident in participants with a low (farsighted) vs. high (discounters) discounting rates. To summarize, participants with an overall farsighted choice preference behavior and with a low or medium concern for the pandemic condition were associated with an increased tendency to assume contagion risks. In particular, participants with a high level of risk perception (see p = 0.09) as moderator. Despite the marginal statistical significance, this finding is particularly important for highlighting the potential role played by the level of confidence in the containment measures on the commitment and adherence to the same measures. More specifically, this marginally significant result indicates that participants with low confidence in the containment measures (p = 0.74) were more inclined to assume a higher level of contagion risk and to avoid restrictions regardless of their individual discounting preferences. Conversely, in case of medium (p = 0.01) and high (p = 0.01) level of confidence in the effectiveness of the containment measures, the degree of assumed risk changed according to the discounting preferences and was higher for farsighted than for discounter participants. In the remaining models, the interaction was found to be nonsignificant. A tendency toward statistical significance was also observed for the interaction effect obtained in the analysis conducted using the confidence in the effectiveness of containment measures  they are renouncing some degree of freedom for the sake of a potentially larger but also uncertain reward. Indeed, while the adoption of protective devices and social distancing reduce the probability of contracting the virus, they still do not guarantee the future reward of being safe. Conversely, when people adopt a pattern of non-/reduced adherence to the containment measures, they are securing an immediate reward of enjoying some degree of freedom at the expenses of a future reward that may not come regardless. On this basis, we propose that the pandemic outbreak might have acted as a reframing factor of mental representations of time and rewarding value of choice. In particular, one possible explanation and working hypothesis is that contagion-protective patterns have assumed a new rewarding significance. According to this hypothesis, the pandemic would have triggered a reframing process in which behaviors aimed at protecting oneself from contagion in the here and now represent a gain in terms of protection, rather than a loss in terms of freedom. In other words, the pandemic conditions might have induced a reframing of the choice context such that protective behaviors were now reinforced and rewarded rather than discarded and eluded.Following the same argument, and in addition to the discounting pattern, we also found a significant association between the Contagion Risk Index and the mental representation of the pandemic outbreak. In particular, risk perception before and during the lockdown was negatively correlated with the risk index, indicating higher adherence to containment measures in participants with higher perception of the risks posed by COVID-19. Relevantly, the perception of risk before the lockdown was also found to modulate the association described above between the risk index and the pattern of intertemporal choices, so that participants with low or medium risk perception displayed a pattern of risky behaviors that depended on their individual discount rates (reduced risky behavior in discounters), while participants with high risk perception were more inclined to adhere to the containment measures, regardless of the intertemporal choice preference. This suggests that both discounting preferences and risk perception may play a role in limiting risky behavior by increasing the rewarding values of protective measures.Albeit marginally significant, another factor that might influence the relationship between the Contagion Risk Index and the individual discounting preferences is the perceived reliability of the containment measures. While participants with lower confidence in containment measures tend to adopt risky behaviors regardless of their discounting preferences, high/medium confidence is positively associated with compliance with containment measures. Again, this result highlights the importance of the rewarding value of protecting behaviors: when containment measures are conceived as non-effective and useless, they probably lose their rewarding value/significance in terms of virus protection. Finally, we also observed that the risk index was positively correlated with confidence in a better future and the belief that the pandemic would soon come to an end. In particular, the results of a correlation analysis indicated that participants with a more optimistic idea of the future were more inclined to risk exposure. Therefore, despite the positive value on individual well-being of an optimistic view, these results underscore the possible detrimental effects of excessively optimistic views of the pandemic outbreak.This study has some limitations that need to be acknowledged. First, the study was conducted on a very specific population of university students and this may pose some limitations in terms of generalization of the results. Secondly, while recent research has found results in line with those reported here , other sWe can conclude that the individual pattern of choice preferences, as well as attitudes about the uncertainty related to the pandemic outbreak, such as future perception, perceived risk and confidence in the containment measures, are associated with the compliance with the protective measures and the pattern of contagion risk behavior. People who underestimate the risks, who believe that keeping distance, wearing masks and being cautious are pointless restrictions of their freedom, or who just believe that everything is going to be fine and the pandemic is only a flash in the pan, clearly take a greater number of risks, which has an impact upon our collective ability to protect ourselves from the virus.


Although clozapine is the most effective antipsychotic drug for treatment-resistant schizophrenia, it leads to a poor or partial response in 40 to 70% of patients. Augmentation of clozapine with electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is a highly effective and relatively safe treatment for these clozapine-resistant patients. However, parameters are not yet well specified, such as the optimal number of sessions, their frequency, and the relevance of maintenance ECT. Our objective is to compare the efficacy and tolerance between two protocols of combined ECT and clozapine treatment in patients with ultra-resistant schizophrenia (URS): a 6-month protocol (short protocol with 20 ECT sessions) and a 12-month protocol (long protocol with 40 ECT sessions).Sixty-four patients with schizophrenia with persistent psychotic symptoms despite clozapine treatment will be enrolled in a prospective multicentric assessor-blinded randomized controlled trial. Patients will be randomly assigned to the short or the long protocol. The main outcome is the response rate assessed by the Positive and Negative Symptoms Scale (PANSS) 3 months after the end of the treatment in patients following the long protocol compared to those following the short protocol. The response was defined as a 30% reduction on the PANSS baseline. Clinical assessments , and Subjective Scale to Investigate Cognition in Schizophrenia (SSTICS)) and plasma clozapine concentration will be performed at baseline and at 2, 4, 6, 9, 12, and 15 months. Neuropsychological measures  will be performed at baseline and at 6 and 15 months.The aims of this research are to optimize protocols of combined ECT with clozapine in patients with URS and to offer specific recommendations for these patients’ care.NCT03542903. Registered on May 31, 2018. Id RCB: 2017-A02657-46ClinicalTrials.gov  Treatment-resistant schizophrenia (TRS) is a severe disorder with little to no response to antipsychotic drugs, affecting about 10 to 30% of patients with schizophrenia . Sufferin = 20) or in the “clozapine” group (n = 19). In the intent-to-treat analysis, ten of the 20 patients (50%) in the ECT augmentation group but none of the patients (0%) in the clozapine group met the response criterion. The response was defined as a 40% reduction in symptoms based on the psychotic symptom subscale of the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS), a Clinical Global Impressions (CGI)-severity rating of mild or less (less than 3), and a CGI improvement rating of much improved . Augmentation of clozapine with ECT is therefore an extremely promising therapeutic strategy for patients suffering from URS, but there is a lack of randomized controlled trials investigating important methodological aspects such as the optimal number and frequency of sessions as well as the need for maintenance ECT. For example, it seems that a larger number of ECT sessions is required in patients with TRS than in depression [According to a recent meta-analysis of 18 randomized controlled trials comprising 1769 patients, ECT augmentation of clozapine had superior efficacy to clozapine as a monotherapy, was safe and relatively well tolerated by clozapine-resistant patients . HoweverOur main objective is to compare the efficacy between two combined ECT-clozapine protocols in patients with ultra-resistant schizophrenia (URS): a 6-month protocol (short protocol with 20 ECT sessions) and a 12-month protocol (long protocol with 40 ECT sessions).We hypothesize that the long protocol will be more effective than the short protocol 3 months after the end of the treatment.In the second aim, we will compare the effects of both protocols on clinical symptomatology throughout the study. We hypothesize that the clinical improvement will be superior in the long protocol than in the short protocol.Finally, we will compare the impact of both protocols on cognition. We hypothesize that the cognitive side effects will be similar between the two groups, except for attention, the improvement of which would be greater in the long protocol. We assume indeed that the greatest clinical improvement expected in the long protocol can induce an attention enhancement.This study is a prospective, multicentric, randomized, two-arm, assessor-blinded trial.Due to the severity of the patients’ condition, it is not ethically possible to conduct sham ECT sessions, making the blinding about the short or long arm impossible to maintain in patients. In this superiority trial, patients will be randomly assigned to one of both arms with an allocation ratio of 1:1.The protocol study follows the SPIRIT recommendations.This trial will be conducted by the Research Department of the Centre Hospitalier du Rouvray  in collaboration with 13 French clinical centers  on at least two of the four positive symptoms of the BPRS Current presence of at least moderately severe illness, with total BPRS score ≥ 45 and a CGI-S score ≥ 4 (moderate)Patients had a stable treatment for at least 8 weeks Patients affiliated to a social security systemPatients able to understand both spoken and written FrenchPatients giving their informed written consent and agreement of their legal guardian for patients under guardianshipPatients deprived of liberty if they gave their informed, written consentPatients with current depressive, manic, or hypomanic episodes as defined by the DSM-5 criteriaPatients who had ECT during the last 6 monthsPatients with unstable epilepsyPatients with a severe neurological or systemic disorder that could significantly affect cognition, behavior, or mental status (other than tardive dyskinesia or neuroleptic-induced parkinsonism)Patients with one or more of the following conditions : intracranial hypertension, recent myocardial infarction, advanced coronary failure, embolic disease, recent stroke, the existence of expansive intracranial lesions without intracranial hypertension, the presence of aneurysms or cerebral vascular malformations with bleeding risk, aneurysm of the aorta, the existence of a retinal detachment, the existence of a pheochromocytoma, and serious heart or respiratory failurePatients with a severe substance use disorder (other than nicotine or caffeine) according to the DSM-5 criteriaPatients with concomitant use of benzodiazepines and antiepileptic drugs, except for lamotriginePregnant or lactating women and women of childbearing age without adequate contraceptionPatients with contraindications to etomidate or any of its excipients and/or neuromuscular blocking agentsPatients participating, or having participated within the 30 days prior to the inclusion visit, in an interventional clinical trialThe patients are definitively excluded from the study in the following cases: removal of the patient’s consent or the legal guardian agreement Patients refusing to continue the study, without removal of the consent Decision of the investigator: worsened clinical condition, occurrence of significant adverse effects, need to change the background drug treatment, and impossibility for the patient to follow the established protocolDeath of the patient;Patient lost to follow-up The potential patients will receive complete and adequate information about the protocol, and they will have a reflection period of at least 7 days before the signature of the informed consent in the presence of the investigators. If patients are under legal guardianship, written agreement from their legal guardians should also be obtained.On the consent form, participants will be asked if they agree to use of their data should they choose to withdraw from the trial. Participants will also be asked for permission for the research team to share relevant data with people from the universities taking part in the research or from regulatory authorities, where relevant. This trial does not involve collecting biological specimens for storage.Patients will be randomized to receive a short ECT protocol or a long ECT protocol.The short ECT protocol is a standard protocol to treat URS patients, inspired by the continuation protocols commonly used in depression . HoweverIncreasing the number of sessions, increasing the duration of treatment, and reducing the frequency more gradually could decrease the risk of relapse in URS patients.In this long protocol, all the phases are doubled and could resemble a maintenance protocol used in depression . In the For the two protocols (short and long), the main ECT devices which will be used are the THYMATRON System IV  or the spECTrum 5000Q . ECT will be administered through bilaterally positioned electrodes on the temporal region. The stimulation dose will be determined by the titration method during the first ECT session .The dose for therapeutic stimulation will be twice the seizure threshold. As recommended, this dose may be increased if the seizure does not meet the effectiveness criteria.The patient should have an anesthesia assessment during the month prior to ECT onset. An interview with the anesthetist should also be conducted prior to each ECT session. The patient should not eat or drink anything for the 12 h leading up to each session, except for cases of premedication. The administered pharmacological agents are written down on the anesthesia sheet. Infusion therapy is provided. Blood pressure, heart rate, and blood saturation of oxygen will be monitored. An adapted emergency box with all drugs needed to control any cardiovascular effects will be at disposal and checked before each session.Loss of consciousness is insured by the administration of one short-lasting hypnotic drug: etomidate (between 0.1 and 0.7 mg/kg). This dose should allow recovery within 5 to 10 min. Patient safety is guaranteed by the administration of a short-lived curare: suxamethonium chloride (between 0.8 and 1.2 mg/kg), a dose allowing both the decrease of the muscular contraction intensity and spontaneous breathing recovery within 3 or 5 min. The required doses are adapted to each patient by the anesthetist. During each ECT session, the anesthetist records cardiovascular parameters (heart rate and systolic and diastolic blood pressure). After the convulsive phase, breathing enriched with oxygen is insured by mask ventilation until spontaneous breathing recovery, after which the patients remain 1 h in the recovery room. Then, they are taken by ambulance back to their wards. Getting back to normal eating habits happens 1 h and a half to 2 h after recovery.The medical team to be present during the ECT session is composed of the psychiatrist who is responsible for administering the electroshock, the anesthetist, and the nurse anesthetist.Removal of the patient consent or the legal guardian agreement Patients refusing to continue the study, without removal of consent Decision of the investigator: if the patient’s clinical condition worsens, significant adverse effects occur, wish of the patient to receive more ECT when he/she is assigned to the short arm, need to change the background drug treatment, impossibility for the patient to follow the established protocolDeath of the patient;Patients lost to follow-up The patients stop participating in the study in the following cases:At each visit, the plasma clozapine concentration is measured to check treatment compliance.The patients continue their usual medical treatments prescribed by their psychiatrists or their general practitioners. Concurrent use of antipsychotic medication, antidepressants, and lithium is allowed as long as the dose is stable for at least 8 weeks before entering the study. Loxapine (up to 300 mg per day) or hydroxyzine (up to 100 mg per day) may be used to treat anxiety, agitation, or insomnia. Once randomly assigned to one of the groups, the same clozapine dose will be kept throughout the study. The lithium dosage may be adjusted to obtain low levels of lithemia and thus promote tolerance of treatment during ECT. However, patients should not be treated by another electrical or magnetic stimulation method. Anticonvulsant drugs must be stopped (antiepileptics and benzodiazepines) except for lamotrigine. Indeed, lamotrigine is not associated with a decrease in ECT efficacy .No ancillary study is planned for this protocol. At the request of the patients or their psychiatrists, the patients could benefit from new ECT sessions at the end of the protocol.The main outcome is the response rate assessed by the Positive and Negative Symptoms Scale (PANSS) 3 months after the end of the treatment in patients following the long protocol  compared to those following the short protocol , the response being defined as a 30% reduction on the PANSS .The response rate assessed by the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale-18 items (BPRS-18) 3 months after the end of the treatment in patients following the long protocol compared to those following the short protocol (the response being defined as a reduction of 30% on the BPRS).The response rates assessed by the PANSS and the BPRS at different times  between both groups.The Hamilton Rating Scale-21 items (HAMD-21) score, the Young Mania Rating Scale (YMRS) score, the Modified Overt Aggression Scale (MOAS) score, the Clinical Global Impression (CGI) score, and the Global Assessment Functioning (GAF) score at baseline and at 2, 4, 6, 9, 12, and 15 months. Changes from baseline will be compared between both groups.The Mini-Mental Status Examination (MMSE), the Subjective Scale to Investigate Cognition in Schizophrenia (SSTICS) , the RL/Plasma clozapine concentration measured at baseline and at 2, 4, 6, 9, 12, and 15 months in order to check patient compliance.The secondary outcomes are as follows:Experimental design, the time of interventions, and assessments are presented in Figs. The aim of this trial is to compare the response rates between short and long ECT protocols. According to the meta-analysis of Lally et al. , the proEnrollment will occur in 13 clinical centers , the traceability of amendments and updates is automatic (audit-trail).All the data collected in the eCRF are anonymized, that is to say that the patient receives a code name according to their inclusion center and their randomization number. Only their initials and their month and year of birth are noted. All documentation pertaining to the study  as well as original documents  will be kept in a safe place and considered as confidential material. Data archiving will be the responsibility of the investigator and in accordance with the laws in place. The investigator will retain the data as well as the patient identification list for a minimum period of 15 years after the end of the study.None of these procedures is planned in the study.Patient characteristics will be described overall and by randomly allocated treatment arm (short or long therapy) using the usual parameters, i.e., mean, standard deviation, median, interquartile range, and range for quantitative characteristics and frequencies for categorical characteristics.The main outcome (the response rate in the PANSS three months after treatment cessation) being categorical, Pearson’s chi-square test will be used. The same strategy will be applied for the other categorical criteria (secondary outcomes). For the secondary outcomes with quantitative measures, the comparison between both groups will be performed thanks to the repeated measures ANOVA or Mann-Whitney tests based on delta scores , when the assumptions of variance equality and/or normal distribution are violated. If multiple Mann-Whitney tests are performed, Bonferroni adjustment will be applied to compensate for the risk of type 1 errors.No interim analyses are planned.This analysis will be complemented by a comparison using the logistic regression model in order to adjust for center and possible prognostic characteristics.Comparison of the two treatment arms will be based on the intent-to-treat principle. The maximum bias hypothesis shall be considered for non-assessed patients 3 months after the end of the treatment (patients lost to follow-up). Those patients, if in the group with the most favorable evolution, shall be considered as having not responded. On the contrary, those patients, if in the group with the most unfavorable evolution, shall be considered as responding to treatment. The aim is to reduce the gap between both to a minimum. By doing so, a robust conclusion is expected. Then, several sensitivity analyses shall be carried out: one analysis excluding patients lost to follow-up  and another imputing the missing data by the last observed value (“last observation carried forward”).The datasets analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.The research department of the Rouvray Hospital coordinates the trial. The department consists of three psychiatrists, a clinical research associate, a research engineer, and three research technicians.At trial implementationDuring the trialAt the end of the trialThe clinical research associate appointed by the promoter shall regularly visit the center in which the trial is led:The clinical research associate shall ensure that subjects’ fundamental rights and security are respected, as well as reliability, quality, and traceability of the transmitted data. The clinical research associate shall check that the study is led in compliance with the protocol, in good clinical practice, and within the legal regulatory framework.Eligibility of the patients involved: respect of inclusion/exclusion criteriaCompliance with the procedures of information sharing with the patients and consent collectionCompliance with the specific procedures of the protocol, trial schedule, and patient follow-upQuality of the collected data in the CRF Compliance with the procedures reporting serious adverse event (SAE)Good management and traceability of the treatments/devices on trial The purpose of the visits is to validate the following:At the end of each visit, a standardized monitoring report must be drafted by the clinical research associate. This report is reviewed by the promoter.The investigator is responsible for assessing each adverse event in relation to its seriousness.The investigator should record any adverse event in the AE section of the case report form (CRF).Whenever possible, symptoms should be grouped as a single syndrome or diagnosis. The investigator should specify the date of onset, intensity, action taken, outcome of all adverse events, and their opinion as to whether the adverse effect can be related to the study. All events that meet one or more criteria of seriousness will be reported as serious adverse events.Send the complete SAE form to the sponsor by fax:Ms. Ingrid FontaineCentre Hospitalier du RouvrayFax: +33 02 32 95 12 75All SAE forms should be dated and signed by the investigator.Specify the SAE diagnosis and describe the event and include the action taken. If the diagnosis is unknown at the time of the report, or if the diagnosis changes after investigations, a detailed written follow-up should be sent to the sponsor to provide the final diagnosis.Attach the copies of all examinations carried out and the dates on which these examinations were performed. Care should be taken to ensure that the patient’s identity is protected, and the patient’s identifiers in the clinical trial are properly mentioned on any copy of the source document. For laboratory results, it must include relevant negative results and the laboratory normal ranges.Joint report of hospitalization related to SAE.Assess the causality between the study procedures and SAE.Ensure that relevant information is communicated to the sponsor and when it becomes available.Monitor the patient with an SAE to its final resolution, stabilization at a level deemed acceptable by the investigator, or a return to the patient’s original state, even if the patient is no longer in the trial, and inform the sponsor of the SAE evolution.In a case of a serious adverse event, the investigator should immediately (within 1 working day) do the following:An audit can be realized at any time by people appointed by the promoter, the Centre Hospitalier du Rouvray. They are independent of the people in charge of the research. The objective is to ensure the quality of the research, the validity of its results, and the respect of the law. The investigators agree to conform to the requirements of the promoter and to the Competent Authority as regards an audit or an inspection from the trial. The audit can occur in all the stages of the study.Any modification to the protocol should be approved by the Independent Ethics Committee  that authorized the start of the trial. Information is also made to the ANSM (French Competent Authority) .ClinicalTrials.gov.If the modifications are accepted, the new version of the protocol is sent to all the investigative centers, and the modifications are applied. Changes will also be made on Analysis of the results will be communicated in conferences and scientific publications. Publication texts and communications will be discussed with all participating investigators. The order of the co-authors takes into account the participation of different investigators in the trial.Even though ECT is recommended for patients with URS, there is a noticeable lack of rigorous studies on this subject. Parameters such as the frequency of ECT sessions, the position of electrode(s), the seizure efficacy criteria, or the anesthetic management have been little studied and should be tested. In addition, the utility of maintenance ECT in patients with URS has never been studied, except in open studies and clinical cases. The present study focuses on the optimal duration of ECT treatment, aiming to compare two protocols of combining ECT with clozapine: a 6-month protocol and a 12-month protocol.The minimum number of ECT sessions to achieve significant clinical improvement in patients with URS ranges between 16 and 20 , 50. In Some methodological choices we made are worth discussing.First, the duration of participation in this study is long . There is therefore a risk of having a significant number of patients lost to follow-up, especially in severely disabled patients. In the sample size calculation, the drop-out rate was estimated to 20% and the number of patients increased to overcome the reduction of statistical power. However, we lack data to accurately estimate this rate.Secondly, the present study is a single-blind study because the treatment duration is different between both groups. Sham ECT, consisting in a brief anesthesia not followed by ECT, could theoretically allow blinding, but the confusion that often occurs post-ECT may unblind the arm . In addiThirdly, the short protocol was established according to what is usually done in depression, considering a shock treatment phase (2 sessions per week) and a continuation phase  . As someFinally, we choose to assess cognitive functions because cognitive impairment is a frequent consequence of ECT. However, the extent of its persistence is debated . Is it aThe results of this study should bring some answers about ECT as an augmentation strategy to clozapine, in order to improve the treatment of patients with URS. These questions relate to the number and frequency of ECT sessions to prevent the risk of relapse. They also concern the cognitive tolerance of ECT sessions and their effect on certain dimensions of schizophrenia such as positive symptoms but also aggressive behavior.Other questions remain to be explored, such as the repercussions on patients’ brain imaging or the pathophysiological mechanisms underlying ECT.The current clinical trial will investigate the optimal duration, frequency, and number of ECT sessions combined with clozapine in patients with URS. Clinical and cognitive effects will be compared between two protocols: a 6-month protocol with 20 ECT sessions and a 12-month protocol with 40 ECT sessions, where each ECT phase is doubled. This study will provide new insight to treat patients with URS, optimizing the ECT procedure and limiting undesirable effects.This is the fifth version of the protocol dated June 2, 2020. Recruitment started on July 4, 2018, and we anticipate recruitment will end on July 2022.


Dataset - an essential aspect and the requirement for any of the machine learning project. Collection/creation of dataset in the agriculture domain is highly challenging task because the domain itself is uncertain. Main objective of the present paper is to create an image dataset of pomegranate fruits of different grades. Accordingly, we have considered ‘Ruby’ cultivar of pomegranate and sincerely constructed the dataset. Fruits belonging to three grades are considered. The images for each fruit are covered from all the three angles. The dataset created also contains the weights of the fruits. The dataset consists of 12 folders named after their effective quality grades. The usage of this dataset is already proved in the works carried out by the authors in their previous studies. This dataset is highly helpful for the data science engineer / machine learning programmer or machine learning expert working in the field of precision agriculture. Specifically, the image dataset along with weight as the physical parameter is scares. Hence the dataset is important for the purpose of automated quality grading during post-harvest processing of pomegranate fruits.•The dataset built is made available to the public domain. Such a dataset is of great input for various researchers in building machine learning algorithms for quality grading of pomegranate fruits.•The data may be used/reused by conducting experiments related to the quality grading of pomegranate fruits various machine learning algorithms, apart from the algorithms that authors have incorporated, as provided in the specifications table above. Moreover, the researchers who are involved in automated quality inspection of other fruits also may get benefited indirectly.•Building the grade-wise image dataset of pomegranate fruits along with their weights is the uniqueness of the dataset. Moreover, each fruit is imaged in all the three views.1<GN_QN_FSN_IVN>Legends:GN: Grade Number - Representing the grade value of the fruit.QN: Quality Number - Representing the quality value of each grade.FSN: Fruit Serial Number - Representing the serial number of fruit. Since 30 sample fruits are considered, the range of FSN is 1 to 30IVN: Image View Number - Representing the view number or the angle number. Since each fruit is imaged in three angles, value of IVN range from 1 to 3.The dataset consists of three grades and four qualities for each grade. Accordingly, there are twelve folders. Each folder is titled after its corresponding quality grade as outlined in Additionally, each folder consists of an excel sheet representing the weights of 30 sample fruits of each of the corresponding quality category.2right dataset. Machine Learning depends heavily on data without which it is impossible to train any of the algorithms to recognize patterns. It is the most important aspect that makes algorithm training achievable. The accuracy of the training depends heavily on the quality of the dataset input One of the hardest problems that every programmer faces in the development of machine vision applications / solutions is the availability of There are distinctive problems associated with the agricultural and horticultural industries viz. (1) High rise losses in post-harvest (2) Labor requirements (3) Subjectivity (4) Tediousness (5) Inconsistency etc. One of the main causes in the lowered product quality is the huge number of losses during post-harvest that can be found at variegated stages of marketing Post-harvest handling of fruits is vital in the horticulture domain as fruits are the important supplement to the human diet. Moreover, production of fruits in India holds an average of 31.3% share in the total production of horticulture crops in the last 5 years Grading is one of the important steps of the post-harvest management that is used to arrive at a reasonable pricing of pomegranates in both domestic and export markets. Continued boost in image processing and machine learning domains can provide effective tools and techniques in building systems that are capable of grading the pomegranate fruits provided a right dataset to the learning algorithms. Accordingly, goal of the present proposed work is a sincere effort in building a dataset of pomegranate fruits that aids in developing machine vision-based applications including Grading, Quality assessment and Sorting.To the best of our knowledge, there is no public dataset available specifically for the gradation purpose of pomegranate fruits. Hence, there is a great need for building the dataset of pomegranate fruits.There are various researchers working around the globe in fruit grading using machine vision in place. Present section outlines few of the research works consisting of pomegranate fruits. Authors in In the current work, ‘Ruby’ cultivar of pomegranate fruit is considered and accordingly the dataset is built. There are three grades considered for collecting the dataset. There are four persons involved in the grading process along with the corresponding author and all the authors have expressed their sincere gratitude in the acknowledgement section for the personnel involved in this process.In the present work, pomegranate fruits are collected and are preserved for duration of eight days for the purpose of analysis. The storage conditions are as follows: Average Temperature: 22 °C, Wind: 20 km/h, Gust: 25 km/h, Humidity: 90%, Pressure: 1005 mb. The preserved fruit samples are imaged for every alternate day. Such an analysis resulted the creation of four qualities within each grade. Hence, a total of twelve classes of effective qualities got created. Since the fruit samples are preserved for some duration, tagging of each fruit is done so as to keep track of each fruit. 2.1Following 2.2Images are formed by a blend of the source of illumination and the energy reflection by the objects in the scene Finally, the time span of the data collection is summarized in There is no funding for the present effort. There is no conflict of interest. The data is available in public domain.Arun Kumar R: Methodology, Software, Validation, Formal analysis, Writing - Original Draft, Visualization, Funding acquisition; Vijay S. Rajpurohit: Conceptualization, Writing - Review & Editing, Supervision, Project administration; Nilesh N. Gaikwad: Resources, Writing - Review & Editing.The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships which have or could be perceived to have influenced the work reported in this article.


The decomposition effect of variational mode decomposition (VMD) mainly depends on the choice of decomposition number  The failure of the wind turbine rolling bearing has a significant impact on the entire rotating machinery and even the operating state of the entire fan . Due to In view of the above problems, scholars have put forward a variety of countermeasures. Empirical mode decomposition (EMD) can highlight the local characteristics of unstable signals and has good time-frequency aggregation ability . HoweverHowever, the decomposition result of VMD largely depends on the choice of penalty factor g et al.  proposedg et al.  optimizeg et al.  optimizeAs artificial intelligence technology progresses, bearing fault classification algorithms have become a hot topic for scholars. To learn the part-based representation of data and enhance sparseness, Zhang et al.  demonstrA new fitness function is designed to optimize the parameters of VMD.The feature extraction method based on MIGA-VMD is studied through the actual data of rolling bearing.Compared with other feature extraction methods, the effectiveness of the proposed feature extraction method is verified.On the basis of the above literature, this paper proposes a rolling bearing fault feature extraction method based on MIGA-VMD. Firstly, the bearing vibration signal is decomposed, and then the two IMFs with the most fault information are selected by the improved kurtosis and Holder coefficient for reconstruction, and the fault information is identified by envelope spectrum analysis. The contributions of the paper can be summarized as follows:The rest of the paper are organized as follows: For each mode, the single side spectrum can be obtained by calculating the analytical signals related to each mode by Hilbert transform:An exponential term is added to modulate the spectrum of each mode to the corresponding baseband:kω, and the bandwidth of kω is estimated by the H1 gaussian smoothness of the demodulated signal, i.e., the squared L2-norm of the gradient. In this way, we obtain a constrained variational problem [Each mode is near the center pulse frequency  problem :(3){minIn order to obtain the optimal solution of the constrained variational problem, the augmented Lagrange function is introduced:In this way, the optimal solution problem of the constrained variational model can be transformed into the saddle point problem of the augmented Lagrange function, and the saddle point of the augmented Lagrange function can be obtained by using the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM). The expression of mode function is obtained as follows:VMD is actually a method to solve variational problems. VMD can process a signal into property . The speSetting initial parameter Update Update Given the decision accuracy The flow of the VMD algorithm is as follows.According to reference , the VMDAlgorithm 1 Multi-Island Genetic Algorithm1: Randomly generate N individuals as the initial population 2: The population 3: The fitness values of each individual in the “island” were obtained.4: Perform operations such as selection, crossover, and mutation on the island.5: If the migration condition is satisfied, the individual will migrate from the current island to other islands.6: If the current number of iterations does not reach the set value, step 3 will be returned, otherwise step 7 will be executed.7: The optimal solution is the one with the least fitness among all individuals.The PSO algorithm, introduced by Kennedy and Eberhart ,21, is aWhen using a multi-objective multi-island genetic algorithm to optimize VMD parameters, the key is to select appropriate fitness functions. The concept of envelope entropy terature . The beaIn order to prove that Renyi entropy f signal . Comparef signal . For a fIn order to prove that Due to the influence of parameters ormation . The aveBearing fault signals are decomposed into some IMFs by MIGA, and only some of these IMFs contain bearing fault information. Therefore, screening the most effective IMF is more conducive to fault feature extraction, but this has been ignored in most studies. The holder coefficient can measure the correlation between signals, and the larger the holder coefficient is, the more significant the correlation is . KurtosiFor a vibration signal The extremum of signal If In order to reduce the influence of these abnormal extreme points on kurtosis, we use the linear interpolation algorithm  to replaFor two signal samples In this paper, improved kurtosis and Holder coefficient are used to select the most effective IMF for fault feature extraction.In general, the proposed fault feature extraction model is shown in Step 1: Taking the average value of local minimum Step 2: The VMD with optimized parameters is used to process the vibration signals of different states, and Step 3: Calculate the improved kurtosis of each IMF; calculate Holder coefficients between each IMF and the original signal.Step 4: The IMF with the largest kurtosis value and the IMF with the largest Holder value are selected for reconstruction.Step 5: The envelope spectrum of the reconstructed signal is obtained by Teager energy operator envelope demodulation.Step 6: The frequency of the larger peak value is marked in the envelope spectrum, which is compared with the bearing fault frequency obtained by theoretical calculation, so as to judge whether the fault feature is extracted accurately.The experimental data are from Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) Bearing Data Center . The expThe load is 0 Hp, the corresponding motor speed is 1797 rpm, so the motor frequency The time domain and frequency domain waveforms of bearing vibration signals under inner race fault, ball fault, outer race fault, and normal state are shown in Prior to using the VMD algorithm to process the bearing signal, it is necessary to use optimization algorithm to determine the most appropriate parameters It can be seen from Taking the average value of local minimum The improved kurtosis and Holder coefficient can evaluate the degree of IMF containing fault information. The improved kurtosis values and Holder coefficient values of each IMF after four types of signals are decomposed by the MIGA-VMD algorithm are shown in The IMF with the largest kurtosis value and the IMF with the largest Holder value are selected for reconstruction. The time-domain waveform and envelope spectrum of the reconstructed signals of the four types of signals are shown in It can be seen from In order to further verify the effectiveness of the proposed method, the inner race fault signals of 1797 rpm, 1772 rpm, 1750 rpm, and 1730 rpm are tested. According to the formula (21), the inner race fault frequencies The time domain waveform and frequency domain waveform of bearing vibration signals under four rotational speed conditions are shown in Taking the average value of local minimum The improved kurtosis values and Holder coefficient values of each IMF after signals under four rotational speed conditions are decomposed by the MIGA-VMD algorithm are shown in The IMF with the largest kurtosis value and the IMF with the largest Holder value are selected for reconstruction. The time-domain waveform and envelope spectrum of the reconstructed signals of signals under four rotational speed conditions are shown in It can be seen from In order to verify the superiority of the MIGA-VMD algorithm, the CEEMDAN algorithm and traditional VMD algorithm are used to replace the MIGA-VMD algorithm. e set to : K=6, α=It can be seen from To sum up, the results processed by the MIGA-VMD algorithm show obvious fault information, and the fault frequency is clearly visible. Although, the CEEMDAN algorithm and traditional VMD algorithm can also extract part of the feature information, it is mixed with more noise interference, resulting in the feature frequency is not clear or completely submerged in the noise. Therefore, for the fault feature extraction of the rolling bearing vibration signal, the performance of the MIGA-VMD algorithm is better than that of the CEEMDAN algorithm and traditional VMD algorithm.In order to further prove the effectiveness of the proposed feature extraction method, this method is combined with the classifiers in three literatures for bearing fault diagnosis, and the diagnosis accuracy is compared with the original method, as shown in In Taking the average value of local minimum Compared with the CEEMDAN algorithm and traditional VMD algorithm, the MIGA-VMD algorithm has obvious advantages in fault feature extraction of bearing vibration signals.This feature extraction method can effectively suppress the noise interference, accurately extract the fault information of the rolling bearing vibration signal, and the accuracy of bearing fault diagnosis is effectively improved.In this paper, a feature extraction method based on MIGA-VMD is proposed, and the effectiveness and superiority of this method are verified by experiments. Finally, the following conclusions are drawn:


Due to the complexity and unique features of the hydroacoustic channel, ship-radiated noise (SRN) detected using a passive sonar tends mostly to distort. SRN feature extraction has been proposed to improve the detected passive sonar signal. Unfortunately, the current methods used in SRN feature extraction have many shortcomings. Considering this, in this paper we propose a new multi-stage feature extraction approach to enhance the current SRN feature extractions based on enhanced variational mode decomposition (EVMD), weighted permutation entropy (WPE), local tangent space alignment (LTSA), and particle swarm optimization-based support vector machine (PSO-SVM). In the proposed method, first, we enhance the decomposition operation of the conventional VMD by decomposing the SRN signal into a finite group of intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) and then calculate the WPE of each IMF. Then, the high-dimensional features obtained are reduced to two-dimensional ones by using the LTSA method. Finally, the feature vectors are fed into the PSO-SVM multi-class classifier to realize the classification of different types of SRN sample. The simulation and experimental results demonstrate that the recognition rate of the proposed method overcomes the conventional SRN feature extraction methods, and it has a recognition rate of up to 96.6667%. Ships are playing an increasingly important role in many military and civilian applications. For example, in military field applications, an effective prediction for enemy ships helps us to take the correct action and activate our countermeasure to avoid enemy attacks and defeat them. For civilian applications, a logical comprehensive analysis of different port noise, including ship-radiated noise (SRN) can help researchers support the reproduction of marine life . For impEmpirical mode decomposition (EMD) has been proposed in , to decoEntropy is an important indicator to measure the uncertainty of time series and can consider the implicit system dynamics. When the system dynamics vary, the time series complexity will be varied as well. PE  has beenWith current computer technology development and the fast growth of data, it is of great necessity to further process the original high-dimensional data. Feature extraction can be divided into two parts; extracting the feature vectors can reflect the essence of analyzing signals through suitable signal processing methods. The other is selecting an appropriate measure decreases algorithm to minimize the increases, and in that way support the confession execution. Up to now, researchers have suggested different dimension relief algorithms, such as principal component analysis (PCA) ,24, indeTo that end, this paper puts forward a novel multistage feature extraction method proposing an EVMD method and combining it with the WPE, and LTSA for SRN samples classification. In this paper, the proposed EVMD method uses the variance of the IMFs’ center frequency to calculate the mode number of VMD and enhance its operation. Next, the new EVMD algorithm is used to decompose the SRN signals plus calculate the WPE of each IMF. Then high-dimensional features are reduced to two-dimensional ones by the LTSA method. Finally, the feature vectors obtained are fed into the PSO-SVM multi-class classifier to recognize the different types of SRN samples.The structure of the paper is presented as follows: the fundamental theories of the relevant algorithms are described in In this section, the theories of the related methods such as VMD, PE, WPE, and LTSA will be presented.The VMD defines the IMF in the function of the instantaneous amplitude α(f−fk)2fkn+1=∫0∞PE  can not From Equation (13), we can observe that the value of PE ranges from 0 to 1. In the PE the neighboring vectors having the same ordinal patterns but with different amplitude values are unreasonably ignored. The WPE  has beenDue to the advantages of insensitivity to parameter selection and fast operation, the local tangent space alignment (LTSA) method has been widely used in dimension reduction in multiple fields ,30. The (1)Determine the (2)Calculate the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of a matrix (3)Construct the transformation matrix (4)Solve the optimization problem of Equation (21) by calculating the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of the matrix, and then the embedding matrix The low-dimensional embedding matrix Y can be obtained by calculating the eigenvectors corresponding to the second to In (1)Based on the center frequency of the intrinsic mode functions, the variational mode decomposition mode number (2)The VMD algorithm based on the optimum mode number (3)The WPE of each IMF by EVMD is then calculated.(4)The feature vectors obtained will be randomly divided into two groups, the first group represent the training data used in classification information while the second one is used for evaluating the testing data and measuring its ability for classification.(5)Definitively, PSO-SVM multiclass classifier uses the analysis data that are recognized and detects the underwater acoustic object.To extract features of SRN, this paper classifies three types of SRN using a combination of VMD, WPE, LTSA, and PSO-SVM multi-class classifier. In the proposed method, the VMD mode number range is first set according to the EEMD decomposition results, and the variance of the IMFs’ center frequency after each decomposition is calculated. The mode number corresponding to the maximum variance is used as an optimum value for VMD. Then, VMD is performed on three SRN signal types. The WPE value of each IMF for each VMD decomposition is calculated. The high-dimensional features obtained are reduced to be two-dimensional features using LTSA. Finally, the obtained feature vectors are input to the PSO-SVM multi-class classifier to achieve classification and recognition of the samples.In this paper, as the SRN signals contain the rich line spectral components, the simulated signals composed of the single-frequency components are introduced. In addition, the simulated signals are feasible as long as they satisfy the measurement signal conditions explained in , namely,tol = 1 × 10−7 and the update mode of the center frequency is Following the literature , before ethod in ,14 can sWhen the mode number Based on the analysis above, the proposed EVMD method using the variance of the IMFs’ center frequency is feasible in calculating the mode number of VMD. To further verify this method in the VMD algorithm, the VMD method in ,20 is alAccording to the basic principles of WPE and PE explained in As shown in For further comparison between the performance of the PE and WPE, 50 1/f noise samples with a length of 500 are generated and the pulse series is superimposed on the raw 1/f noise series. For a fair comparison, PE and WPE calculations concern the two signals. The time-domain waveforms of the analyzed signals and the scatter plots of the calculation results are given in As shown in the results, thanks to the good anti-noise ability of WPE, making the estimated WPE value of the two signals is lower than the PE value. Also, sudden change detection is a hard task in the PE method as it neglects the amplitude information. In contrast, except for the significant difference in WPE values between the two signals, the WPE fluctuation trends are more dramatic than PE. Larger fluctuation means stronger discrimination ability. In short, the analysis of experimental results proves the advantages of WPE over PE.The WPE calculation is dependent on the time delay To study the influence of  used in . The samAs in , the PE m = 6. However, when Thanks to the excellent anti-noise performance of WPE, the WPE value of the same time series is less than the PE. WPE is more sensitive to the time delay compared to the PE, as the PE fluctuates subtly with the time delay increasing. The WPE and PE begin to separate when As described in In this section, the proposed method is applied to the SRN samples classification. 100 samples are randomly selected from each type of SRN sample and thus a total of 300 samples can be obtained. The EVMD is first performed to decompose these samples and the WPE of each IMF is calculated. Firstly, due to the pollution of marine environmental noise, some IMFs belong to noise or noise-dominant components. Secondly, the occurrence of over-decomposition in the VMD algorithm allows different IMFs to share the same spectrum information. In this way, the dimension reduction algorithms are introduced to avoid dimensional disasters, thus preparing for the classification below. Next, the PCA, MDS, LLE, and LTSA methods are utilized for the low-dimensional feature extraction. The number of neighboring points and the target dimension are set as 15 and 2, respectively. The results are given in As shown in As shown in (1)The proposed EVMD method mode number was calculated based on the variance of IMFs’ center frequency.(2)WPE and LTSA were combined with the new EVMD and applied to underwater SRN signals for the first time.(3)The proposed EVMD-WPE-LTSA was successfully applied, and extracted the features of the underwater acoustic signals. Compared with other algorithms, EVMD-WPE-LTSA had a higher recognition rate and better classification performance at the cost of computational time.A novel multi-stage feature extraction method for underwater acoustic signals is proposed in this paper based on combining the new EVMD method with WPE and LTSA. The main innovations and contributions of this work can be summarized as follows:The EVMD algorithm proposed in this paper to overcome the shortage of the VMD performed accurately in the field of underwater acoustic communication. Nevertheless, this paper only addresses the VMD mode number. In future, the optimization between both the model number and the quadratic penalty term will be considered to obtain high decomposition accuracy for the EVMD. Also, we will try to reduce the computation complexity.


Nondestructive magnetic measurement methods can be successfully applied to determine the embrittlement of nuclear pressure vessel steel caused by neutron irradiation. It was found in previous works that reasonable correlation could be obtained between the nondestructively measured magnetic parameters and destructively determined ductile-to-brittle transition temperature. However, a large scatter of the measurement points was detected even in the cases of the non-irradiated reference samples. The reason for their scattering was attributed to the local inhomogeneity of material. This conclusion is verified in the present work by applying three different magnetic methods on two sets of Charpy samples made of two different reactor steel materials. It was found that by an optimal magnetic pre-selection of samples, a good, linear correlation can be found between magnetic parameters as well as the ductile-to-brittle transition temperature with low scattering of points. This result shows that neutron irradiation embrittlement depends very much on the local material properties. Nuclear power plants (NPPs) have a key role within the energy production landscape. An extremely important aspect is their safety, so inspection of a power plant’s integrity is crucial, especially for the long-term operation. The most important part of the pressurized and boiling water reactors is the reactor pressure vessel (RPV). Their primary aging process is the irradiation generated material embrittlement and it is one of the most important lifetime limiting factors. This process, caused by the influence of the long-term and high-energy neutrons, generates changes in the mechanical properties , which aIn several recent works, different nondestructive magnetic methods have been applied for detection of neutron irradiation generated embrittlement of nuclear reactor pressure vessel material. One of them is the so called magnetic adaptive testing, MAT based on the measurement of minor magnetic hysteresis loops ,5. AnothThe general conclusion of these efforts was that a reasonable correlation had been found between the nondestructively measured magnetic parameters and the destructively measured DBTT if the above mentioned methods are applied ,9,10. ItThe possible reason of this big scatter has been interpreted in a recent paper . An impoConsidering the importance of these results for the future potential application of magnetic measurements and even for the whole nuclear industry, the results should be verified carefully. This is the purpose of the present work: Two series of standard Charpy samples made of two different types of RPV steel were measured both before and after neutron irradiation, and the three different magnetic measurement methods were applied systematically on the same specimens. The outcomes of these non-destructive methods have been evaluated jointly.For our investigations, two types of RPV materials were chosen, an Eastern RPV material (15Kh2NMFA) and a Western RPV material (A508 Cl.2). ISO-V Charpy samples were manufactured at SCK CEN ,13 by cuThe chemical composition of the samples are given in 19 n/cm2 and 7.90 × 1019 n/cm2.The as-received samples’ microstructure of is a mixed tempered ferrite–bainite structure. As an illustration, typical microstructures of the two investigated materials, performed on non-irradiated samples are shown in Four Charpy samples for each irradiation condition were investigated. The irradiated samples were nondestructively tested. After that, destructive mechanical tests were performed. They were investigated by an instrumented pendulum (ISO 148-1 and ASTM E23) for the as-received non-irradiated and neutron irradiated materials.The DBTT  can be determined by a series of Charpy impact tests carried out at different temperatures of the test set specimens. The transition temperature curve itself is determined by mathematical regression analysis, since a-priory unknown temperature value is to be derived which value becomes available just following the physical experiments. However, this statistical approach fades out the differences between the single samples of the test set and instead, provides a single DBTT value for the whole test specimen set. In addition, note the scattering of all measurements along the whole transition function to be fitted is relevant from a DBTT perspective, but only the measurement uncertainties of this transition curve around the point it by passes the 41J criteria or, where it has a slope. For instance, the scattering of the upper shelf energy (USE) is irrelevant in this case.The scattering of the impact tests and the results of the regression analysis can be seen in Altogether 13 samples from 15Kh2NMFA material were measured before and after neutron irradiation, samples Nos. 166, 167, 168, 169, 171, 172, 173, 175, 176, 178, 181, 183, 185, and 11 samples from A508 Cl.2 material Nos. 572, 573, 575, 578, 579, 581, 583, 586, 587, 588, 591.Magnetic adaptive testing (MAT) is a recently developed method of magnetic hysteresis measurement. The main point of this technique is that series of minor hysteresis loops are measured systematically, in contrast to the conventional hysteresis measurements, where major (saturation to saturation) hysteresis loops are recorded. The details of the measurement can be found in Reference . As it wSamples are measured by a magnetizing yoke, attached directly to the sample surface. The size of the yoke fits the size of samples. Measurement starts with a careful demagnetization of samples by decreasing amplitude alternating magnetizing field. Samples then magnetized by a magnetizing current with a triangular waveform, starting from zero and increasing the amplitude step-by-step. Permeability loops are detected by a pick-up coil, wounded around a yoke leg. In the case of linearly increasing the magnetizing current, the pick-up coil’s output signal changes proportionally with the differential magnetic permeability of the whole magnetic circuit.From points of the obtained minor permeability loops a permeability matrix is calculated and matrix elements are compared with the corresponding elements of the reference (in our case non irradiated) sample. From this, a big data pool is generated, and relevant parameters are chosen that characterize (with large sensitivity and simultaneously with good reproducibility) the modification of material properties due to different material degradation.As mentioned above, the first and most probable reason for the scatter of magnetic parameters vs. DBTT could be the error of magnetic measurement itself. In considering this, a careful analysis of MAT measurements was conducted. The result of this analysis is given in the Appendix of Reference : The errThe Fraunhofer Institute for Nondestructive Testing developed the 3MA approach  which allows materials characterization to determine industry-relevant characteristics , hardness, yield and ultimate strength and DBTT. This method is suitable for measurements on active materials in hot cells. The measuring principle is rested on the correlation between the mechanical properties of ferromagnetic materials and their magnetic properties. This correlation is connected with the microstructure interaction with both the magnetic structure  as well as the dislocations ,16.Eddy currents (EC) are generated in the material under the influence of AC magnetic field. They depend on the σ electrical conductivity and on the µ magnetic permeability of the material, and they result a magnetic field with opposite direction to the originally applied magnetic field. It means, that σ and µ of the material has an influence on the excitation coil’s impedance. This impedance is measured.Analysis of incremental permeability (IP) is a method of separating the magnetic permeability information from the electrical conductivity information. For application of this method, the material should be magnetized with a low-frequency AC magnetic field and a continuous EC impedance analysis should be performed at a higher frequency. Considering the change of the coil impedance as a function of the magnetic field strength leads to an incremental permeability plot. In such a way, a qualitative correlation of the impedance change throughout the magnetic hysteresis and the magnetic field strength at maximum permeability  is obtained.Harmonics analysis  of magnetizing current is used to describe the magnetic hysteresis behavior of the materials by applying one-sided access sensor. For this purpose, a magnetization electromagnet should be applied, which is driven by a sinusoidal voltage. A receiver coil measures the magnetizing current.The 3MA approach uses several parameters derived from three micromagnetic methods listed below :Eddy curThe impedance of the electromagnet coil changes as a consequence of the hysteretic correlation between the B magnetic flux density and H magnetizing field. In such a way, the current in the electromagnet contains harmonics, but it is not sinusoidal. The measured magnetizing current exhibits distortion due to the hysteresis in magnetic circuit. Fundamental and harmonic components can be numerically determined by a fast Fourier analysis, and thus distortions of the magnetizing current can be quantified. The harmonic components calculated by this procedure make possible the determination of the material properties.These methods differ in terms of the analysis depth and mechanisms and deliver more than 20 parameters, which correlate qualitatively with material properties. Generally, 3MA systems are consisting of a probe, which contains a magnetization unit with a coil to capture the magnetic response of the material, a 3MA device for the excitation of the magnetization and preprocessing the measuring signals via a PC for measurement control and data processing. Different material depths and areas can be investigated depending on the properties of the magnetization unit as well on the parameters of the measurement. Micromagnetic methods can therefore analyze a controllable fraction of the sample volume.The 3MA process should be calibrated on a calibration set of samples  ,18. For MBN, the magnetic Barkhausen noise (MBN) method is a mature non-destructive examination technique for microstructural modifications, observation of surface defects caused by abusive manufacturing processes and residual stress ,20,21. MMagnetic Barkhausen measurements were performed by using a Rollscan 350 MBN analyzer, equipped with a Stresstech general-purpose sensor . The magn is the total number of MBN signals obtained in the particular frequency range, and iy is the amplitude of the individual burst.Here The main instrumentation input parameters are voltage and frequency, and these are determined from voltage and frequency sweeps giving an optimum value for a specific material under test. In addition, the sinusoidal excitation field can be changed to a triangular one however sinusoidal was considered the optimum waveform for the tests carried out during this work. It should also be noted that the applied field frequency has an influence on the depth where the MBN reading is obtained. The lower the frequency the larger the measured depth. Between 0.01 mm and 1 mm penetration depth was achieved where a band pass filter of between 70 and 200 kHz was selected for channeling the pick-up signals of interest.Scatter of magnetic output responses vs. DBTT was also found with MBN. It was considered such scatter is due to the material microstructure differences as measurement uncertainty was minimized as much as possible, this is in terms of sensor pick-off, surface quality and applied force. The measurement testing regime used a three times sensor pick-off  followed by 5 measurements each time the sensor touched the surface of the material.a = −30 mA and hb = 1080 mA magnetic field values for 15kH2NMFA material and by ha = −780 mA and hb = 1200 mA values for A508 Cl.2. material. .In Similarly, the results of 3MA are shown in It is seen that irradiation caused salient measurable modification of magnetic parameters. Magnetic parameters are significantly affected by the material degradation that changes the DBTT and there is a more or less linear correlation between magnetic parameters and DBTT (except the MBN measurements performed on A508 Cl.2 samples). However, the most visible conclusion, drawn from all measurements is the big scatter of points, regardless of the actual measurement method.It can also seen very well in In As can be seen very well in the above graphs, the scatter of points is rather large in the normalized cases, too. This is proof that the scatter of points in In the above sections, the influence of neutron irradiation has been investigated as if all measured samples are taken into account. As already mentioned above, it has been found that even reference samples are different from the point of view of magnetic properties, so it is not surprising that they behave differently also after irradiation. In this section, the method of the selection of samples is presented, based on permeability measurements of the samples. In the following section, it will be shown how the correlation of magnetic parameters with DBTT looks if only the selected samples are taken into consideration.The selection of samples is based on measured permeability loops. Evidently this selection was made before any further evaluation of irradiated samples. These permeability loops were measured on reference samples (before irradiation). The criteria in this case was the similarity of the magnetic behavior. These samples were selected which were similar to each other from a magnetic point of view. A good characteristic is the maximal permeability, which can be determined easily from directly measured permeability loops. This means that this selection does not take into account the neutron irradiation generated material embrittlement, it reflects solely on the behavior of samples with initial conditions.It is emphasized that we did not use backward reasoning to decide which data points fit the best to our hypothesis. Clarifying this statement, the selection process is shown: (1) A large scatter of all magnetic parameters measured on irradiated and reference samples was observed. (2) Independently of the result of magnetic measurements, the magnetic behaviors of the reference samples were compared to each other. Several samples were found with very similar permeability curves. (3) The MAT, 3MA and MBN evaluations were made again, but only the selected, magnetically similar samples were taken into account. No information about the behavior of the irradiated samples was available, since selection was performed prior to irradiation.Selection reduces only the number of samples, which are taken into account. A serious argument for this selection is, that in the case of the 3MA and MBN method, this selection resulted in a very similar result as in the case of MAT method.The series of permeability loops measured on 15kH2NMFA samples are shown in the left side of Series of permeability loops measured on A508 Cl.2 samples are shown in In this section it is shown how the scatter of points is modified if the evaluation of magnetic parameters has been repeated taking into account only the magnetically pre-selected samples. Results are shown in By this analysis it has been proven that the experienced big scatter is connected with the different behavior of the samples, and the reason is not really the measurement errors of the applied magnetic methods.a = −30 mA, hb = 1080 mA for 15kH2NMFA and ha = 780 mA, hb = 1200 mA for A508 Cl.2) were used. Selection reduces only the number of samples, which are taken into account. A serious argument for this selection is, that in the case of 3MA and MBN method, this selection resulted in a very similar result as that in the case of the MAT method.It should be emphasized that MAT descriptors were determined for all the samples independently, before any selection and later any time see  the sameIf we compare We have found relevant differences in magnetic behavior, which resulted in big scatter in MAT, 3MA and also in MBN vs. DBTT plots. These differences are rather surprising and unexpected, because the samples were cut from the same block. As three different NDT methods indicated the differences, these can not be assigned to the uncertainity of any one of them, although the structure and chemical composition of the different samples should be the same. Describing this effect we cannot use any other word than ”inhomogeneity of the material”, without knowing anything about the character of inhomogeneity. This result is considered one of the most important messages of our work.In this paper we have presented figures about the scattering of the destructive mechanical tests and of the non-destructive magnetic measurements. Both types of experiments indicate that the source of the observed scattering is related to the differences between the tested specimens either from a mechanical or magnetic point of view. We cannot provide evidence that the scattering of the mechanical properties and of the magnetic features have identical causes. However, the quality of the linear relationship between the determined DBTT and the MAT, 3MA, and MBN values can be considered as a telling argument in this direction.We know that further analysis to verify the effect of the local inhomogeneity of the material is extremely important and perhaps this result would be crucial for the whole nuclear industry. We believe that if we call the attention of the scientific community to this fact, it is important by itself. Evidently, the work should be continued, and we want to do this.Neutron irradiation-generated embrittlement was investigated by three different types of nondestructive magnetic methods on two different types of reactor pressure vessel steel materials and the results were compared with the destructively measured transition temperature. A reasonable correlation was found between magnetic parameters and DBTT, which can be used in future potential applications to estimate DBTT from the results of magnetic measurement. A good correlation was found, as well, between the results obtained by the different methods.Verification of MAT measurements;Proving that the former MAT result is not methodology dependent;Proving that the former MAT result is not material dependent.The present work is considered as a direct continuation of Reference . In thisA common feature of different techniques—large scatter of points—was also analyzed. As an explanation, this scatter was attributed to the local material inhomogeneity. It was shown that the measurement error is not responsible for the scatter. It was clearly demonstrated in these experiments that, if the behavior of the reference (non-irradiated) samples are similar to each other, the irradiation-induced embrittlement can be determined very well, and in this case the scatter of the magnetic parameters is very low.One of the most important conclusions of this work is, that the parameters determined by magnetic measurements seem to characterize better the neutron generated material embrittlement than the conventionally used destructive methods. The scatter of the magnetic results is lower than the scatter of the Charpy tests. In addition, the magnetic method characterized the actual, individual samples, in contrary to the transition temperature values determined by the Charpy impact testing methods, which can provide only statistical values on the set of samples.Another important conclusion is that local material inhomogeneities have a great influence on the neutron irradiation-induced material embrittlement. Different parts of the reactor pressure vessel, even if they are cut from the same larger block, are hardened differently. Taking into account the measurement conditions’ analysis, local material conditions can be responsible for the different neutron irradiation generated embrittlement of the pressure vessel steel material caused by the same dosage of neutron irradiation.These facts mean a telling argument for the application of non-destructive magnetic measurements in the reactor industry for future operations.