Nowadays in clinical practice there is a pressing need for potential biomarkers that can identify lung cancer at early stage before becoming symptomatic or detectable by conventional means. Several researchers have independently pointed out that the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) profile can be considered as a lung cancer fingerprint useful for diagnosis. In particular, 16% of volatiles contributing to the human volatilome are found in urine, which is therefore an ideal sample medium. Its analysis through non-invasive, relatively low-cost and straightforward techniques could offer great potential for the early diagnosis of lung cancer. In this study, urinary VOCs were analysed with a gas chromatography-ion mobility spectrometer (GC-IMS) and an electronic nose (e-nose) made by a matrix of twelve quartz microbalances (QMBs) complemented by a photoionization detector (PID). This clinical prospective study involved 127 individuals, divided into two groups: 46 with lung cancer stage I-II-III confirmed by computerized tomography (CT) or positron emission tomography—(PET) imaging techniques and histology (biopsy), and 81 healthy controls. Both instruments provided a multivariate signal which, after being analysed by a machine learning algorithm, identified eight VOCs that could distinguish lung cancer patients from healthy ones. The eight VOCs are 2-pentanone, 2-hexenal, 2-hexen-1-ol, hept-4-en-2-ol, 2-heptanone, 3-octen-2-one, 4-methylpentanol, 4-methyl-octane. Results show that GC-IMS identifies lung cancer with respect to the control group with a diagnostic accuracy of 88%. Sensitivity resulted as being 85%, and specificity was 90% - Area Under the Receiver Operating Characteristics (AUROC): 0.91. The contribution made by the e-nose was also important, even though the results were slightly less sensitive with an accuracy of 71.6%. Moreover, of the eight VOCs identified as potential biomarkers, five VOCs had a high sensitivity (p≤ 0.06) for early stage (stage I) lung cancer.

An investigation of extended depth-of-field camera with optimized phase mask and digital restoration is presented. The goal of this paper is to implement the wavefront coding technique without affecting much of the original design, and the design has taken the complexity of imaging system into consideration. The optimized strength of cubic phase mask (CPM) is based on the analytical optimal solution for the task-based imaging system [J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 25, 1064 (2008)]. The noisy intermediate images of CPM system with highest spatial frequency of interest can be effectively restored by vector-based Richardson-Lucy algorithm. Restoration from the system with generalized CPM produces precise image position than the system with CPM does. In general, the CPM system procures modulation transfer function higher than 0.195 in the whole depth-of-field, and the mean squared error of the restored images are less than 5 %.

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Cubic phase wavefront coding technique is applied to an imaging system with the aim of extending the depth of field (DOF). The design is based on the wavefront coding method proposed by Dowski and Cathey 1. The method employs a cubic phase mask (CPM) to modify the point spread function (PSF) of the imaging system under incoherent illumination such that the PSF of the system is formed as an isosceles right triangle, which makes the PSF insensitive to defocus. Researchers have found the optimized values of cubic phase coefficient and the exit pupil distance for the given specifications for solving wavefront coded task-based imaging problem 2. The extended DOF design is usually based on placing a phase mask exactly in the pupil plane of the imaging system. However, this is not always practical because the complex design of the imaging system leads to a limited practical advantage of this kind of arrangement. In this work, the influence of phase mask position upon wavefront coding technique in the doublet imaging system is studied. The main goal is to find the position where to place the CPM in the imaging system, which type of arrangement can effectively improve the modulation transfer function. Finally, we compare two system configurations, front aperture stop and rear aperture stop in designing the doublet wavefront coded system.