arXiv subjects

Minliang Liu

Publications and source records attributed to Minliang Liu.

6 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Structural Stress as a Predictor of the Rate and Spatial Location of Aortic Growth in Uncomplicated Type B Aortic Dissection

Accurate prediction of aortic expansion in uncomplicated type B aortic dissection (TBAD) can help identify patients who may benefit from timely thoracic endovascular aortic repair. This study investigates associations between biomechanical predictors derived from reduced-order fluid-structure interaction (FSI) analysis and aortic growth outcomes. Baseline and follow-up CT images from 30 patients with uncomplicated TBAD were obtained. For each patient, a reduced-order FSI analysis using the forward penalty stress computation method was performed on the baseline geometry. Aortic growth was quantified by registering baseline and follow-up surfaces using nonrigid registration. Mixed-effects linear and logistic regression analyses were performed to assess relationships between structural stress, wall shear stress (WSS), pressure and growth rate while accounting for inter-patient variability. Group comparison analyses were performed to evaluate spatial distributions of these biomechanical variables along the dissected aorta between patient groups categorized by optimal medical therapy (OMT) and aortic growth outcomes. Linear regression revealed a positive association between structural stress and aortic growth rate (p = 0.0003) and a negative association for WSS (p = 0.0227). Logistic regression yielded area under the receiver operator characteristic curve (AUCs) of 0.7414, 0.5953, 0.4991, and 0.6845 for structural stress, WSS, pressure, and aortic diameter, respectively. Group comparisons showed significant regional differences in structural stress, but not in diameter, WSS, or pressure, between groups defined by aortic growth and OMT outcomes. These results indicate that structural stress is a promising predictor of both the rate and location of aortic growth in uncomplicated TBAD, which supports its use in risk stratification models to identify patients at higher risk of TBAD progression.

physics.med-ph↗

arXiv2025

Shape Deformation Networks for Automated Aortic Valve Finite Element Meshing from 3D CT Images

Accurate geometric modeling of the aortic valve from 3D CT images is essential for biomechanical analysis and patient-specific simulations to assess valve health or make a preoperative plan. However, it remains challenging to generate aortic valve meshes with both high-quality and consistency across different patients. Traditional approaches often produce triangular meshes with irregular topologies, which can result in poorly shaped elements and inconsistent correspondence due to inter-patient anatomical variation. In this work, we address these challenges by introducing a template-fitting pipeline with deep neural networks to generate structured quad (i.e., quadrilateral) meshes from 3D CT images to represent aortic valve geometries. By remeshing aortic valves of all patients with a common quad mesh template, we ensure a uniform mesh topology with consistent node-to-node and element-to-element correspondence across patients. This consistency enables us to simplify the learning objective of the deep neural networks, by employing a loss function with only two terms (i.e., a geometry reconstruction term and a smoothness regularization term), which is sufficient to preserve mesh smoothness and element quality. Our experiments demonstrate that the proposed approach produces high-quality aortic valve surface meshes with improved smoothness and shape quality, while requiring fewer explicit regularization terms compared to the traditional methods. These results highlight that using structured quad meshes for the template and neural network training not only ensures mesh correspondence and quality but also simplifies the training process, thus enhancing the effectiveness and efficiency of aortic valve modeling.

eess.IV↗

arXiv2024

Robust automated calcification meshing for biomechanical cardiac digital twins

Calcification has significant influence over cardiovascular diseases and interventions. Detailed characterization of calcification is thus desired for predictive modeling, but calcified heart meshes for physics-driven simulations are still often reconstructed using manual operations. This poses a major bottleneck for large-scale adoption of computational simulations for research or clinical use. To address this, we propose an end-to-end automated meshing algorithm that enables robust incorporation of patient-specific calcification onto a given heart mesh. The algorithm provides a substantial speed-up from several hours of manual meshing to $\sim$1 minute of automated computation, and it solves an important problem that cannot be addressed with recent template registration-based heart meshing techniques. We validated our final calcified heart meshes with extensive simulations, demonstrating our ability to accurately model patient-specific aortic stenosis and Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement. Our method may serve as an important tool for accelerating the development and usage of physics-driven simulations for cardiac digital twins.

cs.CE↗

arXiv2023

Variation of Tensor Force due to Nuclear Medium Effect

The enhancement of $J^π(T)$=3$^{+}$(0) state with isospin $T=0$ excited by the tensor force in the free $^{6}$Li nucleus has been observed, for the first time, relative to a shrinkable excitation in the $^{6}$Li cluster component inside its host nucleus. Comparatively, the excitation of $J^π(T)$=0$^{+}$(1) state with isospin $T=1$ for these two $^{6}$Li formations take on an approximately equal excitation strength. The mechanism of such tensor force effect was proposed due to the intensive nuclear medium role on isospin $T$=0 state.

nucl-ex↗

arXiv2023

Aspect of Clusters Correlation at Light Nuclei Excited State

The correlation of $αα$ was probed via measuring the transverse momentum $p_{T}$ and width $δp_{T}$ of one $α$, for the first time, which represents the spatial and dynamical essentialities of the initial coupling state in $^{8}$Be nucleus. The weighted interaction vertex of 3$α$ reflected by the magnitudes of their relative momentums and relative emission angles proves the isosceles triangle configuration for 3$α$ at the high excited energy analogous Hoyle states.

nucl-ex↗

arXiv2023

Multi-alpha Boson Gas state in Fusion Evaporation Reaction and Three-body Force

The experimental evidence for the $α$ Boson gas state in the $^{11}$C+$^{12}$C$\rightarrow$$^{23}$Mg$^{\ast}$ fusion evaporation reaction is presented. By measuring the $α$ emission spectrum with multiplicity 2 and 3, we provide insight into the existence of a three-body force among $α$ particles. The observed spectrum exhibited distinct tails corresponding to $α$ particles emitted in pairs and triplets consistent well with the model-calculations of AV18-UX and chiral effective field theory of NV2-3-la*, indicating the formation of $α$ clusters with three-body force in the Boson gas state.

nucl-ex↗