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In this paper, we provide a sparse image restoration algorithm with a SSIM-based objective function. The proposed technique is a modification to the SSIM-inspired OMP (iOMP) and, and it has two parallel sparse restoration paths. One of them is L 2 -sense OMP and the other is SSIM -sense OMP (iOMP). Both paths intersects only at the starting point and gives different quality levels after each iteration. This distinction enables us to select the coefficients of the best quality and to avoid the uncertainty issue of iOMP. From the point of view of the SSIM levels, the conducted experiments proved that, the proposed methodology works better than iOMP and OMP. Also, the performance of this method is checked for significance by the t-test, and the obtained results proved that the method works well especially for large images and the data-independent based dictionary.

In the last five years, the medical community was astonishingly surprised by the sequential large outcome trials that displayed the renal effects of sodium glucose co-transporter inhibitors (SGLT2Is) in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) patients with or without chronic kidney disease (CKD). This favorable effect was later disclosed in non-diabetic CKD patients. The EMPA-REG OUTCOME trial was the first trial that showed a reduction for the need for dialysis in patients suffering diabetic kidney disease (DKD) by 55%. This figure is double the score achieved by the angiotensin receptor blocker, Losartan, in RENAAL trial. The need for dialysis in DAPA-CKD trial was reduced in diabetic and non-diabetic CKD patients by 33%. The renal-specific composite outcome was reduced by 39% in EMPA-REG trial, 40% in CANVAS study, 47% in DECLARE-TIMI 58 study, 34% in CREDENCE trial, and 44% in DAPA-CKD trial. The greater surprise is the significant favorable effect of SGLT2Is on overall mortality in CKD patients with or without T2DM. Similar survival benefit was not previously encountered with any of the medications used in CKD patients with or without diabetes. In this review, we disclose the results of the DAPA-CKD trial, the CREDENCE trial and those of several cardiovascular outcome trials (CVOT) that used different SGLT2Is and showed that patients with lower eGFR levels may have greater benefit with respect to cardiovascular morbidity than patients with normal kidney function. In addition, we discuss the different mechanisms of action that explain the renal beneficial effects of SGLT2Is.

BACKGROUND: It is controversial if the type or the size of aortic dissection is associated with the mortality in patients with acute aortic dissection (AAD) type I or type II according to DeBakey. Due to the pronounced aortic pathology in DeBakey type I compared to DeBakey type II, it is to be expected, that the DeBakey type I is associated with a significant higher morbidity and mortality. But we hypothesize that the current advances in surgical techniques, circulatory management, and postoperative care improve the clinical outcome of patients with DeBakey type I and II. The purpose of this study was to evaluate retrospectively the effect of these parameters on surgical outcome in patients with DeBakey type I and type II in a large cohort study. METHODS: From 2001 to 2019, 395 consecutive patients (34.2% female) underwent surgical aortic repair at our institution. Patients were retrospectively classified into 2 groups: patients with type 1 dissection (group 1: n=309, median age of 62.0 years) and patients with type 2 dissection (group 2: n=86, 67.5 years). Survival was estimated by Kaplan-Meier estimator. Risk factors were analyzed by logistic regression analysis. RESULTS: The patients in group 1 suffered significantly more often from coronary heart disease [43 (13.9%) vs. 20 (23.3%), P=0.036]. Otherwise, there were no significant differences between both groups concerning preoperative risk factors. The median surgical duration (279 vs. 263 min, P=0.026) and the circulatory arrest time (35 vs. 27 min, P

Nowadays, Internet of Things (IoT) is invading almost all sectors of life since it is based on connecting living or non-living things together through computer technology. It is responsible for connecting physical objects together through the internet. Healthcare and hospitals are one of the most important sectors that require a lot of attention to transfer their old form of documentation into SMART management systems. It is essential to analyze health data in order to increase the quality of patient’s care. Egypt being a development country is starting to substitute its old governmental systems into electronic SMART technology. IoT devices produce different types of data and transfer them to the cloud computing for storage and analysis. The benefits of using IoT in collecting, transferring, and analyzing patients’ data for the hospitals are attracting a lot of researchers. Therefore, the arrangement of smarter and more money saving healthcare services are becoming highly required. Security and privacy, device communication, and data collection and management are some of the challenges that face the IoT technology especially when used with hospital’s data. Accordingly, a proposed reference model for making SMART hospital management system is under construction in order to achieve the best performance. The model is taking into consideration both the functional and non-functional requirements of the different participants involved in the hospital management system.

Background: As sepsis is one of the life-threatening diseases, predicting sepsis with high accuracy could help save lives. Methods: Efficiency and accuracy of predicting sepsis can be enhanced through optimal feature selection. In this work, a support vector machine model is proposed to automatically predict a patient’s risk of sepsis based on physiological data collected from the ICU. Results: The support vector machine algorithm that uses the extracted features has a great impact on sepsis prediction, which yields the accuracy of 0.73. Conclusion: Predicting sepsis can be accurately performed using the main vital signs and support vector machine.

The rise of Deep Learning in the past two decades has prompted research into solutions to help improve Alzheimer’s diagnosis based on neuroimaging data. As such, a wide variety of different techniques have been used, but a clear turn towards the use of Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) has been observed in the last decade. To effectively predicate Alzheimer's Disease (AD), this paper proposed a two stage method. The first stage involves learning the best representation of the training data using an improved sparse autoencoder (SAE), an unsupervised neural network. The second stage involves using a 3D-Convolutional Neural Network (3D-CNN) to differentiate between the health status and diseased status based on the learned records and MRI scan of the brain. The SAE was optimized so as to train an efficient model. We report on experiments using the ADNI data set involving 897 historical scans. We demonstrate that using 3D convolutional neural networks with sparse auto encoder outperform several other classifiers stated in the literature.

BackgroundData regarding the safety and efficacy of flow diverting stents (FDS) in the treatment of middle cerebral artery (MCA) bifurcation aneurysms are scarce and limited to small single center series, with particular concern for increased risk of ischemic complications with jailing one of the M2 branches.MethodsProspectively-maintained databases at six North American and European centers were queried for patients harboring MCA bifurcation aneurysms undergoing treatment with FDS (2011–2018). The pertinent clinical and radiographic data were collected and analyzed.Results87 patients (median age 60 years, 69% females) harboring 87 aneurysms were included. The majority of aneurysms were unruptured (79%); 75.9% were saccular with a median maximal diameter of 8.5 mm. Radiographic imaging follow-up was available in 88.5% of cases at a median of 16.3 months post-treatment, showing complete occlusion in 59% and near complete occlusion (90–99%) in 18% of aneurysms. The overall rate of ischemic and hemorrhagic complications was 8% and 1.1%, respectively. Symptomatic and permanent complications were encountered in 5.7% and 2.3% of patients respectively, with retreatment pursued in 2.3% of patients. Jailed branch occlusion was detected in 11.5% of cases, with clinical sequelae in 2.3%. Last follow-up modified Rankin Scale of 0–2 was noted in 96.8% of patients. On multivariate analysis, male sex was the only independent predictor of aneurysmal persistence at last follow-up imaging (p=0.019).ConclusionFDS treatment for MCA bifurcation aneurysms is feasible, with comparable safety and efficacy profiles to other available endovascular options when utilized in carefully selected aneurysms. Jailing of M2 branches was not associated with a higher risk of post-procedural ischemic complications.

IntroductionThe Walrus balloon guide catheter (BGC) is a new generation of BGC, designed to eliminate conventional limitations during mechanical thrombectomy.ObjectiveTo report a multi-institutional experience using this BGC for proximal flow control (PFC) in the setting of carotid artery angioplasty/stenting (CAS) in elective (eCAS) and tandem strokes (tCAS).MethodsProspectively maintained databases at 8 North American centers were queried to identify patients with cervical carotid disease undergoing eCAS/tCAS with a Walrus BGC.Results110 patients (median age 68, 64.6% male), 80 (72.7%) undergoing eCAS and 30 (27.3%) tCAS procedures, were included (median cervical carotid stenosis 90%; 46 (41.8%) with contralateral stenosis). Using a proximal flow-arrest technique in 95 (87.2%) and flow-reversal in 14 (12.8%) procedures, the Walrus was navigated into the common carotid artery successfully in all cases despite challenging arch anatomy (31, 28.2%), with preferred femoral access (103, 93.6%) and in monitored anesthesia care (90, 81.8%). Angioplasty and distal embolic protection devices (EPDs) were used in 91 (83.7%) and 58 (52.7%) procedures, respectively. tCAS led to a modified Thrombolysis in Cerebral Infarction 2b/3 in all cases. Periprocedural ischemic stroke (up to 30 days postoperatively) rate was 0.9% (n=1) and remote complications occurred in 2 (1.8%) cases. Last follow-up modified Rankin Scale score of 0–2 was seen in 95.3% of eCAS cohort, with no differences in complications in the eCAS subgroup between PFC only versus PFC and distal EPD (median follow-up 4.1 months).ConclusionWalrus BGC for proximal flow control is safe and effective during eCAS and tCAS. Procedural success was achieved in all cases, with favorable safety and functional outcomes on short-term follow-up.

Multimodal biometric systems roughly used to achieve extreme recognition accuracy. This paper reports a novel multimodal biometric system employing intelligent technique to authenticate human by fusion of dorsal hand, palm and finger veins pattern. We improved an image analysis technique to separate region of interest (ROI) from dorsal hand, palm and finger veins image. After separating ROI we construct a sequence of preprocessing steps to enhance dorsal hand, palm and finger veins images using Median filter, Wiener filter, Contrast Limited Adaptive Histogram Equalization (CLAHE) and Homomorphic filter to improve vein image. Our intelligent technique is based on the following intelligent algorithms, namely; principal component analysis (PCA) algorithm for feature extraction and k-Nearest Neighbors (K-NN) classifier for matching operation. The database selected was Bosphorus Hand Vein Database, CASIA Multi-Spectral Palmprint Image Database V1.0 (CASIA database) and the Shandong University Machine Learning and Applications - Homologous Multi-modal Traits (SDUMLA-HMT). The accomplished result for the fusion of three biometric traits was Correct Recognition Rate (CRR) is 99.21% with False Reject Rate (FRR) 0.04%.

Lettuce (Lactuca spp.) is an annual and self-pollinating crop that belongs to the Asteraceae (Compositae) family. It is one of the most globally essential commercial vegetable crops, used in salads and sandwiches. The lettuce leaves are used to make a cigarette without nicotine. Seeds and stems contain edible oil and dried latex. Gene banks have conserved a large pool of lettuce's genetic resources, including wild Lactuca species with the same chromosome numbers 2n = 2x = 18. Lactuca species vary greatly in terms of geographical distribution and morpho-agronomic characteristics. By crossing commercial varieties with locally adapted varieties, novel alleles can be introduced, increasing genetic diversity and making preselection for desirable traits easier. Lettuce breeders and geneticists' main objectives are to improve lettuce for various desirable traits, including tolerance to abiotic and biotic stress and high yield. These targets accomplished with modern genomics tools together with traditional breeding methods. This chapter discusses lettuce conservation and biodiversity, stages of lettuce breeding, agriculture practices, and conventional breeding techniques and their restrictions. It also includes modern plant breeding tools and marker-assisted breeding, editing of genome, and genetic engineering.

Multimodal biometric systems have been widely used to achieve high recognition accuracy. This paper presents a new multimodal biometric system using intelligent technique to authenticate human by fusion of finger and dorsal hand veins pattern. We developed an image analysis technique to extract region of interest (ROI) from finger and dorsal hand veins image. After extracting ROI we design a sequence of preprocessing steps to improve finger and dorsal hand veins images using Median filter, Wiener filter and Contrast Limited Adaptive Histogram Equalization (CLAHE) to enhance vein image. Our smart technique is based on the following intelligent algorithms, namely; principal component analysis (PCA) algorithm for feature extraction and k-Nearest Neighbors (K-NN) classifier for matching operation. The database chosen was the Shandong University Machine Learning and Applications - Homologous Multi-modal Traits (SDUMLA-HMT) and Bosphorus Hand Vein Database. The achieved result for the fusion of both biometric traits was Correct Recognition Rate (CRR) is 96.8%.

Background: Albuminuria is considered the gold standard of onset and progression of diabetic nephropathy (DN). Higher levels of serum insulin may decrease uric acid clearance by the kidneys leading to hyperuricemia, which has injurious effect on kidneys. Objective: To evaluate the frequency and relationship of uric acid to different levels of albuminuria in type II diabetes mellitus. Patients and Method: This cohort study included 56 T2DM patients classified according to stages of DN into: Group I that including 12 patients with normoalbuminuria, group II included 26 patients with microalbuminuria, and group III including 18 patients with macroalbuminuria. All of them were evaluated for serum creatinine and albumin, CBC, ACR, UAE, HbA1c, ESR, Serum TSH and serum uric acid (SUA). Results: Hyperurecemia frequency was (62.5%) and it had highly statistical significant difference with albuminuria in the three studied groups. There was strong significant positive correlation of SUA with UAE (p < 0.014), Cr (p < 0.037), ACR (p < 0.006), HbA1c (p < 0.017) in macroalbuminuria and UAE (p < 0.042) and ACR (p < 0.043) in microalbuminuria group, and TLC (p < 0.024) in normoalbuminuria group. While there was a significant negative correlation between UA with albumin (p < 0.029) in macroalbuminuria group. Conclusions: Hyperinsulinemia and chronic inflammation associated with type IIDM leads to hyperuricemia, which had high frequency in our study (62.5%) and carry a hazardous effect on kidney function contributing to progressive increase of albuminuria. So we must search for management of elevated UA in these patients to delay onset & progression of its morbidity.

Improving classification performance is one of the main challenges in a variety of real-world applications. Unfortunately, classification models are sensitive to undesirable features of data such as redundant and irrelevant features. Feature selection (FS) is a powerful solution to address the negative effect of these features. Among various methods, Feature selection based on mutual information (MI) is an effective method to select the significant features and deny the undesirable ones. Although most of the existing methods can estimate the feature relevancy efficiently, they may find difficulty to estimate the feature redundancy well. This is due to the individual estimation between the candidate feature and the features of pre-selected subset. To address this limitation, this paper introduces a novel feature selection method, called Fuzzy Joint Mutual Information (FJMI). The proposed method also overcomes common limitations as dealing with continuous feature without information loss and returns the best feature subset automatically without a user-defined threshold. To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed method, FJMI is compared with six conventional and state-of-the-art feature selection methods. The experimental results on 16 benchmark datasets, with moderate size, show a promising improvement by the proposed method in terms of classification performance, feature selection stability, and number of selected features.

Background: Angiographic no-reflow phenomenon, areduced coronary antegrade flow (TIMI flow grade

The physiological changes in G. mellonella larvae treated with unirradiated and 2 Gy gamma irradiated S. carpocapsae had been investigated. The results indicated that S. carpocapsae exhibited a significant decrease in the total body concentrations of proteins, lipids, carbohydrates and urea of 5th larval of G. mellonella with increasing the infection incubation period. Moreover, the decrease in the concentration of these total body metabolic products was greatly remarkable in larvae infected with gamma irradiated S. carpocapsae. In contrast, the results revealed that S. carpocapsae caused a significant increase in the acid phospatase and chitinase activity of the total body of 5th larval instar of G. mellonella with increasing the treatment time. Which was greatly remarkable in larvae treated with gamma irradiated S. carpocapsae. Protein bands at different time intervals for all tested treatments revealed the absence of some bands, appearance of new bands and changes in the intensity of the bands. Therefore, it could be concluded that gamma irradiation of S. carpocapsae increased it’s efficacy and can be used in pest control.

This paper focuses on the problems of data clustering where the similarity between different objects is estimated with the use of the Euclidean distance metric. Also, K-Means is used to remove data noise, genetic algorithms are used for finding the optimal set of features and the Support Vector, Machine (SVM) is used as a classifier. The experimental results prove that the proposed model has attained an accuracy of 94.79 % when using three datasets taken from the UCI repository.

Background Different therapeutic modalities have been tried for hypertrophic scar treatment. To our knowledge, intense pulsed light (IPL) has not been previously evaluated in comparison with cryotherapy as a stand-alone treatment for hypertrophic scars. Objective We aimed to evaluate the efficacy of IPL as a monotherapy for hypertrophic scar treatment as compared with cryotherapy both clinically and histopathologically. Methods This study included 28 patients with hypertrophic scars. Patients were divided randomly and equally into two groups; group I patients received cryotherapy while group II patients received IPL. All patients received treatments for a total of six sessions or until resolution of the lesion whichever was nearer. The outcome was evaluated clinically and histopathologically. Results Scar height showed a significant decrease and scar color and pliability showed a significant improvement in group I. No significant changes were detected in group II except in scar pliability. Vancouver scar scale (VSS) mean decreased by -53.7% in group I versus -11.5% decrease in group II. Histopathologically, group I showed a significantly increased epidermal thickness and decreased dermal and collagen bundle thickness, while group II showed insignificant histopathological changes. Group I exhibited a statistically significant clinical and histopathological improvement compared to group II, yet with more complications. Conclusion Cryotherapy is more effective than IPL in the treatment of hypertrophic scars both on clinical and histopathological level yet with more complications.

This article presents a high temperature model for gallium nitride (GaN) high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) on silicon carbide (SiC). The proposed model for the channel resistance $\text {R}_{\text {ds}}$ is based on an empirical nonlinear model. The model is applied to design a resistive mixer of a high temperature transceiver for downhole communications through a systematic approach and estimate the performance of the mixer. The proposed model matches well with measurement results of the mixer and accurately estimates its performance at temperatures up to 250 °C. The model is also applied to obtain the optimal gate bias voltage of the mixer for a given temperature. The optimal bias voltage scheme reduces the conversion loss of the mixer by a factor of 8.4 dB at 250 °C under the local oscillator power of −10 dBm.

Altered miRNAs play a crucial role in the emergence of the breast cancer stem cell (BCSC) phenotype. The interplay between miRNAs and methylation enzymes has been documented. One of the most aggressive breast cancer cell lines, MDA-MB-231, has expressed much more DNMT3B than DNMT3A. This study aims to evaluate the ability of miR-203 restoration and miR-150 inhibition to regulate DNMT3B and DNMT3A to modify the methylation level of BCSC-associated genes. MDA-MB-231 cells were transfected with miR-203 mimic or miR-150 inhibitor or DNMT3B siRNA, and downstream analysis was performed by flow cytometry, real-time PCR and Western blotting. DNMT3A and DNMT3B are regulated both by miR-203a-3p and miR-150-5p. Transfection with miR-203 mimic and miR-150 inhibitor significantly reduced the CD44+CD24− subpopulation and down-regulated the expression of CD44 mRNA by increasing promoter methylation levels. SiRNA knockdown of DNMT3B increased the CD44+CD24− subpopulation and the expression of CD44 and ALDH1A3 by decreasing methylation density. The inhibition of miR-150 down-regulated OCT3/4 and SOX2 expression without affecting methylation levels, while miR-203 restoration and miR-150 inhibition down-regulated NANOG expression by elevating the methylation level. A positive-feedback loop was found between miR-203 and its target DNMT3B, as restoring miR-203 suppressed DNMT3B, while knocking down DNMT3B up-regulated miR-203. The restoration of miR-203 and knockdown of DNMT3B decreased methylation levels and increased the expression of miR-141 and miR-200c. The study concluded that miR-203 and miR-150 play a role in the regulation of genes involved in BCSC methylation, including other miRNAs, by targeting DNMT3B and DNMT3A.

Assessment of corneal biomechanics for pre- and post-refractive surgery is of great clinical importance. Corneal biomechanics affect vision quality of human eye. Many factors affect corneal biomechanics such as, age, corneal diseases and corneal refractive surgery. There is a need for non-invasive in-vivo measurement of corneal biomechanics due to corneal shape preserving as opposed to ex-vivo measurements that destructs corneal tissue. In this study, a new approach for assessing corneal biomechanics in-vivo non-invasively using ultrasound estimation method with 100 KHz frame rate is proposed. Three models in conjunction with each other are used to study the biomechanics behavior of corneal tissue pre- and post-refractive surgery. These three models are cornea FEM, cornea scatterrer model and ultrasound transducer model respectively. Nine different elastic moduli corneal models are constructed to achieve this goal; 140KPa, 300KPa, 600KPa and 800KPa as post-refractive surgery models and 1MPa, 1.5MPa, 2MPa, 2.5MPa and 3MPa as pre-refractive surgery models respectively. Time-To-Peak (TTP) deformation, deformation amplitude (DA), deformation amplitude ratio at 2 mm (DA ratio 2 mm) and shear wave speed (SWS) are estimated for each of the nine involved corneal models in this study. Results show that TTP is decreasing (6.9 msec. at 140KPa to 5.3 msec. at 3MPa) while increasing the elastic modulus of corneal tissue. Also, DA is decreasing (2 mm at 140KPa to 0.5 mm at 3MPa), while increasing the elastic modulus as well. However, DA ratio shows decrease while increasing of elastic modulus to reflect the difficulty of corneal tissue to deform uniformly at higher elastic moduli. Estimated SWS shows an average accuracy of 98% of the theoretical SWS.

Aneurysm recurrence after Pipeline Embolization Device (PED) placement can be caused by oversizing of the stent as well as poor wall apposition, both of which can lead to elongation. The objective of this study was to assess whether a novel parameter for measuring device elongation based on two-dimensional imaging could be predictive for persistent aneurysm filling after treatment with the PED.A retrospective cohort analysis was initially completed on 41 aneurysms from institution A, examining demographic, aneurysmal, and device measurements. Device measurements, including the ratio of the measured length to the nominal length (ML/NL) of the PED, were taken by reviewers blinded to the primary end point, which was aneurysm occlusion status on 6 month catheter angiogram. Findings were then externally validated against 30 aneurysms (supraclinoid only) from institution B.Data from institution A showed 61% complete aneurysm occlusion at 6 months, and were lower for aneurysms in the supraclinoid region. For supraclinoid aneurysms alone, combined data from both institutions showed higher rates of nonocclusion with aneurysm neck size4 mm (P = 0.008) and a trend toward significance in aneurysms with a branch vessel (P = 0.051). The mean ML/NL ratio was significantly larger in the nonoccluded group compared with the occluded group at both institution A (ratio, 1.37 versus 1.10; P0.001) and institution B (ratio, 1.36 vs. 1.11; P = 0.002).Our data suggest that a novel parameter based on two-dimensional angiography may serve as a rapid technique to measure device elongation and predict occlusion of supraclinoid aneurysms after PED placement.

Increasing truck loads on Egyptian road network cause several pavement distresses. The most common distress types occurring in the Egyptian roads are rutting and cracking. Several research studies trials were conducted to control pavement distresses by mix enhancement, Several trials were done to eliminate pavement rutting by using some additives. However, although these additives increase rutting resistance, it increases the propagation of cracking. One of the cheapest methods for mix enhancement is to use waste materials such as crumb rubber, This study aims at investigating the effect of using crumb rubber on the properties of asphalt binder and evaluating asphalt concrete mixtures modified by crumb rubber for increasing pavement resistance to cracking. To achieve the study objectives, the properties of asphalt binder modified by certain ratios of crumb rubber were measured. Furthermore, Marshall test was conducted on standard mix without rubber as a reference and on two groups of asphalt concrete mixtures. In the first group crumb rubber was used instead of fine aggregate by certain percents. While in the second group, crumb rubber was used instead of certain asphalt percents. Finally, some special tests were performed to measure the different mix characteristics. These tests included loss of stability test, modulus of elasticity test, wheel tracking test and indirect tensile strength test. Analyzing the study results it can be concluded that the use of crumb rubber greatly enhance the pavement resistance to cracking. Finally the study recommended a proposed mix with 20% and 5% by weight instead of typical percents of sand and asphalt respectively.

Introduction: Dementia is one of the most important public health problems due to the increased prevalence among elderly all over the world. It is a syndrome caused by a number of progressive illnesses that affect memory, thinking, behavior and the ability to perform everyday activities. The aim of this study was to estimate the prevalence of Dementia and to identify its predictors in Sharkia Governorate.Population and method one sector from 5 sectors in Zagazig city at Sharkia governorate was chosen randomly. The study began in December 2017 to April 2018. During this period 1820 individuals were interviewed by the research team who visited the field 2–4 days a week. The study was conducted in three phases: (1) screening, (2) clinical diagnosis and (3) laboratory diagnostic phases.Result 1820 elder individuals were included in the study, 108 of them were positive by screening test. Most of them were females, more than 80 years old . 43.5% of neurodegenerative dementia were of moderate degree. it was found that the most significant predictors of neurodegenerative dementia were age ≥80 years (O.R=18.7, p < 0.05), Single or widow or divorced(O.R=1.98, p < 0.05), illiterate (O.R=6.7, p < 0.05),low social class(O.R=8.8,p < 0.05),smoking(O.R=3.03, p < 0.05),irregular mental and social activities (O.R=2.2,1.3 respectively, p < 0.05),hypertension and diabetes(O.R=4.7, p < 0.05), Hyperlipidemia (O.R=2.5, p < 0.05), Occupations or Environmental exposures(O.R=10.3, p < 0.05), Living alone(O.R=2.07, p < 0.05) and Family history of dementia(O.R=7.7, p < 0.05).

Background It was difficult to compare the outcome of partial nephrectomy among different studies due to the absence of standardized description of different renal masses. This problem led to the development of nephrometry scoring systems. R.E.N.A.L. is among the commonest nephrometry scoring systems; however, some studies failed to find any relation between R.E.N.A.L. with perioperative outcome. We evaluated our designed newly modified nephrometry score in prediction of outcome following partial nephrectomy and compared its predictability versus original R.E.N.A.L. Methods Fifty-one patients with cT1-2N0M0 renal masses amenable for partial nephrectomy were included prospectively. Different perioperative outcome variables were compared according to complexity level in R.E.N.A.L. and the newly modified nephrometry score. Results Clinical staging was T1a (21.6%), T1b (49%), T2a (25.5%), T2b (3.9%). Median R.E.N.A.L. was 9 (4–12). Hilar position and intrarenal pelvis were detected in 19.6% and 68.6%. Low, moderate and high complexity masses were found in 21.6%, 39.2% and 39.2%. Complications and rate of conversion to radical nephrectomy were 17 (33.3%) and 4 (7.8%). The only significantly affected variable (p = 0.039) by R.E.N.A.L. was rate of secondary intervention, but it was higher in low than in high complexity level. In the newly modified nephrometry score, complications (p = 0.037) and rate of positive surgical margin (p = 0.049) were significantly higher with increased complexity level. Although other variables (pelvi-calyceal system entry, operative time, blood loss, hemoglobin loss, blood transfusion and conversion to radical nephrectomy) did not show statistically significant difference according to both scores, they were better associated with the complexity level in the newly modified nephrometry score with their remarkable increase in the high when compared to the low complexity level. Conclusions The newly modified nephrometry score was associated with better prediction of outcome of partial nephrectomy when compared to R.E.N.A.L.

Abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) is a disease of the elderly which may result in aneurysm rupture if not treated in a timely manner. The incidence of AAA has increased in part due to patient and physician education, ultrasound screening, and liberal use of computed tomography imaging in conjunction with an aging population. Endovascular aneurysm repair has become the preferred treatment for surgeons and interventionalists. When endografts are placed outside of device-specific instructions for use, the risk of endoleak development is significantly increased. Open surgical repair of Type Ia endoleaks is recommended when endovascular options have been exhausted. Open surgical repair of Type Ia endoleaks provides acceptable perioperative morbidity and mortality rates, long-term durability, and low reintervention rates when performed in the elective setting.

Nowadays, computers are extremely beneficial to music composers. Computer music generation tools are developed for aiding composers in producing satisfying musical pieces. The automation of music composition tasks is a challenging research point, specially to the field of Artificial Intelligence. Converting melodies that are played on a major scale to minor (or vice versa) is interesting to both composers and music listeners. Newly converted melodies of famous songs, either from major to minor or the opposite, are becoming blockbusters on the social media. In this paper we propose an intelligent method for automating the conversion between major and minor melodies using Artificial Intelligence techniques. We run our experiments on melodies in the MIDI format which is a standard music format enabling the communication between computers and various musical devices. We also propose a smart method for musical scale detection for the input melodies. Scale detection is a critical step for correctly converting between major and minor melodies. Additionally, this step is also important as a pre-processing step in various other music retrieval or transformation applications.

The term “fraud”, it always concerned about credit card fraud in our minds. And after the significant increase in the transactions of credit card, the fraud of credit card increased extremely in last years. So the fraud detection should include surveillance of the spending attitude for the person/customer to the determination, avoidance, and detection of unwanted behavior. Because the credit card is the most payment predominant way for the online and regular purchasing, the credit card fraud raises highly. The Fraud detection is not only concerned with capturing of the fraudulent practices, but also, discover it as fast as they can, because the fraud costs millions of dollar business loss and it is rising over time, and that affects greatly the worldwide economy. . In this paper we introduce 14 different techniques of how data mining techniques can be successfully combined to obtain a high fraud coverage with a high or low false rate, the Advantage and The Disadvantages of every technique, and The Data Sets used in the researches by researcher

Smart healthcare is of great interest to researchers and governments due to the increasing development of new smart cities. However, there is no current standard practice to format the cloud computing infrastructure and to assist the healthcare system architect in designing a comprehensive solution for the basic services that are required by the healthcare users while taking into consideration a balanced approach towards their specific functional and non-functional needs such as openness, scalability, concurrency, interoperability and security factors. The integration of smart healthcare services with cloud computing needs a concrete framework. The main objective of this paper is to analyze the different frameworks that discuss smart healthcare services and reach to a conclusion of the common factors to arrive at a unified and smart framework

Source Code Generation (SCG) is the sub-domain of the Automatic Programming (AP) that helps programmers to program using high-level abstraction. Recently, many researchers investigated many techniques to access SCG. The problem is to use the appropriate technique to generate the source code due to its purposes and the inputs. This paper introduces a review and an analysis related SCG techniques. Moreover, comparisons are presented for: techniques mapping, Natural Language Processing (NLP), knowledgebase, ontology, Specification Configuration Template (SCT) model and deep learning.

“Knowledge is power”… Writing is the main way to preserve the humanity knowledge across the ages. Therefore, an automatic and accurate mapping from ancient scripts to modern live language is a must to have. Such a system will support knowledge transfer, tourism and education. This article presents a new algorithm to segment and recognize the ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs from images and produce the corresponding English meaning. The algorithm used image processing along with Optical Character Recognition (OCR). Then, the meaning behind the image containing Hieroglyphs is interpreted based on the context of the mapped English sentence. Gardiner’s sign list is a standard list used to classify the Hieroglyphics symbols such that similar shapes are grouped in the same category. Hence, Hieroglyphics script is mapped to the English language. Hieroglyphics could be either read from left to right or from right to left based on the face orientation of the Hieroglyphic symbol. However, Gardiner’s code does not help to automate the reading direction of the Hieroglyphics script. In this work, an extension of the list is proposed to resolve the ambiguity in the reading direction. The results of the segmentation and recognition of Hieroglyphics symbols are demonstrated and compared to similar work for Chinese character recognition. Moreover, the results obtained from the state-of-the-art used in Hieroglyphic character recognition compared to the results obtained from the proposed algorithm on Hieroglyphic character are addressed. The mapped English sentence is then compared to some defined patterns. When a match is found, the input gets structured and reformatted accordingly. Tests on the defined patterns were conducted, and the results were successful, however, some additional results are generated that show equivalent synonyms to the input English sentence.

Stagnant blood flow and organizing thrombus are intralesional components of patients with cerebral cavernous malformations (CCM). Stasis and inflammation are mechanisms of growth, lesional instability and acute hemorrhages with or w/o symptoms. We evaluate the association of pre-diagnostic aspirin and/or statin use with acute hemorrhages at diagnosis. Patients with a CCM diagnosis were identified and categorized according to their medications on admission into four groups (no therapy, statin, aspirin, combined). The primary outcome was an acute hemorrhage (with or w/o symptoms) at diagnosis reported in a standardized manner from the T2 weighted magnetic resonance image. A multivariate generalized linear mixed models (GLMM) was utilized to conduct per-lesion analysis. We identified 446 patients with 635 lesions. An acute hemorrhage at diagnosis was observed in 31% of the patients. There were 328 patients without statin or aspirin therapy, 34% of whom presented with acute hemorrhage. Of patients on aspirin therapy at diagnosis, 25% presented with hemorrhage. Of patients on statin therapy, 26% had a hemorrhage at diagnosis. Combined therapy in 44 patients demonstrated a lower proportion of patients with acute hemorrhages (7 patients, 16% incidence). A GLMM showed that patients in the combined therapy group to have significantly lower odds of having an acute hemorrhage at diagnosis compared to the reference group of no therapy (OR 0.24; 95% CI 0.09–0.59; P = 0.002). Patients with a CCM receiving therapy with both aspirin and statins were less likely to present at diagnosis with acute hemorrhage.

Generally speaking, acute pancreatitis is a dreadful complication of the endoscopic retro-gradecholangio-pancreatography (ERCP). But, losartan was suggested to prevent the post-ERCP acutepancreatitis. Thus, this study evaluated the use of oral losartan in prevention of the post-ERCPpancreatitis. The study was conducted on 50 patients who received 50mg of oral losartan onehour before ERCP (Study group), and another 50 patients who underwent ERCP without losartanprophylaxis (Control group). Serum amylase and lipase were measured before and after ERCP.The results showed that two patients of the study group and one patient of the control one developedpost ERCP-pancreatitis in a total percent of 3%. The use of oral Losartan in a dose of 50mgan hour before the ERCP did not significantly decrease the incidence of pancreatitis. The ERCPduration was significantly longer among cases that developed pancreatitis in the study group.

The healthcare environment now provides the facility for patients to communicate with doctors from home via the Internet; this facility is very useful for seriously ill patients. Errors in medication are hazardous and can cause significant harm to patients; therefore, patient medication and information safety are essential issues in such a healthcare environment. To protect this sensitive information , an authentication protocol is needed. Moreover, in the context of sharing data including a patient's personal information, privacy leakage has become one of the most challenging issues in a telecare medicine information system (TMIS). In this paper, we propose a privacy-preserving radio frequency identification (RFID) authentication protocol based on the El-Gamal cryptosystem , for enhancing patient medication safety in a TMIS. The proposed protocol can achieve a number of security services and can also resist several types of attacks. We have also shown the results obtained by conducting an "Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocols and Applications" (AVISPA) simulation of our protocol. The simulation results verify that the proposed protocol is safe against active and passive attacks. The results of an informal security analysis also indicate that patient information is highly private, and the system is protected against possible related attacks. Our protocol is not only better in terms of protecting the privacy of patients but it also achieves better performance than similar existing protocols.

The technique of desalination seawater by humidification dehumidification process is considered a promising method for small capacity production plants. This process has many advantages such as operation at low temperature, ability to use the renewable energy sources and requirements of low technology level. The current work presents the results of a study on humidification dehumidification desalination system using the solar energy, in addition to a developed mathematical model consisting of the energy equations of each component to simulate the experimental work. The results show that there is a good agreement between the theoretical and experimental work. The results also reveal that there are effective values for the mass flow rate of air, mass flow rate ratio, and mass flow rate of feed water. The average productivity of the desalination system is 2.45 kg/h and the estimated cost per 1 L of fresh water is 0.047 US$. Finally, the results obtained from the present work are acceptable among those of previous studies.

OBJECTIVEThe Pipeline embolization device (PED) is a routine choice for the endovascular treatment of select intracranial aneurysms. Its success is based on the high rates of aneurysm occlusion, followed by near-zero recanalization probability once occlusion has occurred. Therefore, identification of patient factors predictive of incomplete occlusion on the last angiographic follow-up is critical to its success.METHODSA multicenter retrospective cohort analysis was conducted on consecutive patients treated with a PED for unruptured aneurysms in 3 academic institutions in the US. Patients with angiographic follow-up were selected to identify the factors associated with incomplete occlusion.RESULTSAmong all 3 participating institutions a total of 523 PED placement procedures were identified. There were 284 procedures for 316 aneurysms, which had radiographic follow-up and were included in this analysis (median age 58 years; female-to-male ratio 4.2:1). Complete occlusion (100% occlusion) was noted in 76.6% of aneurysms, whereas incomplete occlusion (≤ 99% occlusion) at last follow-up was identified in 23.4%. After accounting for factor collinearity and confounding, multivariable analysis identified older age (> 70 years; OR 4.46, 95% CI 2.30–8.65, p < 0.001); higher maximal diameter (≥ 15 mm; OR 3.29, 95% CI 1.43–7.55, p = 0.005); and fusiform morphology (OR 2.89, 95% CI 1.06–7.85, p = 0.038) to be independently associated with higher rates of incomplete occlusion at last follow-up. Thromboembolic complications were noted in 1.4% and hemorrhagic complications were found in 0.7% of procedures.CONCLUSIONSIncomplete aneurysm occlusion following placement of a PED was independently associated with age > 70 years, aneurysm diameter ≥ 15 mm, and fusiform morphology. Such predictive factors can be used to guide individualized treatment selection and counseling in patients undergoing cerebrovascular neurosurgery.

Background: The impact of hepatitis virus infection on arterial calcification (AC) was not studied. Objective: To study the prevalence, severity and distribution of AC in incident hemodialysis patients with hepatitis B and C viral infection. Cases and methods: 172 stage 5 CKD adults (98 male and 74 female) were included; 58 of them were seronegative for both hepatitis B and C (SN group), 48 were positive for hepatitis B virus infection (HBV group) and 66 were hepatitis C virus positive (HCV group). Beside histopathology of the obtained arterial samples, all these cases were examined for body mass index (BMI), serum calcium (Ca), phosphorus (P), alkaline phosphatase (AP), serum albumin, uric acid (UA), alanine transaminase (ALT), parathormone (PTH), fibroblast growth factor 23(FGF23), interleukin 6 (IL6), and 25 hydroxy vitamin D (25 (OH) vit D), hemoglobin concentration, and serum ferritin. Results: 86 (50%) of the cases had AC; 11 of them were in SN group (19%), 9 in HBV group (18.8%) and all the 66 HCV group (100%). In SN group, 4 had intimal calcification, 5 had medial calcification, and 2 had both intimal and medial calcification. In HBV group, 9 had intimal calcification, while no cases were encountered with either medial or both site calcifications. In HCV group, 16 had intimal calcification, 31 had medial calcification, and 19 had both intimal and medial calcification. Calcification was in the form of spots in one case in SN group, and 6 cases in HBV group, a single plaque of calcification in 5 cases of SN group, 3 cases of HBV group, and 16 cases of HCV group, multiple plaques were detected in 4 cases in SN group, and 31 cases in HCV group, and diffuse calcification in one case in SN group, and 19 cases in HCV group.In HBV group, calcification was only detected in patients with high viremia, while all patients with low or moderate viremia were devoid of calcification. In HCV group, all patients with low viremia had intimal solitary plaque of calcification, all patients with moderate viremia had multiple plaques of medial calcification, while all patients with high viremia had diffuse intimal and medial calcification. Both groups of viral hepatitis were significantly different in comparison to SN group in either distribution or calcification score (P

Background: Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a major cause of chronic liver disease, including cirrhosis and liver cancer. Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is a common comorbid condition in approximately one-third of individuals with chronic HCV infection. Objective: This study aimed at assessing the effect of the new direct acting antiviral drugs (DAAs) for chronic hepatitis C (HCV) on glycemic control of type 2 DM. Patients and method: This prospective cohort study was done on 32 diabetic patients with hepatitis C in the Internal Medicine Department, Al-Ahrar Teaching Hospital. The patients underwent history taking, clinical examination and laboratory studies including routine investigations and fasting blood glucose and glycosylated hemoglobin before and after treatment with direct antiviral agents (DDAs). Results: This study comprised 32 patients with diabetes. Their mean age was 57.65 ± 7.67 years. The females constituted (62.5%). There was statistically non-significant difference change before and after treatment regarding TLC, total bilirubin, HcvAb or HBSAG. There was statistically significant change between before and after treatment regarding hemoglobin, platelet count, prothrombin time (all of them increased after treatment), INR, s.creatinine, ALT and AST (all of them decreased after treatment). There was statistically significant difference between PCR1 and PCR 2 before and after treatment. All patients had negative PCR after treatment with complete response to DDAs. There was statistically significant decrease between FBG after treatment while there is significant decrease in HbA1c after treatment. Conclusion: HCV eradication leads to a statistically significant reduction in fasting glucose and HbA1c in patients with type 2 diabetes, which is an indirect indicator of improvement of insulin sensitivity in patients with T2DM.

Background Pipeline embolization device (PED; Medtronic) and stent-assisted coiling (SAC) are established modalities for treatment of intracranial aneurysms. Objective To comparatively assess the efficacy of these techniques. Methods We conducted a retrospective analysis of patients with aneurysms treated at our institution with either PED from 2013 to 2017 or SAC from 2009 to 2015. All large (>10 mm), ruptured, fusiform, anterior communicating artery, posterior circulation aneurysms, and patients with no available follow-up imaging were eliminated before running the propensity score matching (PSM). Patients were matched using nearest neighbor controlling for: age, gender, smoking, exact location, maximal diameter, and presence of multiple aneurysms. Total hospital costs for equipment and implants were calculated from procedure product and hospital billing records, and compared between the propensity-matched pairs. Results Out of 165 patients harboring 202 aneurysms; 170 (84.2%) were treated with the PED, and 32 (15.8%) were treated using SAC. PSM resulted in 23 matched pairs; with significantly longer follow up in the SAC group (mean 29.8 vs 14.1 mo; P = .0002). Complete occlusion rates were not different (82.6 vs 87%; P = .68), with no difference between the groups for modified Rankin Scale on last clinical follow-up, procedural complications or retreatment rates. Average total costs calculated from the hospital records, including equipment and implants, were not different between propensity-score matched pairs (P = .48). Conclusion PED placement and SAC offer equally efficacious occlusion rates, functional outcomes, procedural complication rates, and cost profiles for small unruptured anterior circulation saccular aneurysms which do not involve the anterior communicating artery.

Partially thrombosed intracranial aneurysms (PTIA) represent a unique subset of intracranial aneurysms with an ill-defined natural history, posing challenges to standard management strategies. This study aims to assess the efficacy of flow diversion in the treatment of this pathology.A retrospective review of patients with flow-diverted PTIA at 6 cerebrovascular centers was performed. Clinical and radiographic data were collected from the medical records, with the primary outcome of aneurysmal occlusion and secondary outcomes of clinical status and complications.Fifty patients with 51 PTIA treated with flow diversion were included. Median age was 56.5 years. Thirty-three (64.7%) aneurysms were saccular and 16 (31.4%) were fusiform/dolichoectatic. The most common location was the internal carotid artery (54.9%) followed by the vertebral and basilar arteries (17.7% and 17.7%, respectively). Last imaging follow-up was performed at a median of 25.1 (interquartile range, 12.8-43) months. Complete occlusion at last radiographic follow-up was achieved in 37 (77.1%) aneurysms. Pretreatment aneurysm thrombosis of50% was associated with a significantly lower rate of complete aneurysm occlusion (58.8 vs. 87.1%, P = 0.026) with a trend toward better functional outcome (modified Rankin scale2) at last follow-up in patients with50% pretreatment aneurysm thrombosis (96.8 vs. 82.4; P = 0.08). Ischemic complications occurred in 5 (9.8%) patients, producing symptoms in 4 (7.8%) and resultant mortality in 2 (4.2%) patients.Flow diversion treatment of PTIA has adequate efficacy along with a reasonable safety profile. Aneurysms harboring large amounts of pretreatment thrombus were associated with lower rates of complete occlusion.

Objective Frame-based stereotactic biopsy (FSB) remains the “gold standard” for obtaining diagnostic samples of intracranial lesions to guide therapy. Nevertheless, diagnostic yield is highly variable. This study aims to provide an analysis of diagnostic yield, surgical complications, and factors associated with obtaining nondiagnostic samples in a contemporary FSB series. Methods A retrospective cohort study was conducted of all adult patients with imaging-documented lesions undergoing FSB at our institution between 2013 and 2018. Diagnostic accuracy, lesion characteristics associated with nondiagnostic biopsy, and surgical complications were evaluated. A biopsy was considered nondiagnostic if all frozen samples and the final pathology yielded normal brain tissue or nonspecific reactive tissue unless the “reactive” pathology was consistent with radiation injury from prior therapy. Results Our search identified 198 FSB patients. Mean (standard deviation) age was 62 ± 17 years, and 44.2% were female. Median procedure time was 32 minutes. A definitive histologic diagnosis was established in 187 cases (94.4% diagnostic yield). Mean lesion diameter was 31.9 ± 16.8 mm. Multivariable logistic regression revealed only lesion diameter to be significantly associated with diagnostic result (odds ratio for nondiagnostic result: 0.94 per mm diameter decrease, 95% confidence interval 0.87–0.99, P = 0.028). On univariable analysis, diagnosis of central nervous system lymphoma appeared to increase the risk of a nondiagnostic biopsy (P = 0.025), but this association disappeared when controlling for lesion size and steroid administration before biopsy. Eight patients (4.0%) developed postoperative hemorrhagic complications, 3 of whom required reoperation, and another expired. Conclusions This study demonstrates that diagnostic yield from contemporary FSB is high and depends predominantly on lesion size.

Funding Information: This work was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health / U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command (Grant No. R01MH106595 [to CMN, IL, MBS, KJRe, and KCK], National Institutes of Health (Grant No. 5U01MH109539 to the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium ), and Brain & Behavior Research Foundation (Young Investigator Grant [to KWC]). Genotyping of samples was provided in part through the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Genetics at the Broad Institute supported by Cohen Veterans Bioscience . Statistical analyses were carried out on the LISA/Genetic Cluster Computer ( https://userinfo.surfsara.nl/systems/lisa ) hosted by SURFsara. This research has been conducted using the UK Biobank resource (Application No. 41209). This work would have not been possible without the financial support provided by Cohen Veterans Bioscience, the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Genetics at the Broad Institute, and One Mind. Funding Information: MBS has in the past 3 years received consulting income from Actelion, Acadia Pharmaceuticals, Aptinyx, Bionomics, BioXcel Therapeutics, Clexio, EmpowerPharm, GW Pharmaceuticals, Janssen, Jazz Pharmaceuticals, and Roche/Genentech and has stock options in Oxeia Biopharmaceuticals and Epivario. In the past 3 years, NPD has held a part-time paid position at Cohen Veterans Bioscience, has been a consultant for Sunovion Pharmaceuticals, and is on the scientific advisory board for Sentio Solutions for unrelated work. In the past 3 years, KJRe has been a consultant for Datastat, Inc., RallyPoint Networks, Inc., Sage Pharmaceuticals, and Takeda. JLM-K has received funding and a speaking fee from COMPASS Pathways. MU has been a consultant for System Analytic. HRK is a member of the Dicerna scientific advisory board and a member of the American Society of Clinical Psychopharmacology Alcohol Clinical Trials Initiative, which during the past 3 years was supported by Alkermes, Amygdala Neurosciences, Arbor Pharmaceuticals, Dicerna, Ethypharm, Indivior, Lundbeck, Mitsubishi, and Otsuka. HRK and JG are named as inventors on Patent Cooperative Treaty patent application number 15/878,640, entitled “Genotype-guided dosing of opioid agonists,” filed January 24, 2018. RP and JG are paid for their editorial work on the journal Complex Psychiatry. OAA is a consultant to HealthLytix. All other authors report no biomedical financial interests or potential conflicts of interest. Funding Information: This work was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health/ U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command (Grant No. R01MH106595 [to CMN, IL, MBS, KJRe, and KCK], National Institutes of Health (Grant No. 5U01MH109539 to the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium), and Brain & Behavior Research Foundation (Young Investigator Grant [to KWC]). Genotyping of samples was provided in part through the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Genetics at the Broad Institute supported by Cohen Veterans Bioscience. Statistical analyses were carried out on the LISA/Genetic Cluster Computer (https://userinfo.surfsara.nl/systems/lisa) hosted by SURFsara. This research has been conducted using the UK Biobank resource (Application No. 41209). This work would have not been possible without the financial support provided by Cohen Veterans Bioscience, the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Genetics at the Broad Institute, and One Mind. This material has been reviewed by the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. There is no objection to its presentation and/or publication. The opinions or assertions contained herein are the private views of the authors and are not to be construed as official or as reflecting true views of the U.S. Department of the Army or the Department of Defense. We thank the investigators who comprise the PGC-PTSD working group and especially the more than 206,000 research participants worldwide who shared their life experiences and biological samples with PGC-PTSD investigators. We thank Mark Zervas for his critical input. Full acknowledgments are in Supplement 1. MBS has in the past 3 years received consulting income from Actelion, Acadia Pharmaceuticals, Aptinyx, Bionomics, BioXcel Therapeutics, Clexio, EmpowerPharm, GW Pharmaceuticals, Janssen, Jazz Pharmaceuticals, and Roche/Genentech and has stock options in Oxeia Biopharmaceuticals and Epivario. In the past 3 years, NPD has held a part-time paid position at Cohen Veterans Bioscience, has been a consultant for Sunovion Pharmaceuticals, and is on the scientific advisory board for Sentio Solutions for unrelated work. In the past 3 years, KJRe has been a consultant for Datastat, Inc. RallyPoint Networks, Inc. Sage Pharmaceuticals, and Takeda. JLM-K has received funding and a speaking fee from COMPASS Pathways. MU has been a consultant for System Analytic. HRK is a member of the Dicerna scientific advisory board and a member of the American Society of Clinical Psychopharmacology Alcohol Clinical Trials Initiative, which during the past 3 years was supported by Alkermes, Amygdala Neurosciences, Arbor Pharmaceuticals, Dicerna, Ethypharm, Indivior, Lundbeck, Mitsubishi, and Otsuka. HRK and JG are named as inventors on Patent Cooperative Treaty patent application number 15/878,640, entitled ?Genotype-guided dosing of opioid agonists,? filed January 24, 2018. RP and JG are paid for their editorial work on the journal Complex Psychiatry. OAA is a consultant to HealthLytix. All other authors report no biomedical financial interests or potential conflicts of interest. Publisher Copyright: © 2021 Society of Biological Psychiatry Background: Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is heritable and a potential consequence of exposure to traumatic stress. Evidence suggests that a quantitative approach to PTSD phenotype measurement and incorporation of lifetime trauma exposure (LTE) information could enhance the discovery power of PTSD genome-wide association studies (GWASs). Methods: A GWAS on PTSD symptoms was performed in 51 cohorts followed by a fixed-effects meta-analysis (N = 182,199 European ancestry participants). A GWAS of LTE burden was performed in the UK Biobank cohort (N = 132,988). Genetic correlations were evaluated with linkage disequilibrium score regression. Multivariate analysis was performed using Multi-Trait Analysis of GWAS. Functional mapping and annotation of leading loci was performed with FUMA. Replication was evaluated using the Million Veteran Program GWAS of PTSD total symptoms. Results: GWASs of PTSD symptoms and LTE burden identified 5 and 6 independent genome-wide significant loci, respectively. There was a 72% genetic correlation between PTSD and LTE. PTSD and LTE showed largely similar patterns of genetic correlation with other traits, albeit with some distinctions. Adjusting PTSD for LTE reduced PTSD heritability by 31%. Multivariate analysis of PTSD and LTE increased the effective sample size of the PTSD GWAS by 20% and identified 4 additional loci. Four of these 9 PTSD loci were independently replicated in the Million Veteran Program. Conclusions: Through using a quantitative trait measure of PTSD, we identified novel risk loci not previously identified using prior case-control analyses. PTSD and LTE have a high genetic overlap that can be leveraged to increase discovery power through multivariate methods. publishersversion published

The precise detection and segmentation of cells in microscopic image sequences is an essential task in biomedical research, such as drug discovery and studying the development of tissues, organs, or entire organisms. However, the detection and segmentation of cells in phase contrast images with a halo and shade-off effects is still challenging. Lately, Mask Regional Convolutional Neural Network (Mask R-CNN) has been introduced for object detection and instance segmentation of natural images. This study investigates the efficacy of the Mask R-CNN to instantly detect and segment label-free microscopic images. The dataset used in this paper is taken from the ISBI cell tracking challenge. The Mask R-CNN is trained using different hyperparameters and compared to the U-Net model. Experimental results show that the Mask R-CNN model achieves 91.6 % when using ResNet-50 backbone and COCO weights.

In this paper, we propose an effective saliency detection method based on dense and sparse representation in-terms of an optimized background template. Firstly, the input image is divided into compact and uniform super-pixels. Then, the optimized background template is produced by introducing boundary conductivity measurement to improve the dense and sparse representation of the image's super-pixels in terms of the optimized background, where the reconstruction error represents a saliency measure. Based on the optimized template, two saliency maps are generated by dense and sparse representation. Finally, the Bayesian framework used to integrate the two saliency maps to obtain the final one. Experimental results show that the proposed method performs favorably against eight state-of-the-art methods. In addition, the proposed method is shown to be more effective in highlighting the challenging salient objects that touch the image boundary.

Background: Aneurysmal persistence after flow diversion (FD) occurs in 5% to 25% of aneurysms, which may necessitate retreatment. There are limited data on safety/efficacy of repeat FD—a frequently utilized strategy in such cases. Methods: A series of consecutive patients undergoing FD retreatment from 15 centers were reviewed (2011–2019), with inclusion criteria of repeat FD for the same aneurysm at least 6 months after initial treatment, with minimum of 6 months post-retreatment imaging. The primary outcome was aneurysmal occlusion, and secondary outcome was safety. A multivariable logistic regression model was constructed to identify predictors of incomplete occlusion (90%–99% and Results: Ninety-five patients (median age, 57 years; 81% women) harboring 95 aneurysms underwent 198 treatment procedures. Majority of aneurysms were unruptured (87.4%), saccular (74.7%), and located in the internal carotid artery (79%; median size, 9 mm). Median elapsed time between the first and second treatment was 12.2 months. Last available follow-up was at median 12.8 months after retreatment, and median 30.6 months after the initial treatment, showing complete occlusion in 46.2% and near-complete occlusion (90%–99%) in 20.4% of aneurysms. There was no difference in ischemic complications following initial treatment and retreatment (4.2% versus 4.2%; P >0.99). On multivariable regression, fusiform morphology had higher nonocclusion odds after retreatment (odds ratio [OR], 7.2 [95% CI, 1.97–20.8]). Family history of aneurysms was associated with lower odds of nonocclusion (OR, 0.18 [95% CI, 0.04–0.78]). Likewise, positive smoking history was associated with lower odds of nonocclusion (OR, 0.29 [95% CI, 0.1–0.86]). History of hypertension trended toward incomplete occlusion (OR, 3.10 [95% CI, 0.98–6.3]), similar to incorporated branch into aneurysms (OR, 2.78 [95% CI, 0.98–6.8]). Conclusions: Repeat FD for persistent aneurysms carries a reasonable success/safety profile. Satisfactory occlusion (100% and 90%–99% occlusion) was encountered in two-thirds of patients, with similar complications between the initial and subsequent retreatments. Fusiform morphology was the strongest predictor of retreatment failure.

Organic Rankine Cycles (ORCs) are promising approach for generating power from medium or low temperature heat sources. In this regard, ORCs can be used to indirectly produce power from solar energy. Because of intermittent nature of solar energy, storage unit should be coupled with solar ORCs to extend their operating hours and improve the output power. In the current article, studied on the solar ORCs integrated with various types of storage units are reviewed, the main findings are extracted and provided. On the basis of the findings, similar to the conventional ORCs, several factors such as the temperature and pressure at the inlet of the turbine, operating condition etc affect the performance of solar ORCs with thermal storage unit. In addition, it is found that the optimum size of storage unit in the solar ORCs depends on the operating condition. Furthermore, from the financial point of view, it can be noted that the storage unit affect the corresponding indicators. Moreover, studies have shown that improvement value in the performance of the solar ORCs depends on the configuration of the systems.