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A new approach has been developed in support of re-assessment studies for irradiation facilities. Though this work deals with modeling and assessment of irradiation facility, the methodology described in this paper can be easily adopted with minor changes for any engineering system. This paper discusses the salient features of the methodology through a case study performed on a 30-year-old irradiation facility. The basic approach is risk-informed in nature. Here, the insights from the Probabilistic Safety Assessment along with Operation and Maintenance experience was utilized to support decisions related to regulatory re-licensing for life extension of the plant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study was conducted to investigate the potential of radiomics to develop an explainable AI-based system to be applied to ultra-widefield fundus retinographies (UWF-FRTs) with the objective of predicting the presence of the early signs of Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD) and stratifying subjects with low- versus high-risk of AMD. The ultimate aim was to provide clinicians with an automatic classifier and a signature of objective quantitative image biomarkers of AMD. The use of Machine Learning (ML) and radiomics was based on intensity and texture analysis in the macular region, detected by a Deep Learning (DL)-based macular detector. Two-hundred and twenty six UWF-FRTs were retrospectively collected from two centres and manually annotated to train and test the algorithms. Notably, the combination of the ML-based radiomics model and the DL-based macular detector reported 93% sensitivity and 74% specificity when applied to the data of the centre used for external testing, capturing explainable features associated with drusen or pigmentary abnormalities. In comparison to the human operator's annotations, the system yielded a 0.79 Cohen κ , demonstrating substantial concordance. To our knowledge, these results are the first provided by a radiomic approach for AMD supporting the suitability of an explainable feature extraction method combined with ML for UWF-FRT.

Fibrillary glomerulonephritis (FGN) was previously defined by glomerular deposition of haphazardly oriented fibrils that stain with antisera to immunoglobulins but do not stain with Congo red. We report what is to our knowledge the first series of immunoglobulin-negative FGN, consisting of 9 adults (7 women and 2 men) with a mean age at diagnosis of 66 years. Patients presented with proteinuria (100%; mean protein excretion, 3g/d), hematuria (100%), and elevated serum creatinine level (100%). Comorbid conditions included carcinoma in 3 and hepatitis C virus infection in 2; no patient had hypocomplementemia or monoclonal gammopathy. Histologically, glomeruli were positive for DNAJB9, showed mostly mild mesangial hypercellularity and/or sclerosis, and were negative for immunoglobulins by immunofluorescence on frozen and paraffin tissue. Ultrastructurally, randomly oriented fibrils measuring 13 to 20nm in diameter were seen intermingling with mesangial matrix in all and infiltrating glomerular basement membranes in 5. On follow-up (mean duration, 21 months), 2 had disease remission, 4 had persistently elevated serum creatinine levels and proteinuria, and 3 required kidney replacement therapy. Thus, rare cases of FGN are not associated with glomerular immunoglobulin deposition, and the diagnosis of FGN in these cases can be confirmed by DNAJB9 immunostaining. Pathogenesis remains to be elucidated., (Copyright © 2020 National Kidney Foundation, Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Renal involvement often occurs in HCV infection. The most common renal manifestation is MPGN with or without cryoglobulinemia. Patients with glomerulonephritis may have no clinical evidence of systemic or liver involvement. Pathogenesis of HCV-associated MPGN is mediated by glomerular deposition of circulating immune complexes containing HCV and anti-HCV. The treatment of choice for MPGN is IFN-alpha. However, success is limited, and many patients fail to respond or experience relapse on discontinuation of therapy. Newer treatment modalities, such as high-dose IFN-alpha and recombinant IFN alpha-2b and ribavirin combination therapy, have led to improved suppression of HCV RNA levels.