Search results for: headache diagnosis system
Commenced in January 2007
Frequency: Monthly
Edition: International
Paper Count: 18778

Search results for: headache diagnosis system

18448 In silico Analysis towards Identification of Host-Microbe Interactions for Inflammatory Bowel Disease Linked to Reactive Arthritis

Authors: Anukriti Verma, Bhawna Rathi, Shivani Sharda

Abstract:

Reactive Arthritis (ReA) is a disorder that causes inflammation in joints due to certain infections at distant sites in the body. ReA begins with stiffness, pain, and inflammation in these areas especially the ankles, knees, and hips. It gradually causes several complications such as conjunctivitis in the eyes, skin lesions in hand, feet and nails and ulcers in the mouth. Nowadays the diagnosis of ReA is based upon a differential diagnosis pattern. The parameters for differentiating ReA from other similar disorders include physical examination, history of the patient and a high index of suspicion. There are no standard lab tests or markers available for ReA hence the early diagnosis of ReA becomes difficult and the chronicity of disease increases with time. It is reported that enteric disorders such as Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) that is inflammation in gastrointestinal tract namely Crohn’s Disease (CD) and Ulcerative Colitis (UC) are reported to be linked with ReA. Several microorganisms are found such as Campylobacter, Salmonella, Shigella and Yersinia causing IBD leading to ReA. The aim of our study was to perform the in-silico analysis in order to find interactions between microorganisms and human host causing IBD leading to ReA. A systems biology approach for metabolic network reconstruction and simulation was used to find the essential genes of the reported microorganisms. Interactomics study was used to find the interactions between the pathogen genes and human host. Genes such as nhaA (pathogen), dpyD (human), nagK (human) and kynU (human) were obtained that were analysed further using the functional, pathway and network analysis. These genes can be used as putative drug targets and biomarkers in future for early diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of IBD leading to ReA.

Keywords: drug targets, inflammatory bowel disease, reactive arthritis, systems biology

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18447 Optimization of a Convolutional Neural Network for the Automated Diagnosis of Melanoma

Authors: Kemka C. Ihemelandu, Chukwuemeka U. Ihemelandu

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The incidence of melanoma has been increasing rapidly over the past two decades, making melanoma a current public health crisis. Unfortunately, even as screening efforts continue to expand in an effort to ameliorate the death rate from melanoma, there is a need to improve diagnostic accuracy to decrease misdiagnosis. Artificial intelligence (AI) a new frontier in patient care has the ability to improve the accuracy of melanoma diagnosis. Convolutional neural network (CNN) a form of deep neural network, most commonly applied to analyze visual imagery, has been shown to outperform the human brain in pattern recognition. However, there are noted limitations with the accuracy of the CNN models. Our aim in this study was the optimization of convolutional neural network algorithms for the automated diagnosis of melanoma. We hypothesized that Optimal selection of the momentum and batch hyperparameter increases model accuracy. Our most successful model developed during this study, showed that optimal selection of momentum of 0.25, batch size of 2, led to a superior performance and a faster model training time, with an accuracy of ~ 83% after nine hours of training. We did notice a lack of diversity in the dataset used, with a noted class imbalance favoring lighter vs. darker skin tone. Training set image transformations did not result in a superior model performance in our study.

Keywords: melanoma, convolutional neural network, momentum, batch hyperparameter

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18446 The Developing of Knowledge-Based System for the Medical Treatment with Herbs

Authors: Rujijan Vichivanives

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This research aims to create a knowledge-based system as a database for self-healthcare analysis, diagnosis of simple illnesses, and the use of Thai herbs instead of modern medicine by using principles of Thai traditional medication theory. These were disseminated by website network programs within Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University. The population used in this study was divided into two groups: the first group consisted of four experts of Thai traditional medication and the second group was 300 website users. The methods used for collecting data were paper questionnaires and poll questionnaires on the website. The statistics used for analyzing data was at an average level. The results were divided into three parts: the first part was the development of a knowledge-based system and the second part was applied programs on website. Both parts could be fulfilled and achieved according to the set goal. The third part was the evaluation of the study: The evaluation of the viewpoints of the experts towards website designs were evaluated at a good level of 4.20. The satisfaction evaluation of the users was found at a good level of average satisfactory level at 4.24. It was found that the young population of those under the age of 16 had less cares about their health than the population of other teenagers, working age adults and those of older age. The research findings should be extended in order to encourage the lifestyle modifications to people of all ages by using the self-healthcare principles.

Keywords: developing, herbs, knowledge-based system, medical treatment

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18445 Integration of an Augmented Reality System for the Visualization of the HRMAS NMR Analysis of Brain Biopsy Specimens Using the Brainlab Cranial Navigation System

Authors: Abdelkrim Belhaoua, Jean-Pierre Radoux, Mariana Kuras, Vincent Récamier, Martial Piotto, Karim Elbayed, François Proust, Izzie Namer

Abstract:

This paper proposes an augmented reality system dedicated to neurosurgery in order to assist the surgeon during an operation. This work is part of the ExtempoRMN project (Funded by Bpifrance) which aims at analyzing during a surgical operation the metabolic content of tumoral brain biopsy specimens by HRMAS NMR. Patients affected with a brain tumor (gliomas) frequently need to undergo an operation in order to remove the tumoral mass. During the operation, the neurosurgeon removes biopsy specimens using image-guided surgery. The biopsy specimens removed are then sent for HRMAS NMR analysis in order to obtain a better diagnosis and prognosis. Image-guided refers to the use of MRI images and a computer to precisely locate and target a lesion (abnormal tissue) within the brain. This is performed using preoperative MRI images and the BrainLab neuro-navigation system. With the patient MRI images loaded on the Brainlab Cranial neuro-navigation system in the operating theater, surgeons can better identify their approach before making an incision. The Brainlab neuro-navigation tool tracks in real time the position of the instruments and displays their position on the patient MRI data. The results of the biopsy analysis by 1H HRMAS NMR are then sent back to the operating theater and superimposed on the 3D localization system directly on the MRI images. The method we have developed to communicate between the HRMAS NMR analysis software and Brainlab makes use of a combination of C++, VTK and the Insight Toolkit using OpenIGTLink protocol.

Keywords: neuro-navigation, augmented reality, biopsy, BrainLab, HR-MAS NMR

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18444 Identification of Potential Predictive Biomarkers for Early Diagnosis of Preeclampsia Growth Factors to microRNAs

Authors: Sadia Munir

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Preeclampsia is the contributor to the worldwide maternal mortality of approximately 100,000 deaths a year. It complicates about 10% of all pregnancies and is the first cause of maternal admission to intensive care units. Predicting preeclampsia is a major challenge in obstetrics. More importantly, no major progress has been achieved in the treatment of preeclampsia. As placenta is the main cause of the disease, the only way to treat the disease is to extract placental and deliver the baby. In developed countries, the cost of an average case of preeclampsia is estimated at £9000. Interestingly, preeclampsia may have an impact on the health of mother or infant, beyond the pregnancy. We performed a systematic search of PubMed including the combination of terms such as preeclampsia, biomarkers, treatment, hypoxia, inflammation, oxidative stress, vascular endothelial growth factor A, activin A, inhibin A, placental growth factor, transforming growth factor β-1, Nodal, placenta, trophoblast cells, microRNAs. In this review, we have summarized current knowledge on the identification of potential biomarkers for the diagnosis of preeclampsia. Although these studies show promising data in early diagnosis of preeclampsia, the current value of these factors as biomarkers, for the precise prediction of preeclampsia, has its limitation. Therefore, future studies need to be done to support some of the very promising and interesting data to develop affordable and widely available tests for early detection and treatment of preeclampsia.

Keywords: activin, biomarkers, growth factors, miroRNA

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18443 Nontuberculous Mycobacterium Infection – Still An Important Disease Among People With Late HIV Diagnosis

Authors: Jakub Młoźniak, Adam Szymański, Gabriela Stondzik, Dagny Krankowska, Tomasz Mikuła

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Nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) are bacterial species that cause diversely manifesting diseases mainly in immunocompromised patients. In people with HIV, NTM infection is an AIDS-defining disease and usually appears when the lymphocyte T CD4 count is below 50 cells/μl. The usage of antiretroviral therapy has decreased the prevalence of NTM among people with HIV, but the disease can still be observed especially among patients with late HIV diagnosis. Common presence in environment, human colonization, clinical similarity with tuberculosis and slow growth on culture makes NTM especially hard to diagnose. The study aimed to analyze the epidemiology and clinical course of NTM among patients with HIV. This study included patients with NTM and HIV admitted to our department between 2017 and 2023. Medical records of patients were analyzed and data on age, sex, median time from HIV diagnosis to identification of NTM infection, median CD4 count at NTM diagnosis, methods of determining NTM infection, type of species of mycobacteria identified, clinical symptoms and treatment course were gathered. Twenty-four patients (20 men, 4 women) with identified NTM were included in this study. Among them, 20 were HIV late presenters. The patients' median age was 40. The main symptoms which patients presented were fever, weight loss and cough. Pulmonary disease confirmed with positive cultures from sputum/bronchoalveolar lavage was present in 18 patients. M. avium was the most common species identified. M. marinum caused disseminated skin lesions in 1 patient. Out of all, 5 people were not treated for NTM caused by lack of symptoms and suspicion of colonization with mycobacterium. Concomitant tuberculosis was present in 6 patients. The median diagnostic time from HIV to NTM infections was 3.5 months. The median CD4 count at NTM identification was 69.5 cells/μl. Median NTM treatment time was 16 months but 7 patients haven’t finished their treatment yet. The most commonly used medications were ethambutol and clarithromycin. Among analyzed patients, 4 of them have died. NTM infections are still an important disease among patients who are HIV late presenters. This disease should be taken into consideration during the differential diagnosis of fever, weight loss and cough in people with HIV with lymphocyte T CD4 count <100 cells/μl. Presence of tuberculosis does not exclude nontuberculous mycobacterium coinfection.

Keywords: mycobacteriosis, HIV, late presenter, epidemiology

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18442 An Automated System for the Detection of Citrus Greening Disease Based on Visual Descriptors

Authors: Sidra Naeem, Ayesha Naeem, Sahar Rahim, Nadia Nawaz Qadri

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Citrus greening is a bacterial disease that causes considerable damage to citrus fruits worldwide. Efficient method for this disease detection must be carried out to minimize the production loss. This paper presents a pattern recognition system that comprises three stages for the detection of citrus greening from Orange leaves: segmentation, feature extraction and classification. Image segmentation is accomplished by adaptive thresholding. The feature extraction stage comprises of three visual descriptors i.e. shape, color and texture. From shape feature we have used asymmetry index, from color feature we have used histogram of Cb component from YCbCr domain and from texture feature we have used local binary pattern. Classification was done using support vector machines and k nearest neighbors. The best performances of the system is Accuracy = 88.02% and AUROC = 90.1% was achieved by automatic segmented images. Our experiments validate that: (1). Segmentation is an imperative preprocessing step for computer assisted diagnosis of citrus greening, and (2). The combination of shape, color and texture features form a complementary set towards the identification of citrus greening disease.

Keywords: citrus greening, pattern recognition, feature extraction, classification

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18441 Performance Comparison of Tablet Devices and Medical Diagnostic Display Devices Using Digital Object Patterns in PACS Environment

Authors: Yan-Lin Liu, Cheng-Ting Shih, Jay Wu

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Tablet devices have been introduced into the medical environment in recent years. The performance of display can be varied based on the use of different hardware specifications and types of display technologies. Therefore, the differences between tablet devices and medical diagnostic LCDs have to be verified to ensure that image quality is not jeopardized for clinical diagnosis in a picture archiving and communication system (PACS). In this study, a set of randomized object test patterns (ROTPs) were developed, which included randomly located spheres in abdominal CT images. Five radiologists were asked to independently review the CT images on different generations of iPads and a diagnostic monochrome medical LCD monitor. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was performed by using a five-point rating scale, and the average area under curve (AUC) and average reading time (ART) were calculated. The AUC values for the second generation iPad, iPad mini, iPad Air, and monochrome medical monitor were 0.712, 0.717, 0.725, and 0.740, respectively. The differences between iPads were not significant. The ARTs were 177 min and 127 min for iPad mini and medical LCD monitor, respectively. A significant difference appeared (p = 0.04). The results show that the iPads were slightly inferior to the monochrome medical LCD monitor. However, tablet devices possess advantages in portability and versatility, which can improve the convenience of rapid diagnosis and teleradiology. With advances in display technology, the applicability of tablet devices and mobile devices may be more diversified in PACS.

Keywords: tablet devices, PACS, receiver operating characteristic, LCD monitor

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18440 Evaluation of the Radiolabelled 68GA-DOTATOC Complex in Adenocarcinoma Breast Cancer

Authors: S. Zolghadri, M. Naderi, H. Yousefnia, B. Alirzapour, A. R. Jalilian, A. Ramazani

Abstract:

Nowadays, 68Ga-DOTATOC has been known as a potential agent for the detection of neuroendocrine tumours and it has indicated higher sensitivity compared with the 111In-Octeroetide. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of this new agent in the diagnosis of adenocarcinoma breast cancer. 68Ga-DOTATOC was prepared with the radiochemical purity of higher than 98% and by the specific activity of 39.6 TBq/mmol. 37 MBq of the complex was injected intravenously into the BULB/c mice with adenocarcinoma breast cancer. PET/CT images were acquired after 30, 60 and 90 min post injection demonstrated significant accumulation in the tumour sites. Also, considerable activity was observed in the kidney and bladder as the main routs of excretion. Generally, the results showed that 68Ga-DOTATOC can be considered as a suitable complex for diagnosis of the adenocarcinoma breast cancer using PET procedure.

Keywords: adenocarcinoma breast cancer, 68Ga, octreotide, imaging

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18439 Reaching the Goals of Routine HIV Screening Programs: Quantifying and Implementing an Effective HIV Screening System in Northern Nigeria Facilities Based on Optimal Volume Analysis

Authors: Folajinmi Oluwasina, Towolawi Adetayo, Kate Ssamula, Penninah Iutung, Daniel Reijer

Abstract:

Objective: Routine HIV screening has been promoted as an essential component of efforts to reduce incidence, morbidity, and mortality. The objectives of this study were to identify the optimal annual volume needed to realize the public health goals of HIV screening in the AIDS Healthcare Foundation supported hospitals and establish an implementation process to realize that optimal annual volume. Methods: Starting in 2011 a program was established to routinize HIV screening within communities and government hospitals. In 2016 Five-years of HIV screening data were reviewed to identify the optimal annual proportions of age-eligible patients screened to realize the public health goals of reducing new diagnoses and ending late-stage diagnosis (tracked as concurrent HIV/AIDS diagnosis). Analysis demonstrated that rates of new diagnoses level off when 42% of age-eligible patients were screened, providing a baseline for routine screening efforts; and concurrent HIV/AIDS diagnoses reached statistical zero at screening rates of 70%. Annual facility based targets were re-structured to meet these new target volumes. Restructuring efforts focused on right-sizing HIV screening programs to align and transition programs to integrated HIV screening within standard medical care and treatment. Results: Over one million patients were screened for HIV during the five years; 16, 033 new HIV diagnoses and access to care and treatment made successfully for 82 % (13,206), and concurrent diagnosis rates went from 32.26% to 25.27%. While screening rates increased by 104.7% over the 5-years, volume analysis demonstrated that rates need to further increase by 62.52% to reach desired 20% baseline and more than double to reach optimal annual screening volume. In 2011 facility targets for HIV screening were increased to reflect volume analysis, and in that third year, 12 of the 19 facilities reached or exceeded new baseline targets. Conclusions and Recommendation: Quantifying targets against routine HIV screening goals identified optimal annual screening volume and allowed facilities to scale their program size and allocate resources accordingly. The program transitioned from utilizing non-evidence based annual volume increases to establishing annual targets based on optimal volume analysis. This has allowed efforts to be evaluated on the ability to realize quantified goals related to the public health value of HIV screening. Optimal volume analysis helps to determine the size of an HIV screening program. It is a public health tool, not a tool to determine if an individual patient should receive screening.

Keywords: HIV screening, optimal volume, HIV diagnosis, routine

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18438 Glyco-Biosensing as a Novel Tool for Prostate Cancer Early-Stage Diagnosis

Authors: Pavel Damborsky, Martina Zamorova, Jaroslav Katrlik

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Prostate cancer is annually the most common newly diagnosed cancer among men. An extensive number of evidence suggests that traditional serum Prostate-specific antigen (PSA) assay still suffers from a lack of sufficient specificity and sensitivity resulting in vast over-diagnosis and overtreatment. Thus, the early-stage detection of prostate cancer (PCa) plays undisputedly a critical role for successful treatment and improved quality of life. Over the last decade, particular altered glycans have been described that are associated with a range of chronic diseases, including cancer and inflammation. These glycans differences enable a distinction to be made between physiological and pathological state and suggest a valuable biosensing tool for diagnosis and follow-up purposes. Aberrant glycosylation is one of the major characteristics of disease progression. Consequently, the aim of this study was to develop a more reliable tool for early-stage PCa diagnosis employing lectins as glyco-recognition elements. Biosensor and biochip technology putting to use lectin-based glyco-profiling is one of the most promising strategies aimed at providing fast and efficient analysis of glycoproteins. The proof-of-concept experiments based on sandwich assay employing anti-PSA antibody and an aptamer as a capture molecules followed by lectin glycoprofiling were performed. We present a lectin-based biosensing assay for glycoprofiling of serum biomarker PSA using different biosensor and biochip platforms such as label-free surface plasmon resonance (SPR) and microarray with fluorescent label. The results suggest significant differences in interaction of particular lectins with PSA. The antibody-based assay is frequently associated with the sensitivity, reproducibility, and cross-reactivity issues. Aptamers provide remarkable advantages over antibodies due to the nucleic acid origin, stability and no glycosylation. All these data are further step for construction of highly selective, sensitive and reliable sensors for early-stage diagnosis. The experimental set-up also holds promise for the development of comparable assays with other glycosylated disease biomarkers.

Keywords: biomarker, glycosylation, lectin, prostate cancer

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18437 Shared Vision System Support for Maintenance Tasks of Wind Turbines

Authors: Buket Celik Ünal, Onur Ünal

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Communication is the most challenging part of maintenance operations. Communication between expert and fieldworker is crucial for effective maintenance and this also affects the safety of the fieldworkers. To support a machine user in a remote collaborative physical task, both, a mobile and a stationary device are needed. Such a system is called a shared vision system and the system supports two people to solve a problem from different places. This system reduces the errors and provides a reliable support for qualified and less qualified users. Through this research, it was aimed to validate the effectiveness of using a shared vision system to facilitate communication between on-site workers and those issuing instructions regarding maintenance or inspection works over long distances. The system is designed with head-worn display which is called a shared vision system. As a part of this study, a substitute system is used and implemented by using a shared vision system for maintenance operation. The benefits of the use of a shared vision system are analyzed and results are adapted to the wind turbines to improve the occupational safety and health for maintenance technicians. The motivation for the research effort in this study can be summarized in the following research questions: -How can expert support technician over long distances during maintenance operation? -What are the advantages of using a shared vision system? Experience from the experiment shows that using a shared vision system is an advantage for both electrical and mechanical system failures. Results support that the shared vision system can be used for wind turbine maintenance and repair tasks. Because wind turbine generator/gearbox and the substitute system have similar failures. Electrical failures, such as voltage irregularities, wiring failures and mechanical failures, such as alignment, vibration, over-speed conditions are the common and similar failures for both. Furthermore, it was analyzed the effectiveness of the shared vision system by using a smart glasses in connection with the maintenance task performed by a substitute system under four different circumstances, namely by using a shared vision system, an audio communication, a smartphone and by yourself condition. A suitable method for determining dependencies between factors measured in Chi Square Test, and Chi Square Test for Independence measured for determining a relationship between two qualitative variables and finally Mann Whitney U Test is used to compare any two data sets. While based on this experiment, no relation was found between the results and the gender. Participants` responses confirmed that the shared vision system is efficient and helpful for maintenance operations. From the results of the research, there was a statistically significant difference in the average time taken by subjects on works using a shared vision system under the other conditions. Additionally, this study confirmed that a shared vision system provides reduction in time to diagnose and resolve maintenance issues, reduction in diagnosis errors, reduced travel costs for experts, and increased reliability in service.

Keywords: communication support, maintenance and inspection tasks, occupational health and safety, shared vision system

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18436 Artificial Intelligence in Disease Diagnosis

Authors: Shalini Tripathi, Pardeep Kumar

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The method of translating observed symptoms into disease names is known as disease diagnosis. The ability to solve clinical problems in a complex manner is critical to a doctor's effectiveness in providing health care. The accuracy of his or her expertise is crucial to the survival and well-being of his or her patients. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has a huge economic influence depending on how well it is applied. In the medical sector, human brain-simulated intellect can help not only with classification accuracy, but also with reducing diagnostic time, cost and pain associated with pathologies tests. In light of AI's present and prospective applications in the biomedical, we will identify them in the paper based on potential benefits and risks, social and ethical consequences and issues that might be contentious but have not been thoroughly discussed in publications and literature. Current apps, personal tracking tools, genetic tests and editing programmes, customizable models, web environments, virtual reality (VR) technologies and surgical robotics will all be investigated in this study. While AI holds a lot of potential in medical diagnostics, it is still a very new method, and many clinicians are uncertain about its reliability, specificity and how it can be integrated into clinical practice without jeopardising clinical expertise. To validate their effectiveness, more systemic refinement of these implementations, as well as training of physicians and healthcare facilities on how to effectively incorporate these strategies into clinical practice, will be needed.

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence, medical diagnosis, virtual reality, healthcare ethical implications 

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18435 Application of Support Vector Machines in Fault Detection and Diagnosis of Power Transmission Lines

Authors: I. A. Farhat, M. Bin Hasan

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A developed approach for the protection of power transmission lines using Support Vector Machines (SVM) technique is presented. In this paper, the SVM technique is utilized for the classification and isolation of faults in power transmission lines. Accurate fault classification and location results are obtained for all possible types of short circuit faults. As in distance protection, the approach utilizes the voltage and current post-fault samples as inputs. The main advantage of the method introduced here is that the method could easily be extended to any power transmission line.

Keywords: fault detection, classification, diagnosis, power transmission line protection, support vector machines (SVM)

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18434 Sensor and Actuator Fault Detection in Connected Vehicles under a Packet Dropping Network

Authors: Z. Abdollahi Biron, P. Pisu

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Connected vehicles are one of the promising technologies for future Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). A connected vehicle system is essentially a set of vehicles communicating through a network to exchange their information with each other and the infrastructure. Although this interconnection of the vehicles can be potentially beneficial in creating an efficient, sustainable, and green transportation system, a set of safety and reliability challenges come out with this technology. The first challenge arises from the information loss due to unreliable communication network which affects the control/management system of the individual vehicles and the overall system. Such scenario may lead to degraded or even unsafe operation which could be potentially catastrophic. Secondly, faulty sensors and actuators can affect the individual vehicle’s safe operation and in turn will create a potentially unsafe node in the vehicular network. Further, sending that faulty sensor information to other vehicles and failure in actuators may significantly affect the safe operation of the overall vehicular network. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to take these issues into consideration while designing the control/management algorithms of the individual vehicles as a part of connected vehicle system. In this paper, we consider a connected vehicle system under Co-operative Adaptive Cruise Control (CACC) and propose a fault diagnosis scheme that deals with these aforementioned challenges. Specifically, the conventional CACC algorithm is modified by adding a Kalman filter-based estimation algorithm to suppress the effect of lost information under unreliable network. Further, a sliding mode observer-based algorithm is used to improve the sensor reliability under faults. The effectiveness of the overall diagnostic scheme is verified via simulation studies.

Keywords: fault diagnostics, communication network, connected vehicles, packet drop out, platoon

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18433 Ischemic Stroke Detection in Computed Tomography Examinations

Authors: Allan F. F. Alves, Fernando A. Bacchim Neto, Guilherme Giacomini, Marcela de Oliveira, Ana L. M. Pavan, Maria E. D. Rosa, Diana R. Pina

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Stroke is a worldwide concern, only in Brazil it accounts for 10% of all registered deaths. There are 2 stroke types, ischemic (87%) and hemorrhagic (13%). Early diagnosis is essential to avoid irreversible cerebral damage. Non-enhanced computed tomography (NECT) is one of the main diagnostic techniques used due to its wide availability and rapid diagnosis. Detection depends on the size and severity of lesions and the time spent between the first symptoms and examination. The Alberta Stroke Program Early CT Score (ASPECTS) is a subjective method that increases the detection rate. The aim of this work was to implement an image segmentation system to enhance ischemic stroke and to quantify the area of ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke lesions in CT scans. We evaluated 10 patients with NECT examinations diagnosed with ischemic stroke. Analyzes were performed in two axial slices, one at the level of the thalamus and basal ganglion and one adjacent to the top edge of the ganglionic structures with window width between 80 and 100 Hounsfield Units. We used different image processing techniques such as morphological filters, discrete wavelet transform and Fuzzy C-means clustering. Subjective analyzes were performed by a neuroradiologist according to the ASPECTS scale to quantify ischemic areas in the middle cerebral artery region. These subjective analysis results were compared with objective analyzes performed by the computational algorithm. Preliminary results indicate that the morphological filters actually improve the ischemic areas for subjective evaluations. The comparison in area of the ischemic region contoured by the neuroradiologist and the defined area by computational algorithm showed no deviations greater than 12% in any of the 10 examination tests. Although there is a tendency that the areas contoured by the neuroradiologist are smaller than those obtained by the algorithm. These results show the importance of a computer aided diagnosis software to assist neuroradiology decisions, especially in critical situations as the choice of treatment for ischemic stroke.

Keywords: ischemic stroke, image processing, CT scans, Fuzzy C-means

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18432 A Comparative Study between Digital Mammography, B Mode Ultrasound, Shear-Wave and Strain Elastography to Distinguish Benign and Malignant Breast Masses

Authors: Arjun Prakash, Samanvitha H.

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BACKGROUND: Breast cancer is the commonest malignancy among women globally, with an estimated incidence of 2.3 million new cases as of 2020, representing 11.7% of all malignancies. As per Globocan data 2020, it accounted for 13.5% of all cancers and 10.6% of all cancer deaths in India. Early diagnosis and treatment can improve the overall morbidity and mortality, which necessitates the importance of differentiating benign from malignant breast masses. OBJECTIVE: The objective of the present study was to evaluate and compare the role of Digital Mammography (DM), B mode Ultrasound (USG), Shear Wave Elastography (SWE) and Strain Elastography (SE) in differentiating benign and malignant breast masses (ACR BI-RADS 3 - 5). Histo-Pathological Examination (HPE) was considered the Gold standard. MATERIALS & METHODS: We conducted a cross-sectional study on 53 patients with 64 breast masses over a period of 10 months. All patients underwent DM, USG, SWE and SE. These modalities were individually assessed to know their accuracy in differentiating benign and malignant masses. All Digital Mammograms were done using the Fujifilm AMULET Innovality Digital Mammography system and all Ultrasound examinations were performed on SAMSUNG RS 80 EVO Ultrasound system equipped with 2 to 9 MHz and 3 – 16 MHz linear transducers. All masses were subjected to HPE. Independent t-test and Chi-square or Fisher’s exact test were used to assess continuous and categorical variables, respectively. ROC analysis was done to assess the accuracy of diagnostic tests. RESULTS: Of 64 lesions, 51 (79.68%) were malignant and 13 (20.31%) (p < 0.0001) were benign. SE was the most specific (100%) (p < 0.0001) and USG (98%) (p < 0.0001) was the most sensitive of all the modalities. E max, E mean, E max ratio, E mean ratio and Strain Ratio of the malignant masses significantly differed from those of the benign masses. Maximum SWE value showed the highest sensitivity (88.2%) (p < 0.0001) among the elastography parameters. A combination of USG, SE and SWE had good sensitivity (86%) (p < 0.0001). CONCLUSION: A combination of USG, SE and SWE improves overall diagnostic yield in differentiating benign and malignant breast masses. Early diagnosis and treatment of breast carcinoma will reduce patient mortality and morbidity.

Keywords: digital mammography, breast cancer, ultrasound, elastography

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18431 Portable Cardiac Monitoring System Based on Real-Time Microcontroller and Multiple Communication Interfaces

Authors: Ionel Zagan, Vasile Gheorghita Gaitan, Adrian Brezulianu

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This paper presents the contributions in designing a mobile system named Tele-ECG implemented for remote monitoring of cardiac patients. For a better flexibility of this application, the authors chose to implement a local memory and multiple communication interfaces. The project described in this presentation is based on the ARM Cortex M0+ microcontroller and the ADAS1000 dedicated chip necessary for the collection and transmission of Electrocardiogram signals (ECG) from the patient to the microcontroller, without altering the performances and the stability of the system. The novelty brought by this paper is the implementation of a remote monitoring system for cardiac patients, having a real-time behavior and multiple interfaces. The microcontroller is responsible for processing digital signals corresponding to ECG and also for the implementation of communication interface with the main server, using GSM/Bluetooth SIMCOM SIM800C module. This paper translates all the characteristics of the Tele-ECG project representing a feasible implementation in the biomedical field. Acknowledgment: This paper was supported by the project 'Development and integration of a mobile tele-electrocardiograph in the GreenCARDIO© system for patients monitoring and diagnosis - m-GreenCARDIO', Contract no. BG58/30.09.2016, PNCDI III, Bridge Grant 2016, using the infrastructure from the project 'Integrated Center for research, development and innovation in Advanced Materials, Nanotechnologies, and Distributed Systems for fabrication and control', Contract No. 671/09.04.2015, Sectoral Operational Program for Increase of the Economic Competitiveness co-funded from the European Regional Development Fund.

Keywords: Tele-ECG, real-time cardiac monitoring, electrocardiogram, microcontroller

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18430 Classification of ECG Signal Based on Mixture of Linear and Non-Linear Features

Authors: Mohammad Karimi Moridani, Mohammad Abdi Zadeh, Zahra Shahiazar Mazraeh

Abstract:

In recent years, the use of intelligent systems in biomedical engineering has increased dramatically, especially in the diagnosis of various diseases. Also, due to the relatively simple recording of the electrocardiogram signal (ECG), this signal is a good tool to show the function of the heart and diseases associated with it. The aim of this paper is to design an intelligent system for automatically detecting a normal electrocardiogram signal from abnormal one. Using this diagnostic system, it is possible to identify a person's heart condition in a very short time and with high accuracy. The data used in this article are from the Physionet database, available in 2016 for use by researchers to provide the best method for detecting normal signals from abnormalities. Data is of both genders and the data recording time varies between several seconds to several minutes. All data is also labeled normal or abnormal. Due to the low positional accuracy and ECG signal time limit and the similarity of the signal in some diseases with the normal signal, the heart rate variability (HRV) signal was used. Measuring and analyzing the heart rate variability with time to evaluate the activity of the heart and differentiating different types of heart failure from one another is of interest to the experts. In the preprocessing stage, after noise cancelation by the adaptive Kalman filter and extracting the R wave by the Pan and Tampkinz algorithm, R-R intervals were extracted and the HRV signal was generated. In the process of processing this paper, a new idea was presented that, in addition to using the statistical characteristics of the signal to create a return map and extraction of nonlinear characteristics of the HRV signal due to the nonlinear nature of the signal. Finally, the artificial neural networks widely used in the field of ECG signal processing as well as distinctive features were used to classify the normal signals from abnormal ones. To evaluate the efficiency of proposed classifiers in this paper, the area under curve ROC was used. The results of the simulation in the MATLAB environment showed that the AUC of the MLP and SVM neural network was 0.893 and 0.947, respectively. As well as, the results of the proposed algorithm in this paper indicated that the more use of nonlinear characteristics in normal signal classification of the patient showed better performance. Today, research is aimed at quantitatively analyzing the linear and non-linear or descriptive and random nature of the heart rate variability signal, because it has been shown that the amount of these properties can be used to indicate the health status of the individual's heart. The study of nonlinear behavior and dynamics of the heart's neural control system in the short and long-term provides new information on how the cardiovascular system functions, and has led to the development of research in this field. Given that the ECG signal contains important information and is one of the common tools used by physicians to diagnose heart disease, but due to the limited accuracy of time and the fact that some information about this signal is hidden from the viewpoint of physicians, the design of the intelligent system proposed in this paper can help physicians with greater speed and accuracy in the diagnosis of normal and patient individuals and can be used as a complementary system in the treatment centers.

Keywords: neart rate variability, signal processing, linear and non-linear features, classification methods, ROC Curve

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18429 Root Mean Square-Based Method for Fault Diagnosis and Fault Detection and Isolation of Current Fault Sensor in an Induction Machine

Authors: Ahmad Akrad, Rabia Sehab, Fadi Alyoussef

Abstract:

Nowadays, induction machines are widely used in industry thankful to their advantages comparing to other technologies. Indeed, there is a big demand because of their reliability, robustness and cost. The objective of this paper is to deal with diagnosis, detection and isolation of faults in a three-phase induction machine. Among the faults, Inter-turn short-circuit fault (ITSC), current sensors fault and single-phase open circuit fault are selected to deal with. However, a fault detection method is suggested using residual errors generated by the root mean square (RMS) of phase currents. The application of this method is based on an asymmetric nonlinear model of Induction Machine considering the winding fault of the three axes frame state space. In addition, current sensor redundancy and sensor fault detection and isolation (FDI) are adopted to ensure safety operation of induction machine drive. Finally, a validation is carried out by simulation in healthy and faulty operation modes to show the benefit of the proposed method to detect and to locate with, a high reliability, the three types of faults.

Keywords: induction machine, asymmetric nonlinear model, fault diagnosis, inter-turn short-circuit fault, root mean square, current sensor fault, fault detection and isolation

Procedia PDF Downloads 166
18428 Investigation of the Relationship between Digital Game Playing, Internet Addiction and Perceived Stress Levels in University Students

Authors: Sevim Ugur, Cemile Kutmec Yilmaz, Omer Us, Sevdenur Koksaldi

Abstract:

Aim: This study aims to investigate the effect of digital game playing and Internet addiction on perceived stress levels in university students. Method: The descriptive study was conducted through face-to-face interview method with a total of 364 university students studying at Aksaray University between November 15 and December 30, 2017. The research data were collected using personal information form, a questionnaire to determine the characteristics of playing digital game, the Internet addiction scale and the perceived stress scale. In the evaluation of the data, Mann-Whitney U test was used for two-group comparison of the sample with non-normal distribution, Kruskal-Wallis H-test was used in the comparison of more than two groups, and the Spearman correlation test was used to determine the relationship between Internet addiction and the perceived stress level. Results: It was determined that the mean age of the students participated in the study was 20.13 ± 1.7 years, 67.6% was female, 35.7% was sophomore, and 62.1% had an income 500 TL or less. It was found that 83.5% of the students use the Internet every day and 70.6% uses the Internet for 5 hours or less per day. Of the students, 12.4% prefers digital games instead of spending time outdoors, 8% plays a game as the first activity in leisure time, 12.4% plays all day, 15.7% feels anger when he/she is prevented from playing, 14.8% prefers playing games to get away from his/her problems, 23.4% had his/her school achievement affected negatively because of game playing, and 8% argues with family members due to the time spent for gaming. Students who play games on the computer for a long time were found to feel back pain (30.8%), headache (28.6%), insomnia (26.9%), dryness and pain in the eyes (26.6%), pain in the wrist (21.2%), feeling excessive tension and anger (16.2%), humpback (12.9), vision loss (9.6%) and pain in the wrist and fingers (7.4%). In our study, students' Internet addiction scale mean score was found to be 45.47 ± 16.1 and mean perceived stress scale score was 28.56 ± 2.7. A significant and negative correlation (p=0.037) was found between the total score of the Internet addiction scale and the total score of the perceived stress scale (r=-0.110). Conclusion: It was found in the study that Internet addiction and perceived stress of the students were at a moderate level and that there was a negative correlation between Internet addiction and perceived stress levels. Internet addiction was found to increase with the increasing perceived stress levels of students, and students were found to have health problems such as back pain, dryness in the eyes, pain, insomnia, headache, and humpback. Therefore, it is recommended to inform students about different coping methods other than spending time on the Internet to cope with the stress they perceive.

Keywords: digital game, internet addiction, student, stress level

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18427 Disaster and Emergency Management in Nigeria: The Case of Chibok School Girls Abducted by Boko Haram Insurgents

Authors: Aidelunuoghene Sunday Ojeifo

Abstract:

More than a decade ago, the Islamist Terrorist group called Boko Haram has caused terrible violence in the north-eastern part of Nigeria. The group’s use of suicide attacks is a dreadful trait of international terrorist violence. It is certainly not in doubt that Boko Haram is the biggest headache of the Nigerian Government right now. The objective of this paper is to answer four fundamental questions about the extremist group: Who is Boko Haram? Why does the group rebel? How has the Nigerian state responded to the emergency and disaster in which more than 200 schoolgirls were abducted from their school in Chibok? Is there any assistance from other nations of the world to help Nigeria out of the grips of this cruel dilemma?

Keywords: Boko Haram, disaster, hazards, vulnerability, insurgents

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18426 Cervical Cell Classification Using Random Forests

Authors: Dalwinder Singh, Amandeep Verma, Manpreet Kaur, Birmohan Singh

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The detection of pre-cancerous changes using a Pap smear test of cervical cell is the important step for the early diagnosis of cervical cancer. The Pap smear test consists of a sample of human cells taken from the cervix which are analysed to detect cancerous and pre-cancerous stage of the given subject. The manual analysis of these cells is labor intensive and time consuming process which relies on expert cytotechnologist. In this paper, a computer assisted system for the automated analysis of the cervical cells has been proposed. We propose a morphology based approach to the nucleus detection and segmentation of the cytoplasmic region of the given single or multiple overlapped cell. Further, various texture and region based features are calculated from these cells to classify these into normal and abnormal cell. Experimental results on public available dataset show that our system has achieved satisfactory success rate.

Keywords: cervical cancer, cervical tissue, mathematical morphology, texture features

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18425 A Script for Presentation to the Management of a Teaching Hospital on DXplain Clinical Decision Support System

Authors: Jacob Nortey

Abstract:

Introduction: In recent years, there has been an enormous success in discoveries of scientific knowledge in medicine coupled with the advancement of technology. Despite all these successes, diagnoses and treatment of diseases have become complex. According to the Ibero – American Study of Adverse Effects (IBEAS), about 10% of hospital patients suffer from secondary damage during the care process, and approximately 2% die from this process. Many clinical decision support systems have been developed to help mitigate some healthcare medical errors. Method: Relevant databases were searched, including ones that were peculiar to the clinical decision support system (that is, using google scholar, Pub Med and general google searches). The articles were then screened for a comprehensive overview of the functionality, consultative style and statistical usage of Dxplain Clinical decision support systems. Results: Inferences drawn from the articles showed high usage of Dxplain clinical decision support system for problem-based learning among students in developed countries as against little or no usage among students in Low – and Middle – income Countries. The results also indicated high usage among general practitioners. Conclusion: Despite the challenges Dxplain presents, the benefits of its usage to clinicians and students are enormous.

Keywords: dxplain, clinical decision support sytem, diagnosis, support systems

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18424 IT-Based Global Healthcare Delivery System: An Alternative Global Healthcare Delivery System

Authors: Arvind Aggarwal

Abstract:

We have developed a comprehensive global healthcare delivery System based on information technology. It has medical consultation system where a virtual consultant can give medical consultation to the patients and Doctors at the digital medical centre after reviewing the patient’s EMR file consisting of patient’s history, investigations in the voice, images and data format. The system has the surgical operation system too, where a remote robotic consultant can conduct surgery at the robotic surgical centre. The instant speech and text translation is incorporated in the software where the patient’s speech and text (language) can be translated into the consultant’s language and vice versa. A consultant of any specialty (surgeon or Physician) based in any country can provide instant health care consultation, to any patient in any country without loss of time. Robotic surgeons based in any country in a tertiary care hospital can perform remote robotic surgery, through patient friendly telemedicine and tele-surgical centres. The patient EMR, financial data and data of all the consultants and robotic surgeons shall be stored in cloud. It is a complete comprehensive business model with healthcare medical and surgical delivery system. The whole system is self-financing and can be implemented in any country. The entire system uses paperless, filmless techniques. This eliminates the use of all consumables thereby reduces substantial cost which is incurred by consumables. The consultants receive virtual patients, in the form of EMR, thus the consultant saves time and expense to travel to the hospital to see the patients. The consultant gets electronic file ready for reporting & diagnosis. Hence time spent on the physical examination of the patient is saved, the consultant can, therefore, spend quality time in studying the EMR/virtual patient and give his instant advice. The time consumed per patient is reduced and therefore can see more number of patients, the cost of the consultation per patients is therefore reduced. The additional productivity of the consultants can be channelized to serve rural patients devoid of doctors.

Keywords: e-health, telemedicine, telecare, IT-based healthcare

Procedia PDF Downloads 153
18423 Features of Normative and Pathological Realizations of Sibilant Sounds for Computer-Aided Pronunciation Evaluation in Children

Authors: Zuzanna Miodonska, Michal Krecichwost, Pawel Badura

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Sigmatism (lisping) is a speech disorder in which sibilant consonants are mispronounced. The diagnosis of this phenomenon is usually based on the auditory assessment. However, the progress in speech analysis techniques creates a possibility of developing computer-aided sigmatism diagnosis tools. The aim of the study is to statistically verify whether specific acoustic features of sibilant sounds may be related to pronunciation correctness. Such knowledge can be of great importance while implementing classifiers and designing novel tools for automatic sibilants pronunciation evaluation. The study covers analysis of various speech signal measures, including features proposed in the literature for the description of normative sibilants realization. Amplitudes and frequencies of three fricative formants (FF) are extracted based on local spectral maxima of the friction noise. Skewness, kurtosis, four normalized spectral moments (SM) and 13 mel-frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCC) with their 1st and 2nd derivatives (13 Delta and 13 Delta-Delta MFCC) are included in the analysis as well. The resulting feature vector contains 51 measures. The experiments are performed on the speech corpus containing words with selected sibilant sounds (/ʃ, ʒ/) pronounced by 60 preschool children with proper pronunciation or with natural pathologies. In total, 224 /ʃ/ segments and 191 /ʒ/ segments are employed in the study. The Mann-Whitney U test is employed for the analysis of stigmatism and normative pronunciation. Statistically, significant differences are obtained in most of the proposed features in children divided into these two groups at p < 0.05. All spectral moments and fricative formants appear to be distinctive between pathology and proper pronunciation. These metrics describe the friction noise characteristic for sibilants, which makes them particularly promising for the use in sibilants evaluation tools. Correspondences found between phoneme feature values and an expert evaluation of the pronunciation correctness encourage to involve speech analysis tools in diagnosis and therapy of sigmatism. Proposed feature extraction methods could be used in a computer-assisted stigmatism diagnosis or therapy systems.

Keywords: computer-aided pronunciation evaluation, sigmatism diagnosis, speech signal analysis, statistical verification

Procedia PDF Downloads 276
18422 Use of Machine Learning Algorithms to Pediatric MR Images for Tumor Classification

Authors: I. Stathopoulos, V. Syrgiamiotis, E. Karavasilis, A. Ploussi, I. Nikas, C. Hatzigiorgi, K. Platoni, E. P. Efstathopoulos

Abstract:

Introduction: Brain and central nervous system (CNS) tumors form the second most common group of cancer in children, accounting for 30% of all childhood cancers. MRI is the key imaging technique used for the visualization and management of pediatric brain tumors. Initial characterization of tumors from MRI scans is usually performed via a radiologist’s visual assessment. However, different brain tumor types do not always demonstrate clear differences in visual appearance. Using only conventional MRI to provide a definite diagnosis could potentially lead to inaccurate results, and so histopathological examination of biopsy samples is currently considered to be the gold standard for obtaining definite diagnoses. Machine learning is defined as the study of computational algorithms that can use, complex or not, mathematical relationships and patterns from empirical and scientific data to make reliable decisions. Concerning the above, machine learning techniques could provide effective and accurate ways to automate and speed up the analysis and diagnosis for medical images. Machine learning applications in radiology are or could potentially be useful in practice for medical image segmentation and registration, computer-aided detection and diagnosis systems for CT, MR or radiography images and functional MR (fMRI) images for brain activity analysis and neurological disease diagnosis. Purpose: The objective of this study is to provide an automated tool, which may assist in the imaging evaluation and classification of brain neoplasms in pediatric patients by determining the glioma type, grade and differentiating between different brain tissue types. Moreover, a future purpose is to present an alternative way of quick and accurate diagnosis in order to save time and resources in the daily medical workflow. Materials and Methods: A cohort, of 80 pediatric patients with a diagnosis of posterior fossa tumor, was used: 20 ependymomas, 20 astrocytomas, 20 medulloblastomas and 20 healthy children. The MR sequences used, for every single patient, were the following: axial T1-weighted (T1), axial T2-weighted (T2), FluidAttenuated Inversion Recovery (FLAIR), axial diffusion weighted images (DWI), axial contrast-enhanced T1-weighted (T1ce). From every sequence only a principal slice was used that manually traced by two expert radiologists. Image acquisition was carried out on a GE HDxt 1.5-T scanner. The images were preprocessed following a number of steps including noise reduction, bias-field correction, thresholding, coregistration of all sequences (T1, T2, T1ce, FLAIR, DWI), skull stripping, and histogram matching. A large number of features for investigation were chosen, which included age, tumor shape characteristics, image intensity characteristics and texture features. After selecting the features for achieving the highest accuracy using the least number of variables, four machine learning classification algorithms were used: k-Nearest Neighbour, Support-Vector Machines, C4.5 Decision Tree and Convolutional Neural Network. The machine learning schemes and the image analysis are implemented in the WEKA platform and MatLab platform respectively. Results-Conclusions: The results and the accuracy of images classification for each type of glioma by the four different algorithms are still on process.

Keywords: image classification, machine learning algorithms, pediatric MRI, pediatric oncology

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18421 Teaching the Binary System via Beautiful Facts from the Real Life

Authors: Salem Ben Said

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In recent times the decimal number system to which we are accustomed has received serious competition from the binary number system. In this note, an approach is suggested to teaching and learning the binary number system using examples from the real world. More precisely, we will demonstrate the utility of the binary system in describing the optimal strategy to win the Chinese Nim game, and in telegraphy by decoding the hidden message on Perseverance’s Mars parachute written in the language of binary system. Finally, we will answer the question, “why do modern computers prefer the ternary number system instead of the binary system?”. All materials are provided in a format that is conductive to classroom presentation and discussion.

Keywords: binary number system, Nim game, telegraphy, computers prefer the ternary system

Procedia PDF Downloads 159
18420 First Experimental Evidence on Feasibility of Molecular Magnetic Particle Imaging of Tumor Marker Alpha-1-Fetoprotein Using Antibody Conjugated Nanoparticles

Authors: Kolja Them, Priyal Chikhaliwala, Sudeshna Chandra

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Purpose: The purpose of this work is to examine possibilities for noninvasive imaging and identification of tumor markers for cancer diagnosis. The proposed method uses antibody conjugated iron oxide nanoparticles and multicolor Magnetic Particle Imaging (mMPI). The method has the potential for radiation exposure free real-time estimation of local tumor marker concentrations in vivo. In this study, the method is applied to human Alpha-1-Fetoprotein. Materials and Methods: As tracer material AFP antibody-conjugated Dendrimer-Fe3O4 nanoparticles were used. The nanoparticle bioconjugates were then incubated with bovine serum albumin (BSA) to block any possible nonspecific binding sites. Parts of the resulting solution were then incubated with AFP antigen. MPI measurements were done using the preclinical MPI scanner (Bruker Biospin MRI GmbH) and the multicolor method was used for image reconstruction. Results: In multicolor MPI images the nanoparticles incubated only with BSA were clearly distinguished from nanoparticles incubated with BSA and AFP antigens. Conclusion: Tomographic imaging of human tumor marker Alpha-1-Fetoprotein is possible using AFP antibody conjugated iron oxide nanoparticles in presence of BSA. This opens interesting perspectives for cancer diagnosis.

Keywords: noninvasive imaging, tumor antigens, antibody conjugated iron oxide nanoparticles, multicolor magnetic particle imaging, cancer diagnosis

Procedia PDF Downloads 279
18419 Importance of Detecting Malingering Patients in Clinical Setting

Authors: Sakshi Chopra, Harsimarpreet Kaur, Ashima Nehra

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Objectives: Malingering is fabricating or exaggerating the symptoms of mental or physical disorders for a variety of secondary gains or motives, which may include financial compensation; avoiding work; getting lighter criminal sentences; or simply to attract attention or sympathy. Malingering is different from somatization disorder and factitious disorder. The prevalence of malingering is unknown and difficult to determine. In an estimated study in forensic population, it can reach up to 17% cases. But the accuracy of such estimates is questionable as successful malingerers are not detected and thus, not included. Methods: The case study of a 58 years old, right handed, graduate, pre-morbidly working in a national company with reported history of stroke leading to head injury; cerebral infarction/facial palsy and dementia. He was referred for disability certification so that his job position can be transferred to his son as he could not work anymore. A series of Neuropsychological tests were administered. Results: With a mental age of < 2.5 years; social adaptive functioning was overall < 20 showing profound Mental Retardation, less than 1 year social age in abilities of self-help, eating, dressing, locomotion, occupation, communication, self-direction, and socialization; severely impaired verbal and performance ability, 96% impairment in Activities of Daily Living, with an indication of very severe depression. With inconsistent and fluctuating medical findings and problem descriptions to different health professionals forming the board for his disability, it was concluded that this patient was malingering. Conclusions: Even though it can be easily defined, malingering can be very challenging to diagnosis. Cases of malingering impose a substantial economic burden on the health care system and false attribution of malingering imposes a substantial burden of suffering on a significant proportion of the patient population. Timely, tactful diagnosis and management can help ease this patient burden on the healthcare system. Malingering can be detected by only trained mental health professionals in the clinical setting.

Keywords: disability, India, malingering, neuropsychological assessment

Procedia PDF Downloads 397