Search results for: patients with chronic disease

Authors: P. T. Ahamed Seyd, V. I. Thajudin Ahamed, Jeevamma Jacob, Paul Joseph K

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Diabetes mellitus (DM) is frequently characterized by autonomic nervous dysfunction. Analysis of heart rate variability (HRV) has become a popular noninvasive tool for assessing the activities of autonomic nervous system (ANS). In this paper, changes in ANS activity are quantified by means of frequency and time domain analysis of R-R interval variability. Electrocardiograms (ECG) of 16 patients suffering from DM and of 16 healthy volunteers were recorded. Frequency domain analysis of extracted normal to normal interval (NN interval) data indicates significant difference in very low frequency (VLF) power, low frequency (LF) power and high frequency (HF) power, between the DM patients and control group. Time domain measures, standard deviation of NN interval (SDNN), root mean square of successive NN interval differences (RMSSD), successive NN intervals differing more than 50 ms (NN50 Count), percentage value of NN50 count (pNN50), HRV triangular index and triangular interpolation of NN intervals (TINN) also show significant difference between the DM patients and control group.

Keywords: Autonomic nervous system, diabetes mellitus, frequency domain and time domain analysis, heart rate variability.

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Authors: Feng-Chuan Pan, Fang-Yue Liu

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Hospitals in southern Hualien teamed with the Hypertension Joint Care Network. Working with the network, the team provided a special designed health education to the individual who had been identified as a hypertension patient in the outpatient department. Some metabolism improvements achieved. This is a retrospective study by purposively taking 106 patients from a hospital between 2008 and 2010. Records of before and after education intervention of the objects was collected and analyzed to see the how the intervention affected the patients- hypertension control via clinical parameter monitoring. The results showed that the clinical indicators, the LDL-C, the cholesterol and the systolic blood pressure were significantly improved. The study provides evidence for the effectiveness of the network in controlling hypertension.

Keywords: hypertension, joint care management network, cardiovascular diseases, metabolic syndrome.

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Authors: D. Farsi, Gh. Dokhtvasi, S. Abbasi, S. Shafiee Ardestani, E. Payani

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Background and aim: It has not been well studied whether fentanyl-thiopental (FT) is effective and safe for PSA in orthopedic procedures in Emergency Department (ED). The aim of this trial was to evaluate the effectiveness of intravenous FT versus fentanyl-midazolam (FM) in patients who suffered from shoulder dislocation or distal radial fracture-dislocation. Methods: In this randomized double-blinded study, Seventy-six eligible patients were entered the study and randomly received intravenous FT or FM. The success rate, onset of action and recovery time, pain score, physicians’ satisfaction and adverse events were assessed and recorded by treating emergency physicians. The statistical analysis was intention to treat. Results: The success rate after administrating loading dose in FT group was significantly higher than FM group (71.7% vs. 48.9%, p=0.04); however, the ultimate unsuccessful rate after 3 doses of drugs in the FT group was higher than the FM group (3 to 1) but it did not reach to significant level (p=0.61). Despite near equal onset of action time in two study group (P=0.464), the recovery period in patients receiving FT was markedly shorter than FM group (P<0.001). The occurrence of adverse effects was low in both groups (p=0.31). Conclusion: PSA using FT is effective and appears to be safe for orthopedic procedures in the ED. Therefore, regarding the prompt onset of action, short recovery period of thiopental, it seems that this combination can be considered more for performing PSA in orthopedic procedures in ED.

Keywords: Procedural Sedation and Analgesia, Thiopental, Fentanyl, Midazolam, Orthopedic Procedure, Emergency Department, Pain.

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Authors: A.C. Duarte, C.I.L. Justino, K. Duarte, A.C. Freitas, R. Pereira, P. Chaves, P. Bettencourt, S. Cardoso, T.A.P. Rocha-Santos

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This paper aims at overviewing the topics of a research project (CARDIOSENSOR) on the field of health sciences (biomaterials and biomedical engineering). The project has focused on the development of a nanosensor for the assessment of the risk of cardiovascular diseases by the monitoring of C-reactive protein (CRP), which has been currently considered as the best validated inflammatory biomarker associated to cardiovascular diseases. The project involves tasks such as: 1) the development of sensor devices based on field effect transistors (FET): assembly, optimization and validation; 2) application of sensors to the detection of CRP in standard solutions and comparison with enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA); and 3) application of sensors to real samples such as blood and saliva and evaluation of their ability to predict the risk of cardiovascular disease.

Keywords: Carbon nanotubes field effect transistors, cardiovascular diseases, C-reactive protein, sensor.

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Authors: Simon B. N. Thompson

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Retinoblastoma is a rare type of childhood genetic cancer that affects children worldwide. The diagnosis is often missed due to lack of education and difficulty in presentation of the tumor. Frequently, the tumor on the retina is noticed by photography when the red-eye flash, commonly seen in normal eyes, is not produced. Instead, a yellow or white colored patch is seen or the child has a noticeable strabismus. Early detection can be life-saving though often results in removal of the affected eye. Remaining functioning in the healthy eye when the child is young has resulted in super-vision and high or above-average intelligence. Technological advancement of cameras has helped in early detection. Brain imaging has also made possible early detection of neurological diseases and, together with the monitoring of cortisol levels and yawning frequency, promises to be the next new early diagnostic tool for the detection of neurological diseases where cortisol insufficiency is particularly salient, such as multiple sclerosis and Cushing’s disease.

Keywords: Cortisol, Neurological Disease, Retinoblastoma, Thompson Cortisol Hypothesis, Yawning.

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Authors: L. Korpinen, P. Taskinen, P. Rautio

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This study aimed to describe procedures that we developed to use in the quantitative, bone-specific SPECT/CT at our hospital. Our procedures included the following questions for choosing imaging protocols, which were based on a clinical doctor's referral: (1) Is she/he a cancer patient or not? (2) Are there any indications of inflammatory rheumatoid arthritis? We performed about 1,106 skeletal scintigraphies over two years. About 394 patients were studied with quantitative bone-specific single-photon emission computed tomography/computerized tomography (SPECT/CT) (i.e., about 36% of all bone scintigraphies). Approximately 64% of the patients were studied using the conventional Anterior-Posterior/Posterior-Anterior imaging. Our procedure has improved efficiency and decreased cycle times.

Keywords: Skeletal scintigraphy, SPECT/CT, imaging.

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Authors: J. F. Pollo Gaspary, F. Peron Gaspary, E. M. Simão, R. Concatto Beltrame, G. Orengo de Oliveira, M. S. Ristow Ferreira, F. Sartori Thies, I. F. Minello, F. dos Santos de Oliveira

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Background: The immune system has evolved several mechanisms to protect the host against cancer, and it has now been suggested that the expansion of its functions may prevent tumor growth and control the symptoms of cancer patients. Two techniques, ozone therapy and pulsed electromagnetic fields (PEMF), are independently associated with an increase in the immune system functions and they maybe help palliative care of patients in these conditions. Case Report: A patient with rectal adenocarcinoma with metastases decides to interrupt the clinical chemotherapy protocol due to refractoriness and side effects. As a palliative care alternative treatment it is suggested to the patient the use of ozone therapy associated with PEMF techniques. Results: The patient reports an improvement in well-being, in autonomy and in pain control. Imaging tests confirm a pause in tumor growth despite more than 60 days without using classic treatment. These results associated with palliative care alternative treatment stimulate the return to the chemotherapy protocol. Discussion: This case illustrates that these two techniques can contribute to the control of tumor growth and refractory symptoms, such as pain, probably by enhancing the immune system. Conclusions: The potential use of the combination of these two therapies, ozone therapy and PEMF therapy, can contribute to palliation of cancer patients, alone or in combination with pharmacological therapies. The conduct of future investigations on this paradigm can elucidate how much these techniques contribute to the survival and well-being of these patients.

Keywords: Cancer, complementary and alternative medicine, ozone therapy, palliative care, PEMF Therapy.

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Authors: Campbell Townsend, David Hamilton

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Previous research has demonstrated that negative attitudes towards people with physical disabilities and obesity are predicted by a component of perceived vulnerability to disease; germ aversion. These findings have been suggested as illustrations of an evolved but over-active mechanism which promotes the avoidance of pathogen-carrying individuals. To date, this interpretation of attitude formation has not been explored with regard to people with intellectual disability, and no attempts have been made to examine possible mediating factors. This study examined attitudes in 333 adults and demonstrated that the moderate positive relationship between germ aversion and negative attitudes toward people with intellectual disability is fully mediated by social dominance orientation, a general preference for hierarchies and inequalities among social groups. These findings have implications for the design of programs which attempt to promote community acceptance and inclusion of people with disabilities.

Keywords: avoidance, evolutionary psychology, intellectual disability, prejudice

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Authors: Siti Khairunniza-Bejo, Yusnida Yusoff, Nik Salwani Nik Yusoff, Idris Abu Seman, Mohamad Izzuddin Anuar

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Most of the oil palm plantations have been threatened by Basal Stem Rot (BSR) disease which causes serious economic impact. This study was conducted to identify the healthy and BSRinfected oil palm tree using thirteen color indices. Multispectral and thermal camera was used to capture 216 images of the leaves taken from frond number 1, 9 and 17. Indices of normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), red (R), green (G), blue (B), near infrared (NIR), green – blue (GB), green/blue (G/B), green – red (GR), green/red (G/R), hue (H), saturation (S), intensity (I) and thermal index (T) were used. From this study, it can be concluded that G index taken from frond number 9 is the best index to differentiate between the healthy and BSR-infected oil palm trees. It not only gave high value of correlation coefficient (R=-0.962), but also high value of separation between healthy and BSR-infected oil palm tree. Furthermore, power and S model developed using G index gave the highest R2 value which is 0.985.

Keywords: Oil palm, image processing, disease, leaves.

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Authors: Shikha Maheshwari, Amit Srivastava

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In medical investigations, uncertainty is a major challenging problem in making decision for doctors/experts to identify the diseases with a common set of symptoms and also has been extensively increasing in medical diagnosis problems. The theory of cross entropy for intuitionistic fuzzy sets (IFS) is an effective approach in coping uncertainty in decision making for medical diagnosis problem. The main focus of this paper is to propose a new intuitionistic fuzzy cross entropy measure (IFCEM), which aid in reducing the uncertainty and doctors/experts will take their decision easily in context of patient’s disease. It is shown that the proposed measure has some elegant properties, which demonstrates its potency. Further, it is also exemplified in detail the efficiency and utility of the proposed measure by using a real life case study of diagnosis the disease in medical science.

Keywords: Intuitionistic fuzzy cross entropy (IFCEM), intuitionistic fuzzy set (IFS), medical diagnosis, uncertainty.

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Authors: Komwit Surachat, Supasit Kajkamhaeng, Kasikrit Damkliang, Watanyoo Tiprat, Taninnuch Wacharanimit

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An accident is an unexpected and unplanned situation that happens and affects human in a negative outcome. The accident can cause an injury to a human biological organism. Thus, the provision of initial care for an illness or injury is very important move to prepare the patients/victims before sending to the doctor. In this paper, a First Aid Application is developed to give some directions for preliminary taking care of patient/victim via Android mobile device. Also, the navigation function using Google Maps API is implemented in this paper for searching a suitable path to the nearest hospital. Therefore, in the emergency case, this function can be activated and navigate patients/victims to the hospital with the shortest path.

Keywords: First Aid Application, Android, Google Maps API, Navigation System.

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Authors: Hai-Ying Liu, Yi-Hao Chen, Shu-Yin Pang, Feng-Hua Wang, Xiao-Fang Peng, Li-Yuan Yang, Zheng-Rong Chen, Yi Chen, Bing Zhu

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Objective: Biliary atresia (BA) is characterized by progressive liver fibrosis. Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) has been implicated as a key mechanism in the pathogenesis of organ fibrosis. MiR-200a has been shown to repress EMT. We aim to explore the role of miR-200a in the fibrogenesis of BA. Methods: We obtained the plasma samples and liver samples from patients with BA or controls to examine the role of miR-200a. Histological liver fibrosis was assessed using the Ishak fibrosis scores. Reverse transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) was performed to detect the expression of miR-200a in plasma. We also evaluated the expression of miR-200a in liver tissues using tyramide signal amplification fluorescence in situ hybridization (TSA-FISH). The expression of EMT related proteins zinc finger E-box-binding homeobox 1 (ZEB1), E-cadherin and α-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA) in the liver sections were detected by immunohistochemical staining. Results: We found that the expression of miR-200a was both elevated in the plasma and liver tissues from BA patients compared with the controls. The hepatic expression of ZEB1 and α-SMA were markedly increased in the liver sections from BA patients compared to the controls, whereas E-cadherin was downregulated in the BA group. Simultaneously, we noted that the hepatic expression of miR-200a, E-cadherin and α-SMA were upregulated with the progression of liver fibrosis in the BA group, while ZEB1 was downregulated with the progression of liver fibrosis in BA patients. Conclusion: These findings suggest EMT has a critical effect on the fibrotic process of BA, and the interaction between miR-200a and ZEB1 may regulate EMT and eventually influence liver fibrogenesis of BA.

Keywords: Biliary atresia, liver fibrosis, MicroRNA, epithelial-mesenchymal transition, zinc finger e-box-binding homeobox 1.

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Authors: Dabyltayeva R. Y., Smatova K.B., Кabekenov G., Toleshova U., Shagyrbayeva M.

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In recent years in Kazakhstan, as well as in all countries, we have been talking not only about the professional stress, but also professional Burnout Syndrome of employees. Burnout is essentially a response to chronic emotional stress – manifests itself in the form of chronic fatigue, despondency, unmotivated aggression, anger, and others. This condition is due to mental fatigue among teachers as a sort of payment for overstrain when professional commitments include the impact of “heat your soul", emotional investment. The emergence of professional Burnout among teachers is due to the system of interrelated and mutually reinforcing factors relating to the various levels of the personality: individually-psychological level is psychodynamic special subject characteristics of valuemotivational sphere and formation of skills and habits of selfregulation; the socio-psychological level includes especially the Organization and interpersonal interaction of a teacher. Signs of the Burnout were observed in 15 testees, and virtually a symptom could be observed in every teacher. As a result of the diagnosis 48% of teachers had the signs of stress (phase syndrome), resulting in a sense of anxiety, mood, heightened emotional susceptibility. The following results have also been got:-the fall of General energy potential – 14 pers. -Psychosomatic and psycho vegetative syndrome – 26 pers. -emotional deficit-34 pers. -emotional Burnout Syndrome-6 pers. The problem of professional Burnout of teachers in the current conditions should become not only meaningful, but particularly relevant. The quality of education of the younger generation depends on professional development; teachers- training level, and how “healthy" teachers are. That is why the systematic maintenance of pedagogic-professional development for teachers (including disclosure of professional Burnout Syndrome factors) takes on a special meaning.

Keywords: Professional burnout syndrome, adaptive syndrome, stage of depletion syndrome, symptoms and characteristics of burnout, prophylactic of professional destruction techniques.

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Authors: Rachel Hurdley, Jane Hopkinson

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This article is based on observation of a cross-disciplinary, cross-institutional team that worked on an intervention called ‘Memory Mate’ for use in a UK Cancer Centre. This aimed to improve treatment outcomes for patients who had comorbid dementia or other memory impairment. Comorbid patients present ambiguous, spoiled identities, problematising the boundaries of health specialisms and frames of understanding. Memory Mate is theorised as a boundary object facilitating service transformation by changing relations between oncology and mental health care practice. It crosses the boundaries between oncology and mental health. Its introduction signifies an important step in reconfiguring relations between the specialisms. As a boundary object, it contains parallel, even contesting worlds, with potential to enable an eventual synthesis of the double stigma of cancer and dementia. Memory Mate comprises physical things, such as an animation, but its principal value is in the interaction it initiates across disciplines and services. It supports evolution of practices to address a newly emergent challenge for health service provision, namely the cancer patient with comorbid dementia/cognitive impairment. Getting clinicians from different disciplines working together on a practical solution generates a dialogue that can shift professional identity and change the culture of practice.

Keywords: Boundary object, cancer, dementia, interdisciplinary teams.

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Authors: Hussein Alahmer, Amr Ahmed

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Liver cancer is one of the common diseases that cause the death. Early detection is important to diagnose and reduce the incidence of death. Improvements in medical imaging and image processing techniques have significantly enhanced interpretation of medical images. Computer-Aided Diagnosis (CAD) systems based on these techniques play a vital role in the early detection of liver disease and hence reduce liver cancer death rate.  This paper presents an automated CAD system consists of three stages; firstly, automatic liver segmentation and lesion’s detection. Secondly, extracting features. Finally, classifying liver lesions into benign and malignant by using the novel contrasting feature-difference approach. Several types of intensity, texture features are extracted from both; the lesion area and its surrounding normal liver tissue. The difference between the features of both areas is then used as the new lesion descriptors. Machine learning classifiers are then trained on the new descriptors to automatically classify liver lesions into benign or malignant. The experimental results show promising improvements. Moreover, the proposed approach can overcome the problems of varying ranges of intensity and textures between patients, demographics, and imaging devices and settings.

Keywords: CAD system, difference of feature, Fuzzy c means, Liver segmentation.

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Authors: Amjad Alsulami, Farah Albishri, Kholod Alzubidi, Lama Almehemadi, Salma Elhag

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Food allergy is a common and rising problem among children. Many students have their first allergic reaction at school, one of these is anaphylaxis, which can be fatal. This study discovered that several schools' processes lacked safety regulations and information on how to handle allergy issues and chronic diseases like diabetes where students were not supervised or monitored during the cafeteria purchasing process. Academic institutions have no obvious prevention or effort when purchasing food containing allergens or negatively impacting the health status of students who suffer from chronic diseases. The stability of students' health must be maintained because it greatly affects their performance and educational achievement. To address this issue, this paper uses a business reengineering process to propose the automation of the whole food-purchasing process, which will aid in detecting and avoiding allergic occurrences and preventing any side effects from eating foods that are conflicting with students' health. This may be achieved by designing a smart card with an embedded QR code that reveals which foods cause an allergic reaction in a student. A survey was distributed to determine and examine how the cafeteria will handle allergic children and whether any management or policy is applied in the school. Also, the survey findings indicate that the integration of QR technology into the food purchasing process would improve health condition detection. The family supported that the suggested solution would be advantageous because it ensured their children avoided eating not allowed food. Moreover, by analyzing and simulating the as-is process and the suggested process, the results demonstrate that there is an improvement in quality and time.

Keywords: QR code, smart card, food allergies, Business Process reengineering, health condition detection.

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Authors: Weidong Xia, Malgorzata Kolotylo, Xuan Tan

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This study examines the key factors that influence general practitioners’ learning and transfer of specialized arthritis knowledge and self-care techniques to patients during normal patient visits. Drawing on the theory of planed behavior and using matched survey data collected from general practitioners before and after training sessions provided by specialized orthopedic physicians, the study suggests that the general practitioner’s intention to use and transfer learned knowledge was influenced mainly by intrinsic motivation, organizational learning culture and absorptive capacity, but was not influenced by extrinsic motivation. The results provide both theoretical and practical implications.

Keywords: Empirical study, healthcare knowledge management, patient self-care, physician knowledge transfer.

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Authors: N. M. Sani, E. D. Jatau, O. S. Olonitola, M. Y. Gwarzo, P. Moodley, N. S. Mujahid

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Hemoglobin (HB) indicates anemia level and by extension may reflect the nutritional level and perhaps the immunity of an individual. Some antiretroviral drugs like Zidovudine are known to cause anemia in people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA). A cross sectional study using demographic data and blood specimen from 218 female commercial sex workers attending antiretroviral therapy (ART) clinics was conducted between December, 2009 and July, 2011 to assess the effect of zidovudine on hematologic, and RNA viral load of female sex workers receiving antiretroviral treatment in north western Nigeria. Anemia is a common and serious complication of both HIV infection and its treatment. In the setting of HIV infection, anemia has been associated with decreased quality of life, functional status, and survival. Antiretroviral therapy, particularly the highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART), has been associated with a decrease in the incidence and severity of anemia in HIV-infected patients who have received a HAART regimen for at least 1 year. In this study, result has shown that of the 218 patients, 26 with hemoglobin count between 5.1 – 10g/dl were observed to have the highest viral load count of 300,000 – 350,000copies/ml. It was also observed that most patients (190) with HB of 10.1 – 15.0g/dl had viral load count of 200,000 – 250,000 copies /ml. An inverse relationship therefore exists i.e. the lower the hemoglobin level, the higher the viral load count even though the test statistics did not show any significance between the two (P = 0.206). This shows that multivariate logistic regression analysis demonstrated that anemia was associated with a CD4 + cell count below 50/μL, female sex workers with a viral load above 100,000 copies/mL, who use zidovudine. Severe anemia was less prevalent in this study population than in historical comparators; however, mild to moderate anemia rates remain high. The study therefore recommends that hematological and virologic parameters be monitored closely in patients receiving first line ART regimen.

Keywords: Female sex worker, Zidovudine, Hemoglobin, Anemia.

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Authors: D. A. Binas, M. Konidari, C. Bourgioti, L. Angela Moulopoulou, T. L. Economopoulos, G. K. Matsopoulos

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High grade ovarian epithelial cancer (OEC) is the most fatal gynecological cancer and poor prognosis of this entity is closely related to considerable intratumoral genetic heterogeneity. By examining imaging data, it is possible to assess the heterogeneity of tumorous tissue. This study presents a methodology for aligning, segmenting and finally visualizing information from various magnetic resonance imaging series, in order to construct 3D models of heterogeneity maps from the same tumor in OEC patients. The proposed system may be used as an adjunct digital tool by health professionals for personalized medicine, as it allows for an easy visual assessment of the heterogeneity of the examined tumor.

Keywords: K-means segmentation, ovarian epithelial cancer, quantitative characteristics, registration, tumor visualization.

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Authors: A. B. Adehor, P. R. Burrell

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The Integrated Management of Child illnesses (IMCI) and the surveillance Health Information Systems (HIS) are related strategies that are designed to manage child illnesses and community practices of diseases. However, both strategies do not function well together because of classification incompatibilities and, as such, are difficult to use by health care personnel in rural areas where a majority of people lack the basic knowledge of interpreting disease classification from these methods. This paper discusses a single approach on how a stand-alone expert system can be used as a prompt diagnostic tool for all cases of illnesses presented. The system combines the action-oriented IMCI and the disease-oriented HIS approaches to diagnose malaria and typhoid fever in the rural areas of the Niger-delta region.

Keywords: Differential diagnosis, Health Information System(HIS), Integrated Management of Child Illnesses (IMCI), Malaria andTyphoid fever.

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Authors: C. A. Oloo, C. Ojwang

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The performances of small and medium enterprises have stagnated in the last two decades. This has mainly been due to the emergence of HIV / Aids. The disease has had a detrimental effect on the general economy of the country leading to morbidity and mortality of the Kenyan workforce in their primary age. The present study sought to establish the economic impact of HIV / Aids on the micro-enterprise development in Obunga slum – Kisumu, in terms of production loss, increasing labor related cost and to establish possible strategies to address the impact of HIV / Aids on microenterprises. The study was necessitated by the observation that most micro-enterprises in the slum are facing severe economic and social crisis due to the impact of HIV / Aids, they get depleted and close down within a short time due to death of skilled and experience workforce. The study was carried out between June 2008 and June 2009 in Obunga slum. Data was subjected to computer aided statistical analysis that included descriptive statistic, chi-squared and ANOVA techniques. Chi-squared analysis on the micro-enterprise owners opinion on the impact of HIV / Aids on depletion of microenterprise compared to other diseases indicated high levels of the negative effects of the disease at significance levels of P<0.01. Analysis of variance on the impact of HIV / Aids on the performance and productivity of micro-enterprises also indicated a negative effect on the general performance of micro-enterprise at significance levels of P<0.01. Therefore reducing the negative impacts of HIV/Aids on micro-enterprise development, there is need to improve the socioeconomic environment, mobilize donors and stake holders in training and funding, and review the current strategies for addressing the disease. Further conclusive research should also be conducted on a bigger scale.

Keywords: Entrepreneurship, HIV-AIDS, Micro-enterprise, Poverty.

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Authors: Aref Aasi, Sahar Ebrahimi Bajgani, Erfan Aasi

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Breast cancer (BC) continues to be the most frequent cancer in females and causes the highest number of cancer-related deaths in women worldwide. Inspired by recent advances in studying the relationship between different patient attributes and features and the disease, in this paper, we have tried to investigate the different classification methods for better diagnosis of BC in the early stages. In this regard, datasets from the University Hospital Centre of Coimbra were chosen, and different machine learning (ML)-based and neural network (NN) classifiers have been studied. For this purpose, we have selected favorable features among the nine provided attributes from the clinical dataset by using a random forest algorithm. This dataset consists of both healthy controls and BC patients, and it was noted that glucose, BMI, resistin, and age have the most importance, respectively. Moreover, we have analyzed these features with various ML-based classifier methods, including Decision Tree (DT), K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN), eXtreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost), Logistic Regression (LR), Naive Bayes (NB), and Support Vector Machine (SVM) along with NN-based Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP) classifier. The results revealed that among different techniques, the SVM and MLP classifiers have the most accuracy, with amounts of 96% and 92%, respectively. These results divulged that the adopted procedure could be used effectively for the classification of cancer cells, and also it encourages further experimental investigations with more collected data for other types of cancers.

Keywords: Breast cancer, health diagnosis, Machine Learning, biomarker classification, Neural Network.

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Authors: B. Sudhakar, K. A. Ponnusamy

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In India cotton was the major commercial crop and cultivating all the states. In recent years, area of cotton declined due to pest and disease attack, drought, lower price for the produces etc. The first reason as pest and disease attack will be the challenges and it is of utmost importance that in future the insect problems would have to be tackled through Integrated Pest Management (IPM). The present study deals with principle knowledge of IPM adopting cotton cultivators in irrigated and rainfed conditions. Under irrigated conditions, among cultural practices, all respondents had principle knowledge about growing high yielding and pest resistant hybrids, sowing quality and certified seeds and avoiding cotton ratoon cropping. Regarding mechanical practices all respondents had principle knowledge about collecting and destroying egg, larvae and pupae of pests and removing and destroying pest and disease infected cotton squares, flowers and other shed materials. With regard to biological practices, 93% of them had principle knowledge about spraying neem oil, followed by 82% about tying Trichogramma eggcard. Among chemical practices, more than 90% of the respondents had principle knowledge about of spraying herbicide (96%), identifying ETL (Economic Threshold Level) for cotton pests (94%), and applying safe insecticides (90%). Under rainfed condition, among cultural practices, all respondents had principle knowledge about sowing quality and certified seeds and growing high yielding and pest resistant hybrids seeds. Regarding mechanical practices hundred percentage of the respondents had principle knowledge on the mechanical practices viz., collecting and destroying egg, larvae and pupae of pests and removing and destroying pest and disease infected cotton squares, flowers and other shed materials. With regard to biological practices, 96% of the respondents had correct in principle knowledge about spraying neem oil, followed by 89% about tying Trichogramma eggcard. With regard to chemical practices, more than 90% of the respondents had principle knowledge of applying safe insecticides (95%), avoiding repeated use of the same insecticides (95%), identifying ETL for cotton pests (94%) and applying granular insecticides (90%).

Keywords: Biological practices, chemical practices, cultural practices, mechanical practices, integrated pest management.

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Authors: Yahia Massinissa, Kalla A, Yahia M, Benbia S

Abstract:

A lot of recent research have spoken on the relation between the increase of the homocysteinemia and some kinds of cancer . For that, our study was based on the research of a possible relation between the increase of the concentration of this amino-acid in the plasma and the appearance of the disease of the Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia in a part of Algerian children with Berber origin in the East of Algeria . The study has done on 47 ill persons with an average age of (09±06 ) years , with whom the disease has diagnosed by blood and marrow examination in the hospital of blood diseases in the CHU of Batna, and on 194 healthy witnesses of the same age. The two groups were benefited by a dosage of the concentration of the homocysteine vitamin B9 ,vitamin B12 , and also of the study of special polymorphisms of indispensable enzymes in the metabolism of this acid , and that by the use of the method ( Light cycler ) Real time PCR , on the following enzymes : MS ( C2756G ), MSR ( A66G ) ,MTHFR1 ( C677T ) and MTHFR2 (A1298C). The obtained results have revealed that the rate of the homozygote muted genotype is the less frequent in the two groups , and that exist at list one genotype of each enzyme in the ill group and in which the percentage exceed with remarkable way the same genotype in the healthy group and we notice specially the muted genotype GG of -the methionine synthetase-and the form TT of the enzyme – methyline tetra hydrofolate reductase – We notice the existence of considerable number of genotypes in the ill group lied with characteristic increase of this Amino-acid ,and that for the reduction of the biologic activity of these enzymes which become inefficient in the transfer of the homocysteine into the methionine and cause the diminution of the biologic activity of these enzymes and with consequence the reduction of the percentage of methylic radicals in the DNA of studied genes and that lead to the increase of the activity and the capacity of transcription , and it-s so probably that this last one is one of the factors of this disease especially if we know that the specific check-up of vitamins is normal and similar in the two groups , which ovoid the hypothesis of the reduction of vitamins . We notice also that the heterozygote genotype is the less in the sick category except the MTHFR2. Wild genotype is more frequent in the witness group except MSR. Even these results are partials; they open a new way in the genetic diagnosis of this malicious disease which allow a precocious diagnosis and the use of an effective and appropriated treatment in the same time.

Keywords: Genetic polymorphism, Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia, Biomarkers, Metabolism of homocystein

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Authors: Chunling Cong, Chris.P.Tsokos

Abstract:

The objective of the present research manuscript is to perform parametric, nonparametric, and decision tree analysis to evaluate two treatments that are being used for breast cancer patients. Our study is based on utilizing real data which was initially used in “Tamoxifen with or without breast irradiation in women of 50 years of age or older with early breast cancer" [1], and the data is supplied to us by N.A. Ibrahim “Decision tree for competing risks survival probability in breast cancer study" [2]. We agree upon certain aspects of our findings with the published results. However, in this manuscript, we focus on relapse time of breast cancer patients instead of survival time and parametric analysis instead of semi-parametric decision tree analysis is applied to provide more precise recommendations of effectiveness of the two treatments with respect to reoccurrence of breast cancer.

Keywords: decision tree, breast cancer treatments, parametricanalysis, non-parametric analysis

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Authors: Mert Bal, Hayri Sever, Oya Kalıpsız

Abstract:

Medical Decision Support Systems (MDSSs) are sophisticated, intelligent systems that can provide inference due to lack of information and uncertainty. In such systems, to model the uncertainty various soft computing methods such as Bayesian networks, rough sets, artificial neural networks, fuzzy logic, inductive logic programming and genetic algorithms and hybrid methods that formed from the combination of the few mentioned methods are used. In this study, symptom-disease relationships are presented by a framework which is modeled with a formal concept analysis and theory, as diseases, objects and attributes of symptoms. After a concept lattice is formed, Bayes theorem can be used to determine the relationships between attributes and objects. A discernibility relation that forms the base of the rough sets can be applied to attribute data sets in order to reduce attributes and decrease the complexity of computation.

Keywords: Formal Concept Analysis, Rough Set Theory, Granular Computing, Medical Decision Support System.

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Authors: Nina Robson, Kenneth John Faller II, Vishalkumar Ahir, Arthur Ricardo Deps Miguel Ferreira, John Buchanan, Amarnath Banerjee

Abstract:

This paper describes the development of a virtual-reality system ARWED, which will be used in physical rehabilitation of patients with reduced upper extremity mobility to increase limb Active Range of Motion (AROM). The ARWED system performs a symmetric reflection and real-time mapping of the patient’s healthy limb on to their most affected limb, tapping into the mirror neuron system and facilitating the initial learning phase. Using the ARWED, future experiments will test the extension of the action-observation priming effect linked to the mirror-neuron system on healthy subjects and then stroke patients.

Keywords: Physical rehabilitation, mirror neuron, virtual reality, stroke therapy.

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Authors: Mustafa M. Donma, Erkut Karasu, Burcu Ozdilek, Burhan Turgut, Birol Topcu, Burcin Nalbantoglu, Orkide Donma

Abstract:

The mechanisms underlying the association between obesity and asthma may be related to a decreased immunological tolerance induced by a defective function of regulatory T cells (Tregs). The aim of this study is to establish the potential link between these diseases and CD4+, CD25+ FoxP3+ Tregs as well as T helper cells (Ths) in children. This is a prospective case control study. Obese (n:40), asthmatic (n:40), asthmatic obese (n:40) and healthy children (n:40), who don't have any acute or chronic diseases, were included in this study. Obese children were evaluated according to WHO criteria. Asthmatic patients were chosen based on GINA criteria. Parents were asked to fill up the questionnaire. Informed consent forms were taken. Blood samples were marked with CD4+, CD25+ and FoxP3+ in order to determine Tregs and Ths by flow cytometric method. Statistical analyses were performed. p≤0.05 was chosen as meaningful threshold. Tregs exhibiting anti-inflammatory nature were significantly lower in obese (0,16%; p≤0,001), asthmatic (0,25%; p≤0,01) and asthmatic obese (0,29%; p≤0,05) groups than the control group (0,38%). Ths were counted higher in asthma group than the control (p≤0,01) and obese (p≤0,001) groups. T cell immunity plays important roles in obesity and asthma pathogeneses. Decreased numbers of Tregs found in obese, asthmatic and asthmatic obese children may help to elucidate some questions in pathophysiology of these diseases. For HOMA-IR levels, any significant difference was not noted between control and obese groups, but statistically higher values were found for obese asthmatics. The values obtained in all groups were found to be below the critical cut off points. This finding has made the statistically significant difference observed between Tregs of obese, asthmatic, obese asthmatic and control groups much more valuable. These findings will be useful in diagnosis and treatment of these disorders and future studies are needed. The production and propagation of Tregs may be promising in alternative asthma and obesity treatments.

Keywords: Asthma, flow cytometry, pediatric obesity, T cells.

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Authors: Muhibul Haque Bhuyan

Abstract:

Diabetes disease that arises from the higher glucose level due to insulin shortage or insulin opposition in the human body has become a common disease in the world. No medicine can cure it completely. However, by taking medicine, maintaining diets, and having exercises regularly, a diabetes patient can keep his glucose level within the specified limits and in this way, he/she can lead a normal life like a healthy person. But to control glucose levels, a patient needs to monitor them regularly. Various techniques are being used over the last four decades. This modern review article aims to provide a comparative study report on various blood glucose monitoring techniques in a very concise and organized manner. The review mainly emphasizes working principles, cost, technology, sensors, measurement types, measurement accuracy, advantages, and disadvantages, etc. of various techniques and then compares among each other. Besides, the use of algorithms and simulators for the growth of this technology is also presented. Finally, current research trends of this measurement technology have also been discussed.

Keywords: blood glucose measurement, sensors, measurement devices, invasive and non-invasive techniques

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Authors: Young-Seok Choi

Abstract:

In healthy humans, the cortical brain rhythm shows specific mu (~6-14 Hz) and beta (~18-24 Hz) band patterns in the cases of both real and imaginary motor movements. As cerebellar ataxia is associated with impairment of precise motor movement control as well as motor imagery, ataxia is an ideal model system in which to study the role of the cerebellocortical circuit in rhythm control. We hypothesize that the EEG characteristics of ataxic patients differ from those of controls during the performance of a Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) task. Ataxia and control subjects showed a similar distribution of mu power during cued relaxation. During cued motor imagery, however, the ataxia group showed significant spatial distribution of the response, while the control group showed the expected decrease in mu-band power (localized to the motor cortex).

Keywords: Brain-computer interface, EEG, modulation, ataxia.

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