Simultaneous Multiple Surface Segmentation Using Deep Learning

The task of automatically segmenting 3-D surfaces representing boundaries of objects is important for quantitative analysis of volumetric images, and plays a vital role in biomedical image analysis. Recently, graph-based methods with a global optimization property have been developed and optimized for various medical imaging applications. Despite their widespread use, these require human experts to design transformations, image features, surface smoothness priors, and re-design for a different tissue, organ or imaging modality. Here, we propose a Deep Learning based approach for segmentation of the surfaces in volumetric medical images, by learning the essential features and transformations from training data, without any human expert intervention. We employ a regional approach to learn the local surface profiles. The proposed approach was evaluated on simultaneous intraretinal layer segmentation of optical coherence tomography (OCT) images of normal retinas and retinas affected by age related macular degeneration (AMD). The proposed approach was validated on 40 retina OCT volumes including 20 normal and 20 AMD subjects. The experiments showed statistically significant improvement in accuracy for our approach compared to state-of-the-art graph based optimal surface segmentation with convex priors (G-OSC). A single Convolution Neural Network (CNN) was used to learn the surfaces for both normal and diseased images. The mean unsigned surface positioning errors obtained by G-OSC method 2.31 voxels (95% CI 2.02-2.60 voxels) was improved to $1.27$ voxels (95% CI 1.14-1.40 voxels) using our new approach. On average, our approach takes 94.34 s, requiring 95.35 MB memory, which is much faster than the 2837.46 s and 6.87 GB memory required by the G-OSC method on the same computer system.Comment: 8 page

Interacting agegraphic quintessence dark energy in non-flat universe

We suggest a correspondence between interacting agegraphic dark energy models and the quintessence scalar field in a non-flat universe. We demonstrate that the agegraphic evolution of the universe can be described completely by a single quintessence scalar field. Then, we reconstruct the potential of the interacting agegraphic quintessence dark energy as well as the dynamics of the scalar field according to the evolution of the agegraphic dark energy.Comment: 12 pages, 12 figure

Low Q2Q^2 proton structure function, using gluon and pseudoscalar meson clouds in the constituent quark framework

The idea of the meson cloud approach in the chiral quark model has been extended to include gluon cloud in order to achieve the parton densities in the nucleon, based on the constitute quark framework. The splitting function of the quark to the quark-meson and quark-gluon at low $Q^2$ value are used to obtain parton densities in the constituent quark. The phenomenological constituent model is employed to extract the parton distributions in the proton at low $Q^2$ value. Since we have access to the parton densities at low $Q^2$, we are able to obtain $F_{2}(x,Q^2)$ structure function at low $Q^2$ value. The result is in good agreement with available experimental data and some theoretical models. To confirm the validity of our calculations, the fraction of total momentum of proton which is carried by gluon at high $Q^2$ and also the Gottfried sum rule are computed. The results are in good agreement with what are expected.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figure

Evaluation inhibitory effect of essential oil Savory (Satureja hortensis) in food fish

Aflatoxins are a group of fungal metabolites that are produced by the growth of fungi on food. These toxins cause illness in animals and humans, and are important in economic and humans health. In this investigation, inhibitory effects of savory (Satureja hortensis L.) essential oil were evaluated on the growth of Aspergillus flavus in fish food. A gas chromatograph apparatus linked to a mass spectrometer (GC/MS) was used to identify the effective components in Satureja hortensis essential oil after extraction. Essential oils against Aspergillus flavus incubated in PDA media and antifungal properties of essential oil Satureja hortensis was investigated. About of 300g of food samples was weighted and samples were sterilized by autoclave. Fungal suspension (3cc) was spraied into the feed samples, and various concentrations of essential oils (0, 300, 400, 500, 600ppm) added to samples. The samples were incubated at temperature of (±SD) 28±2°C. After 20-40 and 60 days period, randomly, some sampled were taken from containers and the production of aflatoxin B1, B2, G1, and G2 was measured in the laboratory. This result confirms that 500ppm concentrations of oil savory have antifungal properties against Aspergillus flavus

Effect of oxygen plasma etching on graphene studied with Raman spectroscopy and electronic transport

We report a study of graphene and graphene field effect devices after exposure to a series of short pulses of oxygen plasma. We present data from Raman spectroscopy, back-gated field-effect and magneto-transport measurements. The intensity ratio between Raman "D" and "G" peaks, I(D)/I(G) (commonly used to characterize disorder in graphene) is observed to increase approximately linearly with the number (N(e)) of plasma etching pulses initially, but then decreases at higher Ne. We also discuss implications of our data for extracting graphene crystalline domain sizes from I(D)/I(G). At the highest Ne measured, the "2D" peak is found to be nearly suppressed while the "D" peak is still prominent. Electronic transport measurements in plasma-etched graphene show an up-shifting of the Dirac point, indicating hole doping. We also characterize mobility, quantum Hall states, weak localization and various scattering lengths in a moderately etched sample. Our findings are valuable for understanding the effects of plasma etching on graphene and the physics of disordered graphene through artificially generated defects.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figure

Influence of Sex/Gender and Race on Responses to Raltegravir Combined With Tenofovir-Emtricitabine in Treatment-Naive Human Immunodeficiency Virus-1 Infected Patients: Pooled Analyses of the STARTMRK and QDMRK Studies.

BACKGROUND: Antiretroviral therapy in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected women and blacks merits particular scrutiny because these groups have been underrepresented in clinical trials. METHODS: To document the effects of raltegravir across sex and racial lines, we conducted a pooled subgroup analysis of the efficacy and safety of raltegravir 400 mg BID plus tenofovir-emtricitabine by sex (women vs men) and self-identified race (black vs non-black) using phase 3 studies in treatment-naive patients. RESULTS: Study participants included 42 black women, 102 non-black women, 48 black men, and 477 non-black men. Clade B infections were less common in women (43.8%) than men (84.6%) and in blacks (45.6%) than non-blacks (80.5%). Baseline CD4 counts were ≤200 cells/µL in 52.2% of blacks and 31.6% of non-blacks. Black men had the largest proportion of patients with baseline CD4 counts/µL and the highest nontreatment-related discontinuation rate among the 4 sex-by-race subgroups. Human immunodeficiency virus-ribonucleic acid levels/mL were achieved at week 48 in 92.7% (95% confidence interval [CI], 80.1-98.5) of black women, 93.6% (95% CI, 86.6-97.6) of non-black women, 82.9% (95% CI, 67.9-92.8) of black men, and 91.4% (95% CI, 88.4-93.8) of non-black men. Serious clinical adverse events were reported in 9.0% of women versus 8.8% of men and in 11.1% of blacks versus 8.5% of non-blacks. CONCLUSIONS: In this post hoc analysis of patients with previously untreated HIV-1 infection receiving raltegravir plus tenofovir-emtricitabine, generally comparable results were achieved across sex and racial subgroups. However, black men had a lower response rate than either black women or non-black men, partially attributable to lower baseline CD4 counts and higher discontinuation rates

Pion mass dependence of the Kl3K_{l3} semileptonic scalar form factor within finite volume

We calculate the scalar semileptonic kaon decay in finite volume at the momentum transfer $t_{m} = (m_{K} - m_{\pi})^2$, using chiral perturbation theory. At first we obtain the hadronic matrix element to be calculated in finite volume. We then evaluate the finite size effects for two volumes with $L = 1.83 fm$ and $L= 2.73 fm$ and find that the difference between the finite volume corrections of the two volumes are larger than the difference as quoted in \cite{Boyle2007a}. It appears then that the pion masses used for the scalar form factor in ChPT are large which result in large finite volume corrections. If appropriate values for pion mass are used, we believe that the finite size effects estimated in this paper can be useful for Lattice data to extrapolate at large lattice size.Comment: 19 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in EPJ

Cadmium induced oxidative stress in Dunaliella salina

The unicellular green algae Dunaliella salina contains various antioxidants which protect the cell from oxidative damage due to environmental stresses such as heavy metal stress. In the present study, the response of D. salina at the stationary growth phase to oxidative stress generated by cadmium chloride was investigated. Growth, expressed as cell number per ml of culture, did not change up to 75 μM cadmium but decreased significantly at 100 and 150 μM Cd2+. Reduction in chlorophyll content and carotenoids content per ml of culture was observed in the presence of Cd2+. Total antioxidant activity, expressed as μmole Trolox equivalent per 106 cell (μmol TE 106 cell-1) and also total phenolic content (pg GAE, cell-1) were significantly reduced in the presence of Cd2+. Lower Cd2+ concentration had no influence on the activity of ascorbate peroxidase, 100 and 150 μM Cd2+ caused significant reduction in enzyme activity. Lipid peroxidation, reported as malondialdehyde content, was the same as control up to 100 μM Cd2+ but increased at higher Cd2+ concentration. It is concluded that high concentration of cadmium have negative effect on aquatic algae.Keywords: Dunaliella salina, Carotenoids, Antioxidant activity, Cadmium chloride, Lipidperoxidation, Ascorbate peroxidas