52 research outputs found

    Susceptibility to early-onset squamous cell carcinoma of the skin

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    Skin cancer accounts for more cancer diagnoses in Australia than any other and of these, keratinocyte cancer (KC) make up the vast majority. Within NMSC carcinomas, cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) has an annual incidence of 387/100,000 PY (person year). The work described in this thesis aims to depict these causes by studying a cohort of up to 172 adults, with early-onset SCC (diagnosis before 50 years), 74 sibling controls and 79 unrelated (partner) controls. Analyses were conducted of exposures to beta papillomaviruses (betaPV), of histopathological features, and of genetic variants associated with SCC. First, betaPV exposures in both past (serology) and present (DNA) were analysed for 15 betaPV types in cases, sibling, and partner controls. No definitive associations with early-onset SCC were identified. However, there was higher prevalence in cases, compared with sibling controls, of serologically detected exposure to multiple (> 3) increased risk betaPV subtypes. Second, histopathological features including stage, site, associated lesions, and tumour differentiation were analysed after pathological review. There were significant differences in body site, associated lesions and histological differentiation when compared. Tumours were more likely to have worse histologic stage if there was an associated benign lesion. Third, case-control analyses were conducted of 28 genetic loci, previously reported to be associated with skin cancer. Three quarters of the loci replicated associations in this early-onset cohort, suggesting that the overall genetic profile of individuals susceptible to early-onset SCC is like that of SCC. Three further loci, not detected in previous studies of SCC, were identified as potential novel associations. These data suggest that a continued focus on early-onset disease is likely to yield insights into preventable risk factors, surveillance, and clinically relevant management issues for younger adults at risk of this skin cancer

    Investigating physical health and related secondary care use in people with severe mental illness using electronic health records

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    Background: People diagnosed with severe mental illness (SMI) have poorer physical health and higher mortality than those without SMI. In this thesis I investigate the physical health and planned and emergency physical health hospital use of people with SMI compared to people without SMI. Methods: I conducted a meta-analysis to quantify excess hospital use for non mental health causes in people with SMI and five physical long-term conditions (LTCs). I used primary care records to investigate the prevalence of 24 LTCs in those with and without SMI, to identify patterns of multimorbidity, and to investigate cancer incidence and mortality. I then linked primary and secondary care records to investigate planned and emergency physical health hospital admissions in people with SMI. Results: Patients with SMI had higher prevalence of 19 of 24 physical LTCs, and of multimorbidity (odds ratio:1.84, 95%CI:1.80-1.88) than those without SMI, with 13 LTCs elevated at or before SMI diagnosis. However, clusters of LTCs were similar between those with and without SMI. Patients with schizophrenia had a lower risk of cancer diagnosis (hazard ratio[HR]:0.83, 95%CI:0.78-0.89) but were at greater risk of cancer mortality (HR:1.93, 95%CI:1.54-2.41) and had fewer planned physical health admissions (incidence rate ratio [IRR]:0.80, 95%CI:0.72- 0.90) than those without SMI. Patients with SMI had more emergency physical health admissions, particularly avoidable admissions (IRR:2.88, 95%CI:2.60- 3.19). Conclusions: Interventions to improve physical health should focus on similar groups of conditions as for the general population, but at a younger age, and early in the course of SMI. The low incidence of cancer and of planned physical health admissions in people with schizophrenia suggest a need for interventions to improve access to preventative and planned services. The high rate of avoidable admissions in those with SMI suggests interventions are required to improve the management of existing physical LTCs

    Advances in Forensic Genetics

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    The book has 25 articles about the status and new directions in forensic genetics. Approximately half of the articles are invited reviews, and the remaining articles deal with new forensic genetic methods. The articles cover aspects such as sampling DNA evidence at the scene of a crime; DNA transfer when handling evidence material and how to avoid DNA contamination of items, laboratory, etc.; identification of body fluids and tissues with RNA; forensic microbiome analysis with molecular biology methods as a supplement to the examination of human DNA; forensic DNA phenotyping for predicting visible traits such as eye, hair, and skin colour; new ancestry informative DNA markers for estimating ethnic origin; new genetic genealogy methods for identifying distant relatives that cannot be identified with conventional forensic DNA typing; sensitive DNA methods, including single-cell DNA analysis and other highly specialised and sensitive methods to examine ancient DNA from unidentified victims of war; forensic animal genetics; genetics of visible traits in dogs; statistical tools for interpreting forensic DNA analyses, including the most used IT tools for forensic STR-typing and DNA sequencing; haploid markers (Y-chromosome and mitochondria DNA); inference of ethnic origin; a comprehensive logical framework for the interpretation of forensic genetic DNA data; and an overview of the ethical aspects of modern forensic genetics

    Play Among Books

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    How does coding change the way we think about architecture? Miro Roman and his AI Alice_ch3n81 develop a playful scenario in which they propose coding as the new literacy of information. They convey knowledge in the form of a project model that links the fields of architecture and information through two interwoven narrative strands in an “infinite flow” of real books

    Diagnosis of skin cancer using novel computer vision and deep learning techniques

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    Recent years have noticed an increase in the total number of skin cancer cases and it is projected to grow exponentially, however mortality rate of malignant melanoma can be decreased if it is diagnosed and treated in its early stage. Notwithstanding the fact that visual similarity between benign and malignant lesions makes the task of diagnosis difficult even for an expert dermatologist, thereby increasing the chances of false prediction. This dissertation proposes two novel methods of computer-aided diagnosis for the classification of malignant lesion. The first method pre-processes the acquired image by the Dull razor method (for digital hair removal) and histogram equalisation. Henceforth the image is segmented by the proposed method using LR-fuzzy logic and it achieves an accuracy, sensitivity and specificity of 96.50%, 97.50% and 96.25% for the PH2 dataset; 96.16%, 91.88% and 98.26% for the ISIC 2017 dataset; 95.91%, 91.62% and 97.37% for ISIC 2018 dataset respectively. Furthermore, the image is classified by the modified You Only Look Once (YOLO v3) classifier and it yields an accuracy, sensitivity and specificity of 98.16%, 95.43%, and 99.50% respectively. The second method enhances the images by removing digital artefacts and histogram equalisation. Thereafter, triangular neutrosophic number (TNN) is used for segmentation of lesion, which achieves an accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity of 99.00%, 97.50%, 99.38% for PH2; 98.83%, 98.48%, 99.01% for ISIC 2017; 98.56%, 98.50%, 98.58% for ISIC 2018; and 97.86%, 97.56%, 97.97% for ISIC 2019 dataset respectively. Furthermore, data augmentation is performed by the addition of artefacts and noise to the training dataset and rotating the images at an angle of 650, 1350, and 2150 such that the training dataset is increased to 92838 from 30946 images. Additionally, a novel classifier based on inception and residual module is trained over augmented dataset and it is able to achieve an accuracy, sensitivity and specificity of 99.50%, 100%, 99.38% for PH2; 99.33%, 98.48%, 99.75% for ISIC 2017; 98.56%, 97.61%, 98.88% for ISIC 2018 and 98.04%, 96.67%, 98.52% for ISIC 2019 dataset respectively. Later in our dissertation, the proposed methods are deployed into real-time mobile applications, therefore enabling the users to diagnose the suspected lesion with ease and accuracy

    Tears as powerful visual communication signals: a sociobiological approach

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    Las denominadas “llamadas de distress” han sido objeto de interés para etólogos, primatólogos y psicólogos por igual, pues representan un comportamiento fuertemente seleccionado en muy distintos grupos zoológicos. De entre todas las llamadas de distress, una de las más peculiares y única de nuestra especie es el derramamiento de lágrimas emocionales. El estudio de las señales no verbales de comunicación alcanza aquí una sutileza mayor que la acostumbrada, pues el estímulo que genera respuestas diferenciales llega a ser tan mínimo como una simple lágrima deslizándose por la mejilla. Para comprender mejor las respuestas empático-afectivas, y el posible valor adaptativo de las lágrimas emocionales vertidas por adultos, se llevaron a cabo 4 estudios que han sido publicados en 3 revistas internacionales. Los estímulos utilizados en los 3 primeros estudios fueron imágenes captadas durante una performance artística de Marina Abramovic en Nueva York, en la que de modo espontáneo algunos de los espectadores lloraron sin que sus rostros mostraran un estado emocional marcado e identificable. Estas imágenes fueron modificadas digitalmente de tal modo que se obtuvieran clones de las imágenes originales con la salvedad de que las nuevas versiones carecían de lágrimas visibles. Con una estrategia similar se obtuvieron 5 imágenes de distintas especies animales para el cuarto estudio, pero en este caso las imágenes fueron modificadas para que los clones sí tuvieran lágrimas. Se descubrió que las lágrimas favorecen la empatía afectiva al igual que la simpatía, y facilitan la inferencia emocional y la intensidad con la que son percibidas dichas emociones. Además, las lágrimas parecen actuar como un signo de que la persona que llora está siendo sincera en sus declaraciones, siendo juzgada como más amable, honesta, y de haber cometido un delito, más arrepentida. De modo interesante, las lágrimas cambian el patrón de inspección facial, y capturan toda la atención visual como si de imanes se trataran. Por otro lado, parece que la influencia de las lágrimas pudiera ser un indicador sensible ante ciertas condiciones psicopatológicas, e influye de modo significativo sobre nuestras percepciones de agresividad cuando juzgamos rostros no humanos. Este hallazgo, junto con el parcialmente encontrado en los juicios simulados de criminales ⸺donde la voluntariedad del acto juega un importante papel⸺ respaldan la hipótesis de las lágrimas como frenos de la agresión intraespecie. Se discuten los resultados obtenidos a la luz de la evidencia empírica mostrada por otros investigadores, y se concluye con respecto a dichos resultados y algunas posibilidades de investigación futura

    Moment-based boundary conditions for straight on-grid boundaries in three dimensional lattice Boltzmann simulations

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    In this article, moment‐based boundary conditions for the lattice Boltzmann method are extended to three dimensions. Boundary conditions for velocity and pressure are explicitly derived for straight on‐grid boundaries for the D3Q19 lattice. The method is compared against the bounce‐back scheme using both single and two relaxation time collision schemes. The method is verified using classical benchmark test cases. The results show very good agreement with the data found in the literature. It is confirmed from the results that the derived moment‐based boundary scheme is of second‐order accuracy in grid spacing and does not produce numerical slip, and therefore offers a transparent way of accurately prescribing velocity and pressure boundaries that are aligned with grid points in three‐dimensional
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