Three-Dimensional Spectral-Domain Optical Coherence Tomography Data Analysis for Glaucoma Detection

Purpose: To develop a new three-dimensional (3D) spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) data analysis method using a machine learning technique based on variable-size super pixel segmentation that efficiently utilizes full 3D dataset to improve the discrimination between early glaucomatous and healthy eyes. Methods: 192 eyes of 96 subjects (44 healthy, 59 glaucoma suspect and 89 glaucomatous eyes) were scanned with SD-OCT. Each SD-OCT cube dataset was first converted into 2D feature map based on retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) segmentation and then divided into various number of super pixels. Unlike the conventional super pixel having a fixed number of points, this newly developed variable-size super pixel is defined as a cluster of homogeneous adjacent pixels with variable size, shape and number. Features of super pixel map were extracted and used as inputs to machine classifier (LogitBoost adaptive boosting) to automatically identify diseased eyes. For discriminating performance assessment, area under the curve (AUC) of the receiver operating characteristics of the machine classifier outputs were compared with the conventional circumpapillary RNFL (cpRNFL) thickness measurements. Results: The super pixel analysis showed statistically significantly higher AUC than the cpRNFL (0.855 vs. 0.707, respectively, p = 0.031, Jackknife test) when glaucoma suspects were discriminated from healthy, while no significant difference was found when confirmed glaucoma eyes were discriminated from healthy eyes. Conclusions: A novel 3D OCT analysis technique performed at least as well as the cpRNFL in glaucoma discrimination and even better at glaucoma suspect discrimination. This new method has the potential to improve early detection of glaucomatous damage. © 2013 Xu et al

Critically Appraised Topic: Evidence for Mindfulness Therapies for Veterans with PTSD

The purpose of this critically appraised topic (CAT) is to explore the effectiveness of mindfulness therapies to assist veterans who have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) with symptom management. Assisting veterans to purposely engage in rest, health management and social participation are areas of occupation that will increase overall quality of life, as these occupations are negatively impacted by PTSD symptoms (American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA), 2010; Barr, Davis, Diguiseppi, Keeling & Castro, 2019; Beck et al., 2017; Bormann et al., 2018; Cole et al., 2015; Cuellar, 2008; Cushing, Braun, Alden, Katz & Alden, 2018; Marchand, Yabko, Herrmann, Curtis, & Lackner, 2019; Mehling et al., 2018; Nagy, Pickett & Hunsanger, 2020; Rice, Liu & Schroeder, 2018; Schuman, 2016; Schure, Simpson, Martinez, Sayre, & Kearney, 2018; Wynn, 2015)

Capital Adequacy Ratios, Efficiency and Governance: a Comparison Between Islamic and Western Banks

The profit and loss sharing principle that is peculiar to Islamic finance reformulates the allocation of risk between stakeholders. Since in Islamic banks depositors are closer to stockholders in terms of residual claiming on profits, the relationship between capitalization and efficiency should in principle be weaker than in their Western counterparts. Results, obtained by means of a stochastic cost frontier analysis on samples of European-15 and Islamic banks during the period 1996-2002, show that the ratio of equity to deposits negatively affects inefficiency in both types of banks, but this effect is considerably undersized in Islamic banks as compared to European ones. This supports the reluctance that has accompained the proposal of capital adequacy ratios for Islamic banks in accordance to Basel Agreements.Islamic Banks, capital, governance.

Teaching Critical Thinking and Metaliteracy Through OER: Theory and Practice in a Course Collaboration

Textbooks are often the primary reference when we think of open educational resources (OER). While these textbooks are important and offer obvious economic benefits to students, the range of OER is wide and growing. In this paper, we introduce a specific set of OER, under the rubric of the metaliteracy framework, designed to strengthen critical thinking and the overall learning capacities of students. We describe a successful collaboration between an instructor of a political science course and a librarian, which employed these resources to enhance the overall student experience and to focus student attention on becoming more active contributors to their own learning

LIFE: bibliography

The following bibliography came out of the research which formed the first phase of the joint British Library-UCL LIFE (Lifecycle Information for E-Literature) project. The references are not an exhaustive review of digital preservation activities, they are a reflection of the aims of the LIFE project. Any suggestions for additions or comments can be emailed to [email protected]

Type III Secretion Effectors with Arginine N-Glycosyltransferase Activity

Type III secretion systems are used by many Gram-negative bacterial pathogens to inject proteins, known as effectors, into the cytosol of host cells. These virulence factors interfere with a diverse array of host signal transduction pathways and cellular processes. Many effectors have catalytic activities to promote post-translational modifications of host proteins. This review focuses on a family of effectors with glycosyltransferase activity that catalyze addition of N-acetyl-d-glucosamine to specific arginine residues in target proteins, leading to reduced NF-κB pathway activation and impaired host cell death. This family includes NleB from Citrobacter rodentium, NleB1 and NleB2 from enteropathogenic and enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli, and SseK1, SseK2, and SseK3 from Salmonella enterica. First, we place these effectors in the general framework of the glycosyltransferase superfamily and in the particular context of the role of glycosylation in bacterial pathogenesis. Then, we provide detailed information about currently known members of this family, their role in virulence, and their targetsSpanish Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad , Agencia Estatal de Investigación, and the European Regional Development Fund, grant number SAF2016‐75365‐REuropean Union’s Horizon 2020 e Marie Skłodowska‐Curie grant agreement No 84262

Regulating Access to Adult Content (with Privacy Preservation)

In the physical world we have well-established mechanisms for keeping children out of adult-only areas. In the virtual world this is generally replaced by self declaration. Some service providers resort to using heavy-weight identification mechanisms, judging adulthood as a side effect thereof. Collection of identification data arguably constitutes an unwarranted privacy invasion in this context, if carried out merely to perform adulthood estimation. This paper presents a mechanism that exploits the adult's more extensive exposure to public media, relying on the likelihood that they will be able to recall details if cued by a carefully chosen picture. We conducted an online study to gauge the viability of this scheme. With our prototype we were able to predict that the user was a child 99% of the time. Unfortunately the scheme also misclassified too many adults. We discuss our results and suggest directions for future research

Non-compliance with randomised allocation and missing outcome data in randomised controlled trials evaluating surgical interventions : a systematic review

Acknowledgements JAC held MRC training (reference number: G0601938) and methodology (reference number: G1002292) fellowships while this research was undertaken. The Health Services Research Unit is core funded by the Chief Scientist Office of the Scottish Government Health and Social Care Directorates. The authors accept full responsibility for this manuscript.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Visual Specification Patterns

Visual modelling notations such as constraint diagrams can be used for the behavioural specifications of software components. This includes specifying invariants on classes or types and preconditions and postconditions of operations. However, one current problem in specifying components comes from the fact that editing constraints manually is time consuming and error prone and so we may adopt a pattern-based approach to alleviate this problem. One way to simplify the definition of constraints is to identify and capture those recurring constraints in the form of visual specification patterns. Such patterns would facilitate the automatic generation of diagrammatic constraints. This paper identifies some specification patterns that frequently occur when specifying software components and provides a diagrammatic representation of these patterns. This will form the basis of a library of specification patterns that could be used in the context of tools. We also show how such patterns can be combined in order to specify more complex constraints