Clinical, ultrasound parameters and tumor marker-based mathematical models and scoring systems in pre-surgical diagnosis of adnexal tumors

The choice of management for patients with adnexal tumors requires careful pre-surgical assessment. In case of adnexal masses, the diagnostic difficulties arise from the heterogenic nature of the adnexal diseases, presence of multiple functional changes, and lack of early symptoms of malignancy. A reliable pre-surgical differentiation cannot be performed using clinical features, ultrasound examination, or tumor markers alone. New diagnostic techniques and novel markers are under investigations, however no single test can be used to conclusively differentiate between malignant and non-malignant adnexal masses. Mathematical models and scoring systems based on different clinical, ultrasonographic and laboratory parameters alone or together may facilitate the diagnosis. Selected mathematical models and scoring systems are presented in this article. Models using only ultrasound features include simple rules, regression models, Gynecologic Imaging Report and Data System, and various morphologic scores. Some logistic regression models are based on multiple clinical and ultrasound data. The OVA1 test is based on five tumor markers without using other data. The Risk of Malignancy Algorithm uses two tumor markers with one clinical parameter. i.e. the menopausal status. Some models used clinical, ultrasound and tumor marker data together. This group of models includes risk of malignancy indices, artificial neural networks, and the ADNEX model. Although some of these models have been compared in the literature, more prospective studies are needed to select the most effective model, to develop the existing models, or to create new more effective models of oncological assessment of the adnexal tumors

Improving educational process quality in the lessons of natural and mathematical cycle by means of stem-training

Today, the educational process is focused on the development of personal characteristics that meet the requirements of a modern educated person. In this regard, the task of educational institutions is to adopt the educational process to today’s realities. To achieve this goal, STEM education is implemente

Attitude of the early Christian apologists to Greek philosophy as exemplified in Irenaeus of Lyons, Tertullian of Carthage and Clement of Alexandria

The bask here set for us, namely, to ascertain the nature of the encounter "between Christianity and Greek philosophy in the period specified would be less difficult in itself if we came to its consideration with our minds unhampered by the opinions which have been given and the conclusions reached concerning it* We have mainly to bear in mind that the individual Christian thinkers with whom we shall have to deal lived through that period of transition in the development of Christianity in which many things we regard as normative had been neither formalized nor stamped with the seal of later orthodoxy. The Creed which some of us repeat, for instance, while in process of evolution, had not as yet been reduced to standard form.(^) Indeed, those second and third century pioneers in the realms of Christian thought express themselves occasionally in terms that would certainly have startled and would not in all likelihood have been tolerated by the later Fathers of the Church

Plotinus and the development of Neoplatonism

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston UniversityThe problem of the thesis is to investigate the philosophy of Plotinus with particular reference to its historical roots and its structure as a system. The task here is two-fold: an historical survey of post-Aristotelian thought and the investigation of Plotinus' thought in relation to Plato and Platonism is one aspect of the method of the thesis; an investigation of Plotinus' philosophy is the other. Philosophy after Aristotle tended toward wide eclecticism and broad interpenetration of ideas. The Academy became Skeptical, the Skeptics, Epicureans and Peripatetics re-evaluated the insights of illustrious forebears, and the Stoics worked out a history of practical thought. Almost alone in the immediate post-Aristotelian era, Poseidonius rose above epigonic speculation and approached the genius of the great thinkers. Neopythagoreanism rose from an obscure religion to a flourishing school in the period just before the advent of Christianity. Platonism returned to the spiritual vision of Plato at this time. Several Platonists of this period anticipated many of Plotinus' interpretations of Plato. Philo Judaeus platonized the Jewish tradition in allegorical expansion. In the First and Second Centuries, A.D., the demise of classical culture was accompanied by the rise of Christianity. Early Christian philosophy was almost wholly platonized as it created. The Third Century, A.D., was an era of almost total cultural decline in the Roman Empire. Moral and intellectual poverty was accompanied by a new thirst for religious certainty. Oriental religions had a vital appeal for such an age. Christianity grew rapidly in this climate. Astrology and magic became popular handmaidens of religion. In such a setting, Plotinus appeared. Plotinus' life was not outwardly extraordinary. He founded a school in Rome in 245 A.D., and died there in 270 A.D. He was widely known and revered, as a man and as a thinker. Plotinus' thought is an attempt at a monistic interpretation of Plato. All of the apparent reality is but for the formal expression of the Realm of Ideas. This realm is also the mind of the One (God). The All-Soul creates the apparent realm. Matter is uniformed potentiality, and evil results therefrom. Although man participates in material extension, his home is in the Divine, and all thinking should be directed toward his flight from his present state. Plotinus' philosophy is throughout a statement of the ultimate status of man and the universe and the means whereby man can and must rise from his present condition. The Oe is the nameless source of all Being for Plotinus. Through emanative creation, the One authors everything without itself suffering loss. Pursuit of the Good, the True and the Beautiful is a unified quest for immersion in The One. This is ecstasy. It is also the hope of life and the promise of death. Plotinus maintained his doctrinal loyalty to Plato without exception. Important differences in doctrines can be perceived, however. Nonetheless, Plotinus was a Platonist. Aristotle's criticisms of Plato are taken into account by Plotinus. Several other direct historical antecedents are observable in Plotinus' thought. Plotinus provides Greek thought with a rare and enduring width and depth of philosophical penetration. At once, he furnishes the dying pagan culture with a final great philosophical system, and he establishes a way of life and thought which early Christian culture was to use in its highest philosophical expression

Classifying Christians: Ethnography, Discovery, and the Limits of Knowledge in Late Antiquity

This dissertation analyzes the paradigms Christian writers (150-500 C.E.) used to array, historicize, and polemicize ethnographic data. A study of late antique heresiological literature (orthodox treatises about heretics) demonstrates how the religious practices, doctrinal beliefs, and historical origins of heretics served to define Christian schematizations of the world. In studying heretics, Christian authors defined and ordered the bounds of Christian knowledge and the process by which that knowledge was transmitted

Diagnostics Need Not Apply

Diagnostic testing helps caregivers and patients understand a patient\u27s condition, predict future outcomes, select appropriate treatments, and determine whether treatment is working. Improvements in diagnostic testing are essential to bringing about the long-heralded promise of personalized medicine. Yet it seems increasingly clear that most important advances in this type of medical technology lie outside the boundaries of patent-eligible subject matter. The clarity of this conclusion has been obscured by ambiguity in the recent decisions of the Supreme Court concerning patent eligibility. Since its 2010 decision in Bilski v. Kappos, the Court has followed a discipline of limiting judicial exclusions from the statutory categories of patentable subject matter to a finite list repeatedly articulated in the Court\u27s own prior decisions for laws of nature, physical phenomena, and abstract ideas, while declining to embrace other judicial exclusions that were never expressed in Supreme Court opinions. The result has been a series of decisions that, while upending a quarter century of lower court decisions and administrative practice, purport to be a straightforward application of ordinary principles of stare decisis. As the implications of these decisions are worked out, the Court\u27s robust understanding of the exclusions for laws of nature and abstract ideas seems to leave little room for patent protection for diagnostics. This Article reviews recent decisions on patent-eligibility from the Supreme Court and the Federal Circuit to demonstrate the obstacles to patenting diagnostic methods under emerging law. Although the courts have used different analytical approaches in recent cases, the bottom line is consistent: diagnostic applications are not patent eligible. I then consider what the absence of patents might mean for the future of innovation in diagnostic testing