Spread enhancement for firefly algorithm with application to control mechanism of exoskeleton system

Firefly algorithm (FA) is a swarm intelligence based algorithm for global optimization and has widely been used in solving problems in many areas. The FA is good at exploring the search space and locating the global optimum, but it always gets trapped at local optimum especially in case of high dimensional problems. In order to overcome such drawbacks of FA, this paper proposes a modified variant of FA, referred to as spread enhancement strategy for firefly algorithm (SE-FA), by devising a nonlinear adaptive spread mechanism for the control parameters of the algorithm. The performance of the proposed algorithm is compared with the original FA and one variant of FA on six benchmark functions. Experimental and statistical results of the approach show better solutions in terms of reliability and convergence speed than the original FA especially in the case of high-dimensional problems. The algorithms are further tested with control of dynamic systems. The systems considered comprise assistive exoskeletons mechanism for upper and lower extremities. The performance results are evaluated in comparison to the original firefly and invasive weed algorithms. It is demonstrated that the proposed approaches are superior over the individual algorithms in terms of efficiency, convergence speed and quality of the optimal solution achieved

Under the right conditions: protecting podocytes from diabetes-induced damage

Hyperglycemia-induced damage to the glomerular podocyte is thought to be a critical early event in diabetic nephropathy. Interventions that prevent podocyte damage or loss have been shown to have potential for the treatment of diabetic nephropathy. New data show that conditioned medium from adipocyte-derived mesenchymal stem cells has the potential to protect podocytes from high-glucose-induced damage. Furthermore, epidermal growth factor may be the critical ingredient mediating this effect. These data suggest that components of the conditioned medium of mesenchymal stem cells, in addition to the cells themselves, may have potential for the treatment of diseases such as diabetic nephropathy

Bit-Interleaved Coded Energy-Based Modulation with Iterative Decoding

This paper develops a low-complexity near-optimal non-coherent receiver for a multi-level energy-based coded modulation system. Inspired by the turbo processing principle, we incorporate the fundamentals of bit-interleaved coded modulation with iterative decoding (BICM-ID) into the proposed receiver design. The resulting system is called bit-interleaved coded energy-based modulation with iterative decoding (BICEM-ID) and its error performance is analytically studied. Specifically, we derive upper bounds on the average pairwise error probability (PEP) of the non-coherent BICEM-ID system in the feedback-free (FF) and error-free feedback (EFF) scenarios. It is revealed that the definition of the nearest neighbors, which is important in the performance analysis in the FF scenario, is very different from that in the coherent BICM-ID counterpart. The analysis also reveals how the mapping from coded bits to energy levels influences the diversity order and coding gain of the BICEM-ID systems. A design criterion for good mappings is then formulated and an algorithm is proposed to find a set of best mappings for BICEM-ID. Finally, simulation results corroborate the main analytical findings

Prevalence of low back pain and its related factors among pre-hospital emergency personnel in Iran

Objective: Low back pain is one of the most important job injuries among emergency medical personnel. This study was carried out to investigate the prevalence of low back pain as well as its physical, mental and managerial predisposing factors among emergency medical personnel in Iran. Methods: In this analytical cross-sectional study we recruited 298 pre-hospital emergency medical personnel based on census sampling. Data were gathered using Nordic and a research-made questionnaire related to physical, mental and managerial back pain factors. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 20. Descriptive and analytical tests including chisquare test were used appropriately. P value less than 0.05 was considered as the level of significance. Results: Findings showed that 46.3% of pre- hospital emergency technicians had a history of low back pain with different intensities. We observed a significant relationship between age, work experience, occupational-physical factors with low back pain (P>0.001). However, there was no significant relationship between occupational-managerial factors and mental-occupational factors with low back pain (P>0.05). Conclusion: Results show that the prevalence of back pain among emergency medical personnel is high. Identifying the factors associated with back pain can help the managers as well as the personnel to control the problem of back pain and increase employees’ productivity. Keywords: Low back pain,

Pan-cancer classifications of tumor histological images using deep learning

Histopathological images are essential for the diagnosis of cancer type and selection of optimal treatment. However, the current clinical process of manual inspection of images is time consuming and prone to intra- and inter-observer variability. Here we show that key aspects of cancer image analysis can be performed by deep convolutional neural networks (CNNs) across a wide spectrum of cancer types. In particular, we implement CNN architectures based on Google Inception v3 transfer learning to analyze 27815 H&E slides from 23 cohorts in The Cancer Genome Atlas in studies of tumor/normal status, cancer subtype, and mutation status. For 19 solid cancer types we are able to classify tumor/normal status of whole slide images with extremely high AUCs (0.995±0.008). We are also able to classify cancer subtypes within 10 tissue types with AUC values well above random expectations (micro-average 0.87±0.1). We then perform a cross-classification analysis of tumor/normal status across tumor types. We find that classifiers trained on one type are often effective in distinguishing tumor from normal in other cancer types, with the relationships among classifiers matching known cancer tissue relationships. For the more challenging problem of mutational status, we are able to classify TP53 mutations in three cancer types with AUCs from 0.65-0.80 using a fully-trained CNN, and with similar cross-classification accuracy across tissues. These studies demonstrate the power of CNNs for not only classifying histopathological images in diverse cancer types, but also for revealing shared biology between tumors. We have made software available at: https://github.com/javadnoorb/HistCNNFirst author draf

Sustained intraocular VEGF neutralization results in retinal neurodegeneration in the Ins2^Akitadiabetic mouse

Current therapies that target vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) have become a mainstream therapy for the management of diabetic macular oedema. The treatment involves monthly repeated intravitreal injections of VEGF inhibitors. VEGF is an important growth factor for many retinal cells, including different types of neurons. In this study, we investigated the adverse effect of multiple intravitreal anti-VEGF injections (200 ng/μl/eye anti-mouse VEGF(164), once every 2 weeks totalling 5–6 injections) to retinal neurons in Ins2(Akita) diabetic mice. Funduscopic examination revealed the development of cotton wool spot-like lesions in anti-VEGF treated Ins2(Akita) mice after 5 injections. Histological investigation showed focal swellings of retinal nerve fibres with neurofilament disruption. Furthermore, anti-VEGF-treated Ins2(Akita) mice exhibited impaired electroretinographic responses, characterized by reduced scotopic a- and b-wave and oscillatory potentials. Immunofluorescent staining revealed impairment of photoreceptors, disruptions of synaptic structures and loss of amacrine and retinal ganglion cells in anti-VEGF treated Ins2(Akita) mice. Anti-VEGF-treated WT mice also presented mild amacrine and ganglion cell death, but no overt abnormalities in photoreceptors and synaptic structures. At the vascular level, exacerbated albumin leakage was observed in anti-VEGF injected diabetic mice. Our results suggest that sustained intraocular VEGF neutralization induces retinal neurodegeneration and vascular damage in the diabetic eye

Multicentre study of Wilm’s tumours treated by different therapeutic strategies in two different countries

Background and purpose According to the treatment of Wilm’s tumours, two different therapeutic strategies were established in the second half of the last century. Both National Wilm’s Tumour Study (NWTS) group and the International Society of Paediatric Oncology (SIOP) have helped to improve the clinical management and outcome of patients with Wilm’s tumours. In this study, we compared three groups of patients with Wilm’s tumours from different racial backgrounds and therapeutic strategies.Patients and methods A clinicopathological review was carried out for 40 patients treated at Kyushu University Hospital in Japan from 1960 to 2006 according to NWTS, 79 patients treated at the South Egypt Cancer Institute from 2002 to 2009 according to the SIOP protocol and 33 patients treated at the Pediatric Surgery Department of Assiut University Hospital from 2000 to 2009 according to the NWTS protocol.Results In the Kyushu University group, a favourable histology was diagnosed in 80% of patients and an unfavourable histology in 20% of patients. The distribution of the clinical stage was as follows: I = 40%, II =22.5%, III = 22.5%, IV = 7.5% and V = 7.5%. The 5-year overall survival was 82.5%, with the 5-year stage-related survival as follows: I= 93.7%, II =83.3%, III= 62.5%, IV = 33.3% and V = 100%. In the South Egypt Cancer Institute group, favourable histology was diagnosed in 89.9% of patients, unfavourable histology in 8.8% of patients and benign disease in 1.3% of patients. The distribution of the clinical stage (before and after chemotherapy) was as follows: I = 25.3%-50%, II= 19%-20%, III= 35.4-15%, IV = 12.5%-5% and V = 7.6%-7.6%. No case of intraoperative tumour rupture was recorded. The overall 5-year survival rate of 84% with a 5-year stage-related survival was as follows: I= 92%, II =80%, III= 50%, IV = 31% and V = 30%. In the Assiut University group, a favourable histology was diagnosed in 79% of patients and an unfavourable histology in 9% of patients. The distribution of the clinical stage was as follows: I= 39.4%, II =21.2%, III = 21.2%, IV = 12% and V =6%. The overall 5-year survival rate was 77% and the 5-year stage-related survival was as follows: I= 85%, II= 75%, III = 52%, IV = 33% and V = 33%.Conclusion The Egyptian patients with Wilm’s tumour presented at a younger age and had less incidence of an unfavourable histology compared with Japanese patients. Preoperative chemotherapy increased the rate of stage I disease and decreased the incidence of intraoperative tumour rupture and relapse. However, there was a possibility that chemotherapy had been administered in the case of benign disease. Keywords: intraoperative tumour rupture, NWTS, SIOP, Wilm’s tumou

The Dawn of Open Access to Phylogenetic Data

The scientific enterprise depends critically on the preservation of and open access to published data. This basic tenet applies acutely to phylogenies (estimates of evolutionary relationships among species). Increasingly, phylogenies are estimated from increasingly large, genome-scale datasets using increasingly complex statistical methods that require increasing levels of expertise and computational investment. Moreover, the resulting phylogenetic data provide an explicit historical perspective that critically informs research in a vast and growing number of scientific disciplines. One such use is the study of changes in rates of lineage diversification (speciation - extinction) through time. As part of a meta-analysis in this area, we sought to collect phylogenetic data (comprising nucleotide sequence alignment and tree files) from 217 studies published in 46 journals over a 13-year period. We document our attempts to procure those data (from online archives and by direct request to corresponding authors), and report results of analyses (using Bayesian logistic regression) to assess the impact of various factors on the success of our efforts. Overall, complete phylogenetic data for ~60% of these studies are effectively lost to science. Our study indicates that phylogenetic data are more likely to be deposited in online archives and/or shared upon request when: (1) the publishing journal has a strong data-sharing policy; (2) the publishing journal has a higher impact factor, and; (3) the data are requested from faculty rather than students. Although the situation appears dire, our analyses suggest that it is far from hopeless: recent initiatives by the scientific community -- including policy changes by journals and funding agencies -- are improving the state of affairs

Impact of Sex Education in Kogi State, Nigeria

The focus of this study was to investigate the impact of family sex education in secondary schools on students in Kogi State, Nigeria. The descriptive survey design was used for the study. A total of 1,960 secondary school students were drawn by stratified random sampling from 40 schools within Kogi State, Nigeria. Three research questions were generated for the study. Data collected using a researchers’ structured questionnaire were subjected to statistics of frequency counts and percentage. The results revealed that students have sexual problems, misuse of sex, high teenage pregnancies and abortion and inadequate information on sex. Among the recommendations made include the provision of adequate counseling and enlightenment programmes for students, teachers and parents on the dangers of sex misuse and abuse, and the implementation of the law against sex abuse of any form, and full enforcement of the child right act of Nigeria. Keywords: Sex, education, abuse, impact, Kogi State, Nigeri