CT-guided iodine-125 seed permanent implantation for recurrent head and neck cancers

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>To investigate the feasibility, and safety of ¹²⁵I seed permanent implantation for recurrent head and neck carcinoma under CT-guidance.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A retrospective study on 14 patients with recurrent head and neck cancers undergone ¹²⁵I seed implantation with different seed activities. The post-plan showed that the actuarial D90 of ¹²⁵I seeds ranged from 90 to 218 Gy (median, 157.5 Gy). The follow-up was 3 to 60 months (median, 13 months). The median local control was 18 months (95% CI, 6.1-29.9 months), and the 1-, 2-, 3-, and 5- year local controls were 52%, 39%, 39%, and 39%, respectively. The 1-, 2-, 3-, and 5- survival rates were 65%, 39%, 39% and 39%, respectively, with a median survival time of 20 months (95% CI, 8.7-31.3 months). Of all patients, 28.6% (4/14) died of local recurrence, 7.1% (1/14) died of metastases, one patient died of hepatocirrhosis, and 8 patients are still alive to the date of data analysis.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>CT-guided ¹²⁵I seed implantation is feasible and safe as a salvage or palliative treatment for patients with recurrent head and neck cancers.</p

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Targeted gene sanger sequencing should remain the first-tier genetic test for children suspected to have the five common X-linked inborn errors of immunity

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT : The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/Supplementary Material. Further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.To address inborn errors of immunity (IEI) which were underdiagnosed in resource-limited regions, our centre developed and offered free genetic testing for the most common IEI by Sanger sequencing (SS) since 2001. With the establishment of The Asian Primary Immunodeficiency (APID) Network in 2009, the awareness and definitive diagnosis of IEI were further improved with collaboration among centres caring for IEI patients from East and Southeast Asia. We also started to use whole exome sequencing (WES) for undiagnosed cases and further extended our collaboration with centres from South Asia and Africa. With the increased use of Next Generation Sequencing (NGS), we have shifted our diagnostic practice from SS to WES. However, SS was still one of the key diagnostic tools for IEI for the past two decades. Our centre has performed 2,024 IEI SS genetic tests, with in-house protocol designed specifically for 84 genes, in 1,376 patients with 744 identified to have disease-causing mutations (54.1%). The high diagnostic rate after just one round of targeted gene SS for each of the 5 common IEI (X-linked agammaglobulinemia (XLA) 77.4%, Wiskott–Aldrich syndrome (WAS) 69.2%, X-linked chronic granulomatous disease (XCGD) 59.5%, X-linked severe combined immunodeficiency (XSCID) 51.1%, and X-linked hyper-IgM syndrome (HIGM1) 58.1%) demonstrated targeted gene SS should remain the first-tier genetic test for the 5 common X-linked IEI.The Hong Kong Society for Relief of Disabled Children and Jeffrey Modell Foundation.http://www.frontiersin.org/Immunologyam2023Paediatrics and Child Healt

Retrospective evaluation of whole exome and genome mutation calls in 746 cancer samples

Funder: NCI U24CA211006Abstract: The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) curated consensus somatic mutation calls using whole exome sequencing (WES) and whole genome sequencing (WGS), respectively. Here, as part of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium, which aggregated whole genome sequencing data from 2,658 cancers across 38 tumour types, we compare WES and WGS side-by-side from 746 TCGA samples, finding that ~80% of mutations overlap in covered exonic regions. We estimate that low variant allele fraction (VAF < 15%) and clonal heterogeneity contribute up to 68% of private WGS mutations and 71% of private WES mutations. We observe that ~30% of private WGS mutations trace to mutations identified by a single variant caller in WES consensus efforts. WGS captures both ~50% more variation in exonic regions and un-observed mutations in loci with variable GC-content. Together, our analysis highlights technological divergences between two reproducible somatic variant detection efforts

Pat your pet : a project on responsible pet ownership

The project consists of two parts. First, we held a half-day event at Bishan Junction 8 so that the public can come into contact iwth the various animal welfare organizations. The event attracted some 200 dogs and 800 people. Next, we also filmed a 10-min video.Bachelor of Communication Studie

Trend of outsourcing internal audit

75 p.The purpose of this report is to find out the trend of outsourcing of an organisation's Internal Audit Function (whether wholly or partially) to an outside firm. By outsourcing, we mean that the organisation "engages an external party to provide services or products previously provided by an internal source" [IIA, 1996]. We will also examine why certain organisations outsource while others chose not to.ACCOUNTANC

Poverty and meritocracy in Singapore

Singapore is recognised to be one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Despite priding itself to be an inclusive country in terms of wealth distribution, there is increasing class inequality. Particularly, there have been cases of individuals struggling to make ends meet. This study aims to understand middle-class perceptions of ‘poverty’ and ‘the poor’. As a qualitative study, this research involved semi-structured interviews with thirty middle-class young adults in Singapore. The responses garnered reveal an undercurrent of meritocratic principles that seem to inform how they conceptualise ‘poverty’ and ‘the poor’. This is reflected in the emphasis on the importance of hard work and self-reliance, where one should not solely rely on government assistance. This paper draws upon these responses to discuss the implications of meritocracy as a value system and recommends some solutions to remedy the unintended consequences of implementing this system across all facets of life.Bachelor of Art

Role of feedback and motivational climate in promoting exercise among children

With childhood obesity as a growing concern in Singapore, parents, educators and policymakers are finding new ways to encourage children to be more physically active. This study focuses on using communicative components in a digitally-mediated environment (through digitally assisted physical gaming, or exergaming) as an intervention method to promote leisure time physical activity and encourage exercise behaviour. While past research explored various factors that impact the effectiveness of a health intervention programme, this research taps on the self-determination theory and other behavioural theories to investigate communication components that are most salient in an intervention programme involving exergaming – feedback type and motivational climate. A 2 (peer or authority) X 2 (self-improvement or social-comparative) between-subject factorial design was used. The intervention was held as a 1.5-day exergaming camp consisting of 10.5 hours of activity for 216 students aged 9 to 12. They were split into respective treatment conditions and participated in nutrition and exercise-related activities through the XBOX360 Kinect and mobile applications on the iPod Touch. They had to either set their own target scores (self-improvement feedback) or compete against their teammates (social-comparative feedback), and received motivational notes from either their teammates (peer-based motivational climate) or facilitators (authority-based motivational climate). Results from this study provide valuable insights into tailoring child-specific interventions. Findings suggest that self-improvement feedback is more effective than social-comparative feedback in influencing intention to exercise, and this effect is further enhanced in a peer motivational climate. It was also found that attitude towards exercise was a significant predictor of behavioural intention in a physical activity context. Theoretical implications and recommendations for parents, educators and health authorities are discussed.Bachelor of Communication Studie

EEG-based cadets training and performance assessment system in maritime virtual simulator

Deep investment in the maritime industries has led to many cutting edge technological advances in shipping navigation and operational safety to ensure safe and efficient logistical transportations. However, even with the best technology equipped onboard, maritime accidents are still occurring with at least three quarters of them attributed to human errors. Due to the rising need to address the human factors in shipping operations, various human factors studies are conducted in maritime domain. In this paper, an Electroencephalogram (EEG)-based cadets training and performance assessment system is proposed and implemented that could be used in the maritime virtual simulator. The system includes an EEG processing and analyses part and an evaluation part. It could recognize the brain states such as mental workload, emotions, and stress from raw EEG signal recorded during the exercises in the simulator and then give an indicative recommendation on "pass", "retrain", or "fail" of the cadet based on the EEG recognition results and input of the level of the task difficulty performed.National Research Foundation (NRF)Singapore Maritime Institute (SMI)Accepted versionThis research is supported by Singapore Maritime Institute and by the National Research Foundation, Prime Minister’s Office, Singapore under its international Research Centres in Singapore Funding Initiative

MOLECULAR AND ANATOMICAL ANALYSES REVEAL THAT PERONIA VERRUCULATA (GASTROPODA: ONCHIDIIDAE) IS A CRYPTIC SPECIES COMPLEX

10.1163/18759866-08703002873149-16