Mobile hyperspectral imaging for structural damage detection

Title from PDF of title page viewed May 29, 2020Thesis advisor: ZhiQiang ChenVitaIncludes bibliographical references (pages 60-72)Thesis (M.S.)--School of Computing and Engineering. University of Missouri--Kansas City, 2020Numerous optical-imaging and machine-vision based inspection methods are found that aim to replace visual and human-based inspection with an automated or a highly efficient procedure. However, these machine-vision systems have not been entirely endorsed by civil engineers towards deploying these techniques in practice, partially due to their poor performance in object detection when structural cracks coexist with other complex scenes. A mobile hyperspectral imaging system is developed in this work, which captures hundreds of spectral reflectance values at a pixel in the visible and near-infrared (VNIR) portion of the electromagnetic spectrum bands. To prove its potential in discriminating complex objects, a machine learning methodology is developed with classification models that are characterized by four different feature extraction processes. Experimental validation with quantitative measures proves that hyperspectral pixels, when used conjunctly with dimensionality reduction, possess outstanding potential in recognizing eight different structural surface objects including cracks for concrete and asphalt surfaces, and outperform the gray-values that characterize the texture/shape of the objects. The authors envision the advent of computational hyperspectral imaging for automating structural damage inspection, especially when dealing with complex structural scenes in practice.Introduction -- Hyperspectral Image -- Preprocessing -- Methodology -- Machine Learning Approach -- Discussion -- Appendix 1-

Comparison of Surgical Outcome of Anterior Circulation Aneurysms With and Without Proximal Temporary Artery Occlusion

Objective: To compare the outcome of the TAO vs. no TAO during aneurysm surgery in terms of clinically significant postoperative ischemic changes due to vasospasm. Material and Methods:  A quasi-experimental study was conducted at Lahore General Hospital wherein 82 patients were enrolled. This study was conducted when the first author was working as PGR at LGH Lahore during 2015 to 2017. Patients were followed from admission to three-month post-op. During the follow-up, patients with clinical substantial post-op ischemic changes were calculated on CT Angiography for the presence of vasospasm. Results:  Mean age of the patients was 45.23 years. Proximal TAO was done in 30% (n=25) patients. Clinically significant post-op ischemic changes were seen in 29.3% (n = 24) patients. Of the patients who underwent proximal TAO, longer occlusion time (> 10 mins) was significantly associated with ischemic changes (p-value 0.015). Age > 50 years also showed a statistically significant association with clinical vasospasm (p-value < 0.001). Conclusion:  Temporary proximal artery clipping when employed within a limited duration appears to be safe and has no significant impact on clinical vasospasm. Since vasospasm is multifactorial, avoiding a longer duration of proximal TAO in patients with advancing age could decrease the frequency of post-operative ischemic changes due to vasospasm in such patients

Clinico-Laboratory Profile and Outcome of COVID-19 in Patients with Chronic Immune Thrombocytopenia

Background/Case Studies: Thrombocytopenia is a well-described complication of COVID-19, with numerous proposed mechanisms among which is immune thrombocytopenia (ITP). There are limited data on the characteristics and impact of COVID-19 on patients with previously diagnosed ITP. Study Design/Methods: This is a retrospective review of all chronic ITP patients who were diagnosed with COVID-19 between 03/2020 and 01/2022 at a tertiary care center. The study was approved by the IRB. Patients with secondary thrombocytopenia, missing data, and unavailable follow up after COVID-19 diagnosis, were excluded. Demographic data, comorbidities, clinico-laboratory findings before and after COVID-19 diagnosis, management of COVID-19 and outcome were collected. Analyses were performed using SPSS; a p value of \u3c0.05 was considered significant. Results were presented as median plus range, mean +/- standard deviation, or percentages as indicated. Variables were compared using the independent two-sample Student t-test for continuous variables, and the Pearson\u27s Chi-square test or Fisher\u27s exact test for categorical variables. Early mortality was defined as death from any cause within 30 days of admission. Results/Findings: 45 patients were included. The median age was 66 (32–93) years; 27 (60%) were females. 28(62%) patients were Caucasian. The median time from ITP diagnosis to COVID-19 was 5 (1–35) years. A 27 (60%) patients required treatment for ITP before COVID-19, and only 4 patients were on low-dose prednisone at the time of COVID-19 diagnosis. The most common symptoms of COVID-19 were shortness of breath (53%), fever (31%), and cough (22%). 29 (64%) patients were hospitalized with 12 of them requiring ICU care. Median time of hospitalization was 8 (2–45) days. COVID-19 specific treatments included steroids (42%), remdesivir (24%), chloroquine (9%), azithromycin (9%), and tocilizumab (2%). Three patients had thrombosis (2 DVTs, and 1 DVT and PE), 2 had intracranial bleeding, and 3 had mucosal bleeding. Early mortality rate was 15.6%; death was attributed to respiratory failure in 3 patients, multi-organ failure in 3 patients, and cardiac arrest in 1 patient. None of the analyzed parameters (gender, ethnicity, age, comorbidities, severity of thrombocytopenia, thrombotic or bleeding events) was associated with ICU admission or early mortality. Patients\u27 platelet count before COVID-19 diagnosis did not differ from the platelet count at the time of COVID-19 diagnosis with a mean platelet count of 108.5 (+/- 49.0) and 93.8 (+/- 92.8) (p = 0.299), respectively. In addition, there was no significant difference in the platelet before COVID-19 and after recovery. Conclusion: Thrombocytopenia of chronic ITP patients did not worsen during COVID-19 infection or after recovery. Mortality of chronic ITP patients due to COVID-19 was not different from reported mortality of hospitalized COVID-19 patients. Our findings should be validated in larger cohorts

Immunohistoochemical evaluation of GATA-3, pAKT and Ki-67 in triple negative breast carcinoma

Background: Triple-negative breast cancers lack expression of estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor, and human epidermal growth factor receptor -2. These tumors have been known to be clinically aggressive. We evaluate GATA-3, pAKT and Ki-67 expression in 35 triple negative breast carcinomas.Materials and Methods: A total of 35 triple negative breast carcinomas were included in this study. The histological subtyping was done according to Japanese guidelines for breast cancer.Results: GATA-3 was positive in 60% (21/35) of tumors. High GATA-3 expression was observed in ductal carcinoma in situ.  pAKT expression was demonstrated in 85.7 % (30/35) of TNBCs. The levels of expression of GATA-3 and pAKT showed no significant association with nuclear grading. (P=0.761 and P=0.487, respectively). Ki-67 labeling index was positively correlated with nuclear grading (p&lt;0.001).Conclusion: GATA-3 expression has no relation with ER and PR expression and pAKT and GATA-3 are strongly expressed in TNBCs. </p

Tier 1 University Transportation Center Match Funds for the Strategic Implications of Changing Public Transportation Travel Trends

69A3552047141Even before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, public transit ridership was declining in many metropolitan areas in the United States. To regain riders, transit agencies and their partners must make decisions about which strategies and policies to pursue within the constraints of their operating environments. To help address this, the Transit-Serving Communities Optimally, Responsively, and Efficiently (T-SCORE) Tier 1 University Transportation Center was set up as a research consortium from 2020 to 2023 led by Georgia Tech with research partners at the University of Kentucky, Brigham Young University and University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK). The T-SCORE Center had two primary research tracks: (1) Community Analysis (led by the University of Tennessee; included in this report) and (2) Multi-Modal Optimization and Simulation (led by the University of Kentucky; not included). The Community Analysis research track employed a combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods to assess three main drivers of change that have affected transit ridership: price and socioeconomic factors, the competitive landscape, and system disruptions, including COVID-19. The research approach for the Community Analysis track was divided into separate projects, and the UTK team led three projects that aimed to: (1) quantify the impact of different factors affecting transit ridership - including the COVID-19 pandemic - at a nationwide scale; (2) assess the impacts of shared micromobility, particularly electric scooters, on transit ridership; and (3) evaluate new fare payment technologies and emerging pricing strategies, with the vision of taking a step toward Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS). The findings of these three Community Analysis projects can help inform transit agencies and city officials making decisions about how to increase transit ridership and plan for a sustainable future

Mapping disparities in education across low- and middle-income countries

Analyses of the proportions of individuals who have completed key levels of schooling across all low- and middle-income countries from 2000 to 2017 reveal inequalities across countries as well as within populations. Educational attainment is an important social determinant of maternal, newborn, and child health(1-3). As a tool for promoting gender equity, it has gained increasing traction in popular media, international aid strategies, and global agenda-setting(4-6). The global health agenda is increasingly focused on evidence of precision public health, which illustrates the subnational distribution of disease and illness(7,8); however, an agenda focused on future equity must integrate comparable evidence on the distribution of social determinants of health(9-11). Here we expand on the available precision SDG evidence by estimating the subnational distribution of educational attainment, including the proportions of individuals who have completed key levels of schooling, across all low- and middle-income countries from 2000 to 2017. Previous analyses have focused on geographical disparities in average attainment across Africa or for specific countries, but-to our knowledge-no analysis has examined the subnational proportions of individuals who completed specific levels of education across all low- and middle-income countries(12-14). By geolocating subnational data for more than 184 million person-years across 528 data sources, we precisely identify inequalities across geography as well as within populations.Peer reviewe

Mapping geographical inequalities in access to drinking water and sanitation facilities in low-income and middle-income countries, 2000-17

Background: Universal access to safe drinking water and sanitation facilities is an essential human right, recognised in the Sustainable Development Goals as crucial for preventing disease and improving human wellbeing. Comprehensive, high-resolution estimates are important to inform progress towards achieving this goal. We aimed to produce high-resolution geospatial estimates of access to drinking water and sanitation facilities. Methods: We used a Bayesian geostatistical model and data from 600 sources across more than 88 low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) to estimate access to drinking water and sanitation facilities on continuous continent-wide surfaces from 2000 to 2017, and aggregated results to policy-relevant administrative units. We estimated mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive subcategories of facilities for drinking water (piped water on or off premises, other improved facilities, unimproved, and surface water) and sanitation facilities (septic or sewer sanitation, other improved, unimproved, and open defecation) with use of ordinal regression. We also estimated the number of diarrhoeal deaths in children younger than 5 years attributed to unsafe facilities and estimated deaths that were averted by increased access to safe facilities in 2017, and analysed geographical inequality in access within LMICs. Findings: Across LMICs, access to both piped water and improved water overall increased between 2000 and 2017, with progress varying spatially. For piped water, the safest water facility type, access increased from 40·0% (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 39·4–40·7) to 50·3% (50·0–50·5), but was lowest in sub-Saharan Africa, where access to piped water was mostly concentrated in urban centres. Access to both sewer or septic sanitation and improved sanitation overall also increased across all LMICs during the study period. For sewer or septic sanitation, access was 46·3% (95% UI 46·1–46·5) in 2017, compared with 28·7% (28·5–29·0) in 2000. Although some units improved access to the safest drinking water or sanitation facilities since 2000, a large absolute number of people continued to not have access in several units with high access to such facilities (>80%) in 2017. More than 253 000 people did not have access to sewer or septic sanitation facilities in the city of Harare, Zimbabwe, despite 88·6% (95% UI 87·2–89·7) access overall. Many units were able to transition from the least safe facilities in 2000 to safe facilities by 2017; for units in which populations primarily practised open defecation in 2000, 686 (95% UI 664–711) of the 1830 (1797–1863) units transitioned to the use of improved sanitation. Geographical disparities in access to improved water across units decreased in 76·1% (95% UI 71·6–80·7) of countries from 2000 to 2017, and in 53·9% (50·6–59·6) of countries for access to improved sanitation, but remained evident subnationally in most countries in 2017. Interpretation: Our estimates, combined with geospatial trends in diarrhoeal burden, identify where efforts to increase access to safe drinking water and sanitation facilities are most needed. By highlighting areas with successful approaches or in need of targeted interventions, our estimates can enable precision public health to effectively progress towards universal access to safe water and sanitation

Alcohol use and burden for 195 countries and territories, 1990-2016 : a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016

Background Alcohol use is a leading risk factor for death and disability, but its overall association with health remains complex given the possible protective effects of moderate alcohol consumption on some conditions. With our comprehensive approach to health accounting within the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2016, we generated improved estimates of alcohol use and alcohol-attributable deaths and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) for 195 locations from 1990 to 2016, for both sexes and for 5-year age groups between the ages of 15 years and 95 years and older. Methods Using 694 data sources of individual and population-level alcohol consumption, along with 592 prospective and retrospective studies on the risk of alcohol use, we produced estimates of the prevalence of current drinking, abstention, the distribution of alcohol consumption among current drinkers in standard drinks daily (defined as 10 g of pure ethyl alcohol), and alcohol-attributable deaths and DALYs. We made several methodological improvements compared with previous estimates: first, we adjusted alcohol sales estimates to take into account tourist and unrecorded consumption; second, we did a new meta-analysis of relative risks for 23 health outcomes associated with alcohol use; and third, we developed a new method to quantify the level of alcohol consumption that minimises the overall risk to individual health. Findings Globally, alcohol use was the seventh leading risk factor for both deaths and DALYs in 2016, accounting for 2.2% (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 1.5-3.0) of age-standardised female deaths and 6.8% (5.8-8.0) of age-standardised male deaths. Among the population aged 15-49 years, alcohol use was the leading risk factor globally in 2016, with 3.8% (95% UI 3.2-4-3) of female deaths and 12.2% (10.8-13-6) of male deaths attributable to alcohol use. For the population aged 15-49 years, female attributable DALYs were 2.3% (95% UI 2.0-2.6) and male attributable DALYs were 8.9% (7.8-9.9). The three leading causes of attributable deaths in this age group were tuberculosis (1.4% [95% UI 1. 0-1. 7] of total deaths), road injuries (1.2% [0.7-1.9]), and self-harm (1.1% [0.6-1.5]). For populations aged 50 years and older, cancers accounted for a large proportion of total alcohol-attributable deaths in 2016, constituting 27.1% (95% UI 21.2-33.3) of total alcohol-attributable female deaths and 18.9% (15.3-22.6) of male deaths. The level of alcohol consumption that minimised harm across health outcomes was zero (95% UI 0.0-0.8) standard drinks per week. Interpretation Alcohol use is a leading risk factor for global disease burden and causes substantial health loss. We found that the risk of all-cause mortality, and of cancers specifically, rises with increasing levels of consumption, and the level of consumption that minimises health loss is zero. These results suggest that alcohol control policies might need to be revised worldwide, refocusing on efforts to lower overall population-level consumption.Peer reviewe

Measuring progress and projecting attainment on the basis of past trends of the health-related Sustainable Development Goals in 188 countries: an analysis from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016

The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are grounded in the global ambition of “leaving no one behind”. Understanding today’s gains and gaps for the health-related SDGs is essential for decision makers as they aim to improve the health of populations. As part of the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2016 (GBD 2016), we measured 37 of the 50 health-related SDG indicators over the period 1990–2016 for 188 countries, and then on the basis of these past trends, we projected indicators to 2030

Global, regional, and national incidence, prevalence, and years lived with disability for 328 diseases and injuries for 195 countries, 1990–2016: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016

As mortality rates decline, life expectancy increases, and populations age, non-fatal outcomes of diseases and injuries are becoming a larger component of the global burden of disease. The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2016 (GBD 2016) provides a comprehensive assessment of prevalence, incidence, and years lived with disability (YLDs) for 328 causes in 195 countries and territories from 1990 to 2016