Intellectual Property in Medical Imaging and Informatics: The Independent Inventor’s Perspective

While innovation and new product development is traditionally thought of as the exclusive domain of industry and academia, a large number of innovations in medicine and information technology have come from independent inventors, which account for almost 30% of new patents issued in the U.S. today. A large number of economic, political, and legal challenges exist within the current marketplace that serves as relative impediments to independent invention. This article explores the existing challenges facing the independent inventor and offers a number of recommendations and resources to facilitate independent inventors in their quest for innovation and entrepreneurship. The concept of “outsourcing innovation” is discussed as an alternative to the existing model of industry sponsored research and development (R&D), with the goal of combining the unique attributes and strengths of independent inventors and industry sponsors

Bis[bis­(1,10-phenanthroline-κ2 N,N′)copper(I)] μ6-oxido-dodeca­kis-μ2-oxido-hexa­oxidohexa­tungsten(VI)

The title compound, [Cu(C12H8N2)2]2[W6O19], consists of two [Cu(phen)2]+ cations (phen = 1,10-phenanthroline) and one typical [W6O19]2− isopolyanion. The CuI atom is coordinated by four N atoms from two bidentate chelating phen ligands in a distorted tetra­hedral geometry. The hexa­tungstate anion, lying on an inversion center and possessing the well known Lindqvist structure, is formed by six edge-sharing WO6 octa­hedra, thus exhibiting an approximate Oh symmetry. Three kinds of O atoms exist in the hexa­tungstate, viz. terminal Oa, bridging Ob and central Oc atoms. Besides the electrostatic effects between the anions and cations, weak C—H⋯O hydrogen bonds exist between the phen ligands and Oa or Ob atoms. The mean inter­planar distances of 3.485 (1) and 3.344 (1) Å indicate π–π stacking inter­actions between neighboring phen ligands. These weak hydrogen bonds and π–π stacking inter­actions lead to a two-dimensional network

(4-Chloro­benzoato)bis(5-methyl-2-pyridylamine)silver(I)

The title compound, [Ag(C7H4ClO2)(C6H8N2)2], is a mononuclear silver(I) complex. The AgI atom is three-coordinated by two pyridine N atoms from two 5-methyl­pyridin-2-ylamine ligands and by one O atom of a 4-chloro­benzoate ligand, forming a distorted T-shaped coordination. In the crystal structure, the mol­ecules are linked through inter­molecular N—H⋯O hydrogen bonds, forming chains running along the b axis

ImageCAS: A Large-Scale Dataset and Benchmark for Coronary Artery Segmentation based on Computed Tomography Angiography Images

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) accounts for about half of non-communicable diseases. Vessel stenosis in the coronary artery is considered to be the major risk of CVD. Computed tomography angiography (CTA) is one of the widely used noninvasive imaging modalities in coronary artery diagnosis due to its superior image resolution. Clinically, segmentation of coronary arteries is essential for the diagnosis and quantification of coronary artery disease. Recently, a variety of works have been proposed to address this problem. However, on one hand, most works rely on in-house datasets, and only a few works published their datasets to the public which only contain tens of images. On the other hand, their source code have not been published, and most follow-up works have not made comparison with existing works, which makes it difficult to judge the effectiveness of the methods and hinders the further exploration of this challenging yet critical problem in the community. In this paper, we propose a large-scale dataset for coronary artery segmentation on CTA images. In addition, we have implemented a benchmark in which we have tried our best to implement several typical existing methods. Furthermore, we propose a strong baseline method which combines multi-scale patch fusion and two-stage processing to extract the details of vessels. Comprehensive experiments show that the proposed method achieves better performance than existing works on the proposed large-scale dataset. The benchmark and the dataset are published at https://github.com/XiaoweiXu/ImageCAS-A-Large-Scale-Dataset-and-Benchmark-for-Coronary-Artery-Segmentation-based-on-CT.Comment: 17 pages, 12 figures, 4 table

Formulation and Characterization of Patient-Friendly Dosage Form of Ondansetron Hydrochloride

Ondansetron hydrochloride is an intensely bitter antiemetic drug used to treat nausea and vomiting following chemotherapy. The purpose of the present work was to mask the taste of ondansetron hydrochloride and to formulate its patient-friendly dosage form. Complexation technique using indion 234 (polycyclic potassium with carboxylic functionality) and an ion-exchange resin was used to mask the bitter taste and then the taste-masked drug was formulated into an orodispersible tablet (ODT). The drug loading onto the ion-exchange resin was optimized for mixing time, activation, effect of pH, mode of mixing, ratio of drug to resin and temperature. The resinate was evaluated for taste masking and characterized by X-ray diffraction study and infrared spectroscopy. ODTs were formulated using the drug–resin complex. The developed tablets were evaluated for hardness, friability, drug content, weight variation, content uniformity, friability, water absorption ratio, in vitro and in vivo disintegration time and in vitro drug release. The tablets disintegrated in vitro and in vivo within 24 and 27 s, respectively. Drug release from the tablet was completed within 2 min. The obtained results revealed that ondansetron HCl has been successfully taste masked and formulated into an ODT as a suitable alternative to the conventional tablets

Identifying sources, pathways and risk drivers in ecosystems of Japanese Encephalitis in an epidemic-prone north Indian district

Japanese Encephalitis (JE) has caused repeated outbreaks in endemic pockets of India. This study was conducted in Kushinagar, a highly endemic district, to understand the human-animal-ecosystem interactions, and the drivers that influence disease transmission. Utilizing the ecosystems approach, a cross-sectional, descriptive study, employing mixed methods design was employed. Four villages (two with pig-rearing and two without) were randomly selected from a high, a medium and a low burden (based on case counts) block of Kushinagar. Children, pigs and vectors were sampled from these villages. A qualitative arm was incorporated to explain the findings from the quantitative surveys. All human serum samples were screened for JE-specific IgM using MAC ELISA and negative samples for JE RNA by rRT-PCR in peripheral blood mononuclear cells. In pigs, IgG ELISA and rRT-PCR for viral RNA were used. Of the 242 children tested, 24 tested positive by either rRT-PCR or MAC ELISA; in pigs, 38 out of the 51 pigs were positive. Of the known vectors, Culex vishnui was most commonly isolated across all biotopes. Analysis of 15 blood meals revealed human blood in 10 samples. Univariable analysis showed that gender, religion, lack of indoor residual spraying of insecticides in the past year, indoor vector density (all species), and not being vaccinated against JE in children were significantly associated with JE positivity. In multivariate analysis, only male gender remained as a significant risk factor. Based on previous estimates of symptomatic: asymptomatic cases of JE, we estimate that there should have been 618 cases from Kushinagar, although only 139 were reported. Vaccination of children and vector control measures emerged as major control activities; they had very poor coverage in the studied villages. In addition, lack of awareness about the cause of JE, lack of faith in the conventional medical healthcare system and multiple referral levels causing delay in diagnosis and treatment emerged as factors likely to result in adverse clinical outcomes

A Two-stage Flow-based Intrusion Detection Model ForNext-generation Networks

The next-generation network provides state-of-the-art access-independent services over converged mobile and fixed networks. Security in the converged network environment is a major challenge. Traditional packet and protocol-based intrusion detection techniques cannot be used in next-generation networks due to slow throughput, low accuracy and their inability to inspect encrypted payload. An alternative solution for protection of next-generation networks is to use network flow records for detection of malicious activity in the network traffic. The network flow records are independent of access networks and user applications. In this paper, we propose a two-stage flow-based intrusion detection system for next-generation networks. The first stage uses an enhanced unsupervised one-class support vector machine which separates malicious flows from normal network traffic. The second stage uses a self-organizing map which automatically groups malicious flows into different alert clusters. We validated the proposed approach on two flow-based datasets and obtained promising results

Development of novel adenoviral vectors to overcome challenges observed with HAdV-5 based constructs

Recombinant vectors based on human adenovirus serotype 5 (HAdV-5) have been extensively studied in pre-clinical models and clinical trials over the last two decades. However, the thorough understanding of the HAdV-5 interaction with human subjects has uncovered major concerns about its product applicability. High vector-associated toxicity and widespread pre-existing immunity have been shown to significantly impede the effectiveness of HAdV-5 mediated gene transfer. It is therefore that the in depth knowledge attained working on HAdV-5 is currently being used to develop alternative vectors. Here, we provide a comprehensive overview of data obtained in recent years disqualifying the HAdV-5 vector for systemic gene delivery as well as novel strategies being pursued to overcome the limitations observed with particular emphasis on the ongoing vectorization efforts to obtain vectors based on alternative serotypes

Activation of the mTOR signalling pathway is required for pancreatic growth in protease-inhibitor-fed mice

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/65924/1/jphysiol.2006.106914.pd