Deep CNN for IIF Images Classification in Autoimmune Diagnostics

The diagnosis and monitoring of autoimmune diseases are very important problem in medicine. The most used test for this purpose is the antinuclear antibody (ANA) test. An indirect immunofluorescence (IIF) test performed by Human Epithelial type 2 (HEp-2) cells as substrate antigen is the most common methods to determine ANA. In this paper we present an automatic HEp-2 specimen system based on a convolutional neural network method able to classify IIF images. The system consists of a module for features extraction based on a pre-trained AlexNet network and a classification phase for the cell-pattern association using six support vector machines and a k-nearest neighbors classifier. The classification at the image-level was obtained by analyzing the pattern prevalence at cell-level. The layers of the pre-trained network and various system parameters were evaluated in order to optimize the process. This system has been developed and tested on the HEp-2 images indirect immunofluorescence images analysis (I3A) public database. To test the generalisation performance of the method, the leave-one-specimen-out procedure was used in this work. The performance analysis showed an accuracy of 96.4% and a mean class accuracy equal to 93.8%. The results have been evaluated comparing them with some of the most representative works using the same database

Superconformal Algebras and Mock Theta Functions

It is known that characters of BPS representations of extended superconformal algebras do not have good modular properties due to extra singular vectors coming from the BPS condition. In order to improve their modular properties we apply the method of Zwegers which has recently been developed to analyze modular properties of mock theta functions. We consider the case of N=4 superconformal algebra at general levels and obtain the decomposition of characters of BPS representations into a sum of simple Jacobi forms and an infinite series of non-BPS representations. We apply our method to study elliptic genera of hyper-Kahler manifolds in higher dimensions. In particular we determine the elliptic genera in the case of complex 4 dimensions of the Hilbert scheme of points on K3 surfaces K^{[2]} and complex tori A^{[[3]]}.Comment: 28 page

Alcuni esempi di catalogazione e restauro nell’ambito della Collezione Storica degli Strumenti di Fisica dell’Università di Palermo

In questo articolo presenteremo e discuteremo della catalogazione e restauro e di alcuni strumenti scientifici di particolare interesse storico-didattico appartenenti alla Collezione Storica degli Strumenti di Fisica dell’Università di Palermo. La catalogazione è stata effettuata secondo le indicazioni fornite dell’Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione, per mezzo della scheda per il patrimonio scientifico-tecnologico. Nell’articolo saranno discussi gli aspetti tecnici degli interventi di restauro effettuati e saranno indicate le linee guida generali per il proseguimento dell’attività avviata.The article deals with the cataloguing and restoration of some scientific instruments of particular historical and didactic interest belonging to the Historical Collection of the Physics Instruments of the University of Palermo. The restoration activities have been carried out side by side the cataloguing, which has been done following the instructions supplied by the Central Institute for Cataloguing and Documentation with the official form for the scientific and technological heritage. In the article, we will discuss the technical aspects of the work carried out and basic guidelines will be given for the continuation of the activity

A REST-based framework to support non-invasive and early coeliac disease diagnosis

The health sector has traditionally been one of the early adopters of databases, from the most simple Electronic Health Record (formerly Computer-Based Patient Record) systems in use in general practice, hospitals and intensive care units to big data, multidata based systems used to support diagnosis and care decisions. In this paper we present a framework to support non-invasive and early diagnosis of coeliac disease. The proposed framework makes use of well-known technologies and techniques, both hardware and software, put together in a novel way. The main goals of our framework are: (1) providing users with a reliable and fast repository of a large amount of data; (2) to make such repository accessible by means of a suitable API in multiple modes, such as intuitive web-based or mobile visual interfaces; (3) to allow for data processing and analysis, as a basis for decision support systems

Surgical treatment of early breast cancer in day surgery

Quadrantectomy and associated sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) is currently employed in most breast surgery centres as the gold standard in the treatment of early breast cancer. This approach has a modest morbidity and can usually be performed in a day-surgery regimen, leading to best acceptance by the patients. This reports outlines the experience of our Breast Unit with quadrantectomy and SLNB in day surgery for early breast cancer. One hundred patients presenting to our institution with primary invasive breast cancer measuring less than 3 cm and clinically negative axillary nodes underwent quadrantectomy and SLNB in day surgery. For 60 women with breast cancer the sentinel node was negative, so the only definitive surgical treatment was performed in the day-surgery regimen; 40 patients with positive sentinel nodes were hospitalised a second time for axillary dissection. In these patients that needed clearance of the axilla, SLNB was performed on the only positive node in 22 cases (55%). None of the patients admitted for quadrantectomy and SLNB in day surgery required re-hospitalisation after discharge. All patients proved to be fully satisfied with early discharge from hospital when questioned on the occasion of subsequent monitoring. Short-stay surgical programs in early invasive breast cancer treatment are feasible today owing to the availability of less invasive approaches such as quadrantectomy and SLNB. There are two main pointers to a distinct advantage for this kind of approach, i.e. recovery and psychological adjustment. Recovery from surgery is faster and the patient tends to play down the seriousness of the operation and to have a better mental attitude to neoplastic disease. Moreover, when performing quadrantectomy with SLNB in day surgery fewer than 50% of breast cancer patients (40% in our experience) require another surgical treatment, concluding the surgery in a single sessio

Window-Based Energy Selecting X-ray Imaging and Charge Sharing in Cadmium Zinc Telluride Linear Array Detectors for Contaminant Detection

The spectroscopic and imaging performance of energy-resolved photon counting detectors, based on new sub-millimetre boron oxide encapsulated vertical Bridgman cadmium zinc telluride linear arrays, are presented in this work. The activities are in the framework of the AVATAR X project, planning the development of X-ray scanners for contaminant detection in food industry. The detectors, characterized by high spatial (250 µm) and energy (<3 keV) resolution, allow spectral X-ray imaging with interesting image quality improvements. The effects of charge sharing and energy-resolved techniques on contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) enhancements are investigated. The benefits of a new energy-resolved X-ray imaging approach, termed window-based energy selecting, in the detection of low- and high-density contaminants are also shown