Ressonâncias discursivas construídas sobre o uso do LD de inglês no Pará em tempos de crise

We aim to investigate, through the speech of two English teachers (identified by the initials of their names) from public school in Pará state, how the English textbook has been used as a teaching and learning tool during the new coronavirus pandemic. We approach our studies on Choppin (2004) e Oliveira et al. (1984). We understand that the textbook is meaningful and equally important. We also chose the discursive resonance notion of Serrani-Infante (1991, 1997, 2001) to analyze the data. The methodology is within a qualitative paradigm – a case study. Our instrument of collecting data is the WhatsApp, applying semi structured interviews. As a result, we identified that the English textbook was not used, even the teachers aware of that the book was given to students and the possibility that some of them could work through online classes.Objetivamos investigar, por meio do depoimento de duas professoras de inglês (identificadas por K e M) da rede pública de ensino do Estado do Pará, de que forma o livro didático (LD) de inglês tem sido utilizado como instrumento de ensino e aprendizagem durante a pandemia do novo coronavírus. Embasamo-nos em Choppin (2004) e Oliveira et al. (1984) por entendermos que o LD é um recurso significativo e relevante. Elegemos a noção de ressonância discursiva de Serrani-Infante (1991, 1997, 2001) para a análise de dados. A metodologia está dentro de um paradigma qualitativo – um estudo de caso. Nosso instrumento da coleta de dados é o aplicativo eletrônico WhatsApp e utilizamos uma entrevista semiestruturada. Como resultado, identificamos que o LD de inglês, em tempos de crise, não foi utilizado, mesmo as docentes cientes de que o livro havia sido entregue aos alunos e da possibilidade de alguns deles trabalharem-no por meio de aulas online

Validation of diagnostic accuracy using digital slides in routine histopathology

Background: Robust hardware and software tools have been developed in digital microscopy during the past years for pathologists. Reports have been advocated the reliability of digital slides in routine diagnostics. We have designed a retrospective, comparative study to evaluate the scanning properties and digital slide based diagnostic accuracy. Methods: 8 pathologists reevaluated 306 randomly selected cases from our archives. The slides were scanned with a 20 × Plan-Apochromat objective, using a 3-chip Hitachi camera, resulting 0.465 μm/pixel resolution. Slide management was supported with dedicated Data Base and Viewer software tools. Pathologists used their office PCs for evaluation and reached the digital slides via intranet connection. The diagnostic coherency and uncertainty related to digital slides and scanning quality were analyzed. Results: Good to excellent image quality of slides was recorded in 96%. In half of the critical 61 digital slides, poor image quality was related to section folds or floatings. In 88.2 % of the studied cases the digital diagnoses were in full agreement with the consensus. Out of the overall 36 incoherent cases, 7 (2.3%) were graded relevant without any recorded uncertainty by the pathologist. Excluding the non-field specific cases from each pathologist’s record this ratio was 1.76 % of all cases. Conclusions: Our results revealed that: 1) digital slide based histopathological diagnoses can be highly coherent with those using optical microscopy; 2) the competency of pathologists is a factor more important than the quality of digital slide; 3) poor digital slide quality do not endanger patient safety as these errors are recognizable by the pathologist and further actions for correction could be taken. Virtual slides: The virtual slide(s) for this article can be found here

Novel image analysis approach for quantifying expression of nuclear proteins assessed by immunohistochemistry: application to measurement of oestrogen and progesterone receptor levels in breast cancer

INTRODUCTION: Manual interpretation of immunohistochemistry (IHC) is a subjective, time-consuming and variable process, with an inherent intra-observer and inter-observer variability. Automated image analysis approaches offer the possibility of developing rapid, uniform indicators of IHC staining. In the present article we describe the development of a novel approach for automatically quantifying oestrogen receptor (ER) and progesterone receptor (PR) protein expression assessed by IHC in primary breast cancer. METHODS: Two cohorts of breast cancer patients (n = 743) were used in the study. Digital images of breast cancer tissue microarrays were captured using the Aperio ScanScope XT slide scanner (Aperio Technologies, Vista, CA, USA). Image analysis algorithms were developed using MatLab 7 (MathWorks, Apple Hill Drive, MA, USA). A fully automated nuclear algorithm was developed to discriminate tumour from normal tissue and to quantify ER and PR expression in both cohorts. Random forest clustering was employed to identify optimum thresholds for survival analysis. RESULTS: The accuracy of the nuclear algorithm was initially confirmed by a histopathologist, who validated the output in 18 representative images. In these 18 samples, an excellent correlation was evident between the results obtained by manual and automated analysis (Spearman\u27s rho = 0.9, P \u3c 0.001). Optimum thresholds for survival analysis were identified using random forest clustering. This revealed 7% positive tumour cells as the optimum threshold for the ER and 5% positive tumour cells for the PR. Moreover, a 7% cutoff level for the ER predicted a better response to tamoxifen than the currently used 10% threshold. Finally, linear regression was employed to demonstrate a more homogeneous pattern of expression for the ER (R = 0.860) than for the PR (R = 0.681). CONCLUSIONS: In summary, we present data on the automated quantification of the ER and the PR in 743 primary breast tumours using a novel unsupervised image analysis algorithm. This novel approach provides a useful tool for the quantification of biomarkers on tissue specimens, as well as for objective identification of appropriate cutoff thresholds for biomarker positivity. It also offers the potential to identify proteins with a homogeneous pattern of expression