Multi-modality cardiac image computing: a survey

Multi-modality cardiac imaging plays a key role in the management of patients with cardiovascular diseases. It allows a combination of complementary anatomical, morphological and functional information, increases diagnosis accuracy, and improves the efficacy of cardiovascular interventions and clinical outcomes. Fully-automated processing and quantitative analysis of multi-modality cardiac images could have a direct impact on clinical research and evidence-based patient management. However, these require overcoming significant challenges including inter-modality misalignment and finding optimal methods to integrate information from different modalities. This paper aims to provide a comprehensive review of multi-modality imaging in cardiology, the computing methods, the validation strategies, the related clinical workflows and future perspectives. For the computing methodologies, we have a favored focus on the three tasks, i.e., registration, fusion and segmentation, which generally involve multi-modality imaging data, either combining information from different modalities or transferring information across modalities. The review highlights that multi-modality cardiac imaging data has the potential of wide applicability in the clinic, such as trans-aortic valve implantation guidance, myocardial viability assessment, and catheter ablation therapy and its patient selection. Nevertheless, many challenges remain unsolved, such as missing modality, modality selection, combination of imaging and non-imaging data, and uniform analysis and representation of different modalities. There is also work to do in defining how the well-developed techniques fit in clinical workflows and how much additional and relevant information they introduce. These problems are likely to continue to be an active field of research and the questions to be answered in the future

Common variants in Alzheimer's disease and risk stratification by polygenic risk scores

Genetic discoveries of Alzheimer's disease are the drivers of our understanding, and together with polygenetic risk stratification can contribute towards planning of feasible and efficient preventive and curative clinical trials. We first perform a large genetic association study by merging all available case-control datasets and by-proxy study results (discovery n = 409,435 and validation size n = 58,190). Here, we add six variants associated with Alzheimer's disease risk (near APP, CHRNE, PRKD3/NDUFAF7, PLCG2 and two exonic variants in the SHARPIN gene). Assessment of the polygenic risk score and stratifying by APOE reveal a 4 to 5.5 years difference in median age at onset of Alzheimer's disease patients in APOE ɛ4 carriers. Because of this study, the underlying mechanisms of APP can be studied to refine the amyloid cascade and the polygenic risk score provides a tool to select individuals at high risk of Alzheimer's disease

New insights into the genetic etiology of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias

Characterization of the genetic landscape of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and related dementias (ADD) provides a unique opportunity for a better understanding of the associated pathophysiological processes. We performed a two-stage genome-wide association study totaling 111,326 clinically diagnosed/'proxy' AD cases and 677,663 controls. We found 75 risk loci, of which 42 were new at the time of analysis. Pathway enrichment analyses confirmed the involvement of amyloid/tau pathways and highlighted microglia implication. Gene prioritization in the new loci identified 31 genes that were suggestive of new genetically associated processes, including the tumor necrosis factor alpha pathway through the linear ubiquitin chain assembly complex. We also built a new genetic risk score associated with the risk of future AD/dementia or progression from mild cognitive impairment to AD/dementia. The improvement in prediction led to a 1.6- to 1.9-fold increase in AD risk from the lowest to the highest decile, in addition to effects of age and the APOE ε4 allele

Forward physics at the LHC (Elba 2010)

This article does not have an abstract

Dilepton mass spectra in p plus p collisions at root s=200 GeV and the contribution from open charm

PHENIX has measured the electron-positron pair mass spectrum from 0 to 8 GeV/c(2) in p + p collisions at root s = 200 GeV. The contributions from light meson decays to e(+)e(-) pairs have been determined based on measurements of hadron production cross sections by PHENIX. Within the systematic uncertainty of similar to 20% they account for all e(+)e(-) pairs in the mass region below similar to 1 GeV/c(2). The e(+)e(-) pair yield remaining after subtracting these contributions is dominated by semileptonic decays of charmed hadrons correlated through flavor conservation. Using the spectral shape predicted by PYTHIA, we estimate the charm production cross section to be 544 +/- 39(stat) +/- 142(syst) +/- 200(model) pb. which is consistent with QCD calculations and measurements of single leptons by PHENIX

Inclusive cross section and double helicity asymmetry for pi(0) production in p+p collisions at root s=200 GeV: Implications for the polarized gluon distribution in the proton

The PHENIX experiment presents results from the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider 2005 run with polarized proton collisions at root s=200 GeV, for inclusive pi(0) production at midrapidity. Unpolarized cross section results are given for transverse momenta p(T)=0.5 to 20 GeV/c, extending the range of published data to both lower and higher p(T). The cross section is described well for p(T)\u3c 1 GeV/c by an exponential in p(T), and, for p(T)\u3e 2 GeV/c, by perturbative QCD. Double helicity asymmetries A(LL) are presented based on a factor of 5 improvement in uncertainties as compared to previously published results, due to both an improved beam polarization of 50%, and to higher integrated luminosity. These measurements are sensitive to the gluon polarization in the proton. Using one representative model of gluon polarization it is demonstrated that the gluon spin contribution to the proton spin is significantly constrained

Measurement of High-p(T) single electrons from heavy-flavor decays in p+p collisions at root s=200 GeV

The momentum distribution of electrons from decays of heavy flavor (charm and bottom) for midrapidity |y|\u3c 0.35 in p+p collisions at s=200 GeV has been measured by the PHENIX experiment at the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider over the transverse momentum range 0.3 \u3c p(T)\u3c 9 GeV/c. Two independent methods have been used to determine the heavy-flavor yields, and the results are in good agreement with each other. A fixed-order-plus-next-to-leading-log perturbative QCD calculation agrees with the data within the theoretical and experimental uncertainties, with the data/theory ratio of 1.71 +/- 0.02(stat)+/- 0.18(sys) for 0.3 \u3c p(T)\u3c 9 GeV/c. The total charm production cross section at this energy has also been deduced to be sigma(cc)=567 +/- 57(stat)+/- 193(sys) mu b

J/psi production versus transverse momentum and rapidity in p+p collisions at root s=200 GeV

J/psi production in p+p collisions at root s=200 GeV has been measured by the PHENIX experiment at the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider over a rapidity range of -2.2 \u3c y \u3c 2.2 and a transverse momentum range of 0 \u3c p(T)\u3c 9 GeV/c. The size of the present data set allows a detailed measurement of both the p(T) and the rapidity distributions and is sufficient to constrain production models. The total cross section times the branching ratio is B-ll sigma(J/psi)(pp)=178 +/- 3(stat)+/- 53(sys)+/- 18(norm) nb