Acute demyelinating neuropathy associated with rituximab treatment in a patient with relapsing nephrotic syndrome

We encountered a 63-year-old woman who experienced acute onset of demyelinating polyneuropathy (AIDP) after rituximab infusions to treat her nephrotic syndrome (NS

Unsupervised Domain Adaptation with Optimal Transport in multi-site segmentation of Multiple Sclerosis lesions from MRI data: Preprint

Automatic segmentation of Multiple Sclerosis (MS) lesions from Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) images is essential for clinical assessment and treatment planning of MS. Recent years have seen an increasing use of Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) for this task. Although these methods provide accurate segmentation, their applicability in clinical settings remains limited due to a reproducibility issue across different image domains. MS images can have highly variable characteristics across patients, MRI scanners and imaging protocols; retraining a supervised model with data from each new domain is not a feasible solution because it requires manual annotation from expert radiologists. In this work, we explore an unsupervised solution to the problem of domain shift. We present a framework, Seg-JDOT, which adapts a deep model so that samples from a source domain and samples from a target domain sharing similar representations will be similarly segmented. We evaluated the framework on a multi-site dataset, MICCAI 2016, and showed that the adaptation towards a target site can bring remarkable improvements in a model performance over standard training

Integration of Probabilistic Atlas and Graph Cuts for Automated Segmentation of Multiple Sclerosis lesions

International audienceWe propose a framework for automated segmentation of Multiple Sclerosis (MS) lesions from MR brain images. It integrates a priori tissues and MS lesions information into a GraphCuts algorithm for improved segmentation results

The search for negative amplitude components in quasi-continuous distributions of relaxation times: the example of 1H magnetization exchange in articular cartilage and hydrated collagen

When inverting nuclear magnetic resonance relaxation data in order to obtain quasi-continuous distributions of relaxation times for fluids in porous media, it is common practice to impose a non-negative (NN) constraint on the distributions. While this approach can be useful in reducing the effects of data distortion and/or preventing wild oscillations in the distributions, it may give misleading results in the presence of real negative amplitude components. Here, some examples of valid negative components for articular cartilage and hydrated collagen are given. Articular cartilage is a connective tissue, consisting mainly of collagen, proteoglycans and water, which can be considered, in many aspects, as a porous medium. Separate T1 relaxation data are obtained for low-mobility ('solid') macromolecular 1H and for higher-mobility ('liquid') 1H by the separation of these components in free induction decays, with α denoting the solid/liquid 1H ratio. When quasi-continuous distributions of relaxation times (T1) of the solid and liquid signal components of cartilage or collagen are computed from experimental relaxation data without imposing the usual NN constraint, valid negative peaks may appear. The features of the distributions, in particular negative peaks, and the fact that peaks at longer times for macromolecular and water protons are at essentially the same T1, are interpreted as the result of a magnetization exchange between these two spin pools. For the only-slightly-hydrated collagen samples, with α>1, the exchange leads to small negative peaks at short T1 times for the macromolecular component. However, for the cartilage, with substantial hydration or for a strongly hydrated collagen sample, both with α1, the behavior is reversed, with a negative peak for water at short times. The validity of a negative peak may be accepted (dismissed) by a high (low) cost of NN in error of fit. Computed distributions for simulated data using observed signal-to-noise ratios also verify the need for some negative components. Observed relaxation times and signal ratios can be fitted formally by a simple two-site exchange model that gives the exchange times and the uncoupled relaxation times of the liquid and solid components, with significant trends of these parameters with increasing 1H ratio, α. The solid-to-liquid exchange times are found to be in the range from 10 ms to a few tens of ms at all hydration levels. The results may be of interest for the application of magnetization exchange contrast in the imaging of articular cartilage to determine changes associated with pathologies and ageing. Other important porous media exist where exchange phenomena and negative relaxation components cannot be disregarded

Combining WordNet and Word Embeddings in Data Augmentation for Legal Texts

Creating balanced labeled textual corpora for complex tasks, like legal analysis, is a challenging and expensive process that often requires the collaboration of domain experts. To address this problem, we propose a data augmentation method based on the combination of GloVe word embeddings and the WordNet ontology. We present an example of application in the legal domain, specifically on decisions of the Court of Justice of the European Union. Our evaluation with human experts confirms that our method is more robust than the alternatives

A new approach to antiglaucoma drugs: carbonic anhydrase inhibitors with or without NO donating moieties. Mechanism of action and preliminary pharmacology.

The clinically used sulfonamide carbonic anhydrase (CA, EC 4.2.1.1) inhibitor dorzolamide (DRZ), a new sulfonamide CA inhibitor also incorporating NO-donating moieties, NCX250, and isosorbide mononitrate (ISMN) (an NO-donating compound with no CA inhibitory properties) were investigated for their intraocular pressure (IOP) lowering effects in rabbits with carbomer-induced glaucoma. NCX250 was more effective than DRZ or ISMN on lowering IOP, increasing ocular hemodynamics, decreasing the inflammatory processes and ocular apoptosis in this animal model of glaucoma. NO participate to the regulation of IOP in glaucoma, having also antiapoptotic and anti-inflammatory effects. The ophthalmic artery, both systolic and diastolic velocities, were significantly reduced in NCX250-treated eyes in comparison to DRZ treated ones, suggesting thus a beneficial effect of NCX250 on the blood supply to the optic nerve. Combining CA inhibition with NO-donating moieties in the same compound offers an excellent approach for the management of glaucoma

Predicting outcomes of Italian VAT decisions

This study aims at predicting the outcomes of legal cases based on the textual content of judicial decisions. We present a new corpus of Italian documents, consisting of 226 annotated decisions on Value Added Tax by Regional Tax law commissions. We address the task of predicting whether a request is upheld or rejected in the final decision. We employ traditional classifiers and NLP methods to assess which parts of the decision are more informative for the task

Naxitamab Activity in Neuroblastoma Cells Is Enhanced by Nanofenretinide and Nanospermidine

Neuroblastoma cells highly express the disialoganglioside GD2, a tumor-associated carbohydrate antigen, which is also expressed in neurons, skin melanocytes, and peripheral nerve fibers. Immunotherapy with monoclonal anti-GD2 antibodies has a proven efficacy in clinical trials and is included in the standard treatment for children with high-risk neuroblastoma. However, the strong neuro-toxicity associated with anti-GD2 antibodies administration has hindered, until now, the possibility for dose-escalation and protracted use, thus restraining their therapeutic potential. Strategies to increase the efficacy of anti-GD2 antibodies are actively sought, with the aim to enable chronic treatments that could eradicate minimal residual disease and subsequent relapses, often occurring after treatment. Here, we report that Nanofenretinide and Nanospermidine improved the expression of GD2 in neuroblastoma cells (CHP-134) and provided different effects in combination with the anti-GD2 antibody naxitamab. In particular, Nanofenretinide significantly increased the cytotoxic effect of naxitamab while Nanospermidine inhibited cell motility at extents proportional to naxitamab concentration. In neuroblastoma cells characterized by a low and heterogeneous basal expression of GD2, such as SH-SY5Y, which may represent the cell heterogeneity in tumors after chemotherapy, both Nanofenretinide and Nanospermidine increased GD2 expression in approximately 50% of cells, thus shifting the tumor population towards improved sensitivity to anti-GD2 antibodies

Detecting Arguments in CJEU Decisions on Fiscal State Aid

The successful application of argument mining in the legal domain can dramatically impact many disciplines related to law. For this purpose, we present Demosthenes, a novel corpus for argument mining in legal documents, composed of 40 decisions of the Court of Justice of the European Union on matters of fiscal state aid. The annotation specifies three hierarchical levels of information: the argumentative elements, their types, and their argument schemes. In our experimental evaluation, we address 4 different classification tasks, combining advanced language models and traditional classifiers

Environmental assessment of individual and collective manure management systems

In intensive livestock area with large nutrient surplus collective management systems can be a suitable solution. However, the collective system should carefully evaluated for environmental sustainability to avoid cross effects. The aim of this study was to evaluate the environmental effects of the introduction of a collective treatment plant for energy production and nitrogen removal. For this purpose an assessment methodology, for individual farms and collective treatments plants, has been defined to estimate the emissions of the main pollutants to the air (CO2, CH4, N2O, NH3) and to the soil (N). The method devised has been assessed in a case study (a treatment plant collecting manure from 12 farms). The main effect of the introduction of the collective management system from the environmental point of view is a reduction of greenhouse gases emissions of 61% due to methane emission reduction and renewable energy production. Furthermore, it reduces the amount of nitrogen to be applied to land from 430 kg ha-1 to about 220 kg ha-1, decreases the emission of ammonia in the air by about 17% due to lower amount of nitrogen that is managed by farms in the storage and spreading operations