An efficient hardware implementation of Convolutional Neural Network in detect Breast Cancer Histopathology Image

This paper presents our work on evaluating the effectiveness of a novel deep convolutional neural network architecture (CNN) for classifying breast histology images for cancer risk factors as negative or positive. Also, the hardware structure of the proposed model was successfully synthesized and verified. The results indicate that a CNN trained on a small dataset achieved an overall AUC (Area under ROC Curve - ROC is an acronym for receiver operating characteristic) value of 0.922 across a set of 55505 test images. In addition, the time it takes to classify each image is within 3.8 milliseconds instead of a task that even trained pathologists take hours to complete

Long-Term Improvement in Precautions for Flood Risk Mitigation: A Case Study in the Low-Lying Area of Central Vietnam

Local actors appear as inseparable components of the integrated flood risk mitigation strategy in Vietnam. Recognizing this fact, this study examined the long-term improvement in precautions taken by commune authorities and households between two major floods in 1999 and 2017 by applying both quantitative and qualitative methods. Two flood-prone villages were selected for a survey; one in a rural area and the other in a suburban area of Thua Thien Hue Province, central Vietnam. The findings indicate that most villagers doubted the structural works' efficacy and were dissatisfied with the current efforts of local authorities. Households' self-preparation thus became the decisive factor in mitigating risk. While most households have paid greater attention to flood precautions in 2017, others seem to be lagging. Poverty-related barriers were the root causes restraining households in both rural and suburban villages. The suburban riverine residents were further identified as vulnerable by their limitations in upgrading structural measures, which was ascribed to the inconsistency in the ancient town's preservation policy. This multidimensional comparison, in terms of vulnerability, emphasized the importance of space-function links in the suburb and the contradictions of different policy initiatives, such as landscape rehabilitation, disaster prevention, and livelihood maintenance

VULNERABLITY OF RURAL LIVELIHOODS IN NINH THUAN PROVINCE TO DROUGHT

The risk of drought poses a significant challenge to agricultural production in Ninh Thuan Province. Therefore, this study aims to identify the factors that influence farmers’ livelihood outcomes due to the impact of drought. Data were collected from a survey of 231 farmers randomly selected from the districts of Thuan Nam, Thuan Bac, and Ninh Hai. In addition to descriptive statistics, a Tobit regression model was used to identify the factors influencing livelihood outcomes during mild and severe droughts. The results showed that farmers’ livelihood outcomes were generally low. The regression identified the financial (β=0.230 and 0.205), social (β=0.200 and 0.291), and human capital (β=0.195 and 0.196) impacts on farmers’ livelihood outcomes from both mild and severe droughts. During mild drought years, seasonal adjustment (β=-0.009) and migration (β=0.013) were found to significantly influence livelihood outcomes. In severe drought years, government support (β=-0.030) negatively affected livelihood outcomes. There is a need to establish an early warning system for climate change and extreme weather events while simultaneously disseminating information widely to farmers so that they can take timely measures to cope. Enhancing human capital by raising awareness and skills in adapting to drought and developing comprehensive abilities to implement drought adaptation strategies is needed

Overcoming Fear of Developing Country: A Case Report of Retroperitoneal Laparoscopic Partial Nephrectomy for T3a Renal Cell Carcinoma

INTRODUCTION: Renal cell carcinoma poses significant challenges in kidney diseases, particularly in the context of the T3 stage, where treatment strategies remain controversial. The utilization of laparoscopic partial nephrectomy, particularly in developing countries, has been restricted for such patients, primarily due to limited infrastructure and concerns about recurrence risk and long-term pathologic outcomes. PRESENTATION OF CASE: In this report, we present a case of a 64-year-old male diagnosed with T3aN0M0 renal cell carcinoma (RCC). Abdominal computed tomography revealed a 5.2 × 5.2 × 5.1 cm mass on the right upper part of the kidney with a possible thrombus in the superior renal polar vein. The patient underwent successful treatment with retroperitoneal laparoscopic partial nephrectomy (LPN), leading to the preservation of kidney function with/min/1.73 m2 GFR reduced after one year postoperative (estimated GFR from 85 mL/min/1.73 m2 to 81.79 mL/min/1.73 m2). The patient was discharged after three days; no recurrence was observed during the follow-up. DISCUSSION: For stage T3a RCC, studies show that LPN induces comparable long-term outcomes to radical nephrectomy, with advantages such as preserved kidney function, reduced operative time, blood loss, and shorter hospital stays. However, due to infrastructure constraints and limited access to robotic-assisted surgery in our country, coupled with concerns about tumor recurrence, laparoscopic radical nephrectomy is predominantly employed for similar patients. Our case represents one of the very first cases in which we successfully treated a patient diagnosed with T3a RCC using retroperitoneal laparoscopic partial nephrectomy. CONCLUSION: Laparoscopic partial nephrectomy is a reliable choice for T3aN0M0 RCC with good long-term outcomes and preserved renal function, especially by the hands of an experienced laparoscopic surgeon

A Vietnamese Handwritten Text Recognition Pipeline for Tetanus Medical Records

Machine learning techniques are successful for optical character recognition tasks, especially in recognizing handwriting. However, recognizing Vietnamese handwriting is challenging with the presence of extra six distinctive tonal symbols and vowels. Such a challenge is amplified given the handwriting of health workers in an emergency care setting, where staff is under constant pressure to record the well-being of patients. In this study, we aim to digitize the handwriting of Vietnamese health workers. We develop a complete handwritten text recognition pipeline that receives scanned documents, detects, and enhances the handwriting text areas of interest, transcribes the images into computer text, and finally auto-corrects invalid words and terms to achieve high accuracy. From experiments with medical documents written by 30 doctors and nurses from the Tetanus Emergency Care unit at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases, we obtain promising results of 2% and 12% for Character Error Rate and Word Error Rate, respectively

Design of Mobile Manipulator for Fire Extinguisher Testing. Part I Key Specifications and Conceptual Design

All flames are extinguished as early as possible, or fire services have to deal with major conflagrations. This leads to the fact that the quality of fire extinguishers has become a very sensitive and important issue in firefighting. Inspired by the development of automatic fire fighting systems, this paper proposes key specifications based on the standard of fire extinguishers that is ISO 7165:2009 and ISO 11601:2008, and feasible solutions to design a mobile manipulator for automatically evaluating the quality or, more specifically, power of fire extinguishers. In addition, a part of the mechanical design is also discussed.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures, the 7th International Conference on Advanced Engineering, Theory and Application

Preoperative magnetic resonance imaging of anal fistulas with scrotal extension: a retrospective study

IntroductionThis study aimed to elucidate the magnetic resonance (MR) characteristics of anal fistulas extending to the scrotum, and the applicable rules, and to correlate MR features with surgical findings.MethodsWe conducted a retrospective study in 150 consecutive patients with anal fistulas extending into the scrotum, who were diagnosed and underwent surgery at University Medical Center Ho Chi Minh City between January 2017 and April 2022. MR findings were evaluated and compared with surgical findings using Cohens kappa coefficient (k) with a 95% confidence interval.Results150 patients (mean age 37.6 ± 10.9 years) with 166 fistulas, including 150 anal fistulas with scrotal extension. Most fistulas were low transsphincteric (80.0%, 120/150 patients). There was a strong agreement for primary tract classification and detecting the location of internal openings between MRI and surgical findings with k = 0.83 (0.780.87) and k = 0.89 (0.85 0.93) (p<0.001), respectively. There is a significant correlation between the location of internal openings and the type of fistula (p<0.05). Low transsphincteric fistulas were predominant in the anterior group (103/122 patients vs. 10/19 patients), while in the posterior group, it was more common in the high transsphincteric fistulas (7/19 patients vs. 14/122 patients), and the intersphincteric fistulas (1/19 patients vs. 5/122 patients); and the suprasphincteric fistulas were only seen in the posterior group (1 patient).ConclusionAnal fistulas with scrotal extension are exceptions to Goodsalls rule. Albeit long-tract fistulas, most are low transsphincteric and have anterior internal openings

When Intervention Becomes Imperative: A Case Report of Spontaneous Vulvar Edema During Pregnancy

Spontaneous idiopathic vulvar edema during the second trimester is a rare condition. The approach to managing this condition involves relieving symptoms, identifying underlying causes, and implementing appropriate treatment. Managing such cases during pregnancy is challenging because of concerns for potential adverse fetal outcomes. Conservative management expects the condition to be relieved spontaneously postpartum, whereas invasive treatment offers a more rapid resolution. Treatment choices are controversial because each method has its pros and cons and influences the delivery process to a certain extent. Surgical drainage becomes a viable option when patients are not responsive to medications. We report a case of spontaneous massive vulvar edema in a 22-year-old primigravida in her 23rd week of pregnancy. After ruling out other notable causes of vulvar edema, we decided to intervene using an invasive procedure because she complained of progressive symptoms and discomfort. Subsequently, the edema subsided postprocedure, and the patient experienced successful labor with no complications. This report aims to alert clinicians that drainage attempts should be considered in pregnant patients with worsening symptoms

A Survey of LQE and MPC Discrete-Control for Acrobot

This paper surveys the Linear Quadratic Estimation (LQE) and Model Predictive Control (MPC) discrete control methods applied to the Acrobot system. Both techniques aim to achieve and maintain a balanced position for the Acrobot. Through evaluation and comparison, we highlight their strengths, limitations, and potential applications, offering insights for future robotic control research

Clinical evaluation of AI-assisted muscle ultrasound for monitoring muscle wasting in ICU patients

Muscle ultrasound has been shown to be a valid and safe imaging modality to assess muscle wasting in critically ill patients in the intensive care unit (ICU). This typically involves manual delineation to measure the rectus femoris cross-sectional area (RFCSA), which is a subjective, time-consuming, and laborious task that requires significant expertise. We aimed to develop and evaluate an AI tool that performs automated recognition and measurement of RFCSA to support non-expert operators in measurement of the RFCSA using muscle ultrasound. Twenty patients were recruited between Feb 2023 and July 2023 and were randomized sequentially to operators using AI (n = 10) or non-AI (n = 10). Muscle loss during ICU stay was similar for both methods: 26 ± 15% for AI and 23 ± 11% for the non-AI, respectively (p = 0.13). In total 59 ultrasound examinations were carried out (30 without AI and 29 with AI). When assisted by our AI tool, the operators showed less variability between measurements with higher intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs 0.999 95% CI 0.998–0.999 vs. 0.982 95% CI 0.962–0.993) and lower Bland Altman limits of agreement (± 1.9% vs. ± 6.6%) compared to not using the AI tool. The time spent on scans reduced significantly from a median of 19.6 min (IQR 16.9–21.7) to 9.4 min (IQR 7.2–11.7) compared to when using the AI tool (p < 0.001). AI-assisted muscle ultrasound removes the need for manual tracing, increases reproducibility and saves time. This system may aid monitoring muscle size in ICU patients assisting rehabilitation programmes