Cultivate Quantitative Magnetic Resonance Imaging Methods to Measure Markers of Health and Translate to Large Scale Cohort Studies

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is an indispensable tool in healthcare and research, with a growing demand for its services. The appeal of MRI stems from its non-ionizing radiation nature, ability to generate high-resolution images of internal organs and structures without invasive procedures, and capacity to provide quantitative assessments of tissue properties such as ectopic fat, body composition, and organ volume. All without long term side effects. Nine published papers are submitted which show the cultivation of quantitative measures of ectopic fat within the liver and pancreas using MRI, and the process of validating whole-body composition and organ volume measurements. All these techniques have been translated into large-scale studies to improve health measurements in large population cohorts. Translating this work into large-scale studies, including the use of artificial intelligence, is included. Additionally, an evaluation accompanies these published studies, appraising the evolution of these quantitative MRI techniques from the conception to their application in large cohort studies. Finally, this appraisal provides a summary of future work on crowdsourcing of ground truth training data to facilitate its use in wider applications of artificial intelligence.In conclusion, this body of work presents a portfolio of evidence to fulfil the requirements of a PhD by published works at the University of Salford

Measuring Readability Levels of Undergraduate Investment Textbooks

Selection of a textbook for an introductory investment course can be challenging. Many criteria may be considered in such decisions, including a textbook’s pedagogical approach, end-of-chapter material, and instructor supplements. Faculty may also wish to consider a text’s readability, or the qualities of writing which are related to reader comprehension. Using the Flesch-Kincaid readability index, this study analyzes the predicted readability of five popular introductory investment textbooks. T-tests are performed to determine whether significant differences exist between the textbooks. Our results indicate that the Jordan/Miller/Dolvin textbook is the most readable while the Jones/Jensen textbook is the least readable among our sample. These findings can be useful to adopters and editors of introductory investment textbooks

Occurrence of lactational mastitis and medical management: a prospective cohort study in Glasgow

This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Background Lactational mastitis is a painful, debilitating condition that if inappropriately managed, may lead women to discontinue breastfeeding prematurely. The aim of this paper is to report the incidence of mastitis in the first six months postpartum in a Scottish population, its impact on breastfeeding duration and to describe the type and appropriateness of the support and management received by affected women from health professionals. Methods A longitudinal study of 420 breastfeeding women was undertaken in Glasgow in 2004/05. Participants were recruited and completed a baseline questionnaire before discharge from hospital. Cases of mastitis were reported either directly to the researchers or were detected during regular follow-up telephone interviews at weeks 3, 8, 18 and 26. Women experiencing mastitis provided further information of their symptoms and the management and advice they received from health professionals. Results In total, 74 women (18%) experienced at least one episode of mastitis. More than one half of initial episodes (53%) occurred within the first four weeks postpartum. One in ten women (6/57) were inappropriately advised to either stop breastfeeding from the affected breast or to discontinue breastfeeding altogether. Conclusion Approximately one in six women is likely to experience one or more episodes of mastitis whilst breastfeeding. A small but clinically important proportion of women continue to receive inappropriate management advice from health professionals which, if followed, could lead them to unnecessarily deprive their infants prematurely of the known nutritional and immunological benefits of breast milk

Integrating serological and genetic data to quantify cross-species transmission: brucellosis as a case study

Epidemiological data are often fragmented, partial, and/or ambiguous and unable to yield the desired level of understanding of infectious disease dynamics to adequately inform control measures. Here, we show how the information contained in widely available serology data can be enhanced by integration with less common type-specific data, to improve the understanding of the transmission dynamics of complex multi-species pathogens and host communities. Using brucellosis in Northern Tanzania as a case-study, we developed a latent process model based on serology data obtained from the field, to reconstruct Brucella transmission dynamics. We were able to identify sheep and goats as a more likely source of human and animal infection than cattle; however, the highly cross-reactive nature of Brucella spp. meant that it was not possible to determine which Brucella species (B. abortus or B. melitensis) is responsible for human infection. We extended our model to integrate simulated serology and typing data, and show that although serology alone can identify the host source of human infection under certain restrictive conditions, the integration of even small amounts (5%) of typing data can improve understanding of complex epidemiological dynamics. We show that data integration will often be essential when more than one pathogen is present and when the distinction between exposed and infectious individuals is not clear from serology data. With increasing epidemiological complexity, serology data become less informative. However, we show how this weakness can be mitigated by integrating such data with typing data, thereby enhancing the inference from these data and improving understanding of the underlying dynamics