Fluctuation Scaling, Taylor’s Law, and Crime

Fluctuation scaling relationships have been observed in a wide range of processes ranging from internet router traffic to measles cases. Taylor’s law is one such scaling relationship and has been widely applied in ecology to understand communities including trees, birds, human populations, and insects. We show that monthly crime reports in the UK show complex fluctuation scaling which can be approximated by Taylor’s law relationships corresponding to local policing neighborhoods and larger regional and countrywide scales. Regression models applied to local scale data from Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire found that different categories of crime exhibited different scaling exponents with no significant difference between the two regions. On this scale, violence reports were close to a Poisson distribution (α = 1.057±0.026) while burglary exhibited a greater exponent (α = 1.292±0.029) indicative of temporal clustering. These two regions exhibited significantly different pre-exponential factors for the categories of anti-social behavior and burglary indicating that local variations in crime reports can be assessed using fluctuation scaling methods. At regional and countrywide scales, all categories exhibited scaling behavior indicative of temporal clustering evidenced by Taylor’s law exponents from 1.43±0.12 (Drugs) to 2.094±0081 (Other Crimes). Investigating crime behavior via fluctuation scaling gives insight beyond that of raw numbers and is unique in reporting on all processes contributing to the observed variance and is either robust to or exhibits signs of many types of data manipulation

UWB imaging for breast cancer detection using neural network.

This paper presents a simple feed-forward back-propagation Neural Network (NN) model to detect and locate early breast cancer/tumor efficiently through the investigation of Electromagnetic (EM) waves. A spherical tumor of radius 0.25 cm was created and placed at arbitrary locations in a breast model using an EM simulator. Directional antennas were used to transmit and receive Ultra-Wide Band (UWB) signals in 4 to 8 GHz frequency range. Small training and validation sets were constructed to train and test the NN. The received signals were fed into the trained NN model to find the presence and location of tumor. Very optimistic results (about 100% and 94.4% presence and location detection rate of tumor respectively) have been observed for early received signal components with the NN model. Hence, the proposed model is very potential for early tumor detection to save human lives in the future

Prolonged use of oral contraceptive pill, a co-factor for the development of cervical cancer

This study was carried out to assess the use of oral contraceptive pill as a co-factor for the development of cervical cancer. Among the 100 participants, 71% used oral contraceptives pill. Maximum (40%) used oral contraceptive pill for >5 years whereas 31% for <5 years. Histopathologically diagnosed invasive squamous cell carcinoma was 84% and adenocarcinoma was 16%

University College London/University of Gothenburg PhD course "Biomarkers in neurodegenerative diseases" 2019—course organisation

Biomarkers are increasingly employed for effective research into neurodegenerative diseases. They have become essential for reaching an accurate clinical diagnosis, monitoring disease, and refining entry criteria for participation in clinical treatment trials, and will be key in measuring target engagement and treatment outcome in disease-modifying therapies. Emerging techniques and research combining different biomarker modalities continue to strengthen our understanding of the underlying pathology and the sequence of pathogenic events. Given recent advances, we are now at a pivotal stage in biomarker research. PhD students working in the field of neurodegenerative disease require a working knowledge of a range of biomarkers available and their limitations, to correctly interpret scientific literature and to design and conduct successful research studies themselves. Here, we outline the University College London/University of Gothenburg “Biomarkers in neurodegenerative diseases course”, the first initiative of its kind aimed to bring together both experts and PhD students from all areas within the field of neurodegeneration, to provide comprehensive knowledge of biomarker research for the next generation of scientists

Comparison of outcome of interdigitated versus sequential brachytherapy along with concurrent chemoradiation in locally advanced carcinoma cervix

Background: Carcinoma cervix is a significant health concern, particularly in lower socioeconomic groups. The effectiveness of interdigitated versus sequential brachytherapy, both with concurrent chemoradiation, in treating this condition remains underexplored. Methods: This quasi-experimental study at Rajshahi Medical College Hospital enrolled 63 patients with biopsy-proven squamous cell cervical cancer. They were randomly divided into two arms: arm a received pelvic EBRT 50 Gy in 25 fractions, followed by HDR brachytherapy (7 Gy weekly × 3 weeks) starting after 30 Gy of EBRT; arm B received the same pelvic EBRT, followed by HDR brachytherapy (7 Gy weekly × 3 weeks) starting a week after the completion of EBRT. Results: Mean age was 47.82±8.45 years (range: 29-64 years). The mean OTT was significantly reduced in arm-A (36.58 days) compared to arm-B (59.5 days). In terms of treatment response, 90.32% of patients in arm-A and 78.12% in arm-B experienced a complete response. Conclusions: Interdigitated brachytherapy with concurrent chemoradiation significantly reduces treatment time without compromising treatment effectiveness. Despite a shorter treatment duration, the complete response rate was slightly higher in the interdigitated arm

Survey and scientific evaluation of medicinal plants used by the Pahan and Teli tribal communities of Natore district, Bangladesh

The Pahans and the Telis are two of the smallest indigenous communities in Bangladesh. The Pahans, numbering about 14,000 people are widely scattered in several northern districts of the country, while the Telis are such a small community that nothing has been reported on their numbers and lifestyle. Both tribes are on the verge of disappearance. One each of the Pahan and the Teli community was located after much search in two adjoining villages of Natore district, Bangladesh. Since the tribes were found to still depend on their traditional medicinal practitioners for treatment of ailments, it was the objective of the present study to document their traditional usage of medicinal plants and to evaluate such plants against modern research-based pharmacological activity studies on these plants. Interviews were conducted of the practitioners of the Pahan and Teli community of Natore district with the help of a semi-structured questionnaire and using the guided field-walk method. Plant specimens aspointed out by the practitioners were collected and pressed on the field and identification completed at the Bangladesh National Herbarium. The Pahan tribal practitioners used 13 plants distributed into 9 families for treatment of 14 different ailments. The Teli tribal practitioner used 15 plants divided into 14 families for treatment of 17 different ailments. Eight out of the thirteen plants used by the Pahan tribal practitioner (61.5%) had reported relevant pharmacological activities in the scientific literature, while six out of the fifteen plants used by the Teli tribal practitioners (40%) had such relevant pharmacological activities in accordance with their usage. The medicinal plants used by the Pahans and Telis warrant further scientific studies toward discovery of lead compounds and efficacious drugs and the documentation and protection of the traditional medical knowledge held by these tribes