Feature selection of unbalanced breast cancer data using particle swarm optimization

Breast cancer is one of the significant deaths causing diseases of women around the globe. Therefore, high accuracy in cancer prediction models is vital to improving patients’ treatment quality and survivability rate. In this work, we presented a new method namely improved balancing particle swarm optimization (IBPSO) algorithm to predict the stage of breast cancer using unbalanced surveillance epidemiology and end result (USEER) data. The work contributes in two directions. First, design and implement an improved particle swarm optimization (IPSO) algorithm to avoid the local minima while reducing USEER data’s dimensionality. The improvement comes primarily through employing the cross-over ability of the genetic algorithm as a fitness function while using the correlation-based function to guide the selection task to a minimal feature subset of USEER sufficiently to describe the universe. Second, develop an improved synthetic minority over-sampling technique (ISMOTE) that avoid overfitting problem while efficiently balance USEER. ISMOTE generates the new objects based on the average of the two objects with the smallest and largest distance from the centroid object of the minority class. The experiments and analysis show that the proposed IBPSO is feasible and effective, outperforms other state-of-the-art methods; in minimizing the features with an accuracy of 98.45%

111In-Labeled Glycoprotein Nonmetastatic b (GPNMB) Targeted Gemini Surfactant-Based Nanoparticles against Melanoma: In Vitro Characterization and in Vivo Evaluation in Melanoma Mouse Xenograft Model

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Hepatitis D virus infection among hepatitis B virus surface antigen positive individuals in Upper Egypt: Prevalence and clinical features

Background/Purpose: About 248 million people are chronic HBV surface antigen carriers in the world. Hepatitis D virus (HDV) infection present in more than 15 million people worldwide. HDV needs hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) to help its replication. We aimed to estimate the prevalence of HDV infection among HBsAg positive individuals and to determine the clinical, laboratory and virological characters of HDV infected patients. Methods: This study was prospective cross-sectional analytic one including 186 HBsAg positive cases. Anti-HBc total, IgM and HBV PCR were done for all of these cases. Anti-HDV ELISA analysis was done for all cases. Positive samples for Anti-HDV by ELISA were then tested by HDV PCR. Results: Of the 186 HBsAg positive cases, 80 were reactive for anti-HDV antibodies, resulting in an overall anti-HDV seropositivity of 43%. Higher prevalence of liver cirrhosis (43.8%), HCC on top of cirrhosis (8.8%) were found in anti-HDV positive compared to anti-HDV negative cases (17.9%) and (3.8%) respectively (p value < 0.001). Portal hypertension and Child-Pugh grade B, C were significantly higher in anti-HDV-positive cases as compared to the anti-HDV-negative ones (47.5% versus 18.9%) and (11.3% versus 6.6%); (16.3% versus 3.8%) respectively (p value < 0.001 for each). HDV RNA was positive in 25 out of 80 anti-HDV-positive cases (31.3%). Conclusion: Anti-HDV was seropositive in 43% among HBsAg positive cases in Upper Egypt. HDV RNA was positive by PCR in 25 out of 80 anti-HDV-positive cases (31.3%). HDV prevalence using PCR was 25/186 (13.4%) in Upper Egypt. Keywords: HDV, HBsAg, Prevalence, Upper Egyp

Enhanced Ocular Anti-Aspergillus Activity of Tolnaftate Employing Novel Cosolvent-Modified Spanlastics: Formulation, Statistical Optimization, Kill Kinetics, Ex Vivo Trans-Corneal Permeation, In Vivo Histopathological and Susceptibility Study

Tolnaftate (TOL) is a thiocarbamate fungicidal drug used topically in the form of creams and ointments. No ocular formulations of TOL are available for fungal keratitis (FK) treatment due to its poor water solubility and unique ocular barriers. Therefore, this study aimed at developing novel modified spanlastics by modulating spanlastics composition using different glycols for enhancing TOL ocular delivery. To achieve this goal, TOL basic spanlastics were prepared by ethanol injection method using a full 32 factorial design. By applying the desirability function, the optimal formula (BS6) was selected and used as a nucleus for preparing and optimizing TOL-cosolvent spanlastics according to the full 31.21 factorial design. The optimal formula (MS6) was prepared using 30% propylene glycol and showed entrapment efficiency percent (EE%) of 66.10 &plusmn; 0.57%, particle size (PS) of 231.20 &plusmn; 0.141 nm, and zeta potential (ZP) of &minus;32.15 &plusmn; 0.07 mV. MS6 was compared to BS6 and both nanovesicles significantly increased the corneal permeation potential of TOL than drug suspension. Additionally, in vivo histopathological experiment was accomplished and confirmed the tolerability of MS6 for ocular use. The fungal susceptibility testing using Aspergillus niger confirmed that MS6 displayed more durable growth inhibition than drug suspension. Therefore, MS6 can be a promising option for enhanced TOL ocular delivery

Does vitamin D deficiency worsen the hospital outcome in patients with acute exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease?

Background There are limited data about the hospital outcome in hospitalized patients diagnosed as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) with concomitant deficiency of vitamin D. Objectives To assess the level of serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D in patients with severe exacerbation of COPD and to find if there is any correlations between vitamin D and clinical, functional parameters, as well as survival, days of hospital stay, and need for ICU admission. Patients and methods In this case–control study, 60 patients with acute exacerbation COPD requiring hospital admission were recruited and 24 healthy controls. Chest radiography, spirometry, arterial blood gases, 6 min walking distance, modified Medical Research Council dyspnea scale, and St George Respiratory Questionnaire were assessed. Serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D level was measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Results About 90% COPD patients had vitamin D deficiency. Serum vitamin D levels were statistically significantly lower in COPD with and without comorbidities when compared with normal controls (P0.05). No significant correlation was found between serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D and survival; days of hospital stay or need for mechanical ventilation. As well, no significant correlation between vitamin D and forced expiratory volume in the 1 s %, 6 min walking distance, modified Medical Research Council, or St George Respiratory Questionnaire scores was found. Conclusion Vitamin D deficiency is found in most COPD patients. However, in patients suffering from severe exacerbation, the presence of low vitamin D levels did not have any effect on survival, days of hospital stay, or need for mechanical ventilation

Development of Radiolabeled Antibody-Targeted Gemini Nanoparticles for Melanoma

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Polysaccharides Extracted From Deverra Tortuosa Wastes: Structural, Functional, Antioxidant, Antihypertensive and Cytotoxic Properties

peer reviewedWater soluble polysaccharides were extracted from waste residues after the industrial production of the essential oil from Deverra tortuosa plant as novel approach for valorization of these wastes. The extraction yield was 7.82%. The chemical composition, structural characterization, functional, antioxidant, antihypertensive and cytotoxic properties of the Deverra tortuosa water-soluble polysaccharides (DTWSP) were treated. This study was carried out using different techniques such as FT-IR, NMR, XRD, zeta potential and DSC to obtain the structural characterization of DTWSP. The X-ray pattern revealed the semi-crystalline behavior of DTWSP. The analysis of the monosaccharide composition by GC–MS showed the presence of glucose galactose, mannitol, gluconic acid, xylose and ribose. In addition, DTWSP exhibited important techno-functional properties (SWC, WSI, WHC and OHC). Antioxidant activities of DTWSP were determined using different antioxidant assays: DPPH radical-scavenging capacity (IC50 = 1.26 mg/ml), reducing power, ABTS assay and ferrous chelating capacity. The findings indicated that DTWSP displayed excellent antihypertensive (98.92% at 0.8 mg/ml) and antioxidant activities but low cytotoxic effects on HeLa cell lines. Overall, the results suggested that WMRP presents a promising natural source of antioxidants and antihypertensive agents. Graphical Abstract: [Figure not available: see fulltext.