ECG Arrhythmia Classification Using Transfer Learning from 2-Dimensional Deep CNN Features

Due to the recent advances in the area of deep learning, it has been demonstrated that a deep neural network, trained on a huge amount of data, can recognize cardiac arrhythmias better than cardiologists. Moreover, traditionally feature extraction was considered an integral part of ECG pattern recognition; however, recent findings have shown that deep neural networks can carry out the task of feature extraction directly from the data itself. In order to use deep neural networks for their accuracy and feature extraction, high volume of training data is required, which in the case of independent studies is not pragmatic. To arise to this challenge, in this work, the identification and classification of four ECG patterns are studied from a transfer learning perspective, transferring knowledge learned from the image classification domain to the ECG signal classification domain. It is demonstrated that feature maps learned in a deep neural network trained on great amounts of generic input images can be used as general descriptors for the ECG signal spectrograms and result in features that enable classification of arrhythmias. Overall, an accuracy of 97.23 percent is achieved in classifying near 7000 instances by ten-fold cross validation.Comment: Accepted and presented for IEEE Biomedical Circuits and Systems (BioCAS) on 17th-19th October 2018 in Ohio, US

An inquiry into the nature of the female mystic and the divine feminine in Sufi experience

This article is an inquiry into the nature of the female mystic and the divine feminine in Sufi experience. It considers this experience in the general sense with regard to the Sufi tradition, but in its analysis, the article primarily draws on examples from the classical period of Sufi history. Based on an analysis of the thought of key Sufi figures from that period, the assertion is made that the ground of the sacred is female and, as such, the basis of mystical experience is feminine

Female Mystics and the Divine Feminine in the Global Sufi Experience

This book is a reprint of the Special Issue Female Mystics and the Divine Feminine in the Global Sufi Experience that was published in Religions)

A hybrid of Delphi, AHP and TOPSIS Methods for project portfolio management

Due to the importance and complexity of the portfolio management issue, over 100 different techniques have already been presented. In general, the final result of these tools is to create a prioritized list of the projects that must be selected for allocating resources. The use of financial strategies may be misleading in some cases, and it is necessary to combine these methods with other methods such as strategic approaches in order to guarantee a balanced portfolio toward the organizational strategies. On the other, categorizing projects into different baskets allows the organizations to select, evaluate and prioritize the projects in a subset using a set of similar criteria and techniques. In this article, by choosing agriculture sector as a case study, an attempt has been made to study the evaluation, ranking and management of projects with investment classifying strategy of the projects using Delphi, TOPSIS and AHP methods. The results reveal that in similar cases we can use the presented model by determining the type of activity and investment and localization of the indexes

Semantic Mapping of the Pattern of Strategic Management Knowledge Acquisition in Institutional Organizations

Many organizations employ knowledge engineers to acquire tacit knowledge from experts using the principles and techniques of knowledge acquisition. The main purpose of this study is to provide a comprehensive pattern of knowledge acquisition in institutional organizations. For this purpose, Semantic mapping (one of the research methods in Soft Operation Research) has been used; and using a graphical arrangement that shows the main ideas and relationships between the meanings of words, a kind of visual classification of knowledge acquisition is proposed. In this regard, first, the central concept was examined and related micro-concepts including 15 micro-concepts were identified and recorded in the pattern. These included “agreement and relationship of knowledge acquisition system with other organizational systems”, “connection of knowledge acquisition system to knowledge management cycle”, “officials and trustees of knowledge acquisition”, “special characteristics of institutional organizations” and “basic layers of the organization”. Each of these concepts was then considered a central idea, and the development of branches to extract the micro-words associated with each concept continued, sometimes up to four layers. The total number of concepts drawn in this pattern were 183.Keywords: Knowledge Acquisition, Tacit Knowledge, Institutional Organizations, Semantic Map, Cognitive Mapping

Understanding farmers’ climate adaptation intention in Iran: a protection-motivation extended model

Adaptation to climate change is a matter of urgent social scientific analysis. Within the agricultural sector of many developing nations, farmers must make long-term decisions to adapt to climate change impacts in order to provide food security and sustainable livelihoods. However, deeper understanding of farmers' decision-making, as a key stakeholder group, is of vital importance in forming adaptive land use policy 'from the bottom-up'. This study investigates the psychosocial factors that influence farmers' adaptation intention in the critical case of Marvdasht County in Iran - a case that exemplifies agricultural stakeholder decision-making in arid and drought-prone regions. We present a conceptual combination-model grounded in Protection Motivation Theory (PMT), employing a correlational survey among 256 farmer-stakeholders. First, we discuss the relative value of the combined model to understanding adaptation intentions. Second, we find that the factors that represent the externalities of farmers' behaviour need to be more thoroughly integrated in to adaptation planning. Third, we find that farmers' adaptation intention is directly affected by maladaptation, and indirectly by economic disincentives, barriers to belief in anthropogenic climate change and broader risk perceptions

Frequency of IL-10+CD19+ B cells in patients with prostate cancer compared to patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia

Background: The function of the immune system in prostate cancer (PC) might promote carcinogenesis. PC is a common cancer in men. Regulatory B cells (Bregs) are a new subtype of B cells that have suppressive roles in the immune system. Interleukin-10 (IL-10) is a dominant mediator of immune suppression released by Bregs. Objective: The purpose of this research was to examine the frequency of CD19+IL10+ B cells and IL-10 mRNA expression in patients with PC compared to patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). Methods: Forty paraffin tissue samples from patients with PC and 32 paraffin tissue samples from patients with BPH were entered in this study. The immunohistochemistry staining was used to evaluate the pattern expression of CD19 and IL-10 markers. IL-10 mRNA expression in fresh tissue was determined by real time-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Results: The frequency of CD19+IL-10+ B cells and IL-10 mRNA expression in PC patients were significantly higher than patients with BPH. Also, there was no meaningful relationship between the frequency of IL-10+CD19+ B cells and gleason scores in patients with PC. Conclusions: Our findings suggested that frequency of IL-10+CD19+ B cells correlates with progressive stage of PC

Frequency of IL-10+CD19+ B cells in patients with prostate cancer compared to patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia

Background: The function of the immune system in prostate cancer (PC) might promote carcinogenesis. PC is a common cancer in men. Regulatory B cells (Bregs) are a new subtype of B cells that have suppressive roles in the immune system. Interleukin-10 (IL-10) is a dominant mediator of immune suppression released by Bregs. Objective: The purpose of this research was to examine the frequency of CD19+IL10+ B cells and IL-10 mRNA expression in patients with PC compared to patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). Methods: Forty paraffin tissue samples from patients with PC and 32 paraffin tissue samples from patients with BPH were entered in this study. The immunohistochemistry staining was used to evaluate the pattern expression of CD19 and IL-10 markers. IL-10 mRNA expression in fresh tissue was determined by real time-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Results: The frequency of CD19+IL-10+ B cells and IL-10 mRNA expression in PC patients were significantly higher than patients with BPH. Also, there was no meaningful relationship between the frequency of IL-10+CD19+ B cells and gleason scores in patients with PC. Conclusions: Our findings suggested that frequency of IL-10+CD19+ B cells correlates with progressive stage of PC

Global, regional, and national burden of colorectal cancer and its risk factors, 1990–2019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019

Funding: F Carvalho and E Fernandes acknowledge support from Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P. (FCT), in the scope of the project UIDP/04378/2020 and UIDB/04378/2020 of the Research Unit on Applied Molecular Biosciences UCIBIO and the project LA/P/0140/2020 of the Associate Laboratory Institute for Health and Bioeconomy i4HB; FCT/MCTES through the project UIDB/50006/2020. J Conde acknowledges the European Research Council Starting Grant (ERC-StG-2019-848325). V M Costa acknowledges the grant SFRH/BHD/110001/2015, received by Portuguese national funds through Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT), IP, under the Norma Transitória DL57/2016/CP1334/CT0006.proofepub_ahead_of_prin

Global burden of 288 causes of death and life expectancy decomposition in 204 countries and territories and 811 subnational locations, 1990–2021: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021

BACKGROUND Regular, detailed reporting on population health by underlying cause of death is fundamental for public health decision making. Cause-specific estimates of mortality and the subsequent effects on life expectancy worldwide are valuable metrics to gauge progress in reducing mortality rates. These estimates are particularly important following large-scale mortality spikes, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. When systematically analysed, mortality rates and life expectancy allow comparisons of the consequences of causes of death globally and over time, providing a nuanced understanding of the effect of these causes on global populations. METHODS The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2021 cause-of-death analysis estimated mortality and years of life lost (YLLs) from 288 causes of death by age-sex-location-year in 204 countries and territories and 811 subnational locations for each year from 1990 until 2021. The analysis used 56 604 data sources, including data from vital registration and verbal autopsy as well as surveys, censuses, surveillance systems, and cancer registries, among others. As with previous GBD rounds, cause-specific death rates for most causes were estimated using the Cause of Death Ensemble model-a modelling tool developed for GBD to assess the out-of-sample predictive validity of different statistical models and covariate permutations and combine those results to produce cause-specific mortality estimates-with alternative strategies adapted to model causes with insufficient data, substantial changes in reporting over the study period, or unusual epidemiology. YLLs were computed as the product of the number of deaths for each cause-age-sex-location-year and the standard life expectancy at each age. As part of the modelling process, uncertainty intervals (UIs) were generated using the 2·5th and 97·5th percentiles from a 1000-draw distribution for each metric. We decomposed life expectancy by cause of death, location, and year to show cause-specific effects on life expectancy from 1990 to 2021. We also used the coefficient of variation and the fraction of population affected by 90% of deaths to highlight concentrations of mortality. Findings are reported in counts and age-standardised rates. Methodological improvements for cause-of-death estimates in GBD 2021 include the expansion of under-5-years age group to include four new age groups, enhanced methods to account for stochastic variation of sparse data, and the inclusion of COVID-19 and other pandemic-related mortality-which includes excess mortality associated with the pandemic, excluding COVID-19, lower respiratory infections, measles, malaria, and pertussis. For this analysis, 199 new country-years of vital registration cause-of-death data, 5 country-years of surveillance data, 21 country-years of verbal autopsy data, and 94 country-years of other data types were added to those used in previous GBD rounds. FINDINGS The leading causes of age-standardised deaths globally were the same in 2019 as they were in 1990; in descending order, these were, ischaemic heart disease, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and lower respiratory infections. In 2021, however, COVID-19 replaced stroke as the second-leading age-standardised cause of death, with 94·0 deaths (95% UI 89·2-100·0) per 100 000 population. The COVID-19 pandemic shifted the rankings of the leading five causes, lowering stroke to the third-leading and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease to the fourth-leading position. In 2021, the highest age-standardised death rates from COVID-19 occurred in sub-Saharan Africa (271·0 deaths [250·1-290·7] per 100 000 population) and Latin America and the Caribbean (195·4 deaths [182·1-211·4] per 100 000 population). The lowest age-standardised death rates from COVID-19 were in the high-income super-region (48·1 deaths [47·4-48·8] per 100 000 population) and southeast Asia, east Asia, and Oceania (23·2 deaths [16·3-37·2] per 100 000 population). Globally, life expectancy steadily improved between 1990 and 2019 for 18 of the 22 investigated causes. Decomposition of global and regional life expectancy showed the positive effect that reductions in deaths from enteric infections, lower respiratory infections, stroke, and neonatal deaths, among others have contributed to improved survival over the study period. However, a net reduction of 1·6 years occurred in global life expectancy between 2019 and 2021, primarily due to increased death rates from COVID-19 and other pandemic-related mortality. Life expectancy was highly variable between super-regions over the study period, with southeast Asia, east Asia, and Oceania gaining 8·3 years (6·7-9·9) overall, while having the smallest reduction in life expectancy due to COVID-19 (0·4 years). The largest reduction in life expectancy due to COVID-19 occurred in Latin America and the Caribbean (3·6 years). Additionally, 53 of the 288 causes of death were highly concentrated in locations with less than 50% of the global population as of 2021, and these causes of death became progressively more concentrated since 1990, when only 44 causes showed this pattern. The concentration phenomenon is discussed heuristically with respect to enteric and lower respiratory infections, malaria, HIV/AIDS, neonatal disorders, tuberculosis, and measles. INTERPRETATION Long-standing gains in life expectancy and reductions in many of the leading causes of death have been disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, the adverse effects of which were spread unevenly among populations. Despite the pandemic, there has been continued progress in combatting several notable causes of death, leading to improved global life expectancy over the study period. Each of the seven GBD super-regions showed an overall improvement from 1990 and 2021, obscuring the negative effect in the years of the pandemic. Additionally, our findings regarding regional variation in causes of death driving increases in life expectancy hold clear policy utility. Analyses of shifting mortality trends reveal that several causes, once widespread globally, are now increasingly concentrated geographically. These changes in mortality concentration, alongside further investigation of changing risks, interventions, and relevant policy, present an important opportunity to deepen our understanding of mortality-reduction strategies. Examining patterns in mortality concentration might reveal areas where successful public health interventions have been implemented. Translating these successes to locations where certain causes of death remain entrenched can inform policies that work to improve life expectancy for people everywhere. FUNDING Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation