Boosted Cascaded Convnets for Multilabel Classification of Thoracic Diseases in Chest Radiographs

Chest X-ray is one of the most accessible medical imaging technique for diagnosis of multiple diseases. With the availability of ChestX-ray14, which is a massive dataset of chest X-ray images and provides annotations for 14 thoracic diseases; it is possible to train Deep Convolutional Neural Networks (DCNN) to build Computer Aided Diagnosis (CAD) systems. In this work, we experiment a set of deep learning models and present a cascaded deep neural network that can diagnose all 14 pathologies better than the baseline and is competitive with other published methods. Our work provides the quantitative results to answer following research questions for the dataset: 1) What loss functions to use for training DCNN from scratch on ChestX-ray14 dataset that demonstrates high class imbalance and label co occurrence? 2) How to use cascading to model label dependency and to improve accuracy of the deep learning model?Comment: Submitted to CVPR 201

RADNET: Radiologist Level Accuracy using Deep Learning for HEMORRHAGE detection in CT Scans

We describe a deep learning approach for automated brain hemorrhage detection from computed tomography (CT) scans. Our model emulates the procedure followed by radiologists to analyse a 3D CT scan in real-world. Similar to radiologists, the model sifts through 2D cross-sectional slices while paying close attention to potential hemorrhagic regions. Further, the model utilizes 3D context from neighboring slices to improve predictions at each slice and subsequently, aggregates the slice-level predictions to provide diagnosis at CT level. We refer to our proposed approach as Recurrent Attention DenseNet (RADnet) as it employs original DenseNet architecture along with adding the components of attention for slice level predictions and recurrent neural network layer for incorporating 3D context. The real-world performance of RADnet has been benchmarked against independent analysis performed by three senior radiologists for 77 brain CTs. RADnet demonstrates 81.82% hemorrhage prediction accuracy at CT level that is comparable to radiologists. Further, RADnet achieves higher recall than two of the three radiologists, which is remarkable.Comment: Accepted at IEEE Symposium on Biomedical Imaging (ISBI) 2018 as conference pape

Study of occurrence of childhood hypertension in school going children attending pediatrics OPD in Moradabad city

Background: In developed countries, childhood hypertension is a proven indicator of adult hypertension and organ damage and is estimated to be great concern. This study was conducted to assess the occurrence of childhood hypertension in school going children attending pediatrics OPD.Methods: An observational study was performed at TMMC and RC among 500 school going children attending pediatrics OPD in TMMC and RC over a period of 1 year. Socio-demographic variables including age, gender, family history of hypertension, parental smoking habits were recorded in a proforma. Dietary habits including consumption of junk food, fruits and daily calorie intake was evaluated utilizing number of times diet intake questionnaire and 24 hour recall method. Height was measured by stadiometer with candidate posing in bare feet. Weight assessment was done with bare footed and candidate clad in light clothing with weighing instrument of electronic type rounded to nearest unit.Results: Elevated blood pressure and hypertension was reported among 9.4% and 6.8% of the subjects respectively. High blood pressure was significantly associated with presence of family history, stress and lack daily physical activity. Chances of elevated blood pressure and hypertension increase along with the increase in subject height, weight and BMI.Conclusions: Performing the BP measurements in routine consultations becomes essential for diagnosis and early intervention

In Vitro Antiacne and Antidandruff activity of extracted stigmasterol from seed waste of safflower (Carthamus tinctorius L.)

The present study deals with extraction of saponins and their characterization from the seed wastes of safflower. The presence of stigmasterol in the extracted safflower seed waste (S.W.S) was confirmed by Thin Layer Chromatography (TLC), followed by Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) and High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) on the basis of its peak compared with stigmasterol standard. FTIR showed the identical functional groups of butanolic extract of SSW with standard while TLC and HPLC showed their notable peak and retention time with the same. Further in-vitro antiacne and antidandruff microbial activity of extracted stigmasterol was confirmed by disc diffusion method. This preliminary study has exhibited anti-acne and anti dandruff potential of Safflower seed waste extract, in future which could be used in therapies and cosmetic applications

Antioxidative properties of isolated saponins of Verbesina encelioides (Cav.) Benth. & Hook. fil ex Gray and SEM studies of synthesized green nanoparticles for acne management

Acne is one of the most common and chronic skin problems in most adolescents and young adults due to several internal and external factors. The present study emphasizes on screening of high antioxidant potential of wild sunflower for acne therapy, as it also plays a major role in the patho-physiology of acne. The anti-oxidant potential of extracted plant compounds was carried out by using 1, 1-diphenyl-2-picryl hydrazyl (DPPH) and ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP). In recent years, scientists have been involved in the application of green nanoparticle synthesis. Further synthesized green nanoparticles were checked for antiacne potential. Isolated saponins and their synthesized nonolparticles would play an important role to control the acne

Experimental study on the performance of microwave assisted Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) pretreatment of rice straw

Biofuels are essentials as they can provide impending substitute for fossil fuels.  Rice straw has gained much attention from researchers because of its usability as a potential feedstock for bioethanol production.  Pre-treatments are crucial for enzymatic hydrolysis of rice straw.  In this study, combination of microwave and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) is employed for the delignification of rice straw.  The Response surface methodology is used to optimize the pretreatment conditions with respect to H2O2 concentration, microwave power and irradiation time.  Under optimum conditions, maximum reducing sugar obtained through microwave assisted H2O2 is 1,453.64 µg/mL.  The chemical and morphological analysis ascertained that the surface of the samples treated with microwave assisted H2O2 was more ruptured and has a significantly high crystalline index (63.64%) than untreated rice straw sample (52.2%).  Microwave assisted H2O2 pre-treatmentdisrupted the silicon waxy structure and broken down allether linkages between lignin and carbohydrates and thus, efficiently remove lignin.  The present study proves that microwave assisted H2O2 is an effective pretreatment technique for the conversion of rice straw into bioethanol production by enhancing enzymatic saccharification.   Keywords: pre-treatment, enzymatic hydrolysis, rice straw, biofuel, microwave, hydrogen peroxid

An evaluation of microleakage of various glass ionomer based restorative materials in deciduous and permanent teeth: An in vitro study

AbstractAimTo evaluate the microleakage of recently available glass ionomer based restorative materials (GC Fuji IX GP, GC Fuji VII, and Dyract) and compare their microleakage with the previously existing glass ionomer restorative materials (GC Fuji II LC) in primary and permanent teeth.MethodOne hundred and fifty (75+75) non-carious deciduous and permanent teeth were restored with glass ionomer based restorative materials after making class I cavities. Samples were subjected to thermocycling after storing in distilled water for 24h. Two coats of nail polish were applied 1mm short of restorative margins and samples sectioned buccolingually after storing in methylene blue dye for 24h. Microleakage was assessed using stereomicroscope.ResultSignificant differences (P<0.05) were found when inter group comparisons were done. Except when GC Fuji VII (Group III) was compared with GC Fuji II LC (Group II) and Dyract (Group IV), non-significant differences (P>0.05) were observed. It was found that there was no statistically significant difference when the means of microleakage of primary teeth were compared with those of permanent teeth.ConclusionsGC Fuji IX GP showed maximum microleakage and GC Fuji VII showed least microleakage

Anxiety among people living with HIV/AIDS on antiretroviral treatment attending tertiary care hospitals in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India

Background: One of the major health challenges faced by India is the rapid growth of HIV/AIDS and its impact upon human life. Co-morbidities like anxiety are often overlooked while providing ART services to HIV/AIDS patients. Therefore the present study was conducted to assess the anxiety and associated factors among PLHA (People Living with HIV/AIDS) on antiretroviral treatment attending tertiary care hospitals in Lucknow.Methods: Hospital‑based cross-sectional study was conducted from November 2013 to March 2014 among 170 patients on treatment attending antiretroviral therapy (ART) centre of two tertiary care hospitals of Lucknow. Systematic random sampling was used to recruit patients. The anxiety level of all included patients was scored as per Hamilton anxiety rating scale. Results: The mean HAM-A score of 179 patients was 10.74±6.04. Majority (92.1%) of the patients had HAM-A score less than 17 indicating mild severity, 5.0% of the patient had mild to moderate severity while only 2.7% had moderate to severe level of anxiety symptoms. None of the patient had very severe level of anxiety. Significant association was found between level of anxiety symptoms with educational status (0.03), perception of side-effects during last one month (0.03) and duration of treatment (0.04).Conclusions: People living with HIV/AIDS need to be periodically educated and informed about various issues associated with the disease severity and antiretroviral treatment along with its side-effects so that they could better cope with disease and its treatment outcomes over time and be able to seek early treatment accordingly.

Protective potential of Moringa oleifera Lam. along with curcumin and piperine against beryllium-induced alterations in hepatorenal biochemistry and ultramorphology in rats

Moringa oleifera Lam. (Moringaceae) is a medicinally important plant, used as traditional medicine all over the world particularly in South Asia and India. Hydroalcoholic (50% v/v) root extract of M. oleifera (150 mg/kg, p.o.) with piperine (2.5 mg/kg, p.o), or curcumin (5.0 mg/kg, p.o.) was administered daily for 1 week in Female Wistar albino rats against beryllium toxicity (1.0 mg/kg, i.p. daily for 5 weeks). Beryllium altered hepatorenal function and enhanced the leakage of AST, ALT, and LDH, depleted SALP activity, and increased the level of urea, uric acid, creatinine, triglyceride and total cholesterol in the blood. Beryllium altered tissue biochemical parameters by a decrease in SDH, ALPase, ATPase activities, and increased ACPase activity, depleted hemoglobin and ALAD activity with an increase in ALAS activity and serum bilirubin. A significant amount of beryllium deposited in the liver, kidney, spleen, and bones. M. oleifera with curcumin showed better antitoxic potential by reversal of hepatorenal function towards normal and restored the activity of SDH, ALPase, ATPase, ACPase, and hemoglobin level normal. M. oleifera with curcumin effectively mobilized beryllium from the body and restored ultrastructure of liver and kidney. It was concluded that curcumin enhances the antitoxic potential of M. oleifera root extract and reduces beryllium body burden in rats