Diagnostic accuracy of MRI in staging of cervical cancer

Background: Cervical cancer is the third most common gynecologic cancer in women worldwide. Cervical cancer has lower incidence and mortality rates than uterine corpus and ovarian cancer,as well as many other cancer sites. Unfortunately,in countries that do not have access to cervical cancer screening and prevention programs,cervical cancer remains the second most common type of cancer. Staging of the disease is made clinically. The aim of this study was to evaluate the role of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for diagnosing the invasion of cancer to organs and staging of cervical cancer and the relationship between clinical and pathological findings and the sensitivity and specificity of the assay in cervical cancer. Methods: The study included records of 40 patients with cervical cancer that undergo surgery or Chemoradiation in Firoozgar University Hospital. In this study that made retrospectively,non-randomized,the MRI reports and clinical findings records and pathology results was discussed. The sensitivity and specificity of MRI for diagnosing the invasion to parameters,bladder,rectum,vagina,pelvic wall and it�s accuracy to determine tumor stage has been set. Results: A total of 40 patients with pathology information of cervical cancer was retrospectively reviewed in the study. The patients were 28-83 years old by mean age of 49.3 Pathology of cervical cancer in 80 of cases was SCC,15 adenocarcinoma and 5 melanoma. The sensitivity and specificity of MRI for diagnosing invasion of parameter was 76 and 88. The sensitivity of MRI in the detection of bladder invasion was 100 and specificity of 100. The sensitivity of MRI in the diagnosis of rectal invasion was 50 and specificity of 100. The sensitivity of MRI in the diagnosis of pelvic wall invasion was 100 and specificity of 86. Sensitivity in detecting invasion into the upper third of the vagina was 100. Conclusion: Overall,this study showed a good sensitivity and specificity for detecting invasion into the bladder,vagina,pelvic wall and parameters and good specificity for the diagnosis of rectal invasion and acceptable accuracy at 67.5 for detection of tumor stage by MRI show. © 2016,Tehran University of Medical Sciences. All Rights Reserved

Serum magnesium levels in neonatal jaundice: Is there any correlation between hypermagnesemia and moderate to severe hyperbilirubinemia in term newborns?

Background: Neonatal jaundice is a common major problem; on the other hand, it is suggested that there is a correlation between plasma magnesium concentrations and hyperbilirubinemia during the neonatal period. Objectives: The study aims to validate a previously reported risk index for predicting the magnesium level of plasma for moderate to severe hyperbilirubinemia in infant neonates. Methods: A cross-sectional correlation study was performed on 93 term newborns with indirect hyperbilirubinemia admitted in neonatology unit of a children hospital and plasma magnesium level of moderate to severe Neonatal hyperbilirubinemia were determined, and statistical analysis was performed. Results: Authors did not find any statistically meaningful positive or negative correlation between plasma Mg level and bilirubin in patients studied; however, comparison of Mg level in two groups of severe and moderate hyperbilirubinemia showed decreased dispersion of medium Mg level in the severe group. Conclusions: Serum magnesium concentration is not useful in anticipation of which newborn infant will develop hyperbilirubinemia. Copyright © 2020, Journal of Comprehensive Pediatrics

How to determine local elastic properties of lipid bilayer membranes from atomic-force-microscope measurements: A theoretical analysis

Measurements with an atomic force microscope (AFM) offer a direct way to probe elastic properties of lipid bilayer membranes locally: provided the underlying stress-strain relation is known, material parameters such as surface tension or bending rigidity may be deduced. In a recent experiment a pore-spanning membrane was poked with an AFM tip, yielding a linear behavior of the force-indentation curves. A theoretical model for this case is presented here which describes these curves in the framework of Helfrich theory. The linear behavior of the measurements is reproduced if one neglects the influence of adhesion between tip and membrane. Including it via an adhesion balance changes the situation significantly: force-distance curves cease to be linear, hysteresis and nonzero detachment forces can show up. The characteristics of this rich scenario are discussed in detail in this article.Comment: 14 pages, 9 figures, REVTeX4 style. New version corresponds to the one accepted by PRE. The result section is restructured: a comparison to experimental findings is included; the discussion on the influence of adhesion between AFM tip and membrane is extende

Zero-Shot Hashing via Transferring Supervised Knowledge

Hashing has shown its efficiency and effectiveness in facilitating large-scale multimedia applications. Supervised knowledge e.g. semantic labels or pair-wise relationship) associated to data is capable of significantly improving the quality of hash codes and hash functions. However, confronted with the rapid growth of newly-emerging concepts and multimedia data on the Web, existing supervised hashing approaches may easily suffer from the scarcity and validity of supervised information due to the expensive cost of manual labelling. In this paper, we propose a novel hashing scheme, termed \emph{zero-shot hashing} (ZSH), which compresses images of "unseen" categories to binary codes with hash functions learned from limited training data of "seen" categories. Specifically, we project independent data labels i.e. 0/1-form label vectors) into semantic embedding space, where semantic relationships among all the labels can be precisely characterized and thus seen supervised knowledge can be transferred to unseen classes. Moreover, in order to cope with the semantic shift problem, we rotate the embedded space to more suitably align the embedded semantics with the low-level visual feature space, thereby alleviating the influence of semantic gap. In the meantime, to exert positive effects on learning high-quality hash functions, we further propose to preserve local structural property and discrete nature in binary codes. Besides, we develop an efficient alternating algorithm to solve the ZSH model. Extensive experiments conducted on various real-life datasets show the superior zero-shot image retrieval performance of ZSH as compared to several state-of-the-art hashing methods.Comment: 11 page

Intermittent in-situ high-resolution X-ray microscopy of 400-nm porous glass under uniaxial compression: study of pore changes and crack formation

The properties of porous glasses and their field of application strongly depend on the characteristics of the void space. Understanding the relationship between their porous structure and failure behaviour can contribute to the development of porous glasses with long-term reliability optimized for specific applications. In the present work, we used X-ray computed tomography with nanometric resolution (nano-CT) to image a controlled pore glass (CPG) with 400 nm-sized pores whilst undergoing uniaxial compression in-situ to emulate a stress process. Our results show that in-situ nano-CT provides an ideal platform for identifying the mechanisms of damage within glass with pores of 400 nm, as it allowed the tracking of the pores and struts change of shape during compression until specimen failure. We have also applied computational tools to quantify the microstructural changes within the CPG sample by mapping the displacements and strain fields, and to numerically simulate the behaviour of the CPG using a Fast Fourier Transform/phase-field method. Both experimental and numerical data show local shear deformation, organized along bands, consistent with the appearance and propagation of +/- 45 degrees cracks.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figure

How does functional constipation affect growth status in children?

Background: There are some evidences suggesting functional constipation-related growth retardation in children, especially in early childhood. Considering high prevalence of constipation, early diagnosis and treatment of constipated patients may improve the quality of life in these children. In this study, weight and height of Iranian children aged 2 to 12 years with functional constipation was evaluated compared to healthy children. Methods: A total of 130 Iranian children aged 2-12 years, 65 with functional constipation and 65 as healthy children referred to pediatric gastroenterology clinic during Jan to Dec of 2016, were enrolled in this case-control study. Functional constipation was defined as Rome III criteria. The growth status was evaluated using the growth charts, and Z scores of weight and height for age were recorded, with the consent of parents and child willingness. Results: 65 constipated patients (44 boys, 21 girls) with the mean age of 8.28 ± 3.24 years and 65 healthy children (25 boys, 40 girls) with the mean age of 8.32 ± 3.42 years were evaluated. The mean weight of case group was 23.69 ± 4.14 kg and mean height 126.49 ± 10.34 cm. The mean weight of control group with 31.62 ± 4.85 kg and mean height 153.47 ± 13.88 cm, demonstrated significant difference with the case group. The observed mean weight and height were significantly lower in constipated group and the differences of height-for-age and weight-for-age Z scores were statistically meaningful in constipated and healthy children. Conclusions: Functional constipation in children aged 2 to 12 years may retard their weight and height growth, so early diagnosis and treatment of children with constipation is beneficial in their adequate growth status. © 2019, Author(s)