Spinal cord gray matter segmentation using deep dilated convolutions

Gray matter (GM) tissue changes have been associated with a wide range of neurological disorders and was also recently found relevant as a biomarker for disability in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. The ability to automatically segment the GM is, therefore, an important task for modern studies of the spinal cord. In this work, we devise a modern, simple and end-to-end fully automated human spinal cord gray matter segmentation method using Deep Learning, that works both on in vivo and ex vivo MRI acquisitions. We evaluate our method against six independently developed methods on a GM segmentation challenge and report state-of-the-art results in 8 out of 10 different evaluation metrics as well as major network parameter reduction when compared to the traditional medical imaging architectures such as U-Nets.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figure

On the Infinite Dual Goldie Dimension

We analyze how the properties of Goldie dimension continue to hold or not in the infinite case, with particular interest for the dual Goldie dimension of the lattice of right ideals of a ring R. In this setting we underline the important role played by maximal ideals and we compute the dual Goldie dimension of any Boolean ring and of any endomorphism ring of an infinite dimensional vector space over a division ring

Nonparametric Inference For Density Modes

We derive nonparametric confidence intervals for the eigenvalues of the Hessian at modes of a density estimate. This provides information about the strength and shape of modes and can also be used as a significance test. We use a data-splitting approach in which potential modes are identified using the first half of the data and inference is done with the second half of the data. To get valid confidence sets for the eigenvalues, we use a bootstrap based on an elementary-symmetric-polynomial (ESP) transformation. This leads to valid bootstrap confidence sets regardless of any multiplicities in the eigenvalues. We also suggest a new method for bandwidth selection, namely, choosing the bandwidth to maximize the number of significant modes. We show by example that this method works well. Even when the true distribution is singular, and hence does not have a density, (in which case cross validation chooses a zero bandwidth), our method chooses a reasonable bandwidth

From Punitive to Proactive: An Alternative Approach for Responding to HIV Criminalization that Departs from Penalizing Marginalized Communities

Laws passed during the early stages of the HIV epidemic targeted people with HIV before researchers fully understood transmission and prevention of the disease. These laws now serve as vestiges of fear and misinformation about HIV transmission. These laws also perpetuate systems of inequality by enabling bias and misinformation to permeate the courts. As such, new approaches to HIV transmission should move from a punitive model and more toward a proactive transformative model. This article proposes a multi-pronged approach to destigmatize and decriminalize HIV involving community, legislative, and educational structural changes

Unchain My Heart: Slavery as a Defense to the Dismantling of the Violence Against Women Act

When Congress passed the Violence Against Women Act ( VAWA ), it aimed to address pervasive problems associated with gender-motivated violence. Through inclusion of a section entitled Civil Rights for Women, Congress specifically created a federal civil rights remedy for victims of gender-motivated violence. Nevertheless, the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated the civil rights remedy provision of the VAWA, claiming that Congress lacked authority to pass this provision under the Commerce Clause and the 14th Amendment. This Note argues that Congress has authority under the 13th Amendment to reinvigorate the civil rights remedy in the VAWA. This Note compares antebellum slavery to domestic violence to demonstrate how the 13th Amendment\u27s prohibition of slavery provides a source of congressional authority for the VAWA\u27s civil rights remed