Developmental Pretraining (DPT) for Image Classification Networks

In the backdrop of increasing data requirements of Deep Neural Networks for object recognition that is growing more untenable by the day, we present Developmental PreTraining (DPT) as a possible solution. DPT is designed as a curriculum-based pre-training approach designed to rival traditional pre-training techniques that are data-hungry. These training approaches also introduce unnecessary features that could be misleading when the network is employed in a downstream classification task where the data is sufficiently different from the pre-training data and is scarce. We design the curriculum for DPT by drawing inspiration from human infant visual development. DPT employs a phased approach where carefully-selected primitive and universal features like edges and shapes are taught to the network participating in our pre-training regime. A model that underwent the DPT regime is tested against models with randomised weights to evaluate the viability of DPT.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure

Epidemiological study of thoracolumbar spine fracture patients reported to tertiary care center of Central India

Background: Thoracic and lumbar spine fractures account for 90% of all spine fractures recorded. In low- and middle-income countries, spinal injuries are associated with significant disability and decreased life expectancy. Non-operatively, these injuries can be managed with a thoracolumbar orthosis or hyperextension cast. The operative management with a posterior, anterior or combined approach will offer immediate mobilization and earlier rehabilitation, providing a better environment for restoration of neurological function. Aim of the study was to find out epidemiology of patients with thoracolumbar spine fracture patients. Methods: A cross sectional observational study was conducted in department of orthopaedics at tertiary care, teaching hospital among patients with traumatic thoracolumbar spine fractures. Epidemiological data variables were collected. In statistical analysis data from 60 patient reported was recorded and analysed. Results: Fall from height is the leading mechanism of injury among middle aged people (30-60years) with male predominance, accounting for 58.33 percent of all spinal cord injury cases. The majority (45%) of fractures were of the burst kind, followed by compression (28.3%), and then translation/rotation (21.6%). And the most-rare of all was the distracted type (just 5%). An only 15% of patients had had a complete spinal injury, whereas the remaining 85% had sustained incomplete/ no spinal cord injury. Conclusions: Knowledge about the burden brought on by spinal cord injury makes it clear that preventing such injuries is the backbone of care. preventive measures for high-risk individuals and early definitive response by paramedics can help reducing the load caused by these injuries.

Six month old neglected metacarpophalangeal joint volar complex dislocation: a case study

Metacarpophalanegal dislocations are rare, accounting for 3-5% of all dislocations with thumb being the most common finger affected. these dislocations can be decided into volar and dorsal and further into simple and complex, depending upon direction of dislocation and reducibility respectively. Although there is no approach superior over another, we selected volar approach for better visualization and direct reduction of dislocation and found reduction was unstable. hence a temporary fixation was attempted with K-wire which was removed 7th day postoperative and started with physiotherapy. Postoperatively patient was having near total range of motion (25-90 degree) and patient was able to do all the routine daily activities with his affected hand post operative 2 month. Complex metacarpophangeal joint dislocations needs intervention and should be combined with vigorous postoperative physiotherapy to achieve good clinical outcomes

Treatment of proximal humerus fracture using proximal humerus locking plating

Background: Proximal humerus fractures are the most common upper extremity fractures in older patients. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the functional outcome and complications of proximal humeral locking plate used for healing proximal humerus fractures.Methods: This prospective study was conducted at the department of Orthopaedics, Sir T. Hospital, Bhavnagar, from June 2008 to March 2010, with 20 patients who suffered with complex proximal humerus fractures and underwent surgical treatment with proximal humerus locking plates. Functional outcome was assessed at the final follow up by using Constant Murley score.Results: The mean age of the patients was 52 years. Male: female ratio was 1.5: 2. The most common mode if injury is low velocity trauma i.e. fall while walking or fall in bathroom seen in 13 patients. Average time for clinical union was 60 days, while average time for radiological union is 90 days taken in the study. Postoperative complications were seen in 2 patients. Delayed complications were seen in 10 cases. No patients had shown implant related complications. At the final follow up according to Constant Murley score, 36% patients had shown excellent results, 53% patients had shown good results and poor results were seen in 11% of cases.Conclusion: Our results show that good to excellent outcome can be achieved in treating proximal humerus fractures using locking plates in elderly patients. Early mobilization of the shoulder can be achieved without compromising fracture union

Role of Information Communication Technology (ICT) in Nepalese Banking Industry

Public and private sectors, organization has been keen to harness the potential of ICT to enhance its administrative, managerial and clinical performance. Successful implementation of the new technology depended upon acceptance by organizational member targets as its end-users. The experiment is done by the help of both primary and secondary data. Primary data have been collected from the structured questionnaire developed for the employee of the bank and the customers. Secondary data have been collected from the website of Nepal Rasta Bank, ICT related journals, banking articles and other published sources. The study purpose is to gain a more complete understanding of the change management factors affecting the acceptance of the. The present study was aimed to explore the prevailing status of the use of ICT in commercial banking services, assess the extent of perceived benefits of the use of ICT and analyze the key problems and their corrective measures so as to leverage the use of ICT in commercial banking in the country. The study found explores the banking sector using the information and technology. The study helps to provide the information about the corns and pros of using information and communication technology in the present context of Nepalese banking sector

A comprehensive exploration on different machine learning techniques for state of charge estimation of EV battery

The State of Charge (SoC) is a measurement of the amount of energy available in a battery at a specific interval of time, mostly expressed as percentage. Proportional relationships between the electromotive force of a battery, current, terminal voltage and temperature determine the SoC. There can be a considerable error in the calculations due to a sharp drop of the terminal voltage at the end of discharge. This research has explored how important SoC is, as a factor in Battery Management Systems. The work focuses on using machine learning techniques to obtain an accurate and reliable status of battery charge, this includes Random Forest, Decision Tree, Gradient Boosting, Support Vector Regression, Polynomial Regression and Multilayer Perceptron. In this paper, these techniques are tested and compared with two real world captured datasets of Lithium-ion batteries which includes LG Battery and Unibo Powertools Battery. For supporting this study, statistical methods like K-fold cross validation and Grid Search cross validation techniques are used to estimate the skill of machine learning models. After implementing these techniques, it is found that Random Forest model returns the best Accuracy and Decision Tree returns the least Mean Absolute Error.</p

Role of active and passive surveillance in early case detection and prevention of disease spread in COVID-19 pandemic: our experience

Background: Strong surveillance systems which include both active and passive surveillance are the important steps to halt a disease outbreak by early case detection and management, which helps in breaking the chain of transmission. The main aim of this article is to share our experience regarding the active and passive surveillance done during COVID 19 spread in the year 2021.Methods: The early case detection of COVID 19 cases through active and passive surveillance was slightly different from the usual methods that are carried out for regular known communicable diseases. Active surveillance was done round the clock by screening of all vehicles entering the union-territory of Puducherry and by house-to-house survey. Passive surveillance was carried out by screening of various symptomatic patients attending to hospitals which needed motivation of health personnel as well as awareness among the general public.Results: Out of 12 Govt. PHCs (3,30,000population) where active and passive surveillance was conducted, the total number of individuals referred to designated COVID centre by active and passive surveillance is 30 and 110 respectively for COVID testing and further management.Conclusions: Active and Passive surveillance plays a major role in early case detection and prevention of disease spread in COVID-19 pandemic

Role of DECT in coronary artery disease: a comparative study with ICA and SPECT

PURPOSEEarlier imaging techniques for coronary artery disease (CAD) focused primarily on either morphological or functional assessment of CAD. However, dual-energy computed tomography (DECT) can be used to assess myocardial blood supply both morphologically and functionally. We aimed to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of DECT in detecting morphological and functional components of CAD, using invasive coronary angiography (ICA) and single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) as reference standards.METHODSTwenty-five patients with known or suspicious CAD and scheduled for ICA were investigated by DECT and SPECT. DECT was performed during the resting state using retrospective electrocardiography (ECG) gating. CT coronary angiography and perfusion images were generated from the same raw data. All patients were evaluated for significant stenosis (≥50%) on both ICA and DECT coronary angiography, and for myocardial perfusion defects on SPECT and DECT perfusion. Comparison was done between ICA and DECT coronary angiography for detection of significant stenosis and between SPECT and DECT perfusion for detecting myocardial perfusion defects.RESULTSUsing ICA as reference standard, sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of DECT coronary angiography in detecting ≥50% stenosis of coronary artery lumen were 81.6%, 97.8%, and 95.0%, respectively, by segment-based analysis and 92.1%, 96.1%, and 93.7%, respectively, by vessel-based analysis. Using SPECT as the reference standard, the sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of DECT perfusion in detecting myocardial perfusion defects were 70.4%, 86.4%, and 80.6%, respectively, on per-segment analysis and 90.7%, 66.6%, and 84.7%, respectively, on per-territorial basis.CONCLUSIONDECT accurately detected coronary artery stenosis and myocardial ischemia using ICA and SPECT as reference standards. In the same scan, DECT can accurately provide integrative imaging of coronary artery morphology and myocardial perfusion

Newly proposed classification of celiac artery variations based on embryology and correlation with computed tomography angiography

Purpose: We studied the prevalence of celiac trunk and its anatomical variations on diagnostic computed tomography angiography (CTA) studies and have proposed a new classification to define the celiac artery (CA) variations based on embryology. Material and methods: We retrospectively assessed the celiac trunk variations in 1113 patients who came to our department for diagnostic CTA for liver and renal donor workup. The patient data were acquired from the Picture Archiving and Communication System of our institutions. We analysed the celiac trunk’s origin and branching pattern, including the superior mesenteric artery (SMA) and inferior phrenic artery (IPA). Results: We evaluated the CTA studies of 1050 patients. A normal trifurcation pattern, the most common type, was observed in 39% of cases. Variation with CA + left IPA was the most common subtype. Other variations noted in the study and their incidences are listed in the table below. We attempted to propose a new classification based on embryology, which comprises 6 main types and their subtypes. We also analysed previous studies from the literature, including cadaveric, post-mortem, CTA, and digital subtraction angiography studies and compared them with the present study. Conclusions: Because variations of CA classifications reported to date do not encompass all CA branching pattern variants, we have proposed a new classification that incorporates most of the variants. We reiterate the clinical importance of anatomical variants of CA, IPA, and SMA in surgical and interventional radiology procedures

Identification of seed storage protein markers for drought tolerance in mungbean

A set of 292 mungbean germplasm accessions including 62 popularly adapted local land races and two wild forms (Vigna radiata var. sublobata), important breeding lines and standard ruling varieties were screened for drought stress tolerance at seedling stage.  Eight genotypes e.g., C. No. 35, OUM 14-1, OUM 49-2, Pusa 9072, OM 99-3, Banapur local B, Nipania munga, Kalamunga 1-A) have been identified to possess drought tolerance.  Globulin seed storage protein profiling was carried out in 19 selected mungbean genotypes comprising eight drought tolerant, seven drought sensitive, two wild forms of mungbean (TCR 20 and TCR 213) and two standard checks (LGG 460 and T 2-1) to explore differentially expressed polypeptides. Seed protein profiles revealed 15 scorable polypeptide bands with molecular weights ranging from 10.0 to 102.2kD. A specific 12.8kD polypeptide band was present in all above drought tolerant test genotypes including the wild accession TCR 20. Such a polypeptide band may serve as useful biochemical marker for identification of drought tolerant genotypes in mungbean.             Key words: Genetic diversity, seed storage protein profile, wild and cultivated Vigna radiata