Artificial intelligence reporting guidelines: what the pediatric radiologist needs to know

There has been an exponential rise in artificial intelligence (AI) research in imaging in recent years. While the dissemination of study data that has the potential to improve clinical practice is welcomed, the level of detail included in early AI research reporting has been highly variable and inconsistent, particularly when compared to more traditional clinical research. However, inclusion checklists are now commonly available and accessible to those writing or reviewing clinical research papers. AI-specific reporting guidelines also exist and include distinct requirements, but these can be daunting for radiologists new to the field. Given that pediatric radiology is a specialty faced with workforce shortages and an ever-increasing workload, AI could help by offering solutions to time-consuming tasks, thereby improving workflow efficiency and democratizing access to specialist opinion. As a result, pediatric radiologists are expected to be increasingly leading and contributing to AI imaging research, and researchers and clinicians alike should feel confident that the findings reported are presented in a transparent way, with sufficient detail to understand how they apply to wider clinical practice. In this review, we describe two of the most clinically relevant and available reporting guidelines to help increase awareness and engage the pediatric radiologist in conducting AI imaging research. This guide should also be useful for those reading and reviewing AI imaging research and as a checklist with examples of what to expect

Sclerosing peritonitis associated with luteinized thecoma and elevated serum CA 125 levels: case report

CONTEXT. Thecomas are benign tumors that account for less than 1% of all ovarian neoplasms. The association of ovarian thecoma with sclerosing peritonitis is rare. CASE REPORT: We report the case of a 33-year-old woman, with a two-month history of increasing abdominal volume. Ultrasound showed a complex pelvic lesion and laboratory analysis detected elevated serum CA 125 levels. The patient underwent total abdominal hysterectomy with bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy and peritoneal biopsy. Histopathological analysis revealed the presence of luteinized thecoma of both ovaries associated with sclerosing peritonitis.126212312

Right Ventricle Has Normal Myofilament Function But Shows Perturbations in the Expression of Extracellular Matrix Genes in Patients With Tetralogy of Fallot Undergoing Pulmonary Valve Replacement

BACKGROUND: Patients with repair of tetralogy of Fallot (rToF) who are approaching adulthood often exhibit pulmonary valve regurgitation, leading to right ventricle (RV) dilatation and dysfunction. The regurgitation can be corrected by pulmonary valve replacement (PVR), but the optimal surgical timing remains under debate, mainly because of the poorly understood nature of RV remodeling in patients with rToF. The goal of this study was to probe for pathologic molecular, cellular, and tissue changes in the myocardium of patients with rToF at the time of PVR. METHODS AND RESULTS: We measured contractile function of permeabilized myocytes, collagen content of tissue samples, and the expression of mRNA and selected proteins in RV tissue samples from patients with rToF undergoing PVR for severe pulmonary valve regurgitation. The data were compared with nondiseased RV tissue from unused donor hearts. Contractile performance and passive stiffness of the myofilaments in permeabilized myocytes were similar in rToF‐PVR and RV donor samples, as was collagen content and cross‐linking. The patients with rToF undergoing PVR had enhanced mRNA expression of genes associated with connective tissue diseases and tissue remodeling, including the small leucine‐rich proteoglycans ASPN (asporin), LUM (lumican), and OGN (osteoglycin), although their protein levels were not significantly increased. CONCLUSIONS: RV myofilaments from patients with rToF undergoing PVR showed no functional impairment, but the changes in extracellular matrix gene expression may indicate the early stages of remodeling. Our study found no evidence of major damage at the cellular and tissue levels in the RV of patients with rToF who underwent PVR according to current clinical criteria

An extragalactic supernebula confined by gravity

Little is known about the origins of the giant star clusters known as globular clusters. How can hundreds of thousands of stars form simultaneously in a volume only a few light years across the distance of the sun to its nearest neighbor? Radiation pressure and winds from luminous young stars should disperse the star-forming gas and disrupt the formation of the cluster. Globular clusters in our Galaxy cannot provide answers; they are billions of years old. Here we report the measurement of infrared hydrogen recombination lines from a young, forming super star cluster in the dwarf galaxy, NGC 5253. The lines arise in gas heated by a cluster of an estimated million stars, so young that it is still enshrouded in gas and dust, hidden from optical view. We verify that the cluster contains 4000-6000 massive, hot "O" stars. Our discovery that the gases within the cluster are bound by gravity may explain why these windy and luminous O stars have not yet blown away the gases to allow the cluster to emerge from its birth cocoon. Young clusters in "starbursting" galaxies in the local and distant universe may be similarly gravitationally confined and cloaked from view.Comment: Letter to Natur

A pérola das Antilhas: uma análise dos elementos de constituição de um estado na amarga história haitiana

 O artigo em apreço aborda a temática da relativização da soberania haitiana por meio do estudo da história política do Haiti em consonância com o reflexo dessa nos demais atributos de formação do Estado e vice-versa. O objetivo desse enfoque é entender os acontecimentos endógenos e exógenos que enfraquecem a soberania e franqueiam intervenções externas, de modo a buscar mecanismos de evitar a relativização de soberanias, sem se entrar no mérito de serem as intervenções humanitárias lícitas ou não. Diante disso, parte-se do pressuposto de que a geopolítica haitiana e o histórico de influências internacionais sobre a governabilidade do Haiti causaram as condições propícias para a comunidade internacional interferir na capacidade de um Estado reger o destino de seu povo e de seu território sem gerência. Para isso, utiliza-se o método dedutivo constituído sobre revisão bibliográfica do relatório ICISS de 2011 e de obras acadêmicas e literárias de militares, sociólogos, jornalistas, juristas e internacionalistas, o que gerou a conclusão de que há formas de evitar a fragilização da soberania, porém, que o investimento no fortalecimento das características de cada atributo pode não ser simples. A dificuldade, no entanto, não impede que o Estado planeje-se e controle as formas por meio das quais garantirá sua soberania, a produtividade de seu território e a estabilidade da socialização de seu povo

Social interaction, noise and antibiotic-mediated switches in the intestinal microbiota

The intestinal microbiota plays important roles in digestion and resistance against entero-pathogens. As with other ecosystems, its species composition is resilient against small disturbances but strong perturbations such as antibiotics can affect the consortium dramatically. Antibiotic cessation does not necessarily restore pre-treatment conditions and disturbed microbiota are often susceptible to pathogen invasion. Here we propose a mathematical model to explain how antibiotic-mediated switches in the microbiota composition can result from simple social interactions between antibiotic-tolerant and antibiotic-sensitive bacterial groups. We build a two-species (e.g. two functional-groups) model and identify regions of domination by antibiotic-sensitive or antibiotic-tolerant bacteria, as well as a region of multistability where domination by either group is possible. Using a new framework that we derived from statistical physics, we calculate the duration of each microbiota composition state. This is shown to depend on the balance between random fluctuations in the bacterial densities and the strength of microbial interactions. The singular value decomposition of recent metagenomic data confirms our assumption of grouping microbes as antibiotic-tolerant or antibiotic-sensitive in response to a single antibiotic. Our methodology can be extended to multiple bacterial groups and thus it provides an ecological formalism to help interpret the present surge in microbiome data.Comment: 20 pages, 5 figures accepted for publication in Plos Comp Bio. Supplementary video and information availabl

Middleborns disadvantaged? testing birth-order effects on fitness in pre-industrial finns

Parental investment is a limited resource for which offspring compete in order to increase their own survival and reproductive success. However, parents might be selected to influence the outcome of sibling competition through differential investment. While evidence for this is widespread in egg-laying species, whether or not this may also be the case in viviparous species is more difficult to determine. We use pre-industrial Finns as our model system and an equal investment model as our null hypothesis, which predicts that (all else being equal) middleborns should be disadvantaged through competition. We found no overall evidence to suggest that middleborns in a family are disadvantaged in terms of their survival, age at first reproduction or lifetime reproductive success. However, when considering birth-order only among same-sexed siblings, first-, middle-and lastborn sons significantly differed in the number of offspring they were able to rear to adulthood, although there was no similar effect among females. Middleborn sons appeared to produce significantly less offspring than first-or lastborn sons, but they did not significantly differ from lastborn sons in the number of offspring reared to adulthood. Our results thus show that taking sex differences into account is important when modelling birth-order effects. We found clear evidence of firstborn sons being advantaged over other sons in the family, and over firstborn daughters. Therefore, our results suggest that parents invest differentially in their offspring in order to both preferentially favour particular offspring or reduce offspring inequalities arising from sibling competition

Fetal deaths in Brazil: a systematic review

OBJECTIVE To review the frequency of and factors associated with fetal death in the Brazilian scientific literature. METHODS A systematic review of Brazilian studies on fetal deaths published between 2003 and 2013 was conducted. In total, 27 studies were analyzed; of these, 4 studies addressed the quality of data, 12 were descriptive studies, and 11 studies evaluated the factors associated with fetal death. The databases searched were PubMed and Lilacs, and data extraction and synthesis were independently performed by two or more examiners. RESULTS The level of completeness of fetal death certificates was deficient, both in the completion of variables, particularly sociodemographic variables, and in defining the underlying causes of death. Fetal deaths have decreased in Brazil; however, inequalities persist. Analysis of the causes of death indicated maternal morbidities that could be prevented and treated. The main factors associated with fetal deaths were absent or inadequate prenatal care, low education level, maternal morbidity, and adverse reproductive history. CONCLUSIONS Prenatal care should prioritize women that are most vulnerable (considering their social environment or their reproductive history and morbidities) with the aim of decreasing the fetal mortality rate in Brazil. Adequate completion of death certificates and investment in the committees that investigate fetal and infant deaths are necessary

The yeast P5 type ATPase, Spf1, regulates manganese transport into the endoplasmic reticulum

The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is a large, multifunctional and essential organelle. Despite intense research, the function of more than a third of ER proteins remains unknown even in the well-studied model organism Saccharomyces cerevisiae. One such protein is Spf1, which is a highly conserved, ER localized, putative P-type ATPase. Deletion of SPF1 causes a wide variety of phenotypes including severe ER stress suggesting that this protein is essential for the normal function of the ER. The closest homologue of Spf1 is the vacuolar P-type ATPase Ypk9 that influences Mn2+ homeostasis. However in vitro reconstitution assays with Spf1 have not yielded insight into its transport specificity. Here we took an in vivo approach to detect the direct and indirect effects of deleting SPF1. We found a specific reduction in the luminal concentration of Mn2+ in ∆spf1 cells and an increase following it’s overexpression. In agreement with the observed loss of luminal Mn2+ we could observe concurrent reduction in many Mn2+-related process in the ER lumen. Conversely, cytosolic Mn2+-dependent processes were increased. Together, these data support a role for Spf1p in Mn2+ transport in the cell. We also demonstrate that the human sequence homologue, ATP13A1, is a functionally conserved orthologue. Since ATP13A1 is highly expressed in developing neuronal tissues and in the brain, this should help in the study of Mn2+-dependent neurological disorders