UNRAVELLING DIABETIC RETINOPATHY THROUGH IMAGE PROCESSING, NEURAL NETWORKS AND FUZZY LOGIC – A REVIEW

One of the main causes of blindness is diabetic retinopathy (DR) and it may affect people of any ages. In these days, both young and old ages are affected by diabetes, and the di abetes is the main cause of DR. Hence, it is necessary to have an automated system with good accuracy and less computation time to diagnose and treat DR, and the automated system can simplify the work of ophthalmologists. The objective is to present an overview of various works recently in detecting and segmenting the various lesions of DR. Papers were categorized based on the diagnosing tools and the methods used for detecting early and advanced stage lesions. The early lesions of DR are microaneurysms, hemorrhages, exudates, and cotton wool spots and in the advanced stage, new and fragile blood vessels can be grown. Results have been evaluated in terms of sensitivity, specificity, accuracy and receiver operating characteristic curve. This paper analyzed the various steps and different algorithms used recently for the detection and classification of DR lesions. A comparison of performances has been made in terms of sensitivity, specificity, area under the curve, and accuracy. Suggestions, future workand the area to be improved were also discussed.Keywords: Diabetic retinopathy, Image processing, Morphological operations, Neural network, Fuzzy logic.Â

A Review of “Music and Movement” Therapies for Children with Autism: Embodied Interventions for Multisystem Development

The rising incidence of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) has led to a surge in the number of children needing autism interventions. This paper is a call to clinicians to diversify autism interventions and to promote the use of embodied music-based approaches to facilitate multisystem development. Approximately 12% of all autism interventions and 45% of all alternative treatment strategies in schools involve music-based activities. Musical training impacts various forms of development including communication, social-emotional, and motor development in children with ASDs and other developmental disorders as well as typically developing children. In this review, we will highlight the multisystem impairments of ASDs, explain why music and movement therapies are a powerful clinical tool, as well as describe mechanisms and offer evidence in support of music therapies for children with ASDs. We will support our claims by reviewing results from brain imaging studies reporting on music therapy effects in children with autism. We will also discuss the critical elements and the different types of music therapy approaches commonly used in pediatric neurological populations including autism. We provide strong arguments for the use of music and movement interventions as a multisystem treatment tool for children with ASDs. Finally, we also make recommendations for assessment and treatment of children with ASDs, and provide directions for future research

Robust Local Explanations for Healthcare Predictive Analytics: An Application to Fragility Fracture Risk Modeling

With recent advancements in data analytics, healthcare predictive analytics (HPA) is garnering growing interest among practitioners and researchers. However, it is risky to blindly accept the results and users will not accept the HPA model if transparency is not guaranteed. To address this challenge, we propose the RObust Local EXplanations (ROLEX) method, which provides robust, instance-level explanations for any HPA model. The applicability of the ROLEX method is demonstrated using the fragility fracture prediction problem. Analysis with a large real-world dataset demonstrates that our method outperforms state-of-the-art methods in terms of local fidelity. The ROLEX method is applicable to various types of HPA problems beyond the fragility fracture problem. It is applicable to any type of supervised learning model and provides fine-grained explanations that can improve understanding of the phenomenon of interest. Finally, we discuss theoretical implications of our study in light of healthcare IS, big data, and design science

BPR in an Institute of Excellence in South India : A Study

Business Process Reengineering is a common topic in the field of Manufacturing and Production Engineering. There are few efforts in the area of Service industry using this framework. The present study is an effort to use the framework for improving efficiency in an Institute of Excellence in South India. The study addresses two of the line functions viz. Course Development and Organization of Events and one staff function, purchase of materials in administration. It is an attempt to put the operations in an educational setup in a business process framework and suggest modification in the lines of Business Process Reengineering or Management. In the present study the findings suggest that by eliminating some of the activities which were of least important with new modifications will reduce the time and cost tremendously. As per the prescription, the time taken for the course development has reduced from 30 days for each course to 11 days for all courses. This is only based on a rough estimation. In reality it may even be lesser if adapt the system in long run. It is important to note that as defined by the Hammer and Champy, a radical redesign can bring a reduction in number of days required and the cost associated with time for a course. The study also addresses the reduction in time for organizing academic events and purchase process

8-(2-Chloro­phen­yl)-1-(4-chloro­phen­yl)-4-[(E)-(2-chloro­phen­yl)methyl­idene]-6-methyl-4,5,6,7,7a,8-hexa­hydro-1,2,4-oxadiazolo[5,4-d]pyrido[3,4-c][1,5]benzothia­zepine

In the title compound, C33H26Cl3N3OS, the oxadiazole, piperidine and benzothia­pezine rings adopt envelope, chair and twist-boat conformations, respectively. In the crystal, the mol­ecular aggregation is characterized by chains of centrosymmetrically related pairs connected through Cl⋯Cl inter­actions [3.533 (2) Å], extending parallel to (202)

Discovery of Novel Inhibitors for Nek6 Protein through Homology Model Assisted Structure Based Virtual Screening and Molecular Docking Approaches

Nek6 is a member of the NIMA (never in mitosis, gene A)-related serine/threonine kinase family that plays an important role in the initiation of mitotic cell cycle progression. This work is an attempt to emphasize the structural and functional relationship of Nek6 protein based on homology modeling and binding pocket analysis. The three-dimensional structure of Nek6 was constructed by molecular modeling studies and the best model was further assessed by PROCHECK, ProSA, and ERRAT plot in order to analyze the quality and consistency of generated model. The overall quality of computed model showed 87.4% amino acid residues under the favored region. A 3 ns molecular dynamics simulation confirmed that the structure was reliable and stable. Two lead compounds (Binding database ID: 15666, 18602) were retrieved through structure-based virtual screening and induced fit docking approaches as novel Nek6 inhibitors. Hence, we concluded that the potential compounds may act as new leads for Nek6 inhibitors designing

Length Variations amongst Protein Domain Superfamilies and Consequences on Structure and Function

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Omicron and vaccine booster dose – an update

Mutations in coronavirus is not unheard off. The variant, Omicron B.1.1.529 has overall 50 mutations and is considered as a variant of concern. Though the new variant has shown changes throughout its genome, S gene changes predominate. Significant changes in the S encoding gene, S gene, influences not only the transmissibility properties of SARS-CoV-2 but also the efficacy of existing vaccines. Increased transmissibility and ability of this variant to evade host immune responses conferred either due to past infections or due to vaccination driving increase in number of infections. However, the severity of the infections is low in comparison to its predecessors. A meta-analysis of ten studies analyzing the effect of COVID-19 vaccine booster dose, it was found studies report 10-to-42-fold increase in omicron neutralization. COVID appropriate behaviors, if followed rigidly can bring a meaningful change in the viral spread and resultant health impacts