Evaluation of yolk sac size and embryonic heart rate in first trimester and pregnancy outcome

Background: Accurate differentiation between normal pregnancy and pregnancy loss in early gestation remains a clinical challenge-previous studies have described the association between embryonic well-beings and the characteristics of gestational sac. The aim of the study was to evaluate the yolk sac size and embryonic heart rate as a prognostic factor for the first trimester pregnancy outcome.Methods: This was a prospective cohort observesional study. It included 52 pregnant women in their first trimester from 6 week till 12 weeks gestation. Transvaginal sonographic examination after explanation and agreement of each patient. All pregnancies were followed for their pregnancy outcome after completion of 12 weeks. The adverse outcome was spontaneous miscarriage occurring before or at 12 weeks of gestation. These patients allocated into four study groups: according to gestational age at presentation and pregnancy outcome. Group I included women who were examined during (6-7 weeks+6 days). Group II included women who were examined during (8-9 weeks+6 days). Group III included women who were examined during (10-12 weeks). Group IV included women who had their pregnancies resulted into first trimester spontaneous miscarriage.Results: The validity of YS diameter regarding the prognosis of first trimester pregnancy outcome shows that; YSD had 100% specificity and 97.8% sensitivity in prediction of miscarriage. Regarding embryonic heartbeat, there was a statistically significant difference between group IV and the other groups. There was embryonic bradycardia in the miscarriage group. EHR had a sensitivity of 97.5% and specificity of 100% in prediction of first trimester pregnancy outcome.Conclusions: Abnormal yolk sac diameter, in the form of small, enlarged, absent or irregular yolk sac, and embryonic bradycardia are associated with poor pregnancy outcome

Weakly-supervised localization of diabetic retinopathy lesions in retinal fundus images

Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) show impressive performance for image classification and detection, extending heavily to the medical image domain. Nevertheless, medical experts are sceptical in these predictions as the nonlinear multilayer structure resulting in a classification outcome is not directly graspable. Recently, approaches have been shown which help the user to understand the discriminative regions within an image which are decisive for the CNN to conclude to a certain class. Although these approaches could help to build trust in the CNNs predictions, they are only slightly shown to work with medical image data which often poses a challenge as the decision for a class relies on different lesion areas scattered around the entire image. Using the DiaretDB1 dataset, we show that on retina images different lesion areas fundamental for diabetic retinopathy are detected on an image level with high accuracy, comparable or exceeding supervised methods. On lesion level, we achieve few false positives with high sensitivity, though, the network is solely trained on image-level labels which do not include information about existing lesions. Classifying between diseased and healthy images, we achieve an AUC of 0.954 on the DiaretDB1.Comment: Accepted in Proc. IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP), 201

Evanescent single-molecule biosensing with quantum limited precision

Sensors that are able to detect and track single unlabelled biomolecules are an important tool both to understand biomolecular dynamics and interactions at nanoscale, and for medical diagnostics operating at their ultimate detection limits. Recently, exceptional sensitivity has been achieved using the strongly enhanced evanescent fields provided by optical microcavities and nano-sized plasmonic resonators. However, at high field intensities photodamage to the biological specimen becomes increasingly problematic. Here, we introduce an optical nanofibre based evanescent biosensor that operates at the fundamental precision limit introduced by quantisation of light. This allows a four order-of-magnitude reduction in optical intensity whilst maintaining state-of-the-art sensitivity. It enable quantum noise limited tracking of single biomolecules as small as 3.5 nm, and surface-molecule interactions to be monitored over extended periods. By achieving quantum noise limited precision, our approach provides a pathway towards quantum-enhanced single-molecule biosensors.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figures, supplementary informatio

An Assessment of Portfolio Managers' Awareness of Big Data Analytics (BDA) Role in Achieving Portfolio Management (PFM) Success: A Qualitative Study

As big data analytics become the most valuable resource held by all administrations, every huge organization will be investing in initiatives of big data in a succession of Portfolio Management at the next level (Grover et al., 2018). This research aims to study the extent to which portfolio managers are aware of the role of big data in the efficiency of portfolio management.This study includes a qualitative research method to assess portfolio managers' awareness of the role of big data analytics (BDA) in portfolio management success. The researcher followed a theoretical, descriptive approach. The researcher applied the onion analysis methods. The researcher surveyed many portfolio managers in several companies in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Only portfolio managers were chosen because they are more concerned with achieving strategic goals than program and project managers. The researcher conducted a qualitative study by interviewing 38 company portfolio managers.The concept of BDA in this study contains four components (Volume – Veracity- velocity- variety). In this research, five main questions have been extracted to link big data analytics with portfolio management methodology as per PMI standard guidelines for managing business portfolios. The central themes and sub-themes have been extracted for conducting the interview.The results indicated that the portfolio managers' awareness of the (PMI) Portfolio Management (PFM) methodology is very high and compatible with the directions of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia 2030. The researcher recommends future research to apply another quantitative study for a specific sector to investigate clear awareness regarding the value of using BDA in managing several portfolios. Keywords: Big Data Analytics (BDA)- Portfolio Management (PFM)- Portfolio Decision Support (PDS). DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/14-24-07 Publication date: December 31st 202

Fault interpretation and reservoir characterization of the Farewell Formation within Kerry Field, Taranaki Basin, New Zealand

The Kerry Field, located in the southern offshore Taranaki Basin, is a large liquid-rich gas accumulation with a thin (20 m) oil rim. The field was discovered by the New Zealand Oil & Gas in 1986 (well Kupe South-1). The gas and oil are trapped within a 9.2 km2 fault-dependent three-way dip closure in the Paleocene Farewell Formation reservoir. Pressure, volume, and temperature (PVT) data indicate that the gas and oil columns in the field are in equilibrium with one another and are saturated at current reservoir conditions. The Farewell Formation is the uppermost formation of the Kapuni Group and is producing gas and oil in the Kerry Field. The Farewell Formation is one of the oldest reservoirs in the Taranaki Basin. The Kupe South-1 well penetrates two sequence boundaries. One is an unconformity beneath the Late Miocene Urenui Formation, and the other is beneath the Oligocene Otaraoa Formation, which appears to be in fault contact with the Paleocene Farewell Formation. The Farewell Formation was deposited in the fluvio-deltaic environment, and consists primarily of sandstone, interbedded with carbonaceous mudstone. The thickness of the formation ranges from 261 to 382 m. A time structure map, depth map, isochron map, edge detection map, and coherence map were produced to identify the structures, especially the faults the study area. A correlation across three wells along 19,089 m was generated to support the interpretation the maps. Several faults are mapped that display seismic attributes. The water-oil contact was found at a depth of 3,300 m. The density of the Farewell Formation ranges between 2.2 and 2.6 g/cm3. The average porosity of the Farewell Formation ranges between 20 -24 present. The prospective areas for oil production are located in the north and the south-west parts of the formation --Abstract, page iii

An elegant operational matrix based on harmonic numbers: Effective solutions for linear and nonlinear fourth-order two point boundary value problems

This paper analyzes the solution of fourth-order linear and nonlinear two point boundary value problems. The suggested method is quite innovative and it is completely different from all previous methods used for solving such kind of boundary value problems. The method is based on employing an elegant operational matrix of derivatives expressed in terms of the well-known harmonic numbers. Two algorithms are presented and implemented for obtaining new approximate solutions of linear and nonlinear fourth-order boundary value problems. The two algorithms rely on employing the new introduced operational matrix for reducing the differential equations with their boundary conditions to systems of linear or nonlinear algebraic equations which can be efficiently solved by suitable solvers. For this purpose, the two spectral methods namely, Petrov-Galerkin and collocation methods are applied. Some illustrative examples are considered aiming to ascertain the wide applicability, validity, and efficiency of the two proposed algorithms. The obtained numerical results are satisfactory and the approximate solutions are very close to the analytical solutions and they are more accurate than those obtained by some other existing techniques in literature

Antidote Stocking at Hospitals in North Palestine

Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine the availability and adequacy of antidote stocking at hospitals in north Palestine based on published guidelines for antidote stocking. Methodology: This study is a cross sectional survey of all hospitals at north Palestine (n=11) using a questionnaire which was completed by the director of the pharmacy department at each hospital. The questionnaire was divided into 2 parts. The first part contained a list of 25 antidotes while the second part contained a list of 12 antidotes. This classification is based on the guideline proposed by the British Association for Emergency Medicine (BAEM). The net antidote stock results were compared with the American guidelines as well. Result: The overall availability of each antidote in the first list varied widely from zero for glucagon to 100% for atropine. The number antidotes of the first list that were stocked in the 11 hospitals ranged from 5 to 12 antidotes but none of the hospitals stocked all the 25 antidotes. Additionally, availability of antidotes in the second list varied widely from zero for polyethylene glycol to 100% for dobutamine. The number of antidotes stocked ranged from 5 to 9 but none of the hospitals stocked all the 12 antidotes. Discussion and Conclusion: hospitals in north Palestine do not have adequate stock of antidotes. Raising awareness of the importance of antidotes by education, regular review of antidote storage, distribution plans, and appropriate legislation might provide solutions. Coordination between Palestinian hospitals and the PCDIC at An-Najah National University is also important