Telemonitoring Parkinson's disease using machine learning by combining tremor and voice analysis

BACKGROUND: With the growing number of the aged population, the number of Parkinson's disease (PD) affected people is also mounting. Unfortunately, due to insufficient resources and awareness in underdeveloped countries, proper and timely PD detection is highly challenged. Besides, all PD patients' symptoms are neither the same nor they all become pronounced at the same stage of the illness. Therefore, this work aims to combine more than one symptom (rest tremor and voice degradation) by collecting data remotely using smartphones and detect PD with the help of a cloud-based machine learning system for telemonitoring the PD patients in the developing countries. METHOD: This proposed system receives rest tremor and vowel phonation data acquired by smartphones with built-in accelerometer and voice recorder sensors. The data are primarily collected from diagnosed PD patients and healthy people for building and optimizing machine learning models that exhibit higher performance. After that, data from newly suspected PD patients are collected, and the trained algorithms are evaluated to detect PD. Based on the majority-vote from those algorithms, PD-detected patients are connected with a nearby neurologist for consultation. Upon receiving patients' feedback after being diagnosed by the neurologist, the system may update the model by retraining using the latest data. Also, the system requests the detected patients periodically to upload new data to track their disease progress. RESULT: The highest accuracy in PD detection using offline data was [Formula: see text] from voice data and [Formula: see text] from tremor data when used separately. In both cases, k-nearest neighbors (kNN) gave the highest accuracy over support vector machine (SVM) and naive Bayes (NB). The application of maximum relevance minimum redundancy (MRMR) feature selection method showed that by selecting different feature sets based on the patient's gender, we could improve the detection accuracy. This study's novelty is the application of ensemble averaging on the combined decisions generated from the analysis of voice and tremor data. The average accuracy of PD detection becomes [Formula: see text] when ensemble averaging was performed on majority-vote from kNN, SVM, and NB. CONCLUSION: The proposed system can detect PD using a cloud-based system for computation, data preserving, and regular monitoring of voice and tremor samples captured by smartphones. Thus, this system can be a solution for healthcare authorities to ensure the older population's accessibility to a better medical diagnosis system in the developing countries, especially in the pandemic situation like COVID-19, when in-person monitoring is minimal

Subclinical mastitis in dairy cows: somatic cell counts and associated bacteria in Mymensingh, Bangladesh

Subclinical mastitis is an economically important disease of dairy cows and has a prominent place amongst the factors that limit milk production. This study was undertaken to determine the association of somatic cell counts (SCC) and occurrence of bacteria with SCM in smallholder dairy cows in Mymensingh, Bangladesh. A total number of 240 quarters milk samples from apparently healthy lactating cows were subjected to SCC using NucleoCounter® SCC-100 ™ (Chemo Metec). A quarter was considered SCM positive if the quarter had SCC>100 x 103 cells/ml. All subclinical mastitis positive quarter milk samples were subjected to bacteriological examination and isolates were classified into major, minor, uncommon and mixed pathogens. The overall quarter-level prevalence of subclinical mastitis of dairy cows in Mymensingh district was 25% (95% CI, 19.52% to 30.48%). The most frequently isolated bacterial species were Staphylococcus aureus (18.33%) followed by coagulase-negative staphylococci (10%), Enterobacter spp. (6.67%), Escherichia coli (5%), Bacillus spp. (5%) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (5%). Different bacterial isolates were associated with 90% cases of subclinical mastitis as mono infections or mixed infections. Mono and mixed infections significantly influenced SCC and were the most prominent factors responsible for increasing SCC. Mean SCC was the highest for Bacillus spp. (713.67 x 103 cells/ml) followed by Enterobacter spp. (395.75 x 103 cells/ml), Escherichia coli (386.00 x 103 cells/ml), Staphylococcus aureus (373.82 x 103 cells/ml), coagulase-negative staphylococci (182.67 x 103 cells/ml) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (138.67 x 103 cells/ml). Major pathogens induced higher SCC (380.72 x 103cells/ml) than minor and other pathogen groups

Non-obstructive hypertrohic cardiomyopathy in pregnancy: a clue not to be missed

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is a primary myocardial disorder caused by mutations in several different genes coding for contractile proteins. It can occur sporadically or in an autosomal dominant pattern of inheritance. It may be first diagnosed during pregnancy and can remain well tolerated. Nevertheless, early diagnosis and referral is crucial to ensure comprehensive management and risk evaluation is being made in order to prevent complications such as arrhythmia, heart failure and sudden cardiac death

[89Zr]Oxinate4 for long-term in vivo cell tracking by positron emission tomography

Purpose 111In (typically as [111In]oxinate3) is a gold standard radiolabel for cell tracking in humans by scintigraphy. A long half-life positron-emitting radiolabel to serve the same purpose using positron emission tomography (PET) has long been sought. We aimed to develop an 89Zr PET tracer for cell labelling and compare it with [111In]oxinate3 single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT). Methods [89Zr]Oxinate4 was synthesised and its uptake and efflux were measured in vitro in three cell lines and in human leukocytes. The in vivo biodistribution of eGFP-5T33 murine myeloma cells labelled using [89Zr]oxinate4 or [111In]oxinate3 was monitored for up to 14 days. 89Zr retention by living radiolabelled eGFP-positive cells in vivo was monitored by FACS sorting of liver, spleen and bone marrow cells followed by gamma counting. Results Zr labelling was effective in all cell types with yields comparable with 111In labelling. Retention of 89Zr in cells in vitro after 24 h was significantly better (range 71 to >90 %) than 111In (43–52 %). eGFP-5T33 cells in vivo showed the same early biodistribution whether labelled with 111In or 89Zr (initial pulmonary accumulation followed by migration to liver, spleen and bone marrow), but later translocation of radioactivity to kidneys was much greater for 111In. In liver, spleen and bone marrow at least 92 % of 89Zr remained associated with eGFP-positive cells after 7 days in vivo. Conclusion [89Zr]Oxinate4 offers a potential solution to the emerging need for a long half-life PET tracer for cell tracking in vivo and deserves further evaluation of its effects on survival and behaviour of different cell types

Amygdala inputs to prefrontal cortex guide behavior amid conflicting cues of reward and punishment

Orchestrating appropriate behavioral responses in the face of competing signals that predict either rewards or threats in the environment is crucial for survival. The basolateral nucleus of the amygdala (BLA) and prelimbic (PL) medial prefrontal cortex have been implicated in reward-seeking and fear-related responses, but how information flows between these reciprocally connected structures to coordinate behavior is unknown. We recorded neuronal activity from the BLA and PL while rats performed a task wherein competing shock- and sucrose-predictive cues were simultaneously presented. The correlated firing primarily displayed a BLA→PL directionality during the shock-associated cue. Furthermore, BLA neurons optogenetically identified as projecting to PL more accurately predicted behavioral responses during competition than unidentified BLA neurons. Finally photostimulation of the BLA→PL projection increased freezing, whereas both chemogenetic and optogenetic inhibition reduced freezing. Therefore, the BLA→PL circuit is critical in governing the selection of behavioral responses in the face of competing signals.National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Award 1R25-MH092912-01)National Institute of Mental Health (U.S.) (Grant R01- MH102441-01)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Award DP2- DK-102256-01

Engineered Models of Metastasis with Application to Study Cancer Biomechanics

Three-dimensional complex biomechanical interactions occur from the initial steps of tumor formation to the later phases of cancer metastasis. Conventional monolayer cultures cannot recapitulate the complex microenvironment and chemical and mechanical cues that tumor cells experience during their metastatic journey, nor the complexity of their interactions with other, noncancerous cells. As alternative approaches, various engineered models have been developed to recapitulate specific features of each step of metastasis with tunable microenvironments to test a variety of mechanistic hypotheses. Here the main recent advances in the technologies that provide deeper insight into the process of cancer dissemination are discussed, with an emphasis on three-dimensional and mechanical factors as well as interactions between multiple cell types

An update of the Worldwide Integrated Assessment (WIA) on systemic insecticides. Part 2: impacts on organisms and ecosystems

New information on the lethal and sublethal effects of neonicotinoids and fipronil on organisms is presented in this review, complementing the previous WIA in 2015. The high toxicity of these systemic insecticides to invertebrates has been confirmed and expanded to include more species and compounds. Most of the recent research has focused on bees and the sublethal and ecological impacts these insecticides have on pollinators. Toxic effects on other invertebrate taxa also covered predatory and parasitoid natural enemies and aquatic arthropods. Little, while not much new information has been gathered on soil organisms. The impact on marine coastal ecosystems is still largely uncharted. The chronic lethality of neonicotinoids to insects and crustaceans, and the strengthened evidence that these chemicals also impair the immune system and reproduction, highlights the dangers of this particular insecticidal classneonicotinoids and fipronil. , withContinued large scale – mostly prophylactic – use of these persistent organochlorine pesticides has the potential to greatly decreasecompletely eliminate populations of arthropods in both terrestrial and aquatic environments. Sublethal effects on fish, reptiles, frogs, birds and mammals are also reported, showing a better understanding of the mechanisms of toxicity of these insecticides in vertebrates, and their deleterious impacts on growth, reproduction and neurobehaviour of most of the species tested. This review concludes with a summary of impacts on the ecosystem services and functioning, particularly on pollination, soil biota and aquatic invertebrate communities, thus reinforcing the previous WIA conclusions (van der Sluijs et al. 2015)

MNX1 (HLXB9) mutations in Currarino patients

Purpose: The combination of partial absence of the sacrum, anorectal anomalies, and presacral mass constitutes Currarino syndrome (CS), which is associated with mutations in MNX1 motor neuron and pancreas homeobox 1 (previously HLXB9). Here, we report on the MNX1 mutations found in a family segregating CS and in 3 sporadic CS patients, as well as on the clinical characteristics of the affected individuals. Methods: MNX1 mutations were identified by direct sequencing the coding regions, intron/exon boundaries of MNX1 in 5 CS Japanese family members and 3 Chinese sporadic cases and their parents. Results: There were 2 novel (P18PfsX37, R243W) and 2 previously described (W288G and IVS2 + 1G > A) mutations. These mutations were not found in 198 control individuals and are predicted to impair the functioning of the MNX1 protein. Conclusions: The variability of the CS phenotype among related or unrelated patients bearing the same mutation advocates for differences in the genetic background of each individual and invokes the implication of additional CS susceptibility genes. © 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.link_to_subscribed_fulltex