Measurement of the photon and thermal neutron doses of contralateral breast surface in breast cancer radiotherapy

Introduction and purpose:During the radiation therapy of tumoral breast, the contralateral breast (CB) will receive scattered doses. In the present study, the photon and thermal neutron dose values received by CB surface during breast cancer radiation therapy were measured.Materials and methods:The right breast region of RANDO phantom was considered as CB, and the measurements of photon and thermal neutron dose values were carried out on this region surface. The phantom was irradiated with 18 MV photon beams, and the dose values were measured with thermoluminescent dosimeter (TLD-600 and TLD-700) chips for 11 � 13, 11 � 17 and 11 � 21 cm2 field sizes in the presence of physical and dynamic wedges.Results:The total dose values (photon + thermal neutron) received by the CB surface in the presence of physical wedge were 12·06, 15·75 and 33·40 of the prescribed dose, respectively, for 11 � 13, 11 � 17 and 11 � 21 cm2 field sizes. The corresponding dose values for dynamic wedge were 9·18, 12·92 and 29·26 of the prescribed dose, respectively. Moreover, the results showed that treatment field size and wedge type affect the received photon and thermal neutron doses at CB surface.Conclusion:According to our results, the total dose values received at CB surface during breast cancer radiotherapy with high-energy photon beams are remarkable. In addition, the dose values received at CB surface when using a physical wedge were greater than when using a dynamic wedge, especially for medial tangential fields. © Cambridge University Press 2019

Enhanced 3D Point Cloud from a Light Field Image

The importance of three-dimensional (3D) point cloud technologies in the field of agriculture environmental research has increased in recent years. Obtaining dense and accurate 3D reconstructions of plants and urban areas provide useful information for remote sensing. In this paper, we propose a novel strategy for the enhancement of 3D point clouds from a single 4D light field (LF) image. Using a light field camera in this way creates an easy way for obtaining 3D point clouds from one snapshot and enabling diversity in monitoring and modelling applications for remote sensing. Considering an LF image and associated depth map as an input, we first apply histogram equalization and histogram stretching to enhance the separation between depth planes. We then apply multi-modal edge detection by using feature matching and fuzzy logic from the central sub-aperture LF image and the depth map. These two steps of depth map enhancement are significant parts of our novelty for this work. After combing the two previous steps and transforming the point–plane correspondence, we can obtain the 3D point cloud. We tested our method with synthetic and real world image databases. To verify the accuracy of our method, we compared our results with two different state-of-the-art algorithms. The results showed that our method can reliably mitigate noise and had the highest level of detail compared to other existing methods

Counting People Based on Linear, Weighted, and Local Random Forests

© 2017 IEEE. Recently, many works have been published for counting people. However, when being applied to real-world train station videos, they have exposed many limitations due to problems such as low resolution, heavy occlusion, various density levels and perspective distortions. In this paper, following the recent trend of regression-based density estimation, we present a linear regression approach based on local Random Forests for counting either standing or moving people on station platforms. By dividing each frame into sub-windows and extracting features with ground truth densities as well as learned weights, we perform a linear transformation for counting people to overcome the perspective problems of the existing patch-based approaches. We present improvements against several recent baselines on the UCSD dataset and a dataset of CCTV videos taken from a train station. We also show improvements in speed compared with the state-of-the-art models based on detection and Deep Learning

Determination of some heavy metals in extraction of plants by using AAS Technique

The present study was conduct to determination of heavy metals in the contents of  aqueous  and organic solvents extracts of plants leaves. Five different types of plant leaves were Nerium oleander , Conocarpus lancifolins , Eucalyptus camaldulensis Dehnh, Vicia, Jasminum Humile collected from different positions at Nasiriya zone were analyzed for heavy metals. The cold aqueous and organic solvents extraction method by using Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy AAS technique was used to extraction .The general Main levels of heavy metals in the total analyzed samples were arranged as Fe> Zn> Pb> Cu > Cr respectively. The study showed that there is an ideal solvent to extract all the elements in the above varieties study plants ,and the results compared with standard ranges and another studies

Sequential and unsupervised document authorial clustering based on hidden markov model

© 2017 IEEE. Document clustering groups documents of certain similar characteristics in one cluster. Document clustering has shown advantages on organization, retrieval, navigation and summarization of a huge amount of text documents on Internet. This paper presents a novel, unsupervised approach for clustering single-author documents into groups based on authorship. The key novelty is that we propose to extract contextual correlations to depict the writing style hidden among sentences of each document for clustering the documents. For this purpose, we build an Hidden Markov Model (HMM) for representing the relations of sequential sentences, and a two-level, unsupervised framework is constructed. Our proposed approach is evaluated on four benchmark datasets, widely used for document authorship analysis. A scientific paper is also used to demonstrate the performance of the approach on clustering short segments of a text into authorial components. Experimental results show that the proposed approach outperforms the state-of-the-art approaches

The role of melatonin on doxorubicin-induced cardiotoxicity: A systematic review

Purpose: Doxorubicin, as an effective chemotherapeutic drug, is commonly used for combating various solid and hematological tumors. However, doxorubicin-induced cardiotoxicity is considered as a serious adverse effect, and it limits the clinical use of this chemotherapeutic drug. The use of melatonin can lead to a decrease in the cardiotoxic effect induced by doxorubicin. The aim of this review was to evaluate the potential role of melatonin in the prevention of doxorubicin-induced cardiotoxicity. Methods: This review was conducted by a full systematic search strategy based on PRISMA guidelines for the identification of relevant literature in the electronic databases of PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, and Scopus up to January 2019 using search terms in the titles and abstracts. 286 articles were screened in accordance with our inclusion and exclusion criteria. Finally, 28 articles were selected in this systematic review. Results: The findings demonstrated that doxorubicin-treated groups had increased mortality, decreased body weight and heart weight, and increased ascites compared to the control groups; the co-administration of melatonin revealed an opposite pattern compared to the doxorubicin-treated groups. Also, this chemotherapeutic agent can lead to biochemical and histopathological changes; as for most of the cases, these alterations were reversed near to normal levels (control groups) by melatonin co-administration. Melatonin exerts these protection effects through mechanisms of anti-oxidant, anti-apoptosis, anti-inflammatory, and mitochondrial function. Conclusion: The results of this systematic review indicated that co-administration of melatonin ameliorates the doxorubicin-induced cardiotoxicity. © 2019 Elsevier Inc

Measuring the dose�width product and proposing the local diagnostic reference level in panoramic dental radiography: a multi-center study from Iran

Objective: Although radiation exposure associated with dental radiography is relatively low, patient exposure must be kept practically low. Therefore, it is necessary for each country to establish its own diagnostic reference levels (DRLs) suitable for its equipment and practice. In the present study, dose-width product (DWP) values for panoramic dental radiography were measured and a local DRL was established. Methods: Five panoramic devices from five radiology clinics of Kashan, Iran were selected to measure the DWP values of panoramic dental radiography. To investigate the DWP values, the parameters of each patient�s exposure (e.g., tube voltage, tube current, and exposure time) at these five radiology clinics were extracted. Then, the dose value received by each patient was measured based on a CT pencil chamber. Finally, the overall median DWP values for the patients with small, medium, and large sizes were obtained, and these values were considered as the local DRLs for panoramic dental radiography. Results: A total of 99 adult patients were included in the present study. The findings demonstrated that the median and third-quartile DWP values for these five radiology clinics ranged from 42.3 to 94.3 and 49.7 to 142.8 mGy mm, respectively. The local DRL values, which were established as the overall median DWP values, were 43.4, 52.0, and 80.3 mGy mm for the adults with small, medium, and large sizes, respectively. Conclusion: The local DRL proposed in this study for the adult with standard/medium size was lower than those proposed by other reports and seemed acceptable for panoramic radiography in Kashan, Iran. © 2020, Japanese Society for Oral and Maxillofacial Radiology and Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd

Chest CT findings of COVID-19-infected patients, are there differences between pediatric and adult patients? A systematic review

Background: Purpose of this study was to deliver a report of chest CT findings of COVID-19-infected pediatric and adult patients and to make an age-based comparison. A systematic search was conducted in accordance with PRISMA guidelines to identify relevant studies in the electronic databases of PubMed, Scopus, ProQuest, ScienceDirect, and Web of Sciences from January 1, 2020 to March 27, 2020 using search terms in the titles and abstracts. Based on our inclusion and exclusion criteria, 762 articles were screened. Finally, 15 eligible articles which had adequate data on chest CT findings of COVID-19-infected patients were enrolled in this systematic review. Results: In pediatric patients (15 years old or younger), peripheral distribution was found in 100 of cases, ground glass opacities (GGO) in 55.2, bilateral involvement in 50, halo sign in 50, unilateral involvement in 30, consolidation in 22.2, crazy paving pattern in 20, nodular opacities in 15, pleural effusion in 4.2, lymphadenopathy in none, and normal imaging in 20.8 of cases. On the other hand, in adult patients, bilateral involvement was reported in 76.8, GGO in 68.4, peripheral distribution in 62.2, mixed GGO and consolidation in 48.7, consolidation in 33.7, crazy paving pattern in 27.7, mixed central and peripheral distribution in 25.0, unilateral involvement in 15.2, nodular opacities in 9.2, pleural effusion in 5.5, central distribution of lesions in 5.4, lymphadenopathy in 2.4, and normal imaging in 9.8 of cases. Conclusion: According to the findings of this systematic review, children infected with COVID-19 can present with normal or atypical findings (nodular opacities/unilateral involvement) in chest imaging more frequently than adult patients. Therefore, more caution should be taken to avoid misdiagnosis or missed diagnosis in infected children. Besides, clinical and laboratory findings need to be considered more decision-making for pediatric patients with normal or atypical chest CT scan but high suspicion of COVID-19. © 2020, The Author(s)

Oxidant-Antioxidant Status and Some Related Parameters in Hypertension Diabetic (Type 1&2) Patients - in Thi-Qar /Iraq

Hyperglycemia is considered a major initiator  of oxidative stress which lead to the formation of free radicals and consequently lipid peroxidation occurs that which lead to tissue damage and diabetes mellitus development. Therefore, the present study aims to investigate the relationship between antioxidant status and lipid peroxidation end products (malondialdehyde; MDA) and some trace elements in the plasma of 30 type 1 DM patients and 30 type 2 DM patients and 40 hypertension DM patients (20 type1 and 20 type2) and 30 non hypertension DM patients (15 type1 and15 type2) and 40 non diabetic healthy control subjects.Plasma MDA, chromium and ceruloplasmin  concentrations was measured by manual methods, whereas glucose, iron, copper, transferrin and albumin concentrations were analyzed spectrophotometrically by kits in all patients with DM as well as in the control subjects. The results of type1DM were compared with type2DM and hypertension-DM were compared with a non- hypertension DM and control group using One way ANOVA-test to compare parameters in different studied groups.The results show a significant elevation (P ≤ 0.05) in levels of glucose, MDA, iron, copper and ceruloplasmin of type 2- diabetic patients in comparison type 1-diabetic patients and healthy subjects, also, it has been found a significant decrease (P ≤ 0.05) in chromium, transferrin and albumin levels in type 2- diabetic patients in comparison with type 1- diabetic patients and control group. Also the results show a significant elevation (P ≤ 0.05) in levels of glucose, MDA, chromium, iron, copper and ceruloplasmin of (type1 and type 2) hypertension- diabetic patients in comparison (type 1and type2) non hypertension-diabetic patients and healthy subjects, also, it has been found a significant decrease (P ≤ 0.05) in transferrin and albumin levels (type1 and type 2) hypertension- diabetic patients in comparison (type1and type2) non hypertension-diabetic patients and healthy subjects