Improving Diabetes with an Exercise Log

Diabetes is a prevalent and costly disease. Everyone benefits from physical activity, but it is particularly beneficial for people with diabetes. One method to improve motivation and adherence to physical activity may be the use of monitoring with an exercise log.https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/fmclerk/1367/thumbnail.jp

Feature extraction through median-split algorithm segmentation for melanoma detection

Detection of melanoma remains an empirical clinical science. New tools for automatic discrimination of melanoma from benign lesions in digitized dermoscopy images may allow an improvement in early detection of melanoma. This research implements a fast version of the median split algorithm in an open source format and applied to four-color splitting of the lesion area to capture the architectural disorder apparent in melanoma colors. This version of the median split algorithm splits colors along the color axis with maximum range . For a dermoscopy set of 888 images, K-means clustering algorithm is compared with a median split algorithm to find which model is performing better according to logistic regression analysis from SAS. For images with the median split algorithm, a full model of 208 features and a robust model of 45 features were developed for an 837 dermoscopy image set and a threshold was selected using logistic regression analysis that shows the most important features in both the models. Using this threshold, we checked the robustness and accuracy on a test model of 78 dermoscopy images with full and robust model. The median split algorithm is fast, requiring less than one second per image and only a four-color splitting, but it captures sufficient critical information regarding color disorder, with peripheral inter-color boundaries showing the highest significance for melanoma discrimination --Abstract, page iii

Hardware emulation of stochastic p-bits for invertible logic

The common feature of nearly all logic and memory devices is that they make use of stable units to represent 0's and 1's. A completely different paradigm is based on three-terminal stochastic units which could be called "p-bits", where the output is a random telegraphic signal continuously fluctuating between 0 and 1 with a tunable mean. p-bits can be interconnected to receive weighted contributions from others in a network, and these weighted contributions can be chosen to not only solve problems of optimization and inference but also to implement precise Boolean functions in an inverted mode. This inverted operation of Boolean gates is particularly striking: They provide inputs consistent to a given output along with unique outputs to a given set of inputs. The existing demonstrations of accurate invertible logic are intriguing, but will these striking properties observed in computer simulations carry over to hardware implementations? This paper uses individual micro controllers to emulate p-bits, and we present results for a 4-bit ripple carry adder with 48 p-bits and a 4-bit multiplier with 46 p-bits working in inverted mode as a factorizer. Our results constitute a first step towards implementing p-bits with nano devices, like stochastic Magnetic Tunnel Junctions

Weighted p-bits for FPGA implementation of probabilistic circuits

Probabilistic spin logic (PSL) is a recently proposed computing paradigm based on unstable stochastic units called probabilistic bits (p-bits) that can be correlated to form probabilistic circuits (p-circuits). These p-circuits can be used to solve problems of optimization, inference and also to implement precise Boolean functions in an "inverted" mode, where a given Boolean circuit can operate in reverse to find the input combinations that are consistent with a given output. In this paper we present a scalable FPGA implementation of such invertible p-circuits. We implement a "weighted" p-bit that combines stochastic units with localized memory structures. We also present a generalized tile of weighted p-bits to which a large class of problems beyond invertible Boolean logic can be mapped, and how invertibility can be applied to interesting problems such as the NP-complete Subset Sum Problem by solving a small instance of this problem in hardware

Adolescent medial epicondyle trash lesion clinic radiological evaluation and treatment

Elbow injures in children accounts for 10% of all fractures, ranges from simple sprain to elbow fracture dislocation. Ligamentous injury accounts for 2-3% only and are mostly sports related seen in overhead athletes. Trash lesions (the radiological appearances seemed harmless) around the elbow are reported in children under 10 years which are high energy trauma with initial normal looking X-rays. These are osteochondral or physical injures presenting with soft tissue swelling without any fractures. A high index of suspicion, early additional imaging such as MRI, CT scan, ultrasound examination and aggressive surgical care are usually necessary for prompt diagnosis and successful treatment of these injuries before complications arise. We presented a case of an elbow injury in a 15 year old girl, following a fall on her outstretched hand with initial normal findings in her X-rays. 3 months following the injury she had persisting pain and instability with ulnar nerve impingement symptoms. Her elbow CT scan, nerve conduction study confirmed the avulsion fracture of medial epicondyle with ulnar nerve neuritis and cubital tunnel syndrome. Valgus stress test proved the extent of additional medial instability. Medial epicondyle avulsion fractures are always challenging for fixation. The retracting UCL forces prevents healing and were prone for failure with non-operative splinting once instability is defined. Attempted fixation can also result in failure of fixation. Our case study highlights the possibility of such trash lesion in adolescent and also the modified technique of ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) reconstruction in a cost effective manner

An Efficient MCMC Approach to Energy Function Optimization in Protein Structure Prediction

Protein structure prediction is a critical problem linked to drug design, mutation detection, and protein synthesis, among other applications. To this end, evolutionary data has been used to build contact maps which are traditionally minimized as energy functions via gradient descent based schemes like the L-BFGS algorithm. In this paper we present what we call the Alternating Metropolis-Hastings (AMH) algorithm, which (a) significantly improves the performance of traditional MCMC methods, (b) is inherently parallelizable allowing significant hardware acceleration using GPU, and (c) can be integrated with the L-BFGS algorithm to improve its performance. The algorithm shows an improvement in energy of found structures of 8.17% to 61.04% (average 38.9%) over traditional MH and 0.53% to 17.75% (average 8.9%) over traditional MH with intermittent noisy restarts, tested across 9 proteins from recent CASP competitions. We go on to map the Alternating MH algorithm to a GPGPU which improves sampling rate by 277x and improves simulation time to a low energy protein prediction by 7.5x to 26.5x over CPU. We show that our approach can be incorporated into state-of-the-art protein prediction pipelines by applying it to both trRosetta2's energy function and the distogram component of Alphafold1's energy function. Finally, we note that specially designed probabilistic computers (or p-computers) can provide even better performance than GPUs for MCMC algorithms like the one discussed here.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure

Treatment of idiopathic clubfoot by Ponseti method: a prospective evaluation

Background: From long time clubfoot has been a clinical challenge to orthopaedic surgeons. It is one of the commonest congenital deformity of the musculoskeletal system in children. Each year more than 1,00,000 babies are born with congenital clubfoot. 80% of which occur in developing countries.Methods: 60 feet in 40 children were treated by the Ponseti method from September 2014 to august 2016. Prospective follow up for a mean duration of 18 months was undertaken. The deformity was evaluated by Pirani score before and after the treatment. At the end of treatment all feet were functionally classified into good, fair and poor.Results: The average number of casts applied before full correction was 8. 21.66% of the feets needed tenotomy before full correction. 90% of the patients showed good results, 3.3% had fair results and 6.6% of patients had poor results. There was a significant difference in the pre-treatment and post-treatment pirani score values.Conclusions: Ponseti method of manipulation and plaster casting is very effective to correct club foot deformity.

Integration of microfluidic channels and optical waveguides using low-cost polymer microfabrication techniques

Recent progress on the realization of a silicon integrated biophotonic chip using plasma etching and laser ablation is presented. The chip utilizes films of SU-8 and UV-15 polymer material. An intersecting optical waveguide and microfluidic channel exhibiting good optical transmission across the channel is demonstrated

Willingness To Donate Blood During the Summer

Introduction. Each year donation rates fall in the summer months straining blood banks’ capacities to meet local demands. In hopes of identifying factors to increase summer donations, our study investigated donor reported barriers which influence summer donations habits.Methods. An anonymous 16 question survey investigating various donation factors was administered across multiple American Red Cross (ARC) donation centers in Vermont. Questions addressed donor demographics, frequency of blood donation, preference in appointment making modalities including smartphone app use, summer travel habits, willingness to donate during vacation, and factors that deter donors from donating on vacation.Results. A total of 292 surveys were received. Survey respondents across multiple demographic groups cited similar barriers to summer donation, namely “Too busy” (27.5 %) and “Traveling is a time for me to relax.” (30.6 %). Of the respondents who travel in the summer, very few reported donating while traveling (3.4 %). Summer donation rates between summertime travelers (36.5 %) and non-travelers (36.4 %) were essentially equivalent. The most preferred methods of scheduling appointments were via ARC website (45.6 %) and phone (28.4%). Willingness to use the ARC app was highest among respondents ages of 18 to 34 (45-55%) and lowest among ages 55 and older (13-15%). Of respondents with no prior knowledge of summer seasonal shortages (22 %), 2/3rds indicated newfound motivation to donate.Conclusion. Regardless of travel, increasing awareness of summer shortages may increase summer donations. Use of donor websites and smartphone apps may be instrumented as part of recruitment efforts.https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/comphp_gallery/1239/thumbnail.jp

A displaced T type intercondylar distal humerus fracture with radial nerve palsy in a 10-year-old treated by closed reduction and K wire fixation

T type intercondylar fractures of the distal hummers in the pediatric age group is an extremely rare injury. These fractures are difficult to diagnosed as they can be mistaken for extension type injuries. The few clinal trials on the management of the fracture, it is widely regarded that the accepted method of treatment is open reduction and rigid internal fixation. It is easier to ensure stable articular reconstruction of the intra articular fragments by this method. Open reduction and internal fixation of there fractures are associated with high complication rate, which include wound site problems, non-union due to periosteal stripping, heterotrophic ossification and iatrogenic nerve injury. Large soft tissue dissection can also lead to vascular compromise and significant scar tissue which is associated with a stiff elbow. We present a case of a 10-year-old boy who sustained an intercondylar fracture with radial nerve palsy which was treated by closed reduction and Kirshner wire fixation with excellent results at 1 year follow up