Beyond Traditional Emotion Recognition

Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPH

Partial siamese twin as potential organ donor

During evaluation of a partial Siamese twin for removal of nonviable parasitic part in an 8-year-old male child, a fully functional kidney was found. The functional status of the extra kidney was found to be within acceptable limits for the purpose of transplant, which was subsequently done in a 24-year-old patient with end-stage renal disease. The recipient is healthy 19 months after the surgery. The possibility of using organs from a partial Siamese twin makes this a unique case report

Impact on sexual function after reconstructive surgery for anterior urethral stricture disease

Objective : To evaluate the effect of urethral reconstructive surgery on sexual drive, erectile function and ejaculation. Materials and Methods : The study group consisted of 150 men with a median (range) age of 40 (18-73) years who underwent 168 urethral reconstructive procedures for anterior urethral stricture disease between October 2003 and May 2009. We evaluated sexual functioning using the O′Leary Brief Male Sexual Function Inventory before and after surgery. Results : The median follow-up was 33 months (range 4-72). There were no significant changes in sexual drive and erectile function scores postoperatively for men in the 20-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59 and 60-69 years age groups. Overall, there was a significant improvement in ejaculatory function scores after surgery. This improvement was most robust in men in the 20-29, 30-39 and 40-49 years age group. Conclusion : Overall, anterior urethral reconstruction appears no more likely to cause postoperative sexual dysfunction. Different types of urethroplasties, surgical complexity with long stricture excision and the use of buccal graft, preputial flap/tube did not influence outcome

Laparoscopic pyeloplasty in pediatric patients: The SGPGI experience

Objectives : To determine the safety, efficacy and long-term outcome of laparoscopic pyeloplasty in pediatric patients. Materials and Methods : A prospective analysis of data of pediatric patients under the age of 15 years, who had undergone laparoscopic pyeloplasty from January 2000 to June 2008 was done. The various parameters analyzed were; operative time, blood loss, need for analgesics, intra/postoperative complications, hospital stay and postoperative outcome. Success was defined on the basis of either improvement in the symptoms/or better drainage on postoperative isotope renography. Results : A total of 82 patients with a mean age of 7.12 years (four months to 15 years) and male to female ratio of 4.3:1 were included in the study. Dismembered pyeloplasty was done in 70 patients and Foley Y-V plasty in 12 patients via transperitoneal approach using three ports in 79 or four ports in three children. Mean operative time was 151 minutes (78-369); mean blood loss was 88.01 ml (50-250) with a mean hospital stay of 5.05 days (2-11). Conversion to open surgery was required in four (4.87%) patients. Follow-up renograms were available in 74 patients who showed improvement in drainage in 69 patients and obstructed pattern in five; of these two patients had significant deterioration in split function. Two patients among the obstructed group underwent redo pyeloplasty by open technique while the rest three elected for conservative approach. At a mean follow-up of 41.58 months (8-75) the overall success rate was 91.89%. Conclusion : Laparoscopic pyeloplasty is effective and safe in children with minimal morbidity and gives excellent long-term results

Detecting retinal microaneurysms and hemorrhages with robustness to the presence of blood vessels

Background and objectives: Diabetic Retinopathy is the leading cause of blindness in developed countries in the age group 20-74 years. It is characterized by lesions on the retina and this paper focuses on detecting two of these lesions, Microaneurysms and Hemorrhages, which are also known as red lesions. This paper attempts to deal with two problems in detecting red lesions from retinal fundus images: (1) false detections on blood vessels; and (2) different size of red lesions.Methods: To deal with false detections on blood vessels, novel filters have been proposed which can distinguish between red lesions and blood vessels. This distinction is based on the fact that vessels are elongated while red lesions are usually circular blob-like structures. The second problem of the different size of lesions is dealt with by applying the proposed filters on patches of different sizes instead of filtering the full image. These patches are obtained by dividing the original image using a grid whose size determines the patch size. Different grid sizes were used and lesion detection results for these grid sizes were combined using Multiple Kernel Learning.Results: Experiments on a dataset of 143 images showed that proposed filters detected Microaneurysms and Hemorrhages successfully even when these lesions were close to blood vessels. In addition, using Multiple Kernel Learning improved the results when compared to using a grid of one size only. The areas under receiver operating characteristic curve were found to be 0.97 and 0.92 for Microaneurysms and Hemorrhages respectively which are better than the existing related works.Conclusions: Proposed filters are robust to the presence of blood vessels and surpass related works in detecting red lesions from retinal fundus images. Improved lesion detection using the proposed approach can help in automatic detection of Diabetic Retinopathy. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved

Regioselective Synthesis of Phenanthridines via Pd(II)-Catalyzed Annulative C(<i>sp</i>²)–H Activation

A robust synthesis of phenanthridines has been described via Pd(II)-catalyzed domino C(sp2)–H activation/N-arylation using oxime esters with aryl acyl peroxides in a highly regioselective manner. This protocol is compatible with acetophenone as well as benzophenone-derived oxime esters and allows modular construction of functionalized phenanthridines with wide tolerance of electronic functionality. Further transformations were conducted to synthesize key building blocks, and control experiments were performed to understand the plausible reaction mechanism

A survey on computer aided diagnosis for ocular diseases

Background: Computer Aided Diagnosis (CAD), which can automate the detection process for ocular diseases, has attracted extensive attention from clinicians and researchers alike. It not only alleviates the burden on the clinicians by providing objective opinion with valuable insights, but also offers early detection and easy access for patients. Method: We review ocular CAD methodologies for various data types. For each data type, we investigate the databases and the algorithms to detect different ocular diseases. Their advantages and shortcomings are analyzed and discussed. Result: We have studied three types of data (i.e., clinical, genetic and imaging) that have been commonly used in existing methods for CAD. The recent developments in methods used in CAD of ocular diseases (such as Diabetic Retinopathy, Glaucoma, Age-related Macular Degeneration and Pathological Myopia) are investigated and summarized comprehensively. Conclusion: While CAD for ocular diseases has shown considerable progress over the past years, the clinical importance of fully automatic CAD systems which are able to embed clinical knowledge and integrate heterogeneous data sources still show great potential for future breakthrough.ASTAR (Agency for Sci., Tech. and Research, S’pore)Published versio

Synthesis of <i>S</i>‑(−)-5,6-Dihydrocanthin-4-ones via a Triple Cooperative Catalysis-Mediated Domino Reaction

An enantioselective synthesis of <i>S</i>-(−)-5,6-dihydrocanthin-4-ones via a triple cooperative catalysis-mediated domino reaction having a broad substrate scope is reported. The reaction between substituted 1-formyl-9<i>H</i>-β-carbolines and terminal alkynes in the presence of catalytic amounts of Jorgensen–Hayashi catalyst, copper iodide, and Hunig base proceeded via a multicascade route, affording the title compounds in good yields and excellent ees with interesting mechanistic features. These compounds were assessed for in vitro antiplasmodial activity against P. falciparum strains. Additionally, 5,6-dihydrocanthin-4-ones are demonstrated to be a versatile precursor to different fused β-carboline derivatives via simple synthetic transformations