Colonoscopy Image Pre-Processing for the Development of Computer-Aided Diagnostic Tools

Colorrectal cancer is the third most frequently diagnosed cancer worldwide. The American Cancer Society estimates that there will be almost 100,000 new patients diagnosed with colorectal cancer and that around 50,000 people will die as a consequence of this in 2016. The increase of life expectancy and the increment of the number of diagnostic tests conducted have had a great impact on the amount of cancers being detected. Among other diagnostic tools, colonoscopy is the most prevalent. In order to help endoscopists cope with the increasing amount of tests that have to be carried out, there exists a need to develop automated tools that aid diagnosis. The characteristics of the colon make pre-processing essential to eliminate artefacts that degrade the quality of exploratory images. The goal of this chapter is to describe the most common issues of colonoscopic imagery as well the existing methods for their optimal detection and correction

Behavior of au nanoparticles under pressure observed by in situ small-angle X-ray scattering

The mechanical properties and stability of metal nanoparticle colloids under high-pressure conditions are investigated by means of optical extinction spectroscopy and small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), for colloidal dispersions of gold nanorods and gold nanospheres. SAXS allows us to follow in situ the structural evolution of the nanoparticles induced by pressure, regarding both nanoparticle size and shape (form factor) and their aggregation through the interparticle correlation function S(q) (structure factor). The observed behavior changes under hydrostatic and nonhydrostatic conditions are discussed in terms of liquid solidification processes yielding nanoparticle aggregation. We show that pressure-induced diffusion and aggregation of gold nanorods take place after solidification of the solvent. The effect of nanoparticle shape on the aggregation process is additionally discussed.We thank Professor Jan Dhont for helpful comments about nanoparticle diffusion in solid ethanol. F.R. acknowledges financial support from Projects PID2021-127656NB-I00 and MALTA-Consolider Team (RED2018-102612-T), and L.M.L.-M. from PID2020-117779RB-I00 and MDM-2017-0720, from the State Research Agency of Spain, Ministry of Science and Innovation. C.M.-S. acknowledges funding from the Spanish Ministry of Universities and the European Union-NextGeneration EU through the Margarita Salas research grant (C21.I4.P1). We acknowledge SOLEIL for the provision of synchrotron radiation facilities, and we would like to thank Dr. Javier Pérez, beamline supervisor, for assistance in using beamline SWING (proposals 20191731 and 20210678). This work benefited from the use of the SasView application, originally developed under NSF award DMR-0520547. SasView contains code developed with funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the SINE2020 project, grant agreement no. 654000

Ultrasound-Assisted Melt Extrusion of Polymer Nanocomposites

A review of the latest developments in ultrasound-assisted melt extrusion of polymer nanocomposites is presented. In general, the application of ultrasound waves during melt extrusion of polymer in the presence of nanoparticles results in a more homogeneous dispersion of the nanoparticles in the polymer matrix. In spite of this, a lack of understanding in the field has hindered the development of this processing technique. Based on the analysis of literature on the field, key aspects are identified for a better understanding of the physical and chemical effects of ultrasound waves and the fabrication of polymer nanocomposites by means of melt extrusion

Reconstructive surgery of the lower eyelid in patients affected by basocelular carcinoma

Foundation: Patients with parpebral lesions caused by basocelular carcinomas, come regularly to the Dermatology, Ophtalmology, and Reconstructive Surgery and Maxillofacial surgery consultations. When the surgical treatment of these lesions is not adequate, there may be sequelae such as palpebral deformations which cause functional and esthetics difficulties. Objective: to describe the results of the Castañón surgical technique modified for repairing the lower eyelid of patients affected by basocelular carcinomas. Methods: a study of case series was used, with patients affected by basocelular carcinomas. They were operated by the technique of total or partial excision of the lower eyelid in triangle form and with immediate reconstruction, in the Hospital Dr. Gustavo Aldereguía Lima. Cienfuegos in the year 2015. Results: from the 15 patients who were operated, 9 were women and sex men, all of white race aged between 60 and 80 years. In all it was used the myocutaneous flap, together with a thin layer of cartilage of the auricular concha. From the 15 patients who were operated only one had a torpid evolution, but in the end the result was satisfactory. Conclusion: the modification to the technique introduced by Castañón has the advantage that it avoids the unnecessary loss of tissue, not having to remove in a rectangular form an extensive lesion. Its effectiveness was evidenced in all the patients

On the Stiffness of Gold at the Nanoscale

The density and compressibility of nanoscale gold (both nanospheres and nanorods) and microscale gold (bulk) were simultaneously studied by X-ray diffraction with synchrotron radiation up to 30 GPa. Colloidal stability (aggregation state and nanoparticle shape and size) in both hydrostatic and nonhydrostatic regions was monitored by small-angle X-ray scattering. We demonstrate that nonhydrostatic effects due to solvent solidification had a negligible influence on the stability of the nanoparticles. Conversely, nonhydrostatic effects produced axial stresses on the nanoparticle up to a factor 10× higher than those on the bulk metal. Working under hydrostatic conditions (liquid solution), we determined the equation of state of individual nanoparticles. From the values of the lattice parameter and bulk modulus, we found that gold nanoparticles are slightly denser (0.3%) and stiffer (2%) than bulk gold: V0 = 67.65(3) Å3 , K0 = 170(3)GPa, at zero pressure

Microscopic modeling of nonlinear transport in ballistic nanodevices

Estudio sobre dispositivos balísticos[ES]Mediante un simulador Monte Carlo semiclásico 2D se analizan dispositivos balísticos nanométricos basados en canales de AlInAs/InGaAs. Los resultados de las simulaciones reproducen cualitativamente las medidas experimentales realizadas en uniones en T y en Y, así como en rectificadores de cuatro terminales, cuyo comportamiento se basa en la presencia de transporte balístico. Se demuestra que para explicar el origen físico de estos efectos no es precisa una descripción cuántica, ya que la coherencia de fase no juega un papel esencial en su funcionamiento.[EN]By using a semi-classical two-dimensional (2-D) Monte Carlo simulation, simple ballistic devices based on AlInAs/InGaAs channels are analyzed. Our simulations qualitativelyreproduce the experimental results in T- and Y-branch junctions as well as in a ballistic rectifier appearing as a result ofelectron ballistic transport. We show that a quantum description of electron transport is not essential for the physical explanation of these results since phase coherence plays no significant role.On the contrary, its origin can be purely classical: the presence ofclassical electron transport and space charge inside the structures

BIM and mTOR expression levels predict outcome to erlotinib in EGFR-mutant non-small-cell lung cancer

Altres ajuts: Fellowship Award of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer i grant of the Italian Association for Cancer Research (AIRC My First AIRC Grant n° 14282).Abstract.BIM is a proapoptotic protein that initiates apoptosis triggered by EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKI). mTOR negatively regulates apoptosis and may influence response to EGFR TKI. We examined mRNA expression of BIM and MTOR in 57 patients with EGFR-mutant NSCLC from the EURTAC trial. Risk of mortality and disease progression was lower in patients with high BIM compared with low/intermediate BIM mRNA levels. Analysis of MTOR further divided patients with high BIM expression into two groups, with those having both high BIM and MTOR experiencing shorter overall and progression-free survival to erlotinib. Validation of our results was performed in an independent cohort of 19 patients with EGFR-mutant NSCLC treated with EGFR TKIs. In EGFR-mutant lung adenocarcinoma cell lines with high BIM expression, concomitant high mTOR expression increased IC50 of gefitinib for cell proliferation. We next sought to analyse the signalling pattern in cell lines with strong activation of mTOR and its substrate P-S6. We showed that mTOR and phosphodiesterase 4D (PDE4D) strongly correlate in resistant EGFR-mutant cancer cell lines. These data suggest that the combination of EGFR TKI with mTOR or PDE4 inhibitors could be adequate therapy for EGFR-mutant NSCLC patients with high pretreatment levels of BIM and mTOR

The Fourteenth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: First Spectroscopic Data from the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey and from the second phase of the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment

The fourth generation of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-IV) has been in operation since July 2014. This paper describes the second data release from this phase, and the fourteenth from SDSS overall (making this, Data Release Fourteen or DR14). This release makes public data taken by SDSS-IV in its first two years of operation (July 2014-2016). Like all previous SDSS releases, DR14 is cumulative, including the most recent reductions and calibrations of all data taken by SDSS since the first phase began operations in 2000. New in DR14 is the first public release of data from the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS); the first data from the second phase of the Apache Point Observatory (APO) Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE-2), including stellar parameter estimates from an innovative data driven machine learning algorithm known as "The Cannon"; and almost twice as many data cubes from the Mapping Nearby Galaxies at APO (MaNGA) survey as were in the previous release (N = 2812 in total). This paper describes the location and format of the publicly available data from SDSS-IV surveys. We provide references to the important technical papers describing how these data have been taken (both targeting and observation details) and processed for scientific use. The SDSS website (www.sdss.org) has been updated for this release, and provides links to data downloads, as well as tutorials and examples of data use. SDSS-IV is planning to continue to collect astronomical data until 2020, and will be followed by SDSS-V.Comment: SDSS-IV collaboration alphabetical author data release paper. DR14 happened on 31st July 2017. 19 pages, 5 figures. Accepted by ApJS on 28th Nov 2017 (this is the "post-print" and "post-proofs" version; minor corrections only from v1, and most of errors found in proofs corrected