Improving Patch-Based Convolutional Neural Networks for MRI Brain Tumor Segmentation by Leveraging Location Information.

The manual brain tumor annotation process is time consuming and resource consuming, therefore, an automated and accurate brain tumor segmentation tool is greatly in demand. In this paper, we introduce a novel method to integrate location information with the state-of-the-art patch-based neural networks for brain tumor segmentation. This is motivated by the observation that lesions are not uniformly distributed across different brain parcellation regions and that a locality-sensitive segmentation is likely to obtain better segmentation accuracy. Toward this, we use an existing brain parcellation atlas in the Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI) space and map this atlas to the individual subject data. This mapped atlas in the subject data space is integrated with structural Magnetic Resonance (MR) imaging data, and patch-based neural networks, including 3D U-Net and DeepMedic, are trained to classify the different brain lesions. Multiple state-of-the-art neural networks are trained and integrated with XGBoost fusion in the proposed two-level ensemble method. The first level reduces the uncertainty of the same type of models with different seed initializations, and the second level leverages the advantages of different types of neural network models. The proposed location information fusion method improves the segmentation performance of state-of-the-art networks including 3D U-Net and DeepMedic. Our proposed ensemble also achieves better segmentation performance compared to the state-of-the-art networks in BraTS 2017 and rivals state-of-the-art networks in BraTS 2018. Detailed results are provided on the public multimodal brain tumor segmentation (BraTS) benchmarks

An Occupation-Based Program for Formerly Incarcerated Youth and Staff in an Employment Re-integration Program

One of the most vulnerable and growing populations within the United States (U.S.) are youth involved in the juvenile justice system. Each day, approximately 60,000 youth are currently incarcerated in the U.S., signifying a necessary demand for community re-entry success. Having been incarcerated makes it more challenging for youth to attend school, obtain a license, find public housing, and attain public benefits. Furthermore, because of the effects following being a part of the juvenile justice system, the youth exemplify a lack of social interaction skills, hindered relationship patterns, altered values and beliefs. These underdeveloped skills and patterns interfere with the youth\u27s occupational participation as they re-integrate into their communities. As such, this paper elaborates the creation of a doctoral capstone project to address this population\u27s needs. This capstone project aimed to create an occupation-based program geared towards community reintegration to address the youth\u27s underdeveloped skills and patterns to improve their participation in occupations. The methods of this program included 5 phases the strengths and needs assessment phase, program development phase, program implementation phase, program evaluation phase, sustainability and partnership phase. During the 14-week capstone experience, a self-regulation program to facilitate the youth and staff\u27s occupational performance was developed at an employment reintegration center. The results are intended to highlight the role of occupational therapy in this emerging practice setting.https://soar.usa.edu/otdcapstonesfall2021/1025/thumbnail.jp

The Efficacy of Waste Management Plans in Australian Commercial Construction Refurbishment Projects

Renovation and refurbishment of the existingcommercial building stock is a growing area oftotal construction activity and a significantgenerator of waste sent to landfill in Australia. Awritten waste management plan (WMP) is awidespread regulatory requirement forcommercial office redevelopment projects. Thereis little evidence, however, that WMPs actuallyincrease the quantity of waste that is ultimatelydiverted from landfill. Some reports indicate anabsence of any formal verification or monitoringprocess by regulators to assess the efficacy ofthe plans. In order to gauge the extent of theproblem a survey was conducted of twenty fourconsultants and practitioners involved incommercial office building refurbishment projectsto determine the state of current practice withregard to WMPs and to elicit suggestions withregard to ways of making the process moreeffective. Considerable variation in commitmentto recycling policies was encountered indicatinga need to revisit waste minimisation practices ifthe environmental performance of refurbishmentprojects is to be improved

Analytical solution of the uniaxial extension problem for the relaxed micromorphic continuum and other generalized continua (including full derivations)

We derive analytical solutions for the uniaxial extension problem for the relaxed micromorphic continuum and other generalized continua. These solutions may help in the identification of material parameters of generalized continua which are able to disclose size effects

Cr-resistant rhizo- and endophytic bacteria associated with Prosopis juliflora and their potential as phytoremediation enhancing agents in metal-degraded soils

Prosopis juliflora is characterized by distinct and profuse growth even in nutritionally poor soil and environmentally stressed conditions and is believed to harbor some novel heavy metal-resistant bacteria in the rhizosphere and endosphere. This study was performed to isolate and characterize Cr-resistant bacteria from the rhizosphere and endosphere of P. juliflora growing on the tannery effluent contaminated soil. A total of 5 and 21 bacterial strains were isolated from the rhizosphere and endosphere, respectively, could tolerate Cr up to 3000 mg l-1. These isolates also exhibited tolerance to other toxic heavy metals such as, Cd, Cu, Pb and Zn, and high concentration (174 g l-1) of NaCl. Moreover, most of the isolated bacterial strains showed one or more plant growth-promoting activities. The phylogenetic analysis of the 16S rRNA gene indicated a higher and wider range of population of Cr-resistant bacteria in the endosphere than rhizosphere and the predominant species included Bacillus, Staphylococcus and Aerococcus. As far as we know, this is the first report detecting rhizo- and endophytic bacterial population associated with P. juliflora growing on the tannery effluent contaminated soil. The inoculation of three isolates to ryegrass (Lolium multiflorum L.) improved plant growth and heavy metal removal from the tannery effluent contaminated soil suggesting that these bacteria could enhance the establishment of the plant in contaminated soil and also improve the efficiency of phytoremediation of heavy metal-degraded soils

Disentangling the meaning of STEM: implications for science education and science teacher education

We have a wide variety of teaching experiences, from formal settings in elementary school, high school, higher education, and teacher education to international settings and also to informal settings. Despite our multiple teaching settings and experiences, and the fact that all of us have been responsible for teaching science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) in one fashion or another, none of us could really define any characteristics of STEM that would indicate it was a separate discipline. If we were supposed to teach STEM, then there should be some indication of what STEM would actually be. Although all but one of us are science educators, none of us has ever taken an engineering course, though we are familiar with the engineering standards in the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS Lead States, 2013). We did a bit of research and found that Bybee (2013) suggested that the meaning of STEM is ambiguous and could even be considered political. It could be seen as a buzzword to gain attention and funding. Instead of stating that their work is in STEM education, researchers could share their STEM project, which could gain attention and possibly more funding as it connects to the newest buzzword. Is STEM (or any of its variations) more than a buzzword? How can we include all of the components of STEM in education in an integrated and meaningful fashion, and how can we help prepare teachers to do so? We decided to do a bit more research. We focused on describing and defining the natures of the disciplines that make up STEM—science, technology, engineering, and mathematics—and then attempted to combine these characteristics to define the nature of STEM (Peters-Burton, 2014). To provide ourselves with some background knowledge, we broke off into pairs or worked individually and conducted research on the natures of the individual disciplines. Of course, if we had had a team that had included math educators and engineering educators we would have asked them to take the lead on the natures of mathematics and engineering. So first, we briefly describe the natures of these individual disciplines, from our perspectives as (mostly) science educators from Indiana University. Though we are an international group, with half of us being from outside of the United States, we take a U.S. perspective simply because we are all currently at Indiana University. We are speaking from our context at Indiana University and acknowledge that reactions and work in conceptualizing STEM may be different in other settings