Changes in calcification of coccoliths under stable atmospheric CO2

The response of coccolithophore calcification to ocean acidification has been studied in culture experiments as well as in present and past oceans. The response, however, is different between species and strains, and for the relatively small carbonate chemistry changes observed in natural environments, a uniform response of the entire coccolithophore community has not been documented so far. Moreover, previous palaeo-studies basically focus on changes in coccolith weight due to increasing CO2 and the resulting changes in the carbonate system, and only few studies focus on the influence of other environmental factors. In order to untangle changes in coccolithophore calcification due to environmental factors such as temperature and/or productivity from changes caused by increasing pCO2 and decreasing carbonate ion concentration, we here present a study on coccolith calcification from the Holocene North Atlantic Ocean. The pre-industrial Holocene, with its predominantly stable atmospheric CO2, provides the conditions for such a comprehensive analysis. For an analysis on changes in major components of Holocene coccolithophores under natural conditions, the family Noelaerhabdaceae was selected, which constitutes the main part of the assemblage in the North Atlantic. Records of average coccolith weights from three Holocene sediment cores along a north–south transect in the North Atlantic were analysed. During the Holocene, mean weight (and therefore calcification) of Noelaerhabdaceae (Emiliania huxleyi and Gephyrocapsa) coccoliths decreased at the Azores (Geofar KF 16) from around 7 to 6 pg, but increased at the Rockall Plateau (ODP site 980) from around 6 to 8 pg, and at the Vøring Plateau (MD08-3192) from 7 to 10 pg. The amplitude of average weight variability is within the range of glacial–interglacial changes that were interpreted to be an effect of decreasing carbonate ion concentration. By comparison with SEM assemblage counts, we show that weight changes are not only partly due to variations in the coccolithophore assemblage but also an effect of a change in calcification and/or morphotype variability within single species. Our results indicate that there is no single key factor responsible for the observed changes in coccolith weight. A major increase in coccolith weight occurs during a slight decrease in carbonate ion concentration in the late Holocene at the Rockall Plateau and Vøring Plateau. Here, more favourable productivity conditions apparently lead to an increase in coccolith weight, either due to the capability of coccolithophore species, especially E. huxleyi, to adapt to decreasing carbonate ion concentration or due to a shift towards heavier calcifying morphotypes

Semiautomatic mammographic parenchymal patterns classification using multiple statistical features.

RATIONALE AND OBJECTIVES: Our project was to investigate a complete methodology for the semiautomatic assessment of digital mammograms according to their density, an indicator known to be correlated to breast cancer risk. The BI-RADS four-grade density scale is usually employed by radiologists for reporting breast density, but it allows for a certain degree of subjective input, and an objective qualification of density has therefore often been reported hard to assess. The goal of this study was to design an objective technique for determining breast BI-RADS density. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The proposed semiautomatic method makes use of complementary pattern recognition techniques to describe manually selected regions of interest (ROIs) in the breast with 36 statistical features. Three different classifiers based on a linear discriminant analysis or Bayesian theories were designed and tested on a database consisting of 1408 ROIs from 88 patients, using a leave-one-ROI-out technique. Classifications in optimal feature subspaces with lower dimensionality and reduction to a two-class problem were studied as well. RESULTS: Comparison with a reference established by the classifications of three radiologists shows excellent performance of the classifiers, even though extremely dense breasts continue to remain more difficult to classify accurately. For the two best classifiers, the exact agreement percentages are 76% and above, and weighted kappa values are 0.78 and 0.83. Furthermore, classification in lower dimensional spaces and two-class problems give excellent results. CONCLUSION: The proposed semiautomatic classifiers method provides an objective and reproducible method for characterizing breast density, especially for the two-class case. It represents a simple and valuable tool that could be used in screening programs, training, education, or for optimizing image processing in diagnostic tasks

Prospective study of 310 patients: can early CT predict the severity of acute pancreatitis?

Background: This study was designed to determine the most important early CT parameters predictive of acute pancreatitis severity. Methods: Three hundred and seventy-one consecutive patients with acute abdominal pain and hyperamylasemia were enrolled. Three hundred and ten of the 371 patients met our inclusion criteria. Acute pancreatitis severity was evaluated using the 1992 Atlanta criteria. Different CT parameters were reported from the admission abdominal CT by two radiologists blinded from any clinical parameter, but the patients' age and gender. These variables were fitted in a binary logistic regression model. Results: Acute pancreatitis was mild in 80% cases, severe in 20% cases and lethal in 12.69% cases. The following CT parameters were significantly associated with the severity of acute pancreatitis: the objective size of the pancreas (P=0.001), the peripancreatic fat abnormalities (P=0.001) and the extent of necrosis (P=0.007). Moreover, the age of the patient revealed itself a highly significant (P=0.001) indicator of disease severity. The association of the four CT criteria eventually showed a sensitivity of 73% and a specificity of 81% to predict acute pancreatitis severity. Conclusion: Although these criteria correlated with disease severity, our study identified that morphological CT criteria cannot be used to triage patients with severe and mild acute pancreatiti

Mass detection on mammograms: signal variations and performance changes for human and model observers

We studied the influence of signal variability on human and model observer performances for a detection task with mammographic backgrounds and computer generated clustered lumpy backgrounds (CLB). We used synthetic yet realistic masses and backgrounds that have been validated by radiologists during previous studies, ensuring conditions close to the clinical situation. Four trained non-physician observers participated in two-alternative forced-choice (2-AFC) experiments. They were asked to detect synthetic masses superimposed on real mammographic backgrounds or CLB. Separate experiments were conducted with sets of benign and malignant masses. Results under the signal-known-exactly (SKE) paradigm were compared with signal-known-statistically (SKS) experiments. In the latter case, the signal was chosen randomly for each of the 1,400 2-AFC trials (image pairs) among a set of 50 masses with similar dimensions, and the observers did not know which signal was present. Human observers' results were then compared with model observers (channelized Hotelling with Difference-of-Gaussian and Gabor channels) in the same experimental conditions. Results show that the performance of the human observers does not differ significantly when benign masses are superimposed on real images or on CLB with locally matched gray level mean and standard deviation. For both benign and malignant masses, the performance does not differ significantly between SKE and SKS experiments, when the signals' dimensions do not vary throughout the experiment. However, there is a performance drop when the SKS signals' dimensions vary from 5.5 to 9.5 mm in the same experiment. Noise level in the model observers can be adjusted to reproduce human observers' proportion of correct answers in the 2-AFC task within 5% accuracy for most condition

Staging of endometrial cancer with MRI: Guidelines of the European Society of Urogenital Imaging

The purpose of this study was to define guidelines for endometrial cancer staging with MRI. The technique included critical review and expert consensus of MRI protocols by the female imaging subcommittee of the European Society of Urogenital Radiology, from ten European institutions, and published literature between 1999 and 2008. The results indicated that high field MRI should include at least two T2-weighted sequences in sagittal, axial oblique or coronal oblique orientation (short and long axis of the uterine body) of the pelvic content. High-resolution post-contrast images acquired at 2min ± 30 s after intravenous contrast injection are suggested to be optimal for the diagnosis of myometrial invasion. If cervical invasion is suspected, additional slice orientation perpendicular to the axis of the endocervical channel is recommended. Due to the limited sensitivity of MRI to detect lymph node metastasis without lymph node-specific contrast agents, retroperitoneal lymph node screening with pre-contrast sequences up to the level of the kidneys is optional. The likelihood of lymph node invasion and the need for staging lymphadenectomy are also indicated by high-grade histology at endometrial tissue sampling and by deep myometrial or cervical invasion detected by MRI. In conclusion, expert consensus and literature review lead to an optimized MRI protocol to stage endometrial cance