Medical Image Data and Datasets in the Era of Machine Learning-Whitepaper from the 2016 C-MIMI Meeting Dataset Session.

At the first annual Conference on Machine Intelligence in Medical Imaging (C-MIMI), held in September 2016, a conference session on medical image data and datasets for machine learning identified multiple issues. The common theme from attendees was that everyone participating in medical image evaluation with machine learning is data starved. There is an urgent need to find better ways to collect, annotate, and reuse medical imaging data. Unique domain issues with medical image datasets require further study, development, and dissemination of best practices and standards, and a coordinated effort among medical imaging domain experts, medical imaging informaticists, government and industry data scientists, and interested commercial, academic, and government entities. High-level attributes of reusable medical image datasets suitable to train, test, validate, verify, and regulate ML products should be better described. NIH and other government agencies should promote and, where applicable, enforce, access to medical image datasets. We should improve communication among medical imaging domain experts, medical imaging informaticists, academic clinical and basic science researchers, government and industry data scientists, and interested commercial entities

Generalizations of Z-supercontinuous functions and Dδ-supercontinuous functions

[EN] Two new classes of functions, called ‘almost z-supercontinuous functions’ and ’almost Dδ-supercontinuous functions’ are introduced. The class of almost z-supercontinuous functions properly includes the class of z-supercontinuous functions (Indian J. Pure Appl. Math. 33(7), (2002), 1097-1108) as well as the class of almost clopen maps due to Ekici (Acta. Math. Hungar. 107(3), (2005), 193-206) and is properly contained in the class of almost Dδ-supercontinuous functions which in turn constitutes a proper subclass of the class of almost strongly θ-continuous functions due to Noiri and Kang (Indian J. Pure Appl. Math. 15(1), (1984), 1-8) and which in its turn include all δ-continuous functions of Noiri (J. Korean Math. Soc. 16 (1980), 161-166). Characterizations and basic properties of almost z-supercontinuous functions and almost Dδ-supercontinuous functions are discussed and their place in the hierarchy of variants of continuity is elaborated. Moreover, properties of almost strongly θ-continuous functions are investigated and sufficient conditions for almost strongly θ-continuous functions to have u θ-closed (θ-closed) graph are formulated.Kohli, J.; Singh, D.; Kumar, R. (2008). Generalizations of Z-supercontinuous functions and Dδ-supercontinuous functions. Applied General Topology. 9(2):239-251. doi:10.4995/agt.2008.1804.SWORD2392519

Off-label use of antibiotics in hospitalised children in a tertiary care teaching hospital

Background: Children constitute one-third of the population and they suffer from a variety of infectious diseases and are commonly prescribed antibiotics. Most of the antibiotics lack sufficient information on safety and efficacy in children and are thus prescribed off-label. This study was envisaged to assess the off-label use of antibiotics in hospitalized children.Methods: Total 120 patients were included in the study. Off-label use was determined on the basis of product literature and National Formulary of India. Descriptive statistics was used to present the data i.e. percentage; proportions, frequency, mean and standard deviation using Microsoft excel worksheet.Results: A total of 791 drugs from different classes were prescribed to 120 patients with a mean of 6.6±2.68 drugs described per patient during their stay in the hospital. 100 out of 120 (83%) patients were prescribed at least one antibiotic during their stay in the hospital. Out of the 204 antibiotics prescribed, 43(21%) were prescribed off-label. Antibiotic dose was the most common reason followed by age (1month-1 year more than 2-6 years of age) and frequency in off-label use.Conclusions: Antibiotics are commonly prescribed to children with substantial off-label use. The same must be seriously addressed by the policy makers and stakeholders in order to promote their rational use

Application of the trajectory error matrix for assessing the temporal transferability of OBIA for slum detection

High temporal and spatial-resolution imageries are a valuable data source for slum monitoring. However, the transferability of OBIA methods across space and time remains problematic, due to the complexity of the term “slum”. Hence, transparency is important when analysing the transferability of OBIA methods for slum mapping. Our research developed a framework for measuring the temporal transferability of OBIA methods employing the trajectory error matrix (TEM). We found relatively low trajectory accuracies indicating low temporal transferability of OBIA methods for slum monitoring using point-based assessment methods. However, the analysis of change needs to be combined with an analysis of the certainty of this change by considering the context of the change to deal with common problems such as variations of the viewing angles and uncertainties in producing reference data on slums