Identifying Pneumonia in SARS-CoV-2 Disease from Images using Deep Learning

1st International Conference on Computing and Machine Intelligence (ICMI-2021) February 19-20, 2021, Istanbul, Turkey -- Editorial Board Dr. Akhtar JAMIL Dr. Alaa Ali HAMEED -- ISBN: 9786050667578 -- Istanbul Sabahattin Zaim University Yayınları; No. 57.Deep learning methods are commonly used in various applications now a days. It has also shown its effectiveness in the field of medicine and is actively used as an auxiliary technology. Although the COVID-19 epidemic is an unprepared process in the world, it has been one of the times when alternatives were most needed for diagnosis and treatment. Considering the cost of tests such as PCR in the diagnosis of the COVID-19 epidemic, it has become a need to create economical alternatives. In this context, the main objective of this study was to diagnose and distinguish between COVID-19 and pneumonia cases with CNN-based multiple models using images of chest X-rays. Specifically, three different CNN-based models were used, namely: InceptionV3, ResNet50, and InceptionResNetV2. Moreover, different optimizers were also investigated to identify the best performing one. The models were trained on chest X-ray of 100 patients with COVID-19 and pneumonia. The experimental results showed that the SGD optimizer with the highest accuracy came to the fore with a value of 98.8%

Magnetic particle imaging signal acquisition using second harmonic detection of magnetic nanoparticles

This paper presents an approach for acquiring a magnetic particle imaging (MPI) signal, by utilizing the second harmonic detection of the magnetic nanoparticles tracers. An MPI signal with high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is crucial for high spatial resolution images that reveals the distribution of the tracers in a target area. Samples of Resovist and Perimag nanoparticles tracers were prepared in liquid and immobilised form, which were placed at some distances under the receiver coil of the single-sided MPI scanner. The samples were exposed to the excitation magnetic field generated at 22.8 kHz and a static gradient field generated with a direct current of 2 A. The non-linear magnetization response of the tracers for each spatial position is recorded in the form of voltage signal by a gradiometer pickup coil, with the second harmonic signal being extracted by a resonance circuit. The results obtained revealed that a sufficient signal from the tracers is recorded at up to 25 mm under the pickup coil, with Perimag samples inducing higher signals as compared to Resovist. The dependence of the DC gradient field on the second harmonic signal shows that the peak signal amplitude for Resovist and Perimag particles as ±5 mT and ±6 mT respectively. Additionally, the second harmonic signal amplitude increases exponentially with an increase in the excitation magnetic field. Thus, the results obtained shows the potential of this approach in acquiring high SNR MPI signals at low excitation frequency, which could be vital in reconstructing the contour images of the tracers, particularly in sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) for breast cancer diagnosis

Effect of early tranexamic acid administration on mortality, hysterectomy, and other morbidities in women with post-partum haemorrhage (WOMAN): an international, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial

Background Post-partum haemorrhage is the leading cause of maternal death worldwide. Early administration of tranexamic acid reduces deaths due to bleeding in trauma patients. We aimed to assess the effects of early administration of tranexamic acid on death, hysterectomy, and other relevant outcomes in women with post-partum haemorrhage. Methods In this randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, we recruited women aged 16 years and older with a clinical diagnosis of post-partum haemorrhage after a vaginal birth or caesarean section from 193 hospitals in 21 countries. We randomly assigned women to receive either 1 g intravenous tranexamic acid or matching placebo in addition to usual care. If bleeding continued after 30 min, or stopped and restarted within 24 h of the first dose, a second dose of 1 g of tranexamic acid or placebo could be given. Patients were assigned by selection of a numbered treatment pack from a box containing eight numbered packs that were identical apart from the pack number. Participants, care givers, and those assessing outcomes were masked to allocation. We originally planned to enrol 15 000 women with a composite primary endpoint of death from all-causes or hysterectomy within 42 days of giving birth. However, during the trial it became apparent that the decision to conduct a hysterectomy was often made at the same time as randomisation. Although tranexamic acid could influence the risk of death in these cases, it could not affect the risk of hysterectomy. We therefore increased the sample size from 15 000 to 20 000 women in order to estimate the effect of tranexamic acid on the risk of death from post-partum haemorrhage. All analyses were done on an intention-to-treat basis. This trial is registered with ISRCTN76912190 (Dec 8, 2008); ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT00872469; and PACTR201007000192283. Findings Between March, 2010, and April, 2016, 20 060 women were enrolled and randomly assigned to receive tranexamic acid (n=10 051) or placebo (n=10 009), of whom 10 036 and 9985, respectively, were included in the analysis. Death due to bleeding was significantly reduced in women given tranexamic acid (155 [1·5%] of 10 036 patients vs 191 [1·9%] of 9985 in the placebo group, risk ratio [RR] 0·81, 95% CI 0·65–1·00; p=0·045), especially in women given treatment within 3 h of giving birth (89 [1·2%] in the tranexamic acid group vs 127 [1·7%] in the placebo group, RR 0·69, 95% CI 0·52–0·91; p=0·008). All other causes of death did not differ significantly by group. Hysterectomy was not reduced with tranexamic acid (358 [3·6%] patients in the tranexamic acid group vs 351 [3·5%] in the placebo group, RR 1·02, 95% CI 0·88–1·07; p=0·84). The composite primary endpoint of death from all causes or hysterectomy was not reduced with tranexamic acid (534 [5·3%] deaths or hysterectomies in the tranexamic acid group vs 546 [5·5%] in the placebo group, RR 0·97, 95% CI 0·87-1·09; p=0·65). Adverse events (including thromboembolic events) did not differ significantly in the tranexamic acid versus placebo group. Interpretation Tranexamic acid reduces death due to bleeding in women with post-partum haemorrhage with no adverse effects. When used as a treatment for postpartum haemorrhage, tranexamic acid should be given as soon as possible after bleeding onset. Funding London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Pfizer, UK Department of Health, Wellcome Trust, and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

The International Natural Product Sciences Taskforce (INPST) and the power of Twitter networking exemplified through #INPST hashtag analysis

Background: The development of digital technologies and the evolution of open innovation approaches have enabled the creation of diverse virtual organizations and enterprises coordinating their activities primarily online. The open innovation platform titled "International Natural Product Sciences Taskforce" (INPST) was established in 2018, to bring together in collaborative environment individuals and organizations interested in natural product scientific research, and to empower their interactions by using digital communication tools. Methods: In this work, we present a general overview of INPST activities and showcase the specific use of Twitter as a powerful networking tool that was used to host a one-week "2021 INPST Twitter Networking Event" (spanning from 31st May 2021 to 6th June 2021) based on the application of the Twitter hashtag #INPST. Results and Conclusion: The use of this hashtag during the networking event period was analyzed with Symplur Signals (https://www.symplur.com/), revealing a total of 6,036 tweets, shared by 686 users, which generated a total of 65,004,773 impressions (views of the respective tweets). This networking event's achieved high visibility and participation rate showcases a convincing example of how this social media platform can be used as a highly effective tool to host virtual Twitter-based international biomedical research events

Early neurosyphilis presenting with facial palsy and an oral ulcer in a patient who is human immunodeficiency virus positive: a case report

Abstract Background Neurosyphilis is the tertiary stage of Treponema pallidum infection that involves the central nervous system, which occurs within days or weeks after an initial syphilis infection, especially in immunocompromised patients. The diagnosis of neurosyphilis is quite challenging as it is uncommon and often presents with obscure symptoms since any organ system may be involved. Case presentation We describe a case of a 40-year-old African man who is human immunodeficiency virus positive with early neurosyphilis who presented with a stiff neck, headache, confusion, restlessness, and a left-sided chest pain; he did not respond to an empiric treatment of ceftriaxone and fluconazole for meningitis, and tramadol for headache. Ten days after admission, he developed generalized tonic–clonic convulsions; on examination he had ipsilateral facial nerve palsy and an oral ulcer, and responded well to benzathine penicillin treatment. Conclusions Laboratory diagnosis of neurosyphilis is challenging because to date there is no single laboratory test which is considered sensitive enough for diagnosis of the disease, especially in resource-limited settings. Clinical judgment is still an important part of diagnosis; and neurosyphilis should be considered a diagnostic differential in patients with Human Immunodeficiency Virus presenting with central nervous system involvement and in other high-risk patients

Automatic extraction of sparse trees from high-resolution ortho-images

Obtaining information about tree species distribution in agricultural lands is a topic of interest for various applications, such as tree inventory, forest management, agricultural land management, crop estimation, etc. This information can be derived from images obtained from modern remote sensing technology, which is the most economical way as compare to field surveys covering large geographic areas. Therefore, in this study, a new method is proposed for extraction and counting of sparse and regular distributed individual pistachio trees from agricultural areas on large scale from high-resolution digital ortho-photo maps, which were obtained using an airborne sensor (Ultracam-X). The input images were first smoothed by applying Gaussian filter to reduce the impact of noise. Normalized difference vegetation indices (NDVI) were then derived to obtain vegetation areas followed by Otsu's global thresholding algorithm to obtain candidate tree areas. Further, connected component (CC) analysis was applied to segregate each object. Morphological processing was performed to fill holes within tree objects and get smooth contours, which were obtained by using the Moore-neighbor tracing method (MNTM) for each CC, while geometrical constraints were applied to undermine possible non-tree elements from output image. To further improve the segmentation results for sparse trees, a new method was applied, called quadratic local analysis (QLA). QLA helped to segment the trees, which were missed by the Otsu method due to low contrast and resulted in improved accuracy (3-6%). The obtained results were compared with well-known support vector machine (SVM) classifier. Proposed method produced slightly better results (1-5%) than SVM for extraction of pistachio trees and obtained accuracy for QLA and SVM were 96 and 91% for region 1, while 91 and 90% for region 2 respectively

Magnetic particle imaging signal acquisition using second harmonic detection of magnetic nanoparticles

&lt;p class="Abstract"&gt;This paper presents an approach for acquiring a magnetic particle imaging (MPI) signal, by utilizing the second harmonic detection of the magnetic nanoparticles tracers. An MPI signal with high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is crucial for high spatial resolution images that reveals the distribution of the tracers in a target area. Samples of Resovist and Perimag nanoparticles tracers were prepared in liquid and immobilised form, which were placed at some distances under the receiver coil of the single-sided MPI scanner. The samples were exposed to the excitation magnetic field generated at 22.8 kHz and a static gradient field generated with a direct current of 2 A. The non-linear magnetization response of the tracers for each spatial position is recorded in the form of voltage signal by a gradiometer pickup coil, with the second harmonic signal being extracted by a resonance circuit. The results obtained revealed that a sufficient signal from the tracers is recorded at up to 25 mm under the pickup coil, with Perimag samples inducing higher signals as compared to Resovist. The dependence of the DC gradient field on the second harmonic signal shows that the peak signal amplitude for Resovist and Perimag particles as ±5 mT and ±6 mT respectively. Additionally, the second harmonic signal amplitude increases exponentially with an increase in the excitation magnetic field. Thus, the results obtained shows the potential of this approach in acquiring high SNR MPI signals at low excitation frequency, which could be vital in reconstructing the contour images of the tracers, particularly in sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) for breast cancer diagnosis.&lt;/p&gt;</jats:p

Integrated community-based HIV and non-communicable disease care within microfinance groups in Kenya: study protocol for the Harambee cluster randomised trial

Introduction In Kenya, distance to health facilities, inefficient vertical care delivery and limited financial means are barriers to retention in HIV care. Furthermore, the increasing burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) among people living with HIV complicates chronic disease treatment and strains traditional care delivery models. Potential strategies for improving HIV/NCD treatment outcomes are differentiated care, community-based care and microfinance (MF).Methods and analysis We will use a cluster randomised trial to evaluate integrated community-based (ICB) care incorporated into MF groups in medium and high HIV prevalence areas in western Kenya. We will conduct baseline assessments with n=900 HIV positive members of 40 existing MF groups. Group clusters will be randomised to receive either (1) ICB or (2) standard of care (SOC). The ICB intervention will include: (1) clinical care visits during MF group meetings inclusive of medical consultations, NCD management, distribution of antiretroviral therapy (ART) and NCD medications, and point-of-care laboratory testing; (2) peer support for ART adherence and (3) facility referrals as needed. MF groups randomised to SOC will receive regularly scheduled care at a health facility. Findings from the two trial arms will be compared with follow-up data from n=300 matched controls. The primary outcome will be VS at 18 months. Secondary outcomes will be retention in care, absolute mean change in systolic blood pressure and absolute mean change in HbA1c level at 18 months. We will use mediation analysis to evaluate mechanisms through which MF and ICB care impact outcomes and analyse incremental cost-effectiveness of the intervention in terms of cost per HIV suppressed person-time, cost per patient retained in care and cost per disability-adjusted life-year saved.Ethics and dissemination The Moi University Institutional Research and Ethics Committee approved this study (IREC#0003054). We will share data via the Brown University Digital Repository and disseminate findings via publication.Trial registration number NCT04417127