High Accuracy Classification of Parkinson's Disease through Shape Analysis and Surface Fitting in 123^{123}I-Ioflupane SPECT Imaging

Early and accurate identification of parkinsonian syndromes (PS) involving presynaptic degeneration from non-degenerative variants such as Scans Without Evidence of Dopaminergic Deficit (SWEDD) and tremor disorders, is important for effective patient management as the course, therapy and prognosis differ substantially between the two groups. In this study, we use Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT) images from healthy normal, early PD and SWEDD subjects, as obtained from the Parkinson's Progression Markers Initiative (PPMI) database, and process them to compute shape- and surface fitting-based features for the three groups. We use these features to develop and compare various classification models that can discriminate between scans showing dopaminergic deficit, as in PD, from scans without the deficit, as in healthy normal or SWEDD. Along with it, we also compare these features with Striatal Binding Ratio (SBR)-based features, which are well-established and clinically used, by computing a feature importance score using Random forests technique. We observe that the Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifier gave the best performance with an accuracy of 97.29%. These features also showed higher importance than the SBR-based features. We infer from the study that shape analysis and surface fitting are useful and promising methods for extracting discriminatory features that can be used to develop diagnostic models that might have the potential to help clinicians in the diagnostic process.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures, Accepted in the IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics, Additional supplementary documents available at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7442754

Dynamics of Sclerotium rolfsii as influenced by different crop rhizosphere and microbial community

This study was carried out with the aim of evaluating pathogenicity of Sclerotium rolfsii to different crops influenced by different crop rhizosphere microbes and their population dynamics. Napier was found to be non-preferred host against S. rolfsii pathogen. Among the seven tested crops in micro-plot study, highest level of induction of sclerotial population was observed in groundnut and cow peas (21.81 and 20.06 numbers of sclerotia /100 g of soil, respectively), whereas, reduction in sclerotial number was observed in napier, maize and sorghum plots. S. rolfsii induced damping off was found to be significantly positively correlated with average sclerotial population irrespective of plant cover even at 1% level of significance (r = 0.985) and among the microbiological parameters, FDA was found to be significantly negatively correlated with damping off disease percentage at 5% level of significance (r = - 0.830). Therefore, Napier may be the potential crop to be incorporated in the sequence of rice/vegetable based cropping system in West Bengal for management of this dreaded pathogen

Commensurate anisotropic oscillator, SU(2) coherent states and the classical limit

We demonstrate a formally exact quantum-classical correspondence between the stationary coherent states associated with the commensurate anisotropic two-dimensional harmonic oscillator and the classical Lissajous orbits. Our derivation draws upon earlier work of Louck et al [1973 \textit {J. Math. Phys.} \textbf {14} 692] wherein they have provided a non-bijective canonical transformation that maps, within a degenerate eigenspace, the commensurate anisotropic oscillator on to the isotropic oscillator. This mapping leads, in a natural manner, to a Schwinger realization of SU(2) in terms of the canonically transformed creation and annihilation operators. Through the corresponding coherent states built over a degenerate eigenspace, we directly effect the classical limit via the expectation values of the underlying generators. Our work completely accounts for the fact that the SU(2) coherent state in general corresponds to an ensemble of Lissajous orbits.Comment: 11 pages, Latex2e, iopart.cls, replaced with published versio

Interferometry of Direct Photons in Central 280Pb+208Pb Collisions at 158A GeV

Two-particle correlations of direct photons were measured in central 208Pb+208Pb collisions at 158 AGeV. The invariant interferometric radii were extracted for 100<K_T<300 MeV/c and compared to radii extracted from charged pion correlations. The yield of soft direct photons, K_T<300 MeV/c, was extracted from the correlation strength and compared to theoretical calculations.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Inclusive pi^0, eta, and direct photon production at high transverse momentum in p+p and d+Au collisions at sqrt(s_NN) = 200 GeV

We report a measurement of high-p_T inclusive pi^0, eta, and direct photon production in p+p and d+Au collisions at sqrt(s_NN) = 200 GeV at midrapidity (0 gamma gamma were detected in the Barrel Electromagnetic Calorimeter of the STAR experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. The eta -> gamma gamma decay was also observed and constituted the first eta measurement by STAR. The first direct photon cross section measurement by STAR is also presented, the signal was extracted statistically by subtracting the pi^0, eta, and omega(782) decay background from the inclusive photon distribution observed in the calorimeter. The analysis is described in detail, and the results are found to be in good agreement with earlier measurements and with next-to-leading order perturbative QCD calculations.Comment: 28 pages, 30 figures, 6 tables, the updated version that was accepted by Phys. Rev.

Identified high-pTp_{T} spectra in Cu+Cu collisions at sNN\sqrt{s_{NN}}=200 GeV

We report new results on identified (anti)proton and charged pion spectra at large transverse momenta (3<$p_{T}$<10 GeV/c) from Cu+Cu collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$=200 GeV using the STAR detector at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). This study explores the system size dependence of two novel features observed at RHIC with heavy ions: the hadron suppression at high-$p_{T}$ and the anomalous baryon to meson enhancement at intermediate transverse momenta. Both phenomena could be attributed to the creation of a new form of QCD matter. The results presented here bridge the system size gap between the available pp and Au+Au data, and allow the detailed exploration for the on-set of the novel features. Comparative analysis of all available 200 GeV data indicates that the system size is a major factor determining both the magnitude of the hadron spectra suppression at large transverse momenta and the relative baryon to meson enhancement.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Rev. C, 9 pages, 5 figure

Systematics of Inclusive Photon Production in 158 AGeV Pb Induced Reactions on Ni, Nb, and Pb Targets

The multiplicity of inclusive photons has been measured on an event-by-event basis for 158 AGeV Pb induced reactions on Ni, Nb, and Pb targets. The systematics of the pseudorapidity densities at midrapidity (rho_max) and the width of the pseudorapidity distributions have been studied for varying centralities for these collisions. A power law fit to the photon yield as a function of the number of participating nucleons gives a value of 1.13+-0.03 for the exponent. The mean transverse momentum, , of photons determined from the ratio of the measured electromagnetic transverse energy and photon multiplicity, remains almost constant with increasing rho_max. Results are compared with model predictions.Comment: 16 pages including 4 figure