Pancreatic cysts suspected to be branch duct intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasm without concerning features have low risk for development of pancreatic cancer.

BackgroundThe risk of developing pancreatic cancer is uncertain in patients with clinically suspected branch duct intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasm (BD-IPMN) based on the "high-risk stigmata" or "worrisome features" criteria proposed in the 2012 international consensus guidelines ("Fukuoka criteria").MethodsRetrospective case series involving patients referred for endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) of indeterminate pancreatic cysts with clinical and EUS features consistent with BD-IPMN. Rates of pancreatic cancer occurring at any location in the pancreas were compared between groups of patients with one or more Fukuoka criteria ("Highest-Risk Group", HRG) and those without these criteria ("Lowest-Risk Group", LRG).ResultsAfter exclusions, 661 patients comprised the final cohort (250 HRG and 411 LRG patients), 62% female with an average age of 67 years and 4 years of follow up. Pancreatic cancer, primarily adenocarcinoma, occurred in 60 patients (59 HRG, 1 LRG). Prevalent cancers diagnosed during EUS, immediate surgery, or first year of follow up were found in 48/661 (7.3%) of cohort and exclusively in HRG (33/77, 42.3%). Using Kaplan-Meier method, the cumulative incidence of cancer at 7 years was 28% in HRG and 1.2% in LRG patients (P<0.001).ConclusionsThis study supports using Fukuoka criteria to stratify the immediate and long-term risks of pancreatic cancer in presumptive BD-IPMN. The risk of pancreatic cancer was highest during the first year and occurred exclusively in those with "high-risk stigmata" or "worrisome features" criteria. After the first year all BD-IPMN continued to have a low but persistent cancer risk

A Novel Robust Mel-Energy Based Voice Activity Detector for Nonstationary Noise and Its Application for Speech Waveform Compression

The voice activity detection (VAD) is crucial in all kinds of speech applications. However, almost all existing VAD algorithms suffer from the nonstationarity of both speech and noise. To combat this difficulty, we propose a new voice activity detector, which is based on the Mel-energy features and an adaptive threshold related to the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) estimates. In this thesis, we first justify the robustness of the Bayes classifier using the Mel-energy features over that using the Fourier spectral features in various noise environments. Then, we design an algorithm using the dynamic Mel-energy estimator and the adaptive threshold which depends on the SNR estimates. In addition, a realignment scheme is incorporated to correct the sparse-and-spurious noise estimates. Numerous simulations are carried out to evaluate the performance of our proposed VAD method and the comparisons are made with a couple existing representative schemes, namely the VAD using the likelihood ratio test with Fourier spectral energy features and that based on the enhanced time-frequency parameters. Three types of noise, namely white noise (stationary), babble noise (nonstationary) and vehicular noise (nonstationary) were artificially added by the computer for our experiments. As a result, our proposed VAD algorithm significantly outperforms other existing methods as illustrated by the corresponding receiver operating curves (ROCs). Finally, we demonstrate one of the major applications, namely speech waveform compression, associated with our new robust VAD scheme and quantify the effectiveness in terms of compression efficiency

The Hiring Entity’s Usual Course of Business

The ABC test has increasingly become a tool to differentiate employees from independent contractors. Companies and counsel throughout the nation have grappled with Part B of this test, which requires a determination of the hiring entity’s “usual course of business.” Adjudicators have provided little guidance on how to conduct this analysis and are admittedly frustrated with this “elusive concept.” Yet a thorough treatment of the analytical framework and guiding principles of Part B of the ABC Test has not been put forth. This article fills this void in scholarship. By tracing the relevant concepts to the common law control test, and more importantly, a lesserknown framework analyzing skill and integration to determine liability, in addition to articulating the genesis and proliferation of the ABC Test within unemployment insurance legislation, this article answers a call from the judiciary to locate the origins of the ABC Test. Assessing decisions from state supreme courts and intermediate appellate bodies, this article then examines three methods courts use to determine whether work was done outside the usual course of the hiring entity’s business. The principal insight of this article is that work which is in the hiring entity’s usual course of business is work which provides regular aid to the business. This article concludes by analyzing two related questions within the Part B framework: (1) whether the Part B test is work-specific or worker-specific, a question of salience given the use of class actions, and (2) how to describe the hiring entity’s business, a question of import due to the rise of the gig economy

The Hiring Entity’s Usual Course of Business

The ABC test has increasingly become a tool to differentiate employees from independent contractors. Companies and counsel throughout the nation have grappled with Part B of this test, which requires a determination of the hiring entity’s “usual course of business.” Adjudicators have provided little guidance on how to conduct this analysis and are admittedly frustrated with this “elusive concept.” Yet a thorough treatment of the analytical framework and guiding principles of Part B of the ABC Test has not been put forth. This article fills this void in scholarship. By tracing the relevant concepts to the common law control test, and more importantly, a lesserknown framework analyzing skill and integration to determine liability, in addition to articulating the genesis and proliferation of the ABC Test within unemployment insurance legislation, this article answers a call from the judiciary to locate the origins of the ABC Test. Assessing decisions from state supreme courts and intermediate appellate bodies, this article then examines three methods courts use to determine whether work was done outside the usual course of the hiring entity’s business. The principal insight of this article is that work which is in the hiring entity’s usual course of business is work which provides regular aid to the business. This article concludes by analyzing two related questions within the Part B framework: (1) whether the Part B test is work-specific or worker-specific, a question of salience given the use of class actions, and (2) how to describe the hiring entity’s business, a question of import due to the rise of the gig economy

Two Level Disambiguation Model for Query Translation

Selection of the most suitable translation among all translation candidates returned by bilingual dictionary has always been quiet challenging task for any cross language query translation. Researchers have frequently tried to use word co-occurrence statistics to determine the most probable translation for user query. Algorithms using such statistics have certain shortcomings, which are focused in this paper. We propose a novel method for ambiguity resolution, named ‘two level disambiguation model’. At first level disambiguation, the model properly weighs the importance of translation alternatives of query terms obtained from the dictionary. The importance factor measures the probability of a translation candidate of being selected as the final translation of a query term. This removes the problem of taking binary decision for translation candidates. At second level disambiguation, the model targets the user query as a single concept and deduces the translation of all query terms simultaneously, taking into account the weights of translation alternatives also. This is contrary to previous researches which select translation for each word in source language query independently. The experimental result with English-Hindi cross language information retrieval shows that the proposed two level disambiguation model achieved 79.53% and 83.50% of monolingual translation and 21.11% and 17.36% improvement compared to greedy disambiguation strategies in terms of MAP for short and long queries respectively

Traveling-wave Thomson scattering for electron-beam spectroscopy

We propose a method to use traveling-wave Thomson scattering for spatiotemporally-resolved electron spectroscopy. This can enable ultrafast time-resolved measurements of the dynamics of relativistic electrons in the presence of extremely intense light fields, either in vacuum or in plasma, such as in laser wakefield accelerators. We demonstrate, with test-particle simulation and analysis, the capability of this technique for measurements of various high field phenomena: radiation reaction of electrons due to scattering, dephasing of a laser wakefield accelerator, and acceleration of electrons in multiple buckets by a laser wakefield. We propose a method to use traveling-wave Thomson scattering for spatiotemporally-resolved electron spectroscopy. This can enable ultrafast time-resolved measurements of the dynamics of relativistic electrons in the presence of extremely intense light fields, either in vacuum or in plasma, such as in laser wakefield accelerators. We demonstrate, with test-particle simulation and analysis, the capability of this technique for measurements of various high field phenomena: radiation reaction of electrons due to scattering, dephasing of a laser wakefield accelerator, and acceleration of electrons in multiple buckets by a laser wakefield

Anti-cancer effects and mechanism of actions of aspirin analogues in the treatment of glioma cancer

INTRODUCTION: In the past 25 years only modest advancements in glioma treatment have been made, with patient prognosis and median survival time following diagnosis only increasing from 3 to 7 months. A substantial body of clinical and preclinical evidence has suggested a role for aspirin in the treatment of cancer with multiple mechanisms of action proposed including COX 2 inhibition, down regulation of EGFR expression, and NF-κB signaling affecting Bcl-2 expression. However, with serious side effects such as stroke and gastrointestinal bleeding, aspirin analogues with improved potency and side effect profiles are being developed. METHOD: Effects on cell viability following 24 hr incubation of four aspirin derivatives (PN508, 517, 526 and 529) were compared to cisplatin, aspirin and di-aspirin in four glioma cell lines (U87 MG, SVG P12, GOS – 3, and 1321N1), using the PrestoBlue assay, establishing IC50 and examining the time course of drug effects. RESULTS: All compounds were found to decrease cell viability in a concentration and time dependant manner. Significantly, the analogue PN517 (IC50 2mM) showed approximately a twofold increase in potency when compared to aspirin (3.7mM) and cisplatin (4.3mM) in U87 cells, with similar increased potency in SVG P12 cells. Other analogues demonstrated similar potency to aspirin and cisplatin. CONCLUSION: These results support the further development and characterization of novel NSAID derivatives for the treatment of glioma