A CMMI-based approach for medical software project life cycle study

In terms of medical techniques, Taiwan has gained international recognition in recent years. However, the medical information system industry in Taiwan is still at a developing stage compared with the software industries in other nations. In addition, systematic development processes are indispensable elements of software development. They can help developers increase their productivity and efficiency and also avoid unnecessary risks arising during the development process. Thus, this paper presents an application of Light-Weight Capability Maturity Model Integration (LW-CMMI) to Chang Gung Medical Research Project (CMRP) in the Nuclear medicine field. This application was intended to integrate user requirements, system design and testing of software development processes into three layers (Domain, Concept and Instance) model. Then, expressing in structural System Modeling Language (SysML) diagrams and converts part of the manual effort necessary for project management maintenance into computational effort, for example: (semi-) automatic delivery of traceability management. In this application, it supports establishing artifacts of “requirement specification document”, “project execution plan document”, “system design document” and “system test document”, and can deliver a prototype of lightweight project management tool on the Nuclear Medicine software project. The results of this application can be a reference for other medical institutions in developing medical information systems and support of project management to achieve the aim of patient safety. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/2193-1801-2-266) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users

Linking Student Performance in Massachusetts Elementary Schools with the “Greenness” of School Surroundings Using Remote Sensing

Various studies have reported the physical and mental health benefits from exposure to “green” neighborhoods, such as proximity to neighborhoods with trees and vegetation. However, no studies have explicitly assessed the association between exposure to “green” surroundings and cognitive function in terms of student academic performance. This study investigated the association between the “greenness” of the area surrounding a Massachusetts public elementary school and the academic achievement of the school’s student body based on standardized tests with an ecological setting. Researchers used the composite school-based performance scores generated by the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) to measure the percentage of 3rd-grade students (the first year of standardized testing for 8–9 years-old children in public school), who scored “Above Proficient” (AP) in English and Mathematics tests (Note: Individual student scores are not publically available). The MCAS results are comparable year to year thanks to an equating process. Researchers included test results from 2006 through 2012 in 905 public schools and adjusted for differences between schools in the final analysis according to race, gender, English as a second language (proxy for ethnicity and language facility), parent income, student-teacher ratio, and school attendance. Surrounding greenness of each school was measured using satellite images converted into the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) in March, July and October of each year according to a 250-meter, 500-meter, 1,000-meter, and 2000-meter circular buffer around each school. Spatial Generalized Linear Mixed Models (GLMMs) estimated the impacts of surrounding greenness on school-based performance. Overall the study results supported a relationship between the “greenness” of the school area and the school-wide academic performance. Interestingly, the results showed a consistently positive significant association between the greenness of the school in the Spring (when most Massachusetts students take the MCAS tests) and school-wide performance on both English and Math tests, even after adjustment for socio-economic factors and urban residency

Metabolic syndrome and abdominal fat are associated with inflammation, but not with clinical outcomes, in peritoneal dialysis patients

BACKGROUND: In the general population, metabolic syndrome (MetS) is correlated with visceral fat and a risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD); however, little is known about the significance of abdominal fat and its association with inflammation and medication use in peritoneal dialysis (PD) patients. We investigated the relationship of visceral fat area (VFA) with C-reactive protein (CRP) levels and medication use in PD patients and followed their clinical outcomes. METHODS: In a prospective study from February 2009 to February 2012, we assessed diabetes mellitus (DM) status, clinical and PD-associated characteristics, medication use, CRP levels, components of MetS, and VFA in 183 PD patients. These patients were categorized into 3 groups based on MetS and DM status: non-MetS (group 1, n = 73), MetS (group 2, n = 65), and DM (group 3, n = 45). VFA was evaluated by computed tomography (CT) and corrected for body mass index (BMI). RESULTS: Patients in group 1 had smaller VFAs than patients in groups 2 and 3 (3.2 ± 1.8, 4.6 ± 1.9, and 4.9 ± 2.0 cm(2)/[kg/m(2)], respectively, P < 0.05) and lower CRP levels (0.97 ± 2.31, 1.27 ± 2.57, and 1.11 ± 1.35 mg/dL, respectively, P < 0.05). VFA increased with the number of criteria met for MetS. After adjusting for age, body weight, and sex, CRP and albumin levels functioned as independent positive predictors of VFA; on other hand, the use of renin-angiotensin system blockers was inversely correlated with VFA in PD patients without DM. In the survival analysis, DM patients (group 3) had the poorest survival among the 3 groups, but no significant differences were found between groups 1 and 2. CONCLUSION: This study showed that VFA and MetS are associated with CRP levels but cannot predict survival in PD patients without DM. The complex relationship of nutritional parameters to VFA and MetS may explain these results. The type of antihypertensive medication used was also associated with the VFA. The mechanisms behind these findings warrant further investigation

The nucleolar protein NIFK promotes cancer progression via CK1α/β-catenin in metastasis and Ki-67-dependent cell proliferation.

Nucleolar protein interacting with the FHA domain of pKi-67 (NIFK) is a Ki-67-interacting protein. However, its precise function in cancer remains largely uninvestigated. Here we show the clinical significance and metastatic mechanism of NIFK in lung cancer. NIFK expression is clinically associated with poor prognosis and metastasis. Furthermore, NIFK enhances Ki-67-dependent proliferation, and promotes migration, invasion in vitro and metastasis in vivo via downregulation of casein kinase 1α (CK1α), a suppressor of pro-metastatic TCF4/β-catenin signaling. Inversely, CK1α is upregulated upon NIFK knockdown. The silencing of CK1α expression in NIFK-silenced cells restores TCF4/β-catenin transcriptional activity, cell migration, and metastasis. Furthermore, RUNX1 is identified as a transcription factor of CSNK1A1 (CK1α) that is negatively regulated by NIFK. Our results demonstrate the prognostic value of NIFK, and suggest that NIFK is required for lung cancer progression via the RUNX1-dependent CK1α repression, which activates TCF4/β-catenin signaling in metastasis and the Ki-67-dependent regulation in cell proliferation

A Man with Severe, Left Lower Quadrant Abdominal Pain

Case presentation:&nbsp; An 84-year-old man presented to the emergency department with sudden, left lower quadrant cramping pain. Because critical hypotension was noted, point-of-care ultrasonography (POCUS) was performed immediately. The study revealed a pulsatile flow extravasating from the left common iliac artery into the left psoas muscle with hypoechoic para-aortic fluid collection.&nbsp;Discussion: Common iliac artery rupture is rare and has nonspecific clinical presentations. A quick disposition can be made with a combination of clinical manifestations and POCUS results

Factors associated with having less than 20 natural teeth in rural adults: a cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND: Some systematic reviews have consistently indicated a positive link between Metabolic syndrome, impairedfasting glucose, all-cause or circulatory disease-related mortality, general health, periodontitis, and toothloss. This study was to examine the prevalence of number of remaining teeth <20 and associated risk factors among adults in a rural area of Taiwan. METHODS: A community-based, cross-sectional study was conducted in southwestern coastal Taiwan in 2013; 6680 residents aged 20–64 years were studied. Oral hygiene, substance use, dietary habits, and metabolic syndrome were explored as potential risk factors for number of remaining teeth <20 using logistic regression analysis. RESULTS: The mean number of remaining teeth was 24.6 (SD = 7.4), and 16.3 % (n = 1085) of the participants had number of remaining teeth <20. Men had significantly less frequent use of dental floss, unhealthy dietary habits, more substance use and metabolic syndrome than did women (p <0.001). However, women tended to have fewer teeth than men (p <0.001). After adjusting for potential confounders, older age (odds ratio [OR] = 4.56, 95 % confidence interval [CI]: 3.74–5.55), female (OR = 1.88, 95 % CI: 1.56–2.25), less education (OR = 2.40, 95 % CI: 1.90–3.02), infrequent use of dental floss (OR = 1.94, 95 % CI: 1.66–2.27), substance use (OR = 1.32, 95 % CI: 1.09–1.59), and number of metabolic syndrome components (OR = 1.10, 95 % CI: 1.04–1.16) were independently associated with a higher risk of number of remaining teeth <20. CONCLUSIONS: Number of remaining teeth <20 was highly prevalent among rural adults. In addition to unmodifiable factors, infrequent use of dental floss, substance use, and metabolic syndrome were risk factors associated with tooth loss

Natural convection in evaporating sessile drops with solidification

Transient natural convection and internal solidification in a minute drop evaporating on a horizontal plate is investigated by the laser shadowgraph-schlieren method and direct microscopic photography. The drop is point-cooled at the center of the base by the tip of a metal wire connected to a block of dry ice. A thermocapillary-induced, doughnut-shaped vortex region exists around the solid phase during the course of internal solidification. The genesis of a thermocapillary-induced vortex ring and internal solidification can be predicted from the time history of drop temperatures. The internal solidification suppresses the surface rippling of an evaporating drop, thus retarding the evaporation rate. Empirical expressions are obtained which describe the effects of the Marangoni, Prandtl and Stefan numbers and the degree of supercooling on the solid growth velocity.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/27418/1/0000456.pd

Sampling Neural Radiance Fields for Refractive Objects

Recently, differentiable volume rendering in neural radiance fields (NeRF) has gained a lot of popularity, and its variants have attained many impressive results. However, existing methods usually assume the scene is a homogeneous volume so that a ray is cast along the straight path. In this work, the scene is instead a heterogeneous volume with a piecewise-constant refractive index, where the path will be curved if it intersects the different refractive indices. For novel view synthesis of refractive objects, our NeRF-based framework aims to optimize the radiance fields of bounded volume and boundary from multi-view posed images with refractive object silhouettes. To tackle this challenging problem, the refractive index of a scene is reconstructed from silhouettes. Given the refractive index, we extend the stratified and hierarchical sampling techniques in NeRF to allow drawing samples along a curved path tracked by the Eikonal equation. The results indicate that our framework outperforms the state-of-the-art method both quantitatively and qualitatively, demonstrating better performance on the perceptual similarity metric and an apparent improvement in the rendering quality on several synthetic and real scenes.Comment: SIGGRAPH Asia 2022 Technical Communications. 4 pages, 4 figures, 1 table. Project: https://alexkeroro86.github.io/SampleNeRFRO/ Code: https://github.com/alexkeroro86/SampleNeRFR