scholarly journals Incorporating Colour Information for Computer-Aided Diagnosis of Melanoma from Dermoscopy Images: A Retrospective Survey and Critical Analysis

2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ali Madooei ◽  
Mark S. Drew
Keyword(s):  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Research Direction ◽  
Semantic Features ◽  
Retrospective Survey ◽  
Statistical Measures ◽  
Skin Cancers ◽  
Life Threatening ◽  
Lesion Analysis ◽  
Colour Features ◽  
High Level

Cutaneous melanoma is the most life-threatening form of skin cancer. Although advanced melanoma is often considered as incurable, if detected and excised early, the prognosis is promising. Today, clinicians use computer vision in an increasing number of applications to aid early detection of melanoma through dermatological image analysis (dermoscopy images, in particular). Colour assessment is essential for the clinical diagnosis of skin cancers. Due to this diagnostic importance, many studies have either focused on or employed colour features as a constituent part of their skin lesion analysis systems. These studies range from using low-level colour features, such as simple statistical measures of colours occurring in the lesion, to availing themselves of high-level semantic features such as the presence of blue-white veil, globules, or colour variegation in the lesion. This paper provides a retrospective survey and critical analysis of contributions in this research direction.

scholarly journals Compound Multiscale Weak Dense Network with Hybrid Attention for Hyperspectral Image Classification

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (16) ◽  
pp. 3305
Author(s):  
Zixian Ge ◽  
Guo Cao ◽  
Hao Shi ◽  
Youqiang Zhang ◽  
Xuesong Li ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Feature Extraction ◽  
Hyperspectral Image ◽  
Spectral Feature ◽  
Research Direction ◽  
Classification Performance ◽  
Performance Comparison ◽  
Attention Mechanism ◽  
Semantic Features ◽  
Public Datasets ◽  
High Level

Recently, hyperspectral image (HSI) classification has become a popular research direction in remote sensing. The emergence of convolutional neural networks (CNNs) has greatly promoted the development of this field and demonstrated excellent classification performance. However, due to the particularity of HSIs, redundant information and limited samples pose huge challenges for extracting strong discriminative features. In addition, addressing how to fully mine the internal correlation of the data or features based on the existing model is also crucial in improving classification performance. To overcome the above limitations, this work presents a strong feature extraction neural network with an attention mechanism. Firstly, the original HSI is weighted by means of the hybrid spectral–spatial attention mechanism. Then, the data are input into a spectral feature extraction branch and a spatial feature extraction branch, composed of multiscale feature extraction modules and weak dense feature extraction modules, to extract high-level semantic features. These two features are compressed and fused using the global average pooling and concat approaches. Finally, the classification results are obtained by using two fully connected layers and one Softmax layer. A performance comparison shows the enhanced classification performance of the proposed model compared to the current state of the art on three public datasets.

OPERATIONS FOR ANEURISM OF THE ABDOMINAL AORTIC DEPARTMENT - RESECTION WITH THE FOLLOWING PROSTHETICS AND ENDOPROSTHETICS: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF COMPLICATIONS

2020 ◽  
pp. 43-49
Author(s):  
Андрей Анатольевич Иванов ◽  
Александр Иванович Жданов ◽  
Максим Сергеевич Шевелин ◽  
Александр Сергеевич Брежнев
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Postoperative Complications ◽  
Statistical Significance ◽  
Aortic Aneurysms ◽  
Surgical Interventions ◽  
Vein Thrombosis ◽  
Scientific Hypothesis ◽  
Abdominal Aortic ◽  
Life Threatening ◽  
High Level

В статье представлены данные оригинального исследования по улучшению хирургического лечения аневризм брюшного отдела аорты. С этой целью произведен сравнительный анализ двух альтернативных друг другу операций: 1) резекции аневризмы с последующим протезированием аорты; 2) эндопротезирования аорты. Сформулировано научное предположение о том, что замена «классических» операций резекции аневризмы на «альтернативные» операции эндопротезирования приведет к принципиальному снижению уровня послеоперационных осложнений. В независимых группах пациентов с использованием сравниваемых хирургических вмешательств произведена точная качественная и количественная оценка послеоперационных осложнений: нетромботических - кардиальных, пульмональных, ренальных и тромботических - тромбозов глубоких вен и тромбозов браншей протеза. После реализации исследования было установлено, что замена «классических» операций на «альтернативные» достоверно приводит к принципиальному снижению уровня наиболее жизнеопасных осложнений - кардиальных (острых форм ишемической болезни сердца, нарушений сердечного ритма), пульмональных (пневмоний, тромбоэмболии легочной артерии, респираторного дистресс-синдрома взрослых) и ренальных (острой почечной недостаточности). Некоторое исключение составили менее жизнеопасные тромботические осложнения. Полученные результаты имеют высокий уровень статистической значимости, что позволяет рекомендовать их к рассмотрению к использованию в практике сосудистой хирургии The article presents data from an original study to improve the surgical treatment of abdominal aortic aneurysms. For this purpose, a comparative analysis of two alternate operations was performed: 1) aneurysm resection followed by aortic prosthetics; 2) aortic endoprosthetics. The scientific hypothesis is formulated that the replacement of the «classical» operations of resection of the aneurysm with «alternative» operations of endoprosthetics will lead to a fundamental decrease in the level of postoperative complications. In independent groups of patients using the compared surgical interventions, an accurate qualitative and quantitative assessment of postoperative complications was made: non-thrombotic - cardiac, pulmonary, renal and thrombotic - deep vein thrombosis and prosthetic jaw thrombosis. After the study was completed, it was found that the fundamental replacement of «classical» operations with «alternative» reliably leads to a fundamental decrease in the level of the most life-threatening complications - cardiac (acute forms of coronary heart disease, cardiac arrhythmias), pulmonary (pneumonia, pulmonary thromboembolism, respiratory distress syndrome of adults) and renal (acute renal failure). Some exceptions were less life-threatening thrombotic complications. The results obtained have a high level of statistical significance, which allows us to recommend them for consideration in the practice of vascular surgery

The Chemistry of Drugs to Treat Candida albicans

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (28) ◽  
pp. 2554-2566 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aurelio Ortiz ◽  
Estibaliz Sansinenea
Keyword(s):  
Candida Species ◽  
Antifungal Drugs ◽  
New Drugs ◽  
Drug Classes ◽  
Life Threatening ◽  
Antifungal Substances ◽  
High Level ◽  
Systemic Infections ◽  
New Compounds ◽  
Level Resistance

Background:: Candida species are in various parts of the human body as commensals. However, they can cause local mucosal infections and, sometimes, systemic infections in which Candida species can spread to all major organs and colonize them. Objective:: For the effective treatment of the mucosal infections and systemic life-threatening fungal diseases, a considerably large number of antifungal drugs have been developed and used for clinical purposes that comprise agents from four main drug classes: the polyenes, azoles, echinocandins, and antimetabolites. Method: : The synthesis of some of these drugs is available, allowing synthetic modification of the molecules to improve the biological activity against Candida species. The synthetic methodology for each compound is reviewed. Results: : The use of these compounds has caused a high-level resistance against these drugs, and therefore, new antifungal substances have been described in the last years. The organic synthesis of the known and new compounds is reported. Conclusion: : This article summarizes the chemistry of the existing agents, both the old drugs and new drugs, in the treatment of infections due to C. albicans, including the synthesis of the existing drugs.

scholarly journals Clinicians’ Knowledge and Attitudes About Delirium Detection and Management

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 519-520
Author(s):  
Priyanka Shrestha ◽  
Erica Husser ◽  
Diane Berish ◽  
Long Ngo ◽  
Marie Boltz ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Rating Scale ◽  
P Value ◽  
Clinical Implementation ◽  
Chi Square ◽  
Response Options ◽  
Knowledge And Attitudes ◽  
Point Rating Scale ◽  
Life Threatening ◽  
Strongly Agree ◽  
High Level

Abstract Delirium is a serious and potentially life-threatening problem, but it remains clinically under-recognized. Various factors contribute to this under-recognition, including limited understanding of delirium, insufficient training and application of delirium assessments, potential stigma for the patient and increased workload for the clinician. As a part of an NIH funded study testing a rapid two-step delirium identification protocol at two hospitals in the U.S. (one urban and one rural), clinicians completed a 12-item survey to assess their knowledge and attitudes about delirium and their confidence in preventing and managing delirium. Survey response options followed a 5-point rating scale (strongly disagree, disagree, undecided, agree, strongly agree). The sample for this analysis included 399 clinicians (MDs=53; RNs=235; CNAs=111). Chi-square was used to test for group differences between clinician types. Less than half of the clinicians reported agreeing with the statement, “delirium is largely preventable” (MDs: 47%; RN: 44%; CNA: 41%, p-value=0.021). MDs and RNs indicated a high level of confidence in recognizing delirium while CNAs endorsed lower levels of confidence (MDs: 87%; RN: 81%; CNA: 65%, p-value=0.001). All types of clinicians reported lower confidence in managing delirium (MDs: 29%; RN: 36%; CNA: 44%, p-value=0.117). 47% of CNAs and 37% of RNs agreed there is a need for additional training in caring for persons with delirium while only 21% of MDs agreed (p = 0.031). Understanding how different types of clinicians think and feel about delirium will inform training and communication initiatives, clinical implementation, and research on best practices for delirium identification and management.

scholarly journals A fatal toxic shock-like syndrome post COVID-19 infection in a child

2021 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Houda Ajmi ◽  
Wissem Besghaier ◽  
Wafa Kallala ◽  
Abdelhalim Trabelsi ◽  
Saoussan Abroug
Keyword(s):  
Ejection Fraction ◽  
Pediatric Intensive Care ◽  
Fresh Frozen Plasma ◽  
Multiple Organ ◽  
Clinical Feature ◽  
Fresh Frozen ◽  
Life Threatening ◽  
High Doses ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
High Level

Abstract Background Children affected by Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) showed various manifestations. Some of them were severe cases presenting with multi-system inflammatory syndrome (MIS-C) causing multiple organ dysfunction. Case presentation We report the case of a 12-year-old girl with recent COVID-19 infection who presented with persistent fever, abdominal pain and other symptoms that meet the definition of MIS-C. She had lymphopenia and a high level of inflammatory markers. She was admitted to pediatric intensive care unit since she rapidly developed refractory catecholamine-resistant shock with multiple organ failure. Echocardiography showed a small pericardial effusion with a normal ejection fraction (Ejection Fraction = 60%) and no valvular or coronary lesions. The child showed no signs of improvement even after receiving intravenous immunoglobulin, fresh frozen plasma, high doses of Vasopressors and corticosteroid. His outcome was fatal. Conclusion Pediatric patients affected by the new COVID-19 related syndrome may show severe life-threatening conditions similar to Kawasaki disease shock syndrome. Hypotension in these patients results from heart failure and the decreased cardiac output. We report a new severe clinical feature of SARS-CoV-2 infection in children in whom hypotension was the result of refractory vasoplegia.

scholarly journals An Efficient Module for Instance Segmentation Based on Multi-Level Features and Attention Mechanisms

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 968
Author(s):  
Yingchun Sun ◽  
Wang Gao ◽  
Shuguo Pan ◽  
Tao Zhao ◽  
Yahui Peng
Keyword(s):  
Feature Extraction ◽  
Spatial Structure ◽  
Semantic Feature ◽  
Semantic Features ◽  
Segmentation Method ◽  
Spatial Dimensions ◽  
Feature Pyramid ◽  
Multi Level ◽  
High Level ◽  
Instance Segmentation

Recently, multi-level feature networks have been extensively used in instance segmentation. However, because not all features are beneficial to instance segmentation tasks, the performance of networks cannot be adequately improved by synthesizing multi-level convolutional features indiscriminately. In order to solve the problem, an attention-based feature pyramid module (AFPM) is proposed, which integrates the attention mechanism on the basis of a multi-level feature pyramid network to efficiently and pertinently extract the high-level semantic features and low-level spatial structure features; for instance, segmentation. Firstly, we adopt a convolutional block attention module (CBAM) into feature extraction, and sequentially generate attention maps which focus on instance-related features along the channel and spatial dimensions. Secondly, we build inter-dimensional dependencies through a convolutional triplet attention module (CTAM) in lateral attention connections, which is used to propagate a helpful semantic feature map and filter redundant informative features irrelevant to instance objects. Finally, we construct branches for feature enhancement to strengthen detailed information to boost the entire feature hierarchy of the network. The experimental results on the Cityscapes dataset manifest that the proposed module outperforms other excellent methods under different evaluation metrics and effectively upgrades the performance of the instance segmentation method.

The Awkwardness of Australian Engagement with Asia: The Dilemmas of Australian Idea of Regionalism

2011 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 267-285 ◽  
Author(s):  
BAOGANG HE
Keyword(s):  
Regional Integration ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Asia Pacific ◽  
Full Member ◽  
Regional Institutions ◽  
International Power ◽  
Asian Context ◽  
High Level ◽  
Pacific Community

AbstractAustralia has experienced difficulties engaging with Asia-Pacific regional integration. Despite Australian attempts to punch above its weight in regional forums and to be a regional leader, it is still not regarded as a full member or as quite fitting into the region. It is an ‘awkward partner’ in the Asian context, and has experienced the ‘liminality’ of being neither here nor there. The former Rudd government's proposal for an ‘Asia Pacific Community’ (APC) by the year 2020 was a substantive initiative in Australia's ongoing engagement with Asia. It has, however, attracted a high level of criticism both at home and abroad. The main critical analysis of the proposal has focused on institutional building or architecture, or its relationship with existing regional institutions, but overlooks a host of often fraught questions about culture, norms, identities, and international power relations. The APC concept needs to be scrutinized in terms of these questions with a critical eye. This paper examines the cultural, cognitive, and normative dimensions of Rudd's proposal. It analyses four dilemmas or awkward problems that the APC faces.

PROCEDURE IN PATIENTS WITH HEART FAILURE (UPDATE 2019) – NON-PHARMACOLOGICAL THERAPY

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (53) ◽  
pp. 19-22
Author(s):  
Przemysław Mitkowski
Keyword(s):  
Heart Failure ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Pharmacological Therapy ◽  
Functional Mitral Regurgitation ◽  
Pharmacological Management ◽  
Device Implantation ◽  
Patients With Heart Failure ◽  
Life Threatening ◽  
Treatment Analysis ◽  
High Level

Up-date of ESC Guidelines on management of patients with heart failure was published last year. Beside topics related to pharmacological treatment one can find also chapters dedicated to non-pharmacological management. In the field of ICD therapy Authors propose one may consider not to implant the device in patients over 70 years old, especially when they suffer from advanced heart failure and life-threatening comorbidities. It is in contra with meta-analysis presented after results of DANISH trial has been published, which underlined benefits of ICD treatment in such patients. Moreover in patients randomized to treatment without ICD almost 60% received CRTP. It is also important that 24 patients randomized to no-ICD group finally received ICD because of appearance of life-threatening ventricular arrhythmia. In such situation additional on-treatment analysis would be beneficial. One can get an impression that pulmonary vein ablation in patients with heart failure and atrial fibrillation achieve enough high level of recommendation despite favourable results of CASTLE-AF and on-treatment analysis of CABANA trials. Analysis of data according to received treatment seemed to be beneficial especially when the percentage of crossover is significant. Functional mitral regurgitation should be managed after meaningful analysis of each case and referral to MitraClip implantation should be based on the protocol of COAPT trial which proves benefits of a such device implantation.

scholarly journals The Nature of Post-Traumatic Stress in Life-Threatening Diseases

Vestnik RFFI ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 49-58
Author(s):  
Natalia E. Kharlamenkova ◽  
Daria A. Nikitina
Keyword(s):  
Traumatic Stress ◽  
Post Traumatic Stress ◽  
Paranoid Ideation ◽  
Special Configuration ◽  
Psychological Study ◽  
Psychopathological Symptoms ◽  
Life Threatening ◽  
Post Traumatic ◽  
The Individual ◽  
High Level

This article presents the results of theoretical and empirical study of the psychological problems, which are arisen on the influence of high-intensity stressors on a personality. The post-traumatic stress, as a delayed complex response to a stress- or – a life-threatening disease, is considered as one of such consequences. On a sample of people (n = 39) diagnosed with meningioma (a benign tumor of the arachnoid mater), in the post-surgical period, a comprehensive psychological study was conducted using the interviewing and testing methods. The authors verified the hypothesis of a special configuration of personality characteristics and psychopathological symptoms at different levels of post-traumatic stress (PTS), caused by the reaction of the individual to the diagnosis of meningioma. The investigation demonstrates that at the high level of PTS such personality traits as depression, emotional lability, shyness and irritability are diagnosed, that are the most likely prerequisites for the development of psychopathological symptoms – depression, anxiety, paranoid ideation and psychoticism. It is concluded that the severe experience of post-traumatic stress, caused by the diagnosis of a life-threatening illness, systematically manifests itself at all levels of the individual functioning – organismal, psychological and social.

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