Indirect and atypical imaging signals of endometriosis: A wide range of manifestations

Background: Whilst some imaging signs of endometriosis are common and widely accepted as ‘typical’, a range of ‘subtle’ signs could be present in imaging studies, presenting an opportunity to the radiologist and the surgeon to aid the diagnosis and facilitate preoperative surgical planning. Objective: To summarise and analyse the current information related to indirect and atypical signs of endometriosis by ultrasound (US) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Methods: Through the use of PubMed and Google scholar, we conducted a comprehensive review of available articles related to the diagnosis of indirect signs in transvaginal US and MRI. All abstracts were assessed and the studies were finally selected by two authors. Results: Transvaginal US is a real time dynamic exploration, that can reach a sensitivity of 79-94% and specificity of 94%. It allows evaluation of normal sliding between structures in different compartments, searching for adhesions or fibrosis. MRI is an excellent tool that can reach a sensitivity of 94% and specificity of 77% and allows visualisation of the uterus, bowel loop deviation and peritoneal inclusion cysts. It also allows the categorisation and classification of ovarian cysts, rectovaginal and vesicovaginal septum obliteration, and small bowel endometriotic implants. Conclusion: The use of an adequate mapping protocol with systematic evaluation and the reporting of direct and indirect signs of endometriosis is crucial for detailed and safe surgical planning.

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Role of Cardiac MRI in Detecting Familial Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy: Review

Journal of Clinical and Health Sciences ◽

10.24191/jchs.v1i1.5846 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 1 (1) ◽

pp. 4

Author(s):

Marymol Koshy ◽

Bushra Johari ◽

Mohd Farhan Hamdan ◽

Mohammad Hanafiah

Keyword(s):

Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy ◽

Magnetic Resonance ◽

Genetic Disorder ◽

Familial Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy ◽

Non Invasive ◽

Wide Range ◽

Proper Diagnosis ◽

Magnetic Resonance Imaging Mri ◽

Potential Use

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is a global disease affecting people of various ethnic origins and both genders. HCM is a genetic disorder with a wide range of symptoms, including the catastrophic presentation of sudden cardiac death. Proper diagnosis and treatment of this disorder can relieve symptoms and prolong life. Non-invasive imaging is essential in diagnosing HCM. We present a review to deliberate the potential use of cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) imaging in HCM assessment and also identify the risk factors entailed with risk stratification of HCM based on Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI).

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Pituitary MRI characteristics in 297 acromegaly patients based on T2-weighted sequences

Endocrine Related Cancer ◽

10.1530/erc-14-0305 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 22 (2) ◽

pp. 169-177 ◽

Cited By ~ 46

Author(s):

Iulia Potorac ◽

Patrick Petrossians ◽

Adrian F Daly ◽

Franck Schillo ◽

Claude Ben Slama ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Large Population ◽

Optic Chiasm ◽

Research Priority ◽

Maximal Diameter ◽

Magnetic Resonance Imaging Mri ◽

Multimodal Management ◽

Mri Characteristics ◽

Weighted Sequences ◽

The Relationship

Responses of GH-secreting adenomas to multimodal management of acromegaly vary widely between patients. Understanding the behavioral patterns of GH-secreting adenomas by identifying factors predictive of their evolution is a research priority. The aim of this study was to clarify the relationship between the T2-weighted adenoma signal on diagnostic magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in acromegaly and clinical and biological features at diagnosis. An international, multicenter, retrospective analysis was performed using a large population of 297 acromegalic patients recently diagnosed with available diagnostic MRI evaluations. The study was conducted at ten endocrine tertiary referral centers. Clinical and biochemical characteristics, and MRI signal findings were evaluated. T2-hypointense adenomas represented 52.9% of the series, were smaller than their T2-hyperintense and isointense counterparts (P<0.0001), were associated with higher IGF1 levels (P=0.0001), invaded the cavernous sinus less frequently (P=0.0002), and rarely caused optic chiasm compression (P<0.0001). Acromegalic men tended to be younger at diagnosis than women (P=0.067) and presented higher IGF1 values (P=0.01). Although in total, adenomas had a predominantly inferior extension in 45.8% of cases, in men this was more frequent (P<0.0001), whereas in women optic chiasm compression of macroadenomas occurred more often (P=0.0067). Most adenomas (45.1%) measured between 11 and 20 mm in maximal diameter and bigger adenomas were diagnosed at younger ages (P=0.0001). The T2-weighted signal differentiates GH-secreting adenomas into subgroups with particular behaviors. This raises the question of whether the T2-weighted signal could represent a factor in the classification of acromegalic patients in future studies.

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Modes of Interaction in Naturally Occurring Medical Encounters With General Practitioners: The “One in a Million” Study

Qualitative Health Research ◽

10.1177/1049732321993790 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 104973232199379

Author(s):

Olaug S. Lian ◽

Sarah Nettleton ◽

Åge Wifstad ◽

Christopher Dowrick

Keyword(s):

General Practitioners ◽

Narrative Analysis ◽

Mode Competition ◽

General Applicability ◽

Naturally Occurring ◽

Wide Range ◽

The One ◽

Narrative Mode ◽

Modes Of Interaction

In this article, we qualitatively explore the manner and style in which medical encounters between patients and general practitioners (GPs) are mutually conducted, as exhibited in situ in 10 consultations sourced from the One in a Million: Primary Care Consultations Archive in England. Our main objectives are to identify interactional modes, to develop a classification of these modes, and to uncover how modes emerge and shift both within and between consultations. Deploying an interactional perspective and a thematic and narrative analysis of consultation transcripts, we identified five distinctive interactional modes: question and answer (Q&A) mode, lecture mode, probabilistic mode, competition mode, and narrative mode. Most modes are GP-led. Mode shifts within consultations generally map on to the chronology of the medical encounter. Patient-led narrative modes are initiated by patients themselves, which demonstrates agency. Our classification of modes derives from complete naturally occurring consultations, covering a wide range of symptoms, and may have general applicability.

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Uncertainty-Aware Deep Learning-Based Cardiac Arrhythmias Classification Model of Electrocardiogram Signals

Computers ◽

10.3390/computers10060082 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 10 (6) ◽

pp. 82

Author(s):

Ahmad O. Aseeri

Keyword(s):

Deep Learning ◽

Cardiac Arrhythmias ◽

Large Scale ◽

Clinical Decision Making ◽

Probabilistic Approach ◽

Classification Model ◽

Gating Mechanism ◽

Uncertainty Estimates ◽

Wide Range

Deep Learning-based methods have emerged to be one of the most effective and practical solutions in a wide range of medical problems, including the diagnosis of cardiac arrhythmias. A critical step to a precocious diagnosis in many heart dysfunctions diseases starts with the accurate detection and classification of cardiac arrhythmias, which can be achieved via electrocardiograms (ECGs). Motivated by the desire to enhance conventional clinical methods in diagnosing cardiac arrhythmias, we introduce an uncertainty-aware deep learning-based predictive model design for accurate large-scale classification of cardiac arrhythmias successfully trained and evaluated using three benchmark medical datasets. In addition, considering that the quantification of uncertainty estimates is vital for clinical decision-making, our method incorporates a probabilistic approach to capture the model’s uncertainty using a Bayesian-based approximation method without introducing additional parameters or significant changes to the network’s architecture. Although many arrhythmias classification solutions with various ECG feature engineering techniques have been reported in the literature, the introduced AI-based probabilistic-enabled method in this paper outperforms the results of existing methods in outstanding multiclass classification results that manifest F1 scores of 98.62% and 96.73% with (MIT-BIH) dataset of 20 annotations, and 99.23% and 96.94% with (INCART) dataset of eight annotations, and 97.25% and 96.73% with (BIDMC) dataset of six annotations, for the deep ensemble and probabilistic mode, respectively. We demonstrate our method’s high-performing and statistical reliability results in numerical experiments on the language modeling using the gating mechanism of Recurrent Neural Networks.

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A detailed analysis of anatomical plausibility of crossed and uncrossed streamline rendition of the dentato-rubro-thalamic tract (DRT(T)) in a commercial stereotactic planning system

Acta Neurochirurgica ◽

10.1007/s00701-021-04890-4 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Volker A. Coenen ◽

Bastian E. Sajonz ◽

Peter C. Reinacher ◽

Christoph P. Kaller ◽

Horst Urbach ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Surgical Planning ◽

Ground Truth ◽

Planning System ◽

Single Subject ◽

Fiber Structure ◽

Native Space ◽

Volume Of Interest ◽

Mri Scans ◽

Magnetic Resonance Imaging Mri ◽

The Individual

Abstract Background An increasing number of neurosurgeons use display of the dentato-rubro-thalamic tract (DRT) based on diffusion weighted imaging (dMRI) as basis for their routine planning of stimulation or lesioning approaches in stereotactic tremor surgery. An evaluation of the anatomical validity of the display of the DRT with respect to modern stereotactic planning systems and across different tracking environments has not been performed. Methods Distinct dMRI and anatomical magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data of high and low quality from 9 subjects were used. Six subjects had repeated MRI scans and therefore entered the analysis twice. Standardized DICOM structure templates for volume of interest definition were applied in native space for all investigations. For tracking BrainLab Elements (BrainLab, Munich, Germany), two tensor deterministic tracking (FT2), MRtrix IFOD2 (https://www.mrtrix.org), and a global tracking (GT) approach were used to compare the display of the uncrossed (DRTu) and crossed (DRTx) fiber structure after transformation into MNI space. The resulting streamlines were investigated for congruence, reproducibility, anatomical validity, and penetration of anatomical way point structures. Results In general, the DRTu can be depicted with good quality (as judged by waypoints). FT2 (surgical) and GT (neuroscientific) show high congruence. While GT shows partly reproducible results for DRTx, the crossed pathway cannot be reliably reconstructed with the other (iFOD2 and FT2) algorithms. Conclusion Since a direct anatomical comparison is difficult in the individual subjects, we chose a comparison with two research tracking environments as the best possible “ground truth.” FT2 is useful especially because of its manual editing possibilities of cutting erroneous fibers on the single subject level. An uncertainty of 2 mm as mean displacement of DRTu is expectable and should be respected when using this approach for surgical planning. Tractographic renditions of the DRTx on the single subject level seem to be still illusive.

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Classification of unlabeled online media

Scientific Reports ◽

10.1038/s41598-021-85608-5 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Sakthi Kumar Arul Prakash ◽

Conrad Tucker

Keyword(s):

Social Media ◽

Real World ◽

Graphical Model ◽

Ground Truth ◽

Classification Problem ◽

Machine Learning Algorithms ◽

Social Media Networks ◽

Online Social Media ◽

Wide Range

AbstractThis work investigates the ability to classify misinformation in online social media networks in a manner that avoids the need for ground truth labels. Rather than approach the classification problem as a task for humans or machine learning algorithms, this work leverages user–user and user–media (i.e.,media likes) interactions to infer the type of information (fake vs. authentic) being spread, without needing to know the actual details of the information itself. To study the inception and evolution of user–user and user–media interactions over time, we create an experimental platform that mimics the functionality of real-world social media networks. We develop a graphical model that considers the evolution of this network topology to model the uncertainty (entropy) propagation when fake and authentic media disseminates across the network. The creation of a real-world social media network enables a wide range of hypotheses to be tested pertaining to users, their interactions with other users, and with media content. The discovery that the entropy of user–user and user–media interactions approximate fake and authentic media likes, enables us to classify fake media in an unsupervised learning manner.

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Sequence data from isolated lichen-associated melanized fungi enhance delimitation of two new lineages within Chaetothyriomycetidae

Mycological Progress ◽

10.1007/s11557-021-01706-8 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 20 (7) ◽

pp. 911-927

Author(s):

Lucia Muggia ◽

Yu Quan ◽

Cécile Gueidan ◽

Abdullah M. S. Al-Hatmi ◽

Martin Grube ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Sequence Data ◽

Single Species ◽

Sister Group ◽

Asexual Propagation ◽

Dna Sequence Data ◽

Wide Range ◽

The Family ◽

Rock Inhabiting Fungi ◽

Stable Habitat

AbstractLichen thalli provide a long-lived and stable habitat for colonization by a wide range of microorganisms. Increased interest in these lichen-associated microbial communities has revealed an impressive diversity of fungi, including several novel lineages which still await formal taxonomic recognition. Among these, members of the Eurotiomycetes and Dothideomycetes usually occur asymptomatically in the lichen thalli, even if they share ancestry with fungi that may be parasitic on their host. Mycelia of the isolates are characterized by melanized cell walls and the fungi display exclusively asexual propagation. Their taxonomic placement requires, therefore, the use of DNA sequence data. Here, we consider recently published sequence data from lichen-associated fungi and characterize and formally describe two new, individually monophyletic lineages at family, genus, and species levels. The Pleostigmataceae fam. nov. and Melanina gen. nov. both comprise rock-inhabiting fungi that associate with epilithic, crust-forming lichens in subalpine habitats. The phylogenetic placement and the monophyly of Pleostigmataceae lack statistical support, but the family was resolved as sister to the order Verrucariales. This family comprises the species Pleostigma alpinum sp. nov., P. frigidum sp. nov., P. jungermannicola, and P. lichenophilum sp. nov. The placement of the genus Melanina is supported as a lineage within the Chaetothyriales. To date, this genus comprises the single species M. gunde-cimermaniae sp. nov. and forms a sister group to a large lineage including Herpotrichiellaceae, Chaetothyriaceae, Cyphellophoraceae, and Trichomeriaceae. The new phylogenetic analysis of the subclass Chaetothyiomycetidae provides new insight into genus and family level delimitation and classification of this ecologically diverse group of fungi.

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Evaluating process-based integrated assessment models of climate change mitigation

Climatic Change ◽

10.1007/s10584-021-03099-9 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 166 (1-2) ◽

Author(s):

Charlie Wilson ◽

Céline Guivarch ◽

Elmar Kriegler ◽

Bas van Ruijven ◽

Detlef P. van Vuuren ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Integrated Assessment ◽

Climate Change Mitigation ◽

Evaluation Method ◽

Evaluation Research ◽

Evaluation Framework ◽

Systematic Evaluation ◽

Integrated Assessment Models ◽

Wide Range ◽

Change Mitigation

AbstractProcess-based integrated assessment models (IAMs) project long-term transformation pathways in energy and land-use systems under what-if assumptions. IAM evaluation is necessary to improve the models’ usefulness as scientific tools applicable in the complex and contested domain of climate change mitigation. We contribute the first comprehensive synthesis of process-based IAM evaluation research, drawing on a wide range of examples across six different evaluation methods including historical simulations, stylised facts, and model diagnostics. For each evaluation method, we identify progress and milestones to date, and draw out lessons learnt as well as challenges remaining. We find that each evaluation method has distinctive strengths, as well as constraints on its application. We use these insights to propose a systematic evaluation framework combining multiple methods to establish the appropriateness, interpretability, credibility, and relevance of process-based IAMs as useful scientific tools for informing climate policy. We also set out a programme of evaluation research to be mainstreamed both within and outside the IAM community.

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An improved framework for brain tumor analysis using MRI based on YOLOv2 and convolutional neural network

Complex & Intelligent Systems ◽

10.1007/s40747-021-00310-3 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Muhammad Irfan Sharif ◽

Jian Ping Li ◽

Javeria Amin ◽

Abida Sharif

Keyword(s):

Brain Tumor ◽

Tumor Detection ◽

Entropy Method ◽

Feature Extraction And Selection ◽

Tumor Region ◽

Selection For ◽

Magnetic Resonance Imaging Mri ◽

The Brain ◽

Complicated Task

AbstractBrain tumor is a group of anomalous cells. The brain is enclosed in a more rigid skull. The abnormal cell grows and initiates a tumor. Detection of tumor is a complicated task due to irregular tumor shape. The proposed technique contains four phases, which are lesion enhancement, feature extraction and selection for classification, localization, and segmentation. The magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) images are noisy due to certain factors, such as image acquisition, and fluctuation in magnetic field coil. Therefore, a homomorphic wavelet filer is used for noise reduction. Later, extracted features from inceptionv3 pre-trained model and informative features are selected using a non-dominated sorted genetic algorithm (NSGA). The optimized features are forwarded for classification after which tumor slices are passed to YOLOv2-inceptionv3 model designed for the localization of tumor region such that features are extracted from depth-concatenation (mixed-4) layer of inceptionv3 model and supplied to YOLOv2. The localized images are passed toMcCulloch'sKapur entropy method to segment actual tumor region. Finally, the proposed technique is validated on three benchmark databases BRATS 2018, BRATS 2019, and BRATS 2020 for tumor detection. The proposed method achieved greater than 0.90 prediction scores in localization, segmentation and classification of brain lesions. Moreover, classification and segmentation outcomes are superior as compared to existing methods.

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Introduction of a new AAC symbol classification system: the multidimensional quaternary symbol continuum (MQSC)

Journal of Enabling Technologies ◽

10.1108/jet-04-2021-0024 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽

Author(s):

Eliada Pampoulou ◽

Donald R. Fuller

Keyword(s):

Peer Review ◽

Classification System ◽

Augmentative And Alternative Communication ◽

Social Issues ◽

Content Type ◽

Design Attributes ◽

Wide Range ◽

Current Classification ◽

Symbol Classification

PurposeWhen the augmentative and alternative communication (ACC) model (Lloyd et al., 1990) was proposed, these components of symbols were not considered, nor were they contemplated when superordinate (Lloyd and Fuller, 1986) and subordinate levels (Fuller et al., 1992) of AAC symbol taxonomy were developed. The purpose of this paper is to revisit the ACC model and propose a new symbol classification system called multidimensional quaternary symbol continuum (MQSC)Design/methodology/approachThe field of AAC is evolving at a rapid rate in terms of its clinical, social, research and theoretical underpinnings. Advances in assessment and intervention methods, technology and social issues are all responsible to some degree for the significant changes that have occurred in the field of AAC over the last 30 years. For example, the number of aided symbol collections has increased almost exponentially over the past couple of decades. The proliferation of such a large variety of symbol collections represents a wide range of design attributes, physical attributes and linguistic characteristics for aided symbols and design attributes and linguistic characteristics for unaided symbols.FindingsTherefore, it may be time to revisit the AAC model and more specifically, one of its transmission processes referred to as the means to represent.Originality/valueThe focus of this theoretical paper then, is on the current classification of symbols, issues with respect to the current classification of symbols in terms of ambiguity of terminology and the evolution of symbols, and a proposal for a new means of classifying the means to represent.Peer reviewThe peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon10.1108/JET-04-2021-0024

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