The additional value of ONEST (Observers Needed to Evaluate Subjective Tests) in assessing reproducibility of oestrogen receptor, progesterone receptor, and Ki67 classification in breast cancer

The reproducibility of assessing potential biomarkers is crucial for their implementation. ONEST (Observers Needed to Evaluate Subjective Tests) has been recently introduced as a new additive evaluation method for the assessment of reliability, by demonstrating how the number of observers impact on interobserver agreement. Oestrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR), and Ki67 proliferation marker immunohistochemical stainings were assessed on 50 core needle biopsy and 50 excision samples from breast cancers by 9 pathologists according to daily practice. ER and PR statuses based on the percentages of stained nuclei were the most consistently assessed parameters (intraclass correlation coefficients, ICC 0.918–0.996), whereas Ki67 with 5 different theoretical or St Gallen Consensus Conference–proposed cut-off values demonstrated moderate to good reproducibility (ICC: 0.625–0.760). ONEST highlighted that consistent tests like ER and PR assessment needed only 2 or 3 observers for optimal evaluation of reproducibility, and the width between plots of the best and worst overall percent agreement values for 100 randomly selected permutations of observers was narrow. In contrast, with less consistently evaluated tests of Ki67 categorization, ONEST suggested at least 5 observers required for more trustful assessment of reliability, and the bandwidth of the best and worst plots was wider (up to 34% difference between two observers). ONEST has additional value to traditional calculations of the interobserver agreement by not only highlighting the number of observers needed to trustfully evaluate reproducibility but also by highlighting the rate of agreement with an increasing number of observers and disagreement between the better and worse ratings.

VALUE OF P300 AS A SCREENING TOOL OF COGNITIVE IMPAIRMENT IN EPILEPSY: A PROSPECTIVE STUDY FROM INDIA

Objective. Preservation of cognition is essential for good quality life. Epileptic pathological processes and pharmacotherapy are thought to be responsible for the cognitive dysfunction (CDF) in persons with epilepsy (PWE). Regular monitoring of persons on antiepileptic drugs (AED) for CDF is recommended. P300, an attention dependent event related potential (ERP), is known to be abnormal in PWE. The value of P300 in monitoring cognitive functions has not been tested prospectively. Material and methods. PWE not exposed to AED in preceding 6 months were recruited and prescribed one of the three common AEDs i.e. carbamazepine, phenytoin and valproate. Subjective tests of cognition-MoCA, Trail making test, Paragraph memory tests, Stroop test in addition to P300 ERP were administered before initiating AED and repeated after three months on the prescribed AED. The significance of the change in the scores of cognitive tools and P300 latency was ascertained by paired t-test. Outcome. Thirty eight PWE (females 18, mean age mean = 22.89±9.39 yr) qualified the inclusion criterion. The values of P300 latency and deployed subjective tests of cognition at two data collection points were compared with the clinical profile of the patients. Performance of the patients deteriorated on all the cognitive batteries after exposure to AED (mean 107.84±19.2 days). The deterioration was independent of education level, type of AED and seizures. Prolongation of P300 latency from baseline was seen in 30 of 38 patients (78.94%). The sensitivity of P300 for picking cognitive dysfunction was 80.64% taking MoCA scores as a reference. Conclusions. Attention along with several other domains of cognition is affected adversely with AED exposure. The P300 could be useful for monitoring cognitive adverse effects of AED in PWE.

On the Effect of Standing and Seated Viewing of 360∘ Videos on Subjective Quality Assessment: A Pilot Study

Due to the advances in head-mounted displays (HMDs), hardware and software technologies, and mobile connectivity, virtual reality (VR) applications such as viewing 360∘ videos on HMDs have seen an increased interest in a wide range of consumer and vertical markets. Quality assessment of digital media systems and services related to immersive visual stimuli has been one of the challenging problems of multimedia signal processing. Specifically, subjective quality assessment of 360∘ videos presented on HMDs is needed to obtain a ground truth on the visual quality as perceived by humans. Standardized test methodologies to assess the subjective quality of 360∘ videos on HMDs are currently not as developed as for conventional videos and are subject to further study. In addition, subjective tests related to quality assessment of 360∘ videos are commonly conducted with participants seated on a chair but neglect other options of consumption such as standing viewing. In this paper, we compare the effect that standing and seated viewing of 360∘ videos on an HMD has on subjective quality assessment. A pilot study was conducted to obtain psychophysical and psychophysiological data that covers explicit and implicit responses of the participants to the shown 360∘ video stimuli with different quality levels. The statistical analysis of the data gathered in the pilot study is reported in terms of average rating times, mean opinion scores, standard deviation of opinion scores, head movements, pupil diameter, galvanic skin response (GSR), and simulator sickness scores. The results indicate that the average rating times consumed for 360∘ video quality assessment are similar for standing and seated viewing. Further, the participants showed higher resolving power among different 360∘ video quality levels and were more confident about the given opinion scores for seated viewing. On the other hand, a larger scene exploration of 360∘ videos was observed for standing viewing which appears to distract from the quality assessment task. A slightly higher pupil dilation was recorded for standing viewing which suggests a slightly more immersed experience compared to seated viewing. GSR data indicate a lower degree of emotional arousal in seated viewing which seems to allow the participants to better conduct the quality assessment task. Similarly, simulator sickness symptoms are kept significantly lower when seated. The pilot study also contributes to a holistic view of subjective quality assessment and provides indicative ground truth that can guide the design of large-scale subjective tests.

Employing Subjective Tests and Deep Learning for Discovering the Relationship between Personality Types and Preferred Music Genres

The purpose of this research is two-fold: (a) to explore the relationship between the listeners’ personality trait, i.e., extraverts and introverts and their preferred music genres, and (b) to predict the personality trait of potential listeners on the basis of a musical excerpt by employing several classification algorithms. We assume that this may help match songs according to the listener’s personality in social music networks. First, an Internet survey was built, in which the respondents identify themselves as extraverts or introverts according to the given definitions. Their task was to listen to music excerpts that belong to several music genres and choose the ones they like. Next, music samples were parameterized. Two parametrization schemes were employed for that purpose, i.e., low-level MIRtoolbox parameters (MIRTbx) and variational autoencoder neural network-based, which automatically extract parameters of musical excerpts. The prediction of a personality type was performed employing four baseline algorithms, i.e., support vector machine (SVM), k-nearest neighbors (k-NN), random forest (RF), and naïve Bayes (NB). The best results were obtained by the SVM classifier. The results of these analyses led to the conclusion that musical excerpt features derived from the autoencoder were, in general, more likely to carry useful information associated with the personality of the listeners than the low-level parameters derived from the signal analysis. We also found that training of the autoencoders on sets of musical pieces which contain genres other than ones employed in the subjective tests did not affect the accuracy of the classifiers predicting the personalities of the survey participants.

ANALYSIS OF ALL-PASS FILTERS APPLICATION TO ELIMINATE NEGATIVE EFFECTS OF LOUDNESS WAR TREND

In this paper the influence of all-pass filters on musical material with applied hypercompression dynamics (loudness war trend) was analyzed. These filters are characterized by shifting phase in selected frequency band of signal, not by change of their amplitude levels. Because a lot of music information is present in music tracks, the dynamic range was tested together with influence of other sound parameters like selectivity or instruments’ arrangement on scene, by running subjective tests on a group of respondents.

Kegiatan “Bersama Orang Tua” Terhadap Kreativitas Belajar Siswa SDN Tenggilis Mejoyo I Surabaya

In the curriculum 2013 there are student activities with parents (formerly with homework/PR) is expected to develop and add activities according to the conditions and abilities of parents and students. Interaction between parents and students is very important to build a learning experience that can be at school an inseparable part of life at home. This study aims to find out how student activities with parents influence the learning creativity of first grade students at SDN Tenggilis Mejoyo I Surabaya. This type of research is quantitative, in collecting data using observation techniques and subjective tests with data analysis techniques using the percentage formula and Product Moment. The results found a positive relationship between activities with parents at home on student learning creativity with a pretty good correlation.