Intraoperative Digital Analysis of Ablation Margins (DAAM) by Fluorescent Confocal Microscopy to Improve Partial Prostate Gland Cryoablation Outcomes

Partial gland cryoablation (PGC) aims at destroying prostate cancer (PCa) foci while sparing the unaffected prostate tissue and the functionally relevant structures around the prostate. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) has boosted PGC, but available evidence suggests that ablation margins may be positive due to MRI-invisible lesions. This study aimed at determining the potential role of intraoperative digital analysis of ablation margins (DAAM) by fluoresce confocal microscopy (FCM) of biopsy cores taken during prostate PGC. Ten patients with low to intermediate risk PCa scheduled for PGC were enrolled. After cryo-needles placement, 76 biopsy cores were taken from the ablation margins and stained by the urologist for FCM analysis. Digital images were sent for “real-time” pathology review. DAAM, always completed within the frame of PGC treatment (median time 25 min), pointed out PCa in 1/10 cores taken from 1 patient, thus prompting placement of another cryo-needle to treat this area. Standard HE evaluation confirmed 75 cores to be cancer-free while displayed a GG 4 PCa in 7% of the core positive at FCM. Our data point out that IDAAM is feasible and reliable, thus representing a potentially useful tool to reduce the risk of missing areas of PCa during PGC.

Effects of mitomycin C at different exposure time on the morphology of corneal endothelial cells in LASEK surgery

AIM: To investigate the effects of mitomycin C (MMC) on corneal endothelial cells at different exposure time during laser-assisted subepithelial keratomileusis (LASEK). METHODS: Patients who received LASEK were included and divided into Group T1 (15s≤t≤45s) and T2 (5s<t≤70s) based on the exposure time of MMC with corneal stroma. Cell density (CD) of corneal endothelial cells in central and peripheral cornea, average cell area (ACA), area standard deviation (SD), coefficient of variation (CV) and percentage of hexagonal cells (HEX) before surgery and at 1wk, 1, 3 and 6mo after surgery were compared between and within the groups. RESULTS: A total of 196 eyes of 98 patients were included with 98 eyes in Group T1 and 98 eyes in Group T2. With the exception of peripheral ACA, central CV and HEX in Group T1 and T2, which significantly changed at 1wk after the surgery (P<0.05), there was no significant difference in central and peripheral parameters within both groups or between the groups (P>0.05). CONCLUSION: Although transient acute changes in central CV and HEX and peripheral ACA were observed, there is no significant effect on the long-term corneal health status when MMC is applied in a reasonable time range in LASEK surgery.

Signature Verification using Edge Detection and Oc-Svm

There are many researches going on in the field of Image processing to find an accurate model for detection of forged signatures. It is compulsory to select appropriate algorithm for achieving best results. Many have implemented the available algorithms like LBP, HOG, geometric features and some have designed their own extraction techniques like Histogram of template and mixture of many complex algorithms to detect the forgeries. In our model we extracted edge features of the image using canny edge detection and then extracted features using HOG and then we calculated area, standard deviation, centroid, kurtosis etc. for the edge image which give a feature vector of length 262. There is little research towards one class SVM or outlier detection. We trained our model with different kernels of SVM to find which kernel gives best result. This OC-SVM will be very helpful than a multi class SVM as we will be having only original signatures of the users and not forged so it will be best to use though it is very sensitive it can be used even in the real world.

Mobile phone data analysis guidelines: applications to monitoring physical distancing and modeling COVID-19

There has been a recent surge of interest in using mobility data from mobile phones to monitor social distancing and model the spread of SARS-COV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Despite several years of research in this area, standard frameworks for aggregating and making use of different data streams from mobile phones are lacking and difficult to generalize across data providers. Here, we provide a comprehensive set of guidelines for aggregation principles and procedures for different mobile phone data streams, and describe how aggregated data are used in research and policy. We argue that the principles of privacy and data protection are critical in assessing more technical aspects of aggregation, and should be an important central feature guiding partnerships with governments who make use of research products.

Forest Habitats in the Nature Reserve ROSCI 0032 Rudariei Gorges

The Rudăriei Gorges, named after the Rudărica rivulet, is close to the Eftimie Murgu village, also known by the name of Rudăria. It is located in south-west Romania, Caras-Severin County, Almăjului Depression. It is known both in Romania and abroad less for its flora, fauna and landscape features and most for its mill reserve, where water mills are still used by the natives. The paper has as purpose, establishment of forest habitats in the area of ​​research. At the same time the work wants to clarify inconsistencies on the types of forest habitats reported to be present in accordance with the Standard Form of the site of community importance ROSCI0032 and habitats identified in the field. The methodology is specific to the identification and characterization of habitats. Field survey (during vegetation, March-October) showed that the vegetation in the area was mosaic-like, which hindered habitat mapping. Moreover, we have noticed differences between the habitats mentioned for the area (Standard Form) and those identified in the field. Thus, the Standard Form of ROSCI0032 Cheile Rudăriei mentions as existing in the area the habitat 91K0 - Illyrian Fagus sylvatica forests (Aremonio-Fagion), but in the field there were found no species representative for this type of habitat. According to our studies, the beech forests in the Rudăriei Gorges are part of the Habitat 9110 - Luzulo-Fagetum beech forests. Other new habitats described in the area and not mentioned in the Standard Form are 91E0* - Alluvial forests with Alnus glutinosa and Fraxinus excelsior (Alno-Padion, Alnion incanae, Salicion albae); 91M0 – Pannonian-Balkanic turkey oak – sessile oak forests. The habitat 9180* - Tilio-Acerion forests of slopes, screes and ravines, mentioned in the Standard Form, was confirmed in the field.

Comparison of the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale: Form L-M and the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale Fourth Edition

Composite standard age scores and the four Area standard age scores of the Standard-Binet Fourth Edition (SBIV) were each compared to the Stanford-Binet Form L-M IQs of 30 11-yr.-old public school children. The Pearson correlation of the total scores was .72, while the correlations of the SBIV Area scores and Form L-M IQs ranged from .81 (Verbal Reasoning vs L-M), .72 (Quantitative Reasoning vs L-M), .47 (Short-term Memory vs L-M) to .40 (Abstract/Visual Reasoning vs L-M). Classification by IQ suggested that both tests tend to categorize individuals similarly, and no sex biases were obtained.