Abstract: Patients with diabetes are susceptible to chronic foot
wounds which may be difficult to manage and slow to heal.
Diagnosis and treatment currently rely on the subjective judgement of
experienced professionals. An objective method of tissue assessment
is required. In this paper, a data fusion approach was taken to wound
tissue classification. The supervised Maximum Likelihood and
unsupervised Multi-Modal Expectation Maximisation algorithms
were used to classify tissues within simulated wound models by
weighting the contributions of both colour and 3D depth information.
It was found that, at low weightings, depth information could show
significant improvements in classification accuracy when compared
to classification by colour alone, particularly when using the
maximum likelihood method. However, larger weightings were
found to have an entirely negative effect on accuracy.
Abstract: Psoriasis is a chronic inflammatory skin condition
which affects 2-3% of population around the world. Psoriasis Area
and Severity Index (PASI) is a gold standard to assess psoriasis
severity as well as the treatment efficacy. Although a gold standard,
PASI is rarely used because it is tedious and complex. In practice,
PASI score is determined subjectively by dermatologists, therefore
inter and intra variations of assessment are possible to happen even
among expert dermatologists. This research develops an algorithm to
assess psoriasis lesion for PASI scoring objectively. Focus of this
research is thickness assessment as one of PASI four parameters
beside area, erythema and scaliness. Psoriasis lesion thickness is
measured by averaging the total elevation from lesion base to lesion
surface. Thickness values of 122 3D images taken from 39 patients
are grouped into 4 PASI thickness score using K-means clustering.
Validation on lesion base construction is performed using twelve
body curvature models and show good result with coefficient of
determinant (R2) is equal to 1.
Abstract: Atherosclerosis is the condition in which an artery
wall thickens as the result of a build-up of fatty materials such as
cholesterol. It is a syndrome affecting arterial blood vessels, a
chronic inflammatory response in the walls of arteries, in large part
due to the accumulation of macrophage white blood cells and
promoted by low density (especially small particle) lipoproteins
(plasma proteins that carry cholesterol and triglycerides) without
adequate removal of fats and cholesterol from the macrophages by
functional high density lipoproteins (HDL). It is commonly referred
to as a hardening or furring of the arteries. It is caused by the
formation of multiple plaques within the arteries.
Abstract: TTV is an unenveloped circular single-stranded DNA
virus with a diameter of 30-32 nm that first was described in 1997 in
Japan. TTV was detected in various populations without proven
pathology, including blood donors and in patients with chronic HBV
and HCV hepatitis. The aim of this study was to determine the
prevalence of TTV DNA in Iranian patients with chronic hepatitis B
and C. Viral TTV-DNA was studied in 442 samples (202 with HBV,
138 with HCV and 102 controls) collected from west south of Iran.
All extracted serum DNA was amplified by TTV ORF1 gene specific
primers using the semi nested PCR technique. TTV DNA was
detected in the serum of 8.9% and 10.8% patients with chronic
hepatitis B and C, respectively. Prevalence of TTV-DNA in the serum
of 102 controls was 2.9%. Results showed significant relation of TTV
with HBV and HCV in patients by using T test examination (P
Abstract: Combined therapy using Interferon and Ribavirin is the standard treatment in patients with chronic hepatitis C. However, the number of responders to this treatment is low, whereas its cost and side effects are high. Therefore, there is a clear need to predict patient’s response to the treatment based on clinical information to protect the patients from the bad drawbacks, Intolerable side effects and waste of money. Different machine learning techniques have been developed to fulfill this purpose. From these techniques are Associative Classification (AC) and Decision Tree (DT). The aim of this research is to compare the performance of these two techniques in the prediction of virological response to the standard treatment of HCV from clinical information. 200 patients treated with Interferon and Ribavirin; were analyzed using AC and DT. 150 cases had been used to train the classifiers and 50 cases had been used to test the classifiers. The experiment results showed that the two techniques had given acceptable results however the best accuracy for the AC reached 92% whereas for DT reached 80%.
Abstract: Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a chronic
relapsing-remitting condition that afflicts millions of people
throughout the world and impairs their daily functions and quality of
life. Treatment of IBD depends largely on 5-aminosalicylic acid (5-
ASA) and corticosteroids. The present study aimed to clarify the
effects of 5-aminosalicylic acid, budesonide and currcumin on 90
male albino rats against trinitrobenzene sulfonic acid (TNB) induced
colitis. TNB was injected intrarectally to 50 rats. The other 40 rats
served as control groups. Both 5-ASA (in a dose of 120 mg/kg) and
budesonide (in a dose of 0.1 mg/kg) were administered daily for one
week whereas currcumin was injected intraperitonially (in a dose of
30 mg/kg daily) for 14 days after injection of either TNB in the
colitis rats (group B) or saline in control groups (group A). The study
included estimation of macroscopic score index, histological
examination of H&E stained sections of the colonic tissue,
biochemical estimation of myeloperoxidase (MPO), nitric oxide
(NO), and caspase-3 levels, in addition to studying the effect of tested
drugs on colonic motility. It was found that budesonide and curcumin
improved mucosal healing, reduced both NO production and caspase-
3 level. They had the best impact on the disturbed colonic motility in
TNBS-model of colitis.
Abstract: A registration framework for image-guided robotic
surgery is proposed for three emergency neurosurgical procedures,
namely Intracranial Pressure (ICP) Monitoring, External Ventricular
Drainage (EVD) and evacuation of a Chronic Subdural Haematoma
(CSDH). The registration paradigm uses CT and white light as
modalities. This paper presents two simulation studies for a
preliminary evaluation of the registration protocol: (1) The loci of the
Target Registration Error (TRE) in the patient-s axial, coronal and
sagittal views were simulated based on a Fiducial Localisation Error
(FLE) of 5 mm and (2) Simulation of the actual framework using
projected views from a surface rendered CT model to represent white
light images of the patient. Craniofacial features were employed as
the registration basis to map the CT space onto the simulated
intraoperative space. Photogrammetry experiments on an artificial
skull were also performed to benchmark the results obtained from the
second simulation. The results of both simulations show that the
proposed protocol can provide a 5mm accuracy for these
neurosurgical procedures.
Abstract: In recent years in Kazakhstan, as well as in all countries, we have been talking not only about the professional stress, but also professional Burnout Syndrome of employees. Burnout is essentially a response to chronic emotional stress – manifests itself in the form of chronic fatigue, despondency, unmotivated aggression, anger, and others. This condition is due to mental fatigue among teachers as a sort of payment for overstrain when professional commitments include the impact of “heat your soul", emotional investment. The emergence of professional Burnout among teachers is due to the system of interrelated and mutually reinforcing factors relating to the various levels of the personality: individually-psychological level is psychodynamic special subject characteristics of valuemotivational sphere and formation of skills and habits of selfregulation; the socio-psychological level includes especially the Organization and interpersonal interaction of a teacher. Signs of the Burnout were observed in 15 testees, and virtually a symptom could be observed in every teacher. As a result of the diagnosis 48% of teachers had the signs of stress (phase syndrome), resulting in a sense of anxiety, mood, heightened emotional susceptibility. The following results have also been got:-the fall of General energy potential – 14 pers. -Psychosomatic and psycho vegetative syndrome – 26 pers. -emotional deficit-34 pers. -emotional Burnout Syndrome-6 pers. The problem of professional Burnout of teachers in the current conditions should become not only meaningful, but particularly relevant. The quality of education of the younger generation depends on professional development; teachers- training level, and how “healthy" teachers are. That is why the systematic maintenance of pedagogic-professional development for teachers (including disclosure of professional Burnout Syndrome factors) takes on a special meaning.
Abstract: Diabetes Mellitus is a chronic metabolic disorder, where the improper management of the blood glucose level in the diabetic patients will lead to the risk of heart attack, kidney disease and renal failure. This paper attempts to enhance the diagnostic accuracy of the advancing blood glucose levels of the diabetic patients, by combining principal component analysis and wavelet neural network. The proposed system makes separate blood glucose prediction in the morning, afternoon, evening and night intervals, using dataset from one patient covering a period of 77 days. Comparisons of the diagnostic accuracy with other neural network models, which use the same dataset are made. The comparison results showed overall improved accuracy, which indicates the effectiveness of this proposed system.
Abstract: Thyroid dysfunction is one of the most frequently
reported complications of chronic blood transfusion therapy in patients with beta-thalassemia major (BTM). However, the occurrence of thyroid dysfunction and its possible association with
iron overload in BTM patients is still under debate. Therefore, this
study aimed to investigate the status of thyroid functions and iron overload in adolescent and young adult patients with BTM in Jordan population. Thirty six BTM patients aged 12-28 years and matched controls were included in this study. All patients have been receiving frequent blood transfusion to maintain pretransfusion hemoglobin
concentration above 10 g dl-1 and deferoxamine at a dose of 45 mg kg-1 day-1 (8 h, 5-7 days/week) by subcutaneous infusion. Blood
samples were drawn from patients and controls. The status of thyroid functions and iron overload was evaluated by measurements of serum
free thyroxine (FT4), triiodothyronine (FT3), thyrotropin (TSH) and
serum ferritin level. A number of some hematological and
biochemical parameters were also measured. It was found that hematocrit, serum ferritin, hemoglobin, FT3 and zinc, copper mean values were significantly higher in the patients than in the controls (P< 0.05). On other hand, leukocyte, FT4 and TSH mean values were
similar to that of the controls. In addition, our data also indicated that
all of the above examined parameters were not significantly affected
by the patient-s age and gender. Deferoxamine approach for removing excess iron from our BTM patient did not normalize the
values of serum ferritin, copper and zinc, suggesting poor compliance
with deferoxamine chelation therapy. Thus, we recommend the use
of a combination of deferoxamine and deferiprone to reduce the risk
of excess of iron in our patients. Furthermore, thyroid dysfunction
appears to be a rare complication, because our patients showed
normal mean levels for serum TSH and FT4. However, high mean
levels of serum ferritin, zinc, copper might be seen as potential risk
factors for initiation and development of thyroid dysfunctions and
other diseases. Therefore, further studies must be carried out at
yearly intervals with large sample number, to detect subclinical
thyroid dysfunction cases.
Abstract: Malaria is a serious, acute and chronic relapsing
infection to humans. It is characterized by periodic attacks of chills,
fever, nausea, vomiting, back pain, increased sweating anemia,
splenomegaly (enlargement of the spleen) and often-fatal
complications.The malaria disease is caused by the multiplication of
protozoa parasite of the genus Plasmodium. Malaria in humans is due
to 4 types of malaria parasites such that Plasmodium falciparum,
Plasmodium vivax, Plasmodium malariae and Plasmodium ovale.
P.vivax malaria differs from P. falciparum malaria in that a person
suffering from P. vivax malaria can experience relapses of the
disease. Between the relapses, the malaria parasite will remain
dormant in the liver of the patient, leading to the patient being
classified as being in the dormant class. A mathematical model for
the transmission of P. vivax is developed in which the human
population is divided into four classes, the susceptible, the infected,
the dormant and the recovered. In this paper, we formulate the
dynamical model of P. vivax malaria to see the distribution of this
disease at the district level.
Abstract: For evaluating the severity of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), one is interested in inspecting the airway wall thickening due to inflammation. Although airway segmentations have being well developed to reconstruct in high order, airway wall segmentation remains a challenge task. While tackling such problem as a multi-surface segmentation, the interrelation within surfaces needs to be considered. We propose a new method for three-dimensional airway wall segmentation using spring structural active contour model. The method incorporates the gravitational field of the image and repelling force field of the inner lumen as the soft constraint and the geometric spring structure of active contour as the hard constraint to approximate a three-dimensional coupled surface readily for thickness measurements. The results show the preservation of topology constraints of coupled surfaces. In conclusion, our springy, soft-tissue-like structure ensures the globally optimal solution and waives the shortness following by the inevitable improper inner surface constraint.
Abstract: In article the data of chronic toxicity for pre-clinical
researches of Ramon preparation is described. Ramon effects to
hormone system and gastrointestinal tract; local irritative effect,
allergic, pyrogenic properties and reaction to the immune system
were studied.
Abstract: Atherosclerosis was identified as a chronic inflammatory process resulting from interactions between plasma lipoproteins, cellular components (monocyte, macrophages, T lymphocytes, endothelial cells and smooth muscle cells) and the extracellular matrix of the arterial wall. Several types of genes were known to express during formation of atherosclerosis. This study is carried out to identify unknown differentially expressed gene (DEG) in atherogenesis. Rabbit’s aorta tissues were stained by H&E for histomorphology. GeneFishing™ PCR analysis was performed from total RNA extracted from the aorta tissues. The DNA fragment from DEG was cloned, sequenced and validated by Real-time PCR. Histomorphology showed intimal thickening in the aorta. DEG detected from ACP-41 was identified as cathepsin B gene and showed upregulation at week-8 and week-12 of atherogenesis. Therefore, ACP-based GeneFishing™ PCR facilitated identification of cathepsin B gene which was differentially expressed during development of atherosclerosis.
Abstract: Consumer behaviour analysis represents an important
field of study in marketing. Particularly strategy development for
marketing and communications will be more focused and effective
when marketers have an understanding of the motivations, behaviour
and psychology of consumers. While materialism has been found to
be one of the important elements in consumer behaviour, compulsive
consumption represents another aspect that has recently attracted
more attention. This is because of the growing prevalence of
dysfunctional buying that has raised concern in consumer societies.
Present studies and analyses on origins and motivations of
compulsive buying have mainly focused on either individual factors
or groups of related factors and hence a need for a holistic view
exists. This paper provides a comprehensive perspective on
compulsive consumption and establishes relevant propositions
keeping the family life cycle stages as a reference for the incidence of
chronic consumer states and their influence on compulsive
consumption.
Abstract: Medical compression bandages are widely used in the
treatment of chronic venous disorder. In order to design effective
compression bandages, researchers have attempted to describe the
interface pressure applied by multi-layer bandages using mathematical
models. This paper reports on the work carried out to
compare and validate the mathematical models used to describe the
interface pressure applied by multi-layer bandages. Both analytical
and experimental results showed that using simple multiplication
of a number of bandage layers with the pressure applied by one
layer of bandage or ignoring the increase in the limb radius due to
former layers of bandage will result in overestimating the pressure.
Experimental results showed that the mathematical models, which
take into consideration the increase in the limb radius due to former
bandage layers, are more accurate than the one which does not.
Abstract: Recently, the health of retired National Football
League players, particularly lineman has been investigated. A
number of studies have reported increased cardiometabolic risk,
premature cardiovascular disease and incidence of type 2 diabetes.
Rugby union players have somatotypes very similar to National
Football League players which suggests that rugby players may have
similar health risks. The International Golden Oldies World Rugby
Festival (GORF) provided a unique opportunity to investigate the
demographics of veteran rugby players. METHODOLOGIES: A
cross-sectional, observational study was completed using an online
web-based questionnaire that consisted of medical history and
physiological measures. Data analysis was completed using a one
sample t-test (50yrs) and Chi-square test. RESULTS:
A total of 216 veteran rugby competitors (response rate = 6.8%)
representing 10 countries, aged 35-72 yrs (mean 51.2, S.D. ±8.0),
participated in the online survey. As a group, the incidence of current
smokers was low at 8.8% (avg 72.4 cigs/wk) whilst the percentage
consuming alcohol was high (93.1% (avg 11.2 drinks/wk).
Competitors reported the following top six chronic
diseases/disorders; hypertension (18.6%), arthritis (OA/RA, 11.5%),
asthma (9.3%), hyperlipidemia (8.2%), diabetes (all types, 7.5%) and
gout (6%), there were significant differences between groups with
regard to cancer (all types) and migraines. When compared to the
Australian general population (Australian Bureau of Statistics data,
n=18,000), GORF competitors had a significantly lower incidence of
anxiety (p
Abstract: Malaria is transmitted to the human by biting of
infected Anopheles mosquitoes. This disease is a serious, acute and
chronic relapsing infection to humans. Fever, nausea, vomiting, back
pain, increased sweating anemia and splenomegaly (enlargement of
the spleen) are the symptoms of the patients who infected with this
disease. It is caused by the multiplication of protozoa parasite of the
genus Plasmodium. Plasmodium falciparum, Plasmodium vivax,
Plasmodium malariae and Plasmodium ovale are the four types of
Plasmodium malaria. A mathematical model for the transmission of
Plasmodium Malaria is developed in which the human and vector
population are divided into two classes, the susceptible and the
infectious classes. In this paper, we formulate the dynamical model
of Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax malaria. The
standard dynamical analysis is used for analyzing the behavior for
the transmission of this disease. The Threshold condition is found
and numerical results are shown to confirm the analytical results.
Abstract: The brain MR imaging-based clinical research and analysis system were specifically built and the development for a large-scale data was targeted. We used the general clinical data available for building large-scale data. Registration period for the selection of the lesion ROI and the region growing algorithm was used and the Mesh-warp algorithm for matching was implemented. The accuracy of the matching errors was modified individually. Also, the large ROI research data can accumulate by our developed compression method. In this way, the correctly decision criteria to the research result was suggested. The experimental groups were age, sex, MR type, patient ID and smoking which can easily be queries. The result data was visualized of the overlapped images by a color table. Its data was calculated by the statistical package. The evaluation for the utilization of this system in the chronic ischemic damage in the area has done from patients with the acute cerebral infarction. This is the cause of neurologic disability index location in the center portion of the lateral ventricle facing. The corona radiate was found in the position. Finally, the system reliability was measured both inter-user and intra-user registering correlation.
Abstract: In the present research, two nutraceuticals made from
red grape and walnut that showed previously to improve kidney
dysfunction were incorporated separately into functional foods' bread
made from barley and rice bran. The functional foods were evaluated
in rats in which chronic renal failure was induced through feeding
diet rich in adenine and phosphate (APD). The evaluation based on
assessing kidney function, oxidative stress, inflammatory biomarkers
and body weight gain. Results showed induction of chronic kidney
failure reflected in significant increase in plasma urea, creatinine,
malondialdehyde, tumor necrosis factor- α and low density
lipoprotein cholesterol along with significant reduction of plasma
albumin, and total antioxidant and creatinine clearance and body
weight gain on feeding APD compared to control healthy group.
Feeding the functional foods produced amelioration in the different
biochemical parameters and body weight gain indicating
improvement in kidney function.