bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Protein-Directed Dynamic Combinatorial Chemistry: A Guide to Protein Ligand and Inhibitor Discovery
Authors: Huang Renjie , Leung Ivanhoe
Published: July 2016

Protein-directed dynamic combinatorial chemistry is an emerging technique for efficient discovery of novel chemical structures for binding to a target protein. Typically, this method relies on a library of small molecules that react reversibly with each other to generate a combinatorial library. The components in the combinatorial library are at equilibrium with each other under thermodynamic control. When a protein is added to the equilibrium mixture, and if the protein interacts with any components of the combinatorial library, the position of the equilibrium will shift and those components that interact with the protein will be amplified, which can then be identified by a suitable biophysical technique. Such information is useful as a starting point to guide further organic synthesis of novel protein ligands and enzyme inhibitors. This review uses literature examples to discuss the practicalities of applying this method to inhibitor discovery, in particular, the set-up of the combinatorial library, the reversible reactions that may be employed, and the choice of detection methods to screen protein ligands from a mixture of reversibly forming molecules.
A New Class of Glucosyl Thioureas: Synthesis and Larvicidal Activities
Authors: Wang Ping-An , Feng Jun-Tao , Wang Xing-Zi , Li Mu-Qiong
Published: July 2016

A novel series of glucosyl thioureas were synthesized in good overall yields (up to 37% over four steps) from d-glucose and primary amines, and their larvicidal activities toward Mythimna separata Walker were also investigated. This new class of glucosyl thioureas demonstrated low to moderate growth inhibition activity of Mythiman separata Walker, with a growth inhibitory rate of up to 47.5% at a concentration of 100.0 mg/L in acetone.
Synthesis of New 3-Heteroarylindoles as Potential Anticancer Agents
Authors: Abdelhamid Abdou , Gomha Sobhi , Abdelriheem Nadia , Kandeel Saher
Published: July 2016

2-(3-(1H-Indol-3-yl)-5-(p-tolyl)-4,5-dihydro-1H-pyrazol-1-yl)-4-substituted-5-(substituted diazenyl)thiazoles and 2-(1H-indol-3-yl)-9-substituted-4,7-disubstituted pyrido[3,2-e][1,2,4]triazolo[4,3-a]pyrimidin-5(7H)-ones were synthesized via reaction of hydrazonoyl halides with each of 3-(1H-indol-2-yl)-5-(p-tolyl)-4,5-dihydro-1H-pyrazole-1-carbothioamide and 7-(1H-indol-3-yl)-2- thioxo-5-substituted-2,3-dihydropyrido[2,3-d]pyrimidin-4(1H)-ones, respectively. Also, hydrazonoyl halides were reacted with N’-(1-(1H-indol-3-yl)ethylidene)-2-cyanoacetohydrazide to afford 1,3,4-thiadiazole derivatives. Structures of the new synthesis were elucidated on the basis of elemental analysis, spectral data, and alternative synthetic routes whenever possible. Fifteen of the new compounds have been evaluated for their antitumor activity against the MCF-7 human breast carcinoma cell line. The results indicated that many of the tested compounds showed moderate to high anticancer activity when compared with doxorubicin as a reference drug.
Iodisation of Salt in Slovenia: Increased Availability of Non-Iodised Salt in the Food Supply
Authors: Žmitek Katja , Pravst Igor
Published: July 2016

Salt iodisation is considered a key public health measure for assuring adequate iodine intake in iodine-deficient countries. In Slovenia, the iodisation of all salt was made mandatory in 1953. A considerable regulatory change came in 2003 with the mandatory iodisation of rock and evaporated salt only. In addition, joining the European Union’s free single market in 2004 enabled the import of non-iodised salt. The objective of this study was to investigate the extent of salt iodising in the food supply. We examined both the availability and sale of (non-)iodised salt. Average sales-weighted iodine levels in salt were calculated using the results of a national monitoring of salt quality. Data on the availability and sales of salts were collected in major food retailers in 2014. Iodised salt represented 59.2% of the salt samples, and 95.9% of salt sales, with an average (sales-weighted) level of 24.2 mg KI/kg of salt. The average sales-weighted KI level in non-iodised salts was 3.5 mg KI/kg. We may conclude that the sales-weighted average iodine levels in iodised salt are in line with the regulatory requirements. However, the regulatory changes and the EU single market have considerably affected the availability of non-iodised salt. While sales of non-iodised salt are still low, non-iodised salt represented 33.7% of the salts in our sample. This indicates the existence of a niche market which could pose a risk of inadequate iodine intake in those who deliberately decide to consume non-iodised salt only. Policymakers need to provide efficient salt iodisation intervention to assure sufficient iodine supply in the future. The reported sales-weighting approach enables cost-efficient monitoring of the iodisation of salt in the food supply.
Influence of Ionic Liquids on the Selectivity of Ion Exchange-Based Polymer Membrane Sensing Layers
Authors: Mendecki Lukasz , Callan Nicole , Ahern Meghan , Schazmann Benjamin , Radu Aleksandar
Published: July 2016

The applicability of ion exchange membranes is mainly defined by their permselectivity towards specific ions. For instance, the needed selectivity can be sought by modifying some of the components required for the preparation of such membranes. In this study, a new class of materials –trihexyl(tetradecyl)phosphonium based ionic liquids (ILs) were used to modify the properties of ion exchange membranes. We determined selectivity coefficients for iodide as model ion utilizing six phosphonium-based ILs and compared the selectivity with two classical plasticizers. The dielectric properties of membranes plasticized with ionic liquids and their response characteristics towards ten different anions were investigated using potentiometric and impedance measurements. In this large set of data, deviations of obtained selectivity coefficients from the well-established Hofmeister series were observed on many occasions thus indicating a multitude of applications for these ion-exchanging systems.
Preservation Mechanism of Chitosan-Based Coating with Cinnamon Oil for Fruits Storage Based on Sensor Data
Authors: Xing Yage , Xu Qinglian , Yang Simon , Chen Cunkun , Tang Yong , Sun Shumin , Zhang Liang , Che Zhenming , Li Xihong
Published: July 2016

The chitosan-based coating with antimicrobial agent has been developed recently to control the decay of fruits. However, its fresh keeping and antimicrobial mechanism is still not very clear. The preservation mechanism of chitosan coating with cinnamon oil for fruits storage is investigated in this paper. Results in the atomic force microscopy sensor images show that many micropores exist in the chitosan coating film. The roughness of coating film is affected by the concentration of chitosan. The antifungal activity of cinnamon oil should be mainly due to its main consistent trans-cinnamaldehyde, which is proportional to the trans-cinnamaldehyde concentration and improves with increasing the attachment time of oil. The exosmosis ratios of Penicillium citrinum and Aspergillus flavus could be enhanced by increasing the concentration of cinnamon oil. Morphological observation indicates that, compared to the normal cell, the wizened mycelium of A. flavus is observed around the inhibition zone, and the growth of spores is also inhibited. Moreover, the analysis of gas sensors indicate that the chitosan-oil coating could decrease the level of O2 and increase the level of CO2 in the package of cherry fruits, which also control the fruit decay. These results indicate that its preservation mechanism might be partly due to the micropores structure of coating film as a barrier for gas and a carrier for oil, and partly due to the activity of cinnamon oil on the cell disruption.
Contract Coordination Strategy of Supply Chain with Substitution under Supply Disruption and Stochastic Demand
Authors: Yan Rongfang , Lu Bin , Wu Jianjun
Published: July 2016

Based on two substitute products, we study the inventory and contract coordination strategy of a three-echelon supply chain, which consists of two suppliers, a manufacturer and a retailer, under supply disruption and stochastic demand. We investigate the channel gross profit model of the centralized supply chain and obtain a unique optimal order quantity. Under a decentralized decision, we find that the commonly-used wholesale price contracts cannot coordinate the system. Then, we propose a buy-back contract and prove that this contract can more efficiently coordinate the system than the former. At last, we show that the integrated performance of the decentralized system can be maximized through choosing the buy-back parameter by the manufacturer and reveal that the effects of supply uncertainty and the substitution behavior of customers on the optimal decision by numerical examples.
Cross-Species Antiviral Activity of Goose Interferons against Duck Plague Virus Is Related to Its Positive Self-Feedback Regulation and Subsequent Interferon Stimulated Genes Induction
Authors: Zhou Hao , Chen Shun , Zhou Qin , Wei Yunan , Wang Mingshu , Jia Renyong , Zhu Dekang , Liu Mafeng , Liu Fei , Yang Qiao , Wu Ying , Sun Kunfeng , Chen Xiaoyue , Cheng Anchun
Published: July 2016

Interferons are a group of antiviral cytokines acting as the first line of defense in the antiviral immunity. Here, we describe the antiviral activity of goose type I interferon (IFNα) and type II interferon (IFNγ) against duck plague virus (DPV). Recombinant goose IFNα and IFNγ proteins of approximately 20 kDa and 18 kDa, respectively, were expressed. Following DPV-enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) infection of duck embryo fibroblast cells (DEFs) with IFNα and IFNγ pre-treatment, the number of viral gene copies decreased more than 100-fold, with viral titers dropping approximately 100-fold. Compared to the control, DPV-EGFP cell positivity was decreased by goose IFNα and IFNγ at 36 hpi (3.89%; 0.79%) and 48 hpi (17.05%; 5.58%). In accordance with interferon-stimulated genes being the “workhorse” of IFN activity, the expression of duck myxovirus resistance (Mx) and oligoadenylate synthetases-like (OASL) was significantly upregulated (p < 0.001) by IFN treatment for 24 h. Interestingly, duck cells and goose cells showed a similar trend of increased ISG expression after goose IFNα and IFNγ pretreatment. Another interesting observation is that the positive feedback regulation of type I IFN and type II IFN by goose IFNα and IFNγ was confirmed in waterfowl for the first time. These results suggest that the antiviral activities of goose IFNα and IFNγ can likely be attributed to the potency with which downstream genes are induced by interferon. These findings will contribute to our understanding of the functional significance of the interferon antiviral system in aquatic birds and to the development of interferon-based prophylactic and therapeutic approaches against viral disease.
Molecular and Genetic Characterization of HIV-1 Tat Exon-1 Gene from Cameroon Shows Conserved Tat HLA-Binding Epitopes: Functional Implications
Authors: Teto Georges , Fonsah Julius , Tagny Claude , Mbanya Dora , Nchindap Emilienne , Kenmogne Leopoldine , Fokam Joseph , Njamnshi Dora , Kouanfack Charles , Njamnshi Alfred , Kanmogne Georgette
Published: July 2016

HIV-1 Tat plays a critical role in viral transactivation. Subtype-B Tat has potential use as a therapeutic vaccine. However, viral genetic diversity and population genetics would significantly impact the efficacy of such a vaccine. Over 70% of the 37-million HIV-infected individuals are in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and harbor non-subtype-B HIV-1. Using specimens from 100 HIV-infected Cameroonians, we analyzed the sequences of HIV-1 Tat exon-1, its functional domains, post-translational modifications (PTMs), and human leukocyte antigens (HLA)-binding epitopes. Molecular phylogeny revealed a high genetic diversity with nine subtypes, CRF22_01A1/CRF01_AE, and negative selection in all subtypes. Amino acid mutations in Tat functional domains included N24K (44%), N29K (58%), and N40K (30%) in CRF02_AG, and N24K in all G subtypes. Motifs and phosphorylation analyses showed conserved amidation, N-myristoylation, casein kinase-2 (CK2), serine and threonine phosphorylation sites. Analysis of HLA allelic frequencies showed that epitopes for HLAs A*0205, B*5301, Cw*0401, Cw*0602, and Cw*0702 were conserved in 58%–100% of samples, with B*5301 epitopes having binding affinity scores > 100 in all subtypes. This is the first report of N-myristoylation, amidation, and CK2 sites in Tat; these PTMs and mutations could affect Tat function. HLA epitopes identified could be useful for designing Tat-based vaccines for highly diverse HIV-1 populations, as in SSA.
Heteroploid Knautia drymeia includes K. gussonei and cannot be separated into diagnosable subspecies
Authors: Rešetnik Ivana , Frajman Božo , Schönswetter Peter
Published: July 2016

PREMISE OF THE STUDY:

Knautia drymeia is a morphologically variable, diploid and tetraploid temperate forest understory species distributed in southeastern Europe and adjacent areas. The species is an excellent system to explore the influence of polypoidy on taxonomic delineations, the role of hybridization among genetically distant populations in polyploid evolution, and the impact of glacial refugia on the evolution of polyploids.

METHODS:

Amplified fragment length polymorphism fingerprinting and multivariate analyses of morphological characters were performed on 57 populations spanning the distribution area of K. drymeia. K‐means clustering, comparison of in‐silico tetraploids and observed tetraploids, and a phylogeographic analysis using relaxed random walks were used to explore the genetic structure within the diploids, to infer the origin of the tetraploids and to reconstruct range expansion through time. Further, we contrasted the morphology and genetic groups with current taxonomy and evaluated the status of the tetraploid Apennine endemic K. gussonei and the intraspecific taxa of K. drymeia.

KEY RESULTS:

The genetic structure was strongly geographically correlated and yielded four genetic groups; K. gussonei was inseparable from K. drymeia. Distributions of diploid lineages are suggestive of glacial refugia in the northwesternmost and southeastern Balkan Peninsula. Polyploids originated at least two times, as autopolyploids and probably additionally also as allopolyploids. Morphological divergence corresponded with neither genetic groups nor current taxonomy.

CONCLUSIONS:

Genetic and morphometric data confirmed neither divergence of K. gussonei nor recognition of subspecies within K. drymeia. We therefore propose treating K. drymeia as a morphologically and genetically variable species without infraspecific taxa.
Signal enhancement in cantilever magnetometry based on a co-resonantly coupled sensor
Authors: Körner Julia , Reiche Christopher F , Gemming Thomas , Büchner Bernd , Gerlach Gerald , Mühl Thomas
Published: July 2016

Cantilever magnetometry is a measurement technique used to study magnetic nanoparticles. With decreasing sample size, the signal strength is significantly reduced, requiring advances of the technique. Ultrathin and slender cantilevers can address this challenge but lead to increased complexity of detection. We present an approach based on the co-resonant coupling of a micro- and a nanometer-sized cantilever. Via matching of the resonance frequencies of the two subsystems we induce a strong interplay between the oscillations of the two cantilevers, allowing for a detection of interactions between the sensitive nanocantilever and external influences in the amplitude response curve of the microcantilever. In our magnetometry experiment we used an iron-filled carbon nanotube acting simultaneously as nanocantilever and magnetic sample. Measurements revealed an enhancement of the commonly used frequency shift signal by five orders of magnitude compared to conventional cantilever magnetometry experiments with similar nanomagnets. With this experiment we do not only demonstrate the functionality of our sensor design but also its potential for very sensitive magnetometry measurements while maintaining a facile oscillation detection with a conventional microcantilever setup.
FORMATION OF OVERHEATED REGIONS AND TRUNCATED DISKS AROUND BLACK HOLES: THREE-DIMENSIONAL GENERAL RELATIVISTIC RADIATION-MAGNETOHYDRODYNAMICS SIMULATIONS
Authors: Takahashi Hiroyuki R. , Ohsuga Ken , Kawashima Tomohisa , Sekiguchi Yuichiro
Published: July 2016

Using three-dimensional general relativistic radiation-magnetohydrodynamics simulations of accretion flows around stellar mass black holes, we report that the relatively cold disk (

) is truncated near the black hole. Hot and less dense regions, of which the gas temperature is

and more than 10 times higher than the radiation temperature (overheated regions), appear within the truncation radius. The overheated regions also appear above as well as below the disk, sandwiching the cold disk, leading to the effective Compton upscattering. The truncation radius is

for

, where

are the gravitational radius, mass accretion rate, Eddington luminosity, and light speed, respectively. Our results are consistent with observations of a very high state, whereby the truncated disk is thought to be embedded in the hot rarefied regions. The truncation radius shifts inward to

with increasing mass accretion rate

, which is very close to an innermost stable circular orbit. This model corresponds to the slim disk state observed in ultraluminous X-ray sources. Although the overheated regions shrink if the Compton cooling effectively reduces the gas temperature, the sandwich structure does not disappear at the range of

. Our simulations also reveal that the gas temperature in the overheated regions depends on black hole spin, which would be due to efficient energy transport from black hole to disks through the Poynting flux, resulting in gas heating.
Clinical Outcomes of Frontalis Sling Using Silicone Rod With Two-point Brow Incisions in Blepharoptosis
Authors: Sung Youngje , Park Jong Seo , Lew Helen
Published: July 2016

Purpose:

To investigate the functional and cosmetic outcomes of the modified frontalis sling operation using silicone rod with two-point brow incisions.

Methods:

A retrospective medical record review of 17 patients who underwent frontalis suspension surgery was performed. Functional outcomes were measured using habitual margin reflex distance. Cosmetic outcomes were investigated with contour analysis and a Patient Scar Assessment Questionnaire.

Results:

At the final visit, good and fair eyelid heights were achieved in 75% of patients in the unilateral group and 61.1% in the bilateral group. The average increase in margin reflex distance 1 was 1.9 mm in the unilateral group and 1.8 mm in the bilateral group. Satisfaction scores were 14.6, 8.2, and 11.8 for appearance, symptoms, and consciousness, respectively. In contour analysis, the normal arch generally increased.

Conclusions:

Frontalis suspension with two-point brow incisions resulted in similar functional and cosmetic outcomes as the three-point brow incision technique. This study showed patient satisfaction with the aesthetic result after the frontalis sling procedure.

[
J Pediatr Ophthalmol Strabismus
. 2016;53(4):224–232.]
Hydration of tricalcium aluminate in the presence of gypsum
Authors: Triviño Vázquez F.
Published: July 2016

Not availabe
Portland cement hydration: study of various techniques
Authors: Triviño Vázquez F.
Published: July 2016

Not available
Chronic Mental Illness in Old Age Homes
Authors: Akbar Shamsi , Khurana Hitesh
Published: July 2016

Aging is a part of natural developmental process in the life of any living being. For human beings it is not just a biological phenomenon but it has psychological and social implications too. Some of the areas that would be affected include those related to health and health care, family composition, living arrangement, housing and migration. As a result of these socio-demographic evolutions and situations, older adults at times are forced to shift from their own homes to institutions/ Old age homes OAH. Living in OAH evokes a picture of apathy, dependence, and sadness which make the older adults increasingly vulnerable to mental health problems. Further there is also a strong need to develop suitable strategies to implement better mental health programmes and guidelines for the CMI in old age homes.
Cognitive Remediation Therapy in Chronic Schizophrenia
Authors: Halder Susmita , Mahato Akash
Published: July 2016

Cognitive impairments are now recognized as one of the most ubiquitous features of schizophrenia. Cognitive deficits appear to play a large role in how patients with schizophrenia function in their everyday lives. The role of cognitive deficits in schizophrenia may be gauged by the fact that even when patients with schizophrenia are relatively free of psychotic symptoms, many still have extraordinary difficulty with communication, motivation, self-care, and establishing and maintaining relationships with others. Patients with schizophrenia are often additionally treated with supportive psychotherapy, behavioral management, or social skills training as required. However, the efficacy of these adjunct therapies could be limited in presence of marked cognitive deficits. Thus it becomes crucial to have specific intervention for the underlying cognitive deficits that appear detrimental to improvement of functioning of patients with schizophrenia. The present chapter focuses on cognitive training based intervention program for schizophrenia patients and its efficacy.
Efficacy of Art Therapy in Treating Patients with Paranoid Schizophrenia
Authors: Bedi Deepali
Published: July 2016

Paranoid Schizophrenia chronic mental illnesses according to DSM-IVTR characterized by the presence of delusion of persecution, suspicious, distrusting, guarded, reserved, tensed, and also sometimes hostile or aggressive. Patients also perceive exaggerated warmth and friendship by the professionals as attempt at bribery, manipulation or exploitation. But therapeutic relationship between patient and the professional is integral to the recovery process and the outcome. Good communication on the part of health care professionals is an essential element in developing the strong practitioner-patient relationship necessary in the treatment of schizophrenia. Professionals are usually at a look out for tools to build a working alliance best used in such cases. Usually behavioural therapy, supportive therapy and family therapy are used for such patients. But sometimes with chronic and resistant client will get stuck at the initial rapport itself. At this stage probably art therapy as an advance intervention strategy to work with patient as an advanced intervention strategies and treatment.
Assessment for Learning
Authors: Djoub Zineb
Published: July 2016

To support students, make effective use of feedback to improve their learning, this chapter provides practical tips and strategies for teachers to stimulate their students' interest in feedback, assimilate its significant role and get involved in interpreting, reflecting and acting upon feedback comments. The author focuses on both summative and formative feedback. For summative feedback, one's concern is to encourage students to interpret grades/marks, reflect upon them and transform them into plans and actions. This is through using reflective worksheets and other post-exam tasks in class which are designed by the author. Feedback within self, peer and group assessment approaches is also concerned in this chapter. Other kinds of reflective worksheets are suggested to be used to reflect on the student learning process as part of the student portfolio, journal or set separately, in addition to the use of technology, i.e., class blogs to enhance such reflection.
Comparative Judgement as a Promising Alternative to Score Competences
Authors: Lesterhuis Marije , Verhavert San , Coertjens Liesje , Donche Vincent , De Maeyer Sven
Published: July 2016

To adequately assess students' competences, students are asked to provide proof of a performance. Ideally, open and real-life tasks are used for such performance assessment. However, to augment the reliability of the scores resulting from performance assessment, assessments are mostly standardised. This hampers the validity of the performance assessment. Comparative judgement (CJ) is introduced as an alternative judging method that does not require standardisation of tasks. The CJ method is based on the assumption that people are able to compare two performances more easily and reliable than assigning a score to a single one. This chapter provides insight in the method and elaborates on why this method is promising to generate valid, reliable measures in an efficient way, especially for large-scale summative assessments. Thereby, this chapter brings together the research already conducted in this new assessment domain.
History of the T-Scan System Development from 1984 to the Present Day
Authors: Kerstein, DMD Robert B.
Published: July 2016

Since its inception in 1984, Computerized Occlusal Analysis technology has revolutionized both dental Occlusal Science and daily clinical practice, by bringing objective precision measurement to the largely subjectively analyzed Dental Medicine discipline of Occlusion. The evolution of this technology has required much iteration over the past 30 years beginning with T-Scan I, then T-Scan II for Windows®, to T-Scan III with Turbo recording, to the present day version known as T-Scan 8. Numerous authors since the mid-1980s have studied the various T-Scan versions, which inspired the manufacturer to improve the hardware and its recording sensors to be more accurate, repeatable, and precise. The software has also evolved such that the present day T-Scan 8 includes many high-tech measurement tools that aid the clinician in diagnosing and treating a wide range of occlusal abnormalities. This chapter's specific aims are to detail the evolution of the differing T-Scan system versions while describing the many scientific studies that inspired important system improvements to the T-Scan's accuracy and repeatability from version to version.
Fuzzy Logic in Healthcare
Authors: Gürsel Güney
Published: July 2016

The medical decision-making process is fuzzy in its nature. The physician handles linguistic concepts in deciding the diagnosis and prognosis. The conversion from this fuzzy nature into crisp real world outcome causes the loss of precision. Fuzzy logic is a suitable way to provide the physician with the support he needs in handling linguistic concepts and get rid of the loss of precision. Fuzzy logic technologies are applied to each area of medicine, and they have been proven to be successful. The literature shows that the medical area has a great compatibility with fuzzy logic technology. Fuzzy cognitive maps, fuzzy expert systems, fuzzy medical image processing, fuzzy applications in information retrieval from medical databases, fuzzy medical data mining, and hybrid fuzzy applications are the common and most known fuzzy logic usage areas in the medical field. This chapter is a descriptive study that examines and explains the common fuzzy logic applications in the medical field after an introduction to fuzzy logic.
Dementia and Other Neurocognitive Disorders
Authors: Galvin James E. , Kelleher Mary E.
Published: July 2016

This chapter presents a foundational overview of dementia, with a focus on Alzheimer's disease (AD), the most common cause of dementia. The authors start with an overview of mild cognitive impairment, which is often a dementia precursor, looking at symptoms and diagnostic criteria. AD is reviewed in depth, from the perspective of 2011 diagnostic guideline revisions that, for the first time, outline stages of the illness and also incorporate biomarkers to clarify diagnosis and track disease progression. Recent advances from the use of CSF tests, structural and functional imaging, and genetics are discussed. These advancements pose ethical challenges for patients and caregivers. Treatment options, including non-pharmacological strategies and medications, are reviewed.
Modified Distance Regularized Level Set Segmentation Based Analysis for Kidney Stone Detection
Authors: Viswanath K. , Gunasundari R.
Published: July 2016

The abnormalities of the kidney can be identified by ultrasound imaging. The kidney may have structural abnormalities like kidney swelling, change in its position and appearance. Kidney abnormality may also arise due to the formation of stones, cysts, cancerous cells, congenital anomalies, blockage of urine etc. For surgical operations it is very important to identify the exact and accurate location of stone in the kidney. The ultrasound images are of low contrast and contain speckle noise. This makes the detection of kidney abnormalities rather challenging task. Thus preprocessing of ultrasound images is carried out to remove speckle noise. In preprocessing, first image restoration is done to reduce speckle noise then it is applied to Gabor filter for smoothening. Next the resultant image is enhanced using histogram equalization. The preprocessed ultrasound image is segmented using distance regularized level set segmentation (DR-LSS), since it yields better results. It uses a two-step splitting methods to iteratively solve the DR-LSS equation, first step is iterating LSS equation, and then solving the Sign distance equation. The second step is to regularize the level set function which is the obtained from first step for better stability. The DR is included for LSS for eliminating of anti-leakages on image boundary. The DR-LSS does not require any expensive re-initialization and it is very high speed of operation. The RD-LSS results are compared with distance regularized level set evolution DRLSE1, DRLSE2 and DRLSE3. Extracted region of the kidney after segmentation is applied to Symlets (Sym12), Biorthogonal (bio3.7, bio3.9 & bio4.4) and Daubechies (Db12) lifting scheme wavelet subbands to extract energy levels. These energy level gives an indication about presence of stone in that particular location which significantly vary from that of normal energy level. These energy levels are trained by Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) and Back Propagation (BP) ANN to identify the type of stone with an accuracy of 98.6%.
GPU Based Modified HYPR Technique
Authors: Desai Shrinivas D. , Kulkarni Linganagouda
Published: July 2016

Medical imaging has grown tremendously over the decades. The computed tomography (CT) and Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are considered to be most widely used imaging modalities. MRI is less harmful, but one cannot underestimate the harmful side effects of CT. A recent study reveals the fact of increasing risk of cancer as a side effect for patients undergoing repeated CT scans. Hence the design of the low dose imaging protocol is about the immense importance in the current scenario. In this paper, the authors present modified highly constrained back projection (M-HYPR) as a most promising technique to address low dose imaging. Highly constrained back projection (HYPR) being iterative in nature is computational savvy, and is one of the main reasons for being neglected by CT developers. The weight matrix module, being root cause for huge computation time is modified in this work. Considerable speed up factor is recorded, as compared original HYPR (O-HYPR) on a single thread CPU implementation. The quality of the reconstructed image in each platform has been analyzed. Recorded results upholds M-HYPR algorithm, and appreciates usage of graphical processing units (GPU) in medical imaging applications.
Compressed Sensing and Its Application in CT and EEG
Authors: Saha Sajib , Tahtali Murat
Published: July 2016

Compressed sensing, also known as compressive sampling is a new technique being rapidly developed over the last few years. The theory states that when some prior information about the signal is available and appropriately incorporated into the signal reconstruction procedure, a signal can be accurately reconstructed even if the Shannon/ Nyquest sampling requirement is violated. The key idea of compressed sensing is to recover a sparse signal from very few non-adaptive, linear measurements by optimization technique. Following the discovery by Donoho in (2006), that sparsity could enable exact solution of ill-posed problems under certain conditions, there has been a tremendous growth on efficient application of sparsity constraints for solving ill-posed problems. The theoretical foundation of compressed sensing has already become a key concept in various areas of applied mathematics, computer science, and electrical engineering. In this chapter we will detail the application of compressed sensing in X-ray computed tomography (CT) and Electroencephalography. Starting from the very basic principles we will provide theoretical justifications on why and how sparsity prior is used in CT and in EEG.
Survey of Medical Image Compression Techniques and Comparative Analysis
Authors: Geetha P.
Published: July 2016

Today digital imaging is widely used in every application around us like Internet, High Definition TeleVision (HDTV), satellite communications, fax transmission, and digital storage of movies and more, because it provide superior resolution and quality. Recently, medical imaging has begun to take advantage of digital technology, opening the way for advanced medical imaging and teleradiology. However, medical imaging requires storing, communicating and manipulating large amounts of digital data. Applying image compression reduces the storage requirements, network traffic, and therefore improves efficiency. This chapter provides the need for medical image compression; different approaches to image compression, emerging wavelet based lossy-lossless compression techniques, how the existing recent compression techniques work and also comparison of results. After completing this chapter, the reader should have an idea of how to increase the compression ratio and at the same time maintain the PSNR level compared to the existing techniques, desirable features of standard compression techniques such as embededness and progressive transmission, how these are very useful and much needed in the interactive teleradiology, telemedicine and telebrowsing applications.
Analysis of Valuable Techniques and Algorithms Used in Automated Skin Lesion Recognition Systems
Authors: Jamil Uzma , Khalid Shehzad
Published: July 2016

Application of computational intelligence techniques helps physicians as well as dermatologists in faster data process to give better and more reliable diagnoses. The whole system is categorized as: Pre-processing the lesion image to enhance its readability, Segmentation of the Lesion from skin, Feature extraction, selection, and finally the identification of dermoscopic images. Pros and cons of various methods are focused to provide a help for the researchers starting work in automated lesion detection system. Numerous computerized diagnostic systems have been reported in which different border detection, feature extraction, selection, and classification algorithms are used. The aim of this review is to summarize and compare advanced dermoscopic algorithms used for the classification of skin lesions and discuss important issues affecting the success of classification. This paper will be a guide that represents a comprehensive guideline for selecting suitable algorithms needed for different steps of automatic diagnostic procedure for ensuring timely diagnosis of skin cancer.
Image Segmentation Using Rough Set Theory
Authors: Roy Payel , Goswami Srijan , Chakraborty Sayan , Azar Ahmad Taher , Dey Nilanjan
Published: July 2016

In the domain of image processing, image segmentation has become one of the key application that is involved in most of the image based operations. Image segmentation refers to the process of breaking or partitioning any image. Although, like several image processing operations, image segmentation also faces some problems and issues when segmenting process becomes much more complicated. Previously lot of work has proved that Rough-set theory can be a useful method to overcome such complications during image segmentation. The Rough-set theory helps in very fast convergence and in avoiding local minima problem, thereby enhancing the performance of the EM, better result can be achieved. During rough-set-theoretic rule generation, each band is individualized by using the fuzzy-correlation-based gray-level thresholding. Therefore, use of Rough-set in image segmentation can be very useful. In this paper, a summary of all previous Rough-set based image segmentation methods are described in detail and also categorized accordingly. Rough-set based image segmentation provides a stable and better framework for image segmentation.
A Take on Employee Welfare Facilities and Employees' Efficiency
Authors: Patro Chandra Sekhar , Kamakula Madhu Kishore Raghunath
Published: July 2016

Looking back into the history of welfare facilities for employees in an organization, they have always and will keep playing a pivotal role in enhancing employee morale. The welfare schemes in every organization facilitate impetus for employee and employer relations. Employees' welfare is inherent core component, as they act as life blood for achieving the objectives of an organization. The main intention behind implementing the welfare facilities, is to secure the employee force by providing proper human condition of work and minimizing its hazardous effect on the life of the employees and their family members. Welfare facilities are provided in every organization either public or private sector as these would go a long way to cherish their ultimate vision. The present study is an attempt to determine the various welfare facilities implemented with its impact on the work efficiency over different public and private sector organizations. This paper also draws an empirical evidence by studying the influence of welfare facilities on the employee's efficiency.
Healthcare SaaS Based on a Data Model with Built-In Security and Privacy
Authors: Asija Ruchika , Nallusamy Rajarathnam
Published: July 2016

Cloud computing is a major technology enabler for providing efficient services at affordable costs by reducing the costs of traditional software and hardware licensing models. As it continues to evolve, it is widely being adopted by healthcare organisations. But hosting healthcare solutions on cloud is challenging in terms of security and privacy of health data. To address these challenges and to provide security and privacy to health data on the cloud, the authors present a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) application with a data model with built-in security and privacy. This data model enhances security and privacy of the data by attaching security levels in the data itself expressed in the form of XML instead of relying entirely on application level access controls. They also present the performance evaluation of their application using this data model with different scaling indicators. To further investigate the adoption of IT and cloud computing in Indian healthcare industry they have done a survey of some major hospitals in India.
Cyber-Security for ICS/SCADA
Authors: Pretorius Barend , van Niekerk Brett
Published: July 2016

Industrial control systems (ICS) or supervisory, control, and data acquisition (SCADA) systems drive many key components of the national infrastructure. It makes these control systems targets for cyber-attacks by terrorists and nation-states who wish to damage their target economically and socially, and cyber-criminals who blackmail the companies operating the infrastructure. Despite the high risk of leaving these systems exposed, providing adequate cyber-security is often challenging. The Stuxnet worm illustrated how vulnerable control systems potentially are when it bypassed a number of security mechanisms to cause physical damage to an Iranian nuclear facility. The article focuses on ICS/SCADA in South Africa discussing the unique challenges and legislation relate to securing control system in the South Africa. A governance and security framework for overcoming these challenges are proposed.
Evidence of horizontal and vertical transport of water in the Southern Hemisphere Tropical Tropopause Layer (TTL) from high-resolution balloon observations
Authors: Khaykin Sergey M. , Pommereau Jean-Pierre , Riviere Emmanuel D. , Held Gerhard , Ploeger Felix , Ghysels Melanie , Amarouche Nadir , Vernier Jean-Paul , Wienhold Frank G. , Ionov Dmitry
Published: July 2016

Abstract. High-resolution in situ balloon measurements of water vapour, aerosol, methane and temperature in the upper Tropical Tropopause Layer (TTL) and lower stratosphere are used to evaluate the processes controlling the stratospheric water budget: horizontal transport (inmixing) and hydration by cross-tropopause overshooting updrafts. The obtained in situ evidences of these phenomena are analyzed using satellite observations by Aura MLS (Microwave Limb Sounder) and CALIPSO (Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation) together with trajectory and transport modeling performed using CLaMS (Chemical Lagrangian Model of the Stratosphere) and HYSPLIT (HYbrid Single-Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory) model. Balloon soundings were conducted during March 2012 in Bauru, Brazil (22.3° S) in the frame of the TRO-Pico campaign for studying the impact of convective overshooting on the stratospheric water budget. The balloon payloads included two stratospheric hygrometers: FLASH-B (Fluorescence Lyman-Alpha Stratospheric Hygrometer for Balloon) and Pico-SDLA instrument as well as COBALD (Compact Optical Backscatter Aerosol Detector) sondes, complemented by Vaisala RS-92 radiosondes. Water vapour vertical profiles obtained independently by the two stratospheric hygrometers are in excellent agreement, ensuring credibility of the vertical structures observed. A signature of in-mixing is inferred from a series of vertical profiles, showing coincident enhancements in water vapour and aerosol at the 425 K (18.5 km) level. Trajectory analysis unambiguously links these features to intrusions from the Southern Hemisphere extra-tropical stratosphere, containing more water and aerosol, as demonstrated by MLS and CALIPSO global observations. The in-mixing is successfully reproduced by CLaMS simulations, showing a relatively moist filament extending to 20 S°. A signature of local cross-tropopause transport of water is observed in a particular sounding, performed on a convective day and revealing water vapour enhancements of up to 0.6 ppmv as high as the 404 K (17.8 km) level. These are shown to originate from convective overshoots upwind detected by an S-band weather radar operating locally in Bauru. The accurate in situ observations uncover two independent moisture pathways into the tropical lower stratosphere, whose manifestations are hardly detectable by space-borne sounders. We argue that the moistening by horizontal transport is limited by the weak meridional gradients of water, whereas the fast convective cross-tropopause transport, largely missed by global models, can have a substantial effect, at least at a regional scale.
Nitrogen fixation in sediments along a depth transect through the Peruvian
oxygen minimum zone
Authors: Gier Jessica , Sommer Stefan , Löscher Carolin R. , Dale Andrew W. , Schmitz Ruth A. , Treude Tina
Published: July 2016

Abstract. The potential coupling of nitrogen (N2) fixation and sulfate reduction (SR) was explored in sediments of the Peruvian oxygen minimum zone (OMZ). Sediment samples were retrieved by a multiple corer at six stations along a depth transect (70–1025 m water depth) at 12° S, covering anoxic and hypoxic bottom water conditions. Benthic N2 fixation, determined by the acetylene reduction assay, was detected at all sites, with highest rates between 70 and 253 m and lower rates at greater depth. SR rates decreased with increasing water depth. N2 fixation and SR overlapped in sediments, suggesting a potential coupling of both processes. However, a weak positive correlation of their activity distribution was detected by principle component analysis. A potential link between N2 fixation and sulfate-reducing bacteria was indicated by the molecular analysis of nifH genes. Detected nifH sequences clustered with the sulfate-reducing bacteria Desulfonema limicola at the 253 m station. However, nifH sequences of other stations clustered with uncultured organisms, Gammaproteobacteria, and Firmicutes (Clostridia) rather than with known sulfate reducers. The principle component analysis revealed that benthic N2 fixation in the Peruvian OMZ is controlled by organic matter (positive) and free sulfide (negative). No correlation was found between N2 fixation and ammonium concentrations (even at levels > 2022 µM). N2 fixation rates in the Peruvian OMZ sediments were in the same range as those measured in other organic-rich sediments.
Methods to retrieve the complex refractive index of aquatic suspended particles: going beyond simple shapes
Authors: Sánchez Albert-Miquel , Piera Jaume
Published: July 2016

Abstract. The scattering properties of aquatic suspended particles have many optical applications. Several data inversion methods have been proposed to estimate important features of particles, such as their size distribution or their refractive index. Most of the proposed methods are based on the Lorenz–Mie theory to solve Maxwell's equations, where particles are considered homogeneous spheres. A generalization that allows consideration of more complex-shaped particles is the T-matrix method. Although this approach imposes some geometrical restrictions (particles must be rotationally symmetrical) it is applicable to many life forms of phytoplankton. In this paper, three different scenarios are considered in order to compare the performance of several inversion methods for retrieving refractive indices. The error associated with each method is discussed and analyzed. The results suggest that inverse methods using the T-matrix approach are useful to accurately retrieve the refractive indices of particles with complex shapes, such as for many phytoplankton organisms.