Amount Of Relevant Information Research Articles

Значение ПЭТ, совмещенной с КТ, при диффузной В-крупноклеточной лимфоме: история вопроса, эволюция представлений и современные возможности метода (обзор литературы)

Combined positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) is broadly used not only during initial staging of non-Hodgkin lymphomas (NHL) but also during as well as after treatment. Due to an increasing body of accessible data on classical Hodgkin lymphoma revealing high significance of PET/CT, the amount of relevant information on NHL is also growing day by day. At the moment, there is a consensus that PET/CT results can be effectively used in prognostic risk stratification of patients with different NHL variants, including diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL). However, a huge volume of information collected by now hinders a full insight because of clinical variability of DLBCL, different time-points and methods of evaluating PET/CT results. The present review focuses on the role of PET/CT in the diagnosis and assessment of response to DLBCL therapy.

Fovea localization in retinal images using spatial color histograms

AbstractThe automatic location of the fovea is very useful for diagnosing retinal diseases. It is a complex problem for which different solutions have been proposed based on classical image processing and Deep Learning techniques. The method presented in this paper is based on histograms that combine spatial and color information in such a way that the spatial coordinates are incorporated into conventional color histograms as an additional dimension. The binarization of these histograms retains a considerable amount of relevant information from the original image, allowing them to be processed as if they were ordinary images. This approach to the problem results in a simple, fast and effective method for locating the fovea. Different experiments have been carried out with three popular sets of images: Messidor, REFUGE1 and DIARETDB1, and a comparison was made with other state-of-the-art techniques. Our results show that the proposed method, despite its simplicity, is capable of surpassing many of these techniques.

Genetic Algorithms to Maximize the Relevant Mutual Information in Communication Receivers

The preservation of relevant mutual information under compression is the fundamental challenge of the information bottleneck method. It has many applications in machine learning and in communications. The recent literature describes successful applications of this concept in quantized detection and channel decoding schemes. The focal idea is to build receiver algorithms intended to preserve the maximum possible amount of relevant information, despite very coarse quantization. The existent literature shows that the resulting quantized receiver algorithms can achieve performance very close to that of conventional high-precision systems. Moreover, all demanding signal processing operations get replaced with lookup operations in the considered system design. In this paper, we develop the idea of maximizing the preserved relevant information in communication receivers further by considering parametrized systems. Such systems can help overcome the need of lookup tables in cases where their huge sizes make them impractical. We propose to apply genetic algorithms which are inspired from the natural evolution of the species for the problem of parameter optimization. We exemplarily investigate receiver-sided channel output quantization and demodulation to illustrate the notable performance and the flexibility of the proposed concept.

Research trends on elasmobranchs from the Brazilian Amazon Coast: a four-decade review

Abstract: Elasmobranchs exhibit the biggest population declines among vertebrates, being considered one of the groups with the highest risk of extinction. The Brazilian Amazon Coast (BAC) is considered a priority area for elasmobranch conservation, as many species are endemic to the region, and most of them are threatened with extinction. The present study made a scientometric analysis using the IRAMUTEQ method (Interface de R pour les Analyses Multidimensionnelles de Textes et de Questionnaires) to evaluate the trends of research with elasmobranchs in BAC in the last four decades. Ten research trends were identified, highlighting “Biodiversity”, “Reproduction”, “Trophic Ecology” and “Conservation”. However, most of the publications found are aimed at understanding the diversity and abundance of species in the region, with the number of studies focused on reproduction, feeding and other aspects of the biology and ecology of elasmobranchs in the BAC being less expressive. Although the research area “Conservation” stood out in the search, the amount of relevant information so that management and conservation measures can be implemented is still low. Lastly, despite following the global trend of studies with elasmobranchs between 2000 and 2010, investigations into the BAC need to advance, especially considering the poor level of basic information on most species (Biology and population dynamics) and the incomplete knowledge of specific composition of elasmobranch species in the entire area, aspects relevant to conservation and more applied studies that rely on more recent methodologies and technologies.

A cheminformatic study on chemical space characterization and diversity analysis of 5-LOX inhibitors

The process of blocking 5-lipoxygenase (5-LOX) catalyzed leukotriene biosynthesis has been recognized for the past few decades as a promising therapeutic strategy for acute inflammatory, allergic, and respiratory diseases. Due to the toxicity effect of FDA approved 5-LOX inhibitor zileuton, novel 5-LOX inhibitors have been sought by the scientific community. As a result, a significant and relevant amount of information on the structure-activity of 5-LOX inhibitors has been released and stored in public databases. In this study, we aimed at the comprehensive cheminformatic characterization of the diversity and complexity of the chemical space of 5-LOX inhibitors and its activating protein FLAP inhibitors by comparing it with the Approved drug space and virtual LOX library. The visual representation of the property space indicates some compounds in the 5-LOX inhibitors space broaden the traditional medicinal space. The structural diversity of the databases is computed using complementary approaches, including Physicochemical Property (PCP) descriptors, molecular fingerprints, and molecular scaffold. With the apparent exception of approved drugs, the 5-LOX dataset shows more diversity compared to FLAP and LOX virtual library set. This study was able to identify the underlying patterns in the chemical and pharmacological properties space that were decisive for the drug discovery and development of 5-LOX inhibitors.

The Effect of eHealth on Information Awareness on Non-Communicable Diseases Among Youths Between 18-25 Years in Nairobi County, Kenya

Non-communicable diseases kill 41 million people each year, equivalent to 71% of all deaths globally while in Kenya 31% of deaths in the country in 2015, were due to NCDs. Majority of the populations dying from non-communicable diseases with over 85% are from developing countries. NCDs are also the leading cause of all hospital admission death-causing 51% of all hospital deaths in Kenya in 2015. The study sought to determine the impact of eHealth on non-communicable diseases information awareness levels in Nairobi County with the study population being the youths of Kenyatta University. The research used a cohort study design where youths were exposed to MyHeart-Ke App. They were then followed over six months to assess their knowledge on non-communicable diseases and healthy lifestyle habits. A total of 402 respondents participated in the study. The study used posttest non-experimental cohort study design as there was only one study group. Data was collected using questionnaires. The majority of the study participants were males at 56% while the majority age was 22 years at 17%. The study found out that awareness on NCDs among the respondents was high at 96% with cardiovascular diseases being the most widely known at 85.8%. Although some of the participants knew m-Health at 68.7%, it was not widespread among the respondents before the study. However, after the study, MyHeart-Ke was reported to offer a significant and relevant amount of information on NCDs with 51.2% preferring it over the mainstream internet. A majority also had a perception that NCDs are preventable through the reduction of alcohol use, screening, and healthy diets. The findings are expected to help the relevant authorities in designing appropriate strategies for addressing NCDs in the country especially in the digital space.

An Entropy-Based Approach to Real-Time Information Extraction for Industry 4.0

Industry 4.0 has drawn considerable attention from industry and academic research communities. The recent advances in Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data analytics, sensor technology, and artificial intelligence have led to the design and implementation of novel approaches to take full advantage of data-driven solutions applicable to Industry 4.0. With the availability of large datasets, it has become crucially important to identify the appropriate amount of relevant information, which would optimize the overall analysis of the corresponding systems. In this article, specific properties of dynamically evolving data systems are introduced and investigated, which provide framework to assess the appropriate amount of representative information.

Field Monitoring With Delayed Saving

Field monitoring techniques can collect data about the behavior of software applications while running in the field, with real users and real data. Developers can exploit the information extracted from the field to timely improve, tune, and fix their systems, anticipating feedback by users. It is, however, challenging to extract a relevant amount of information from field executions without introducing significant overhead. This paper addresses this challenge by studying how to inexpensively trace data in-memory while postponing save operations to idle time, so that the operations requested by users are exposed to a negligible overhead only. In particular, this paper presents delayed saving, a technique that efficiently traces references to objects, opportunistically saving information only when the monitored application is not serving any user request. Storing references and postponing save operations may introduce inaccuracy in the collected data, that is, a lately saved object might be in a different state compared to the state of the object at the time it was traced. Our evaluation shows that the level of inaccuracy introduced by delayed saving is limited compared to its efficiency and low intrusiveness.

Improving Information Transfer during Transitions of Care via Standardized Handoffs

Multiple studies have shown the detrimental effect of miscommunication during transitions of care. The aim of this study is to determine whether a certain method of "sign-out" can improve information transmission and thereby reduce medical errors. Surgical interns underwent a 90-minute training session before starting residency in five previously verified methods of sign-out. They were randomly assigned to six groups (five methods and a control group). They were then given seven simulated patient charts with varying levels of medical complexity. They were then instructed to "sign-out" the patients to randomly selected colleagues. The control group did not use any of the previously taught methods and passed on information in a manner of their choosing. None of the methods consistently results in excellent transitions of care. Patient information values ranged from 26 to 40 (depending on complexity). Major points were consistently missed by all methods, but this may have been a component of the time constraint placed on this study. The "SIGNOUT?" method resulted in superior data transmission when compared with the control group (P = 0.0401). The only method that seemed to be significantly inferior was the "9Ds" method (P = 0.0610). The "SIGNOUT?" method leads to the largest amount of relevant information transmitted to the incoming team. There was no statistically significant difference among the other methods. Improvement in "sign-out" modalities and training may improve transmission of relevant patient information, but larger studies are needed to verify the data seen in this small, single-site study.

Effects of positional variables on shooting outcome in elite football

ABSTRACTObjective: To analyse shooting situations in elite football (soccer) by incorporating opponent positioning for shots from the same location.Methods: All attempts by foot during four seasons (2011–2012 until 2014–2015) of an elite team's home matches were analysed. Three locations with the highest density of shots (n = 21, 24, and 20) were identified and selected. The positioning of defenders (closest, first and number of opponents in line to the goal) and the goalkeeper was determined and analysed for the outcome of each shot (being a goal, on target, or based on placement).Results: For shots from a tight angle, the distance of the closest defender correlated with improved shot placement (r = –0.39, P = 0.04). For shots from a close range, the sight of goal affected shots going on or off target (ES = 0.77, P = 0.03). Finally, for shots from a longer range, none of the positional variables correlated with shot outcome.Conclusions: Adding context to shooting performance, by taking opponent positions into account, increased the amount of relevant information for the analysis of shooting performance. Since different variables were found to relate to the outcome of shots from different positions, the significance of contextualising match events has been highlighted.

Sharing Historic Costume Collections Online

The recent increase in online costume history resources has provided scholars of dress with fresh sources of information for inspiring and validating their research. The best digital archives consider the needs of their users in creating systems that make it easy for more users to access the greatest amount of relevant information. Users of online costume history resources have specific needs that should be addressed, both for internal users (organizing and entering information) and external users (finding information). This paper follows a panel presentation at the 2014 Symposium of the Costume Society of America, on the subject of digital initiatives for sharing collections of historic costume under-way at individual American colleges and universities. In the presentation and resulting discussions with CSA members, common concerns became evident, both for information seekers and managers of historic costume data. These concerns and potential solutions are addressed in the following paper.

Revealing the secrets of intractable cellular functions: All-in-one-well methods for studying protein interaction and secretion

Protein-based assays are essential tools for many laboratories in both industrial and academic settings. Protein targets of interest are often found at low abundance and can be complex in nature, making their analysis intractable. One of the considerable challenges when developing assays is that small sample sizes can limit the amount of relevant information that can be extracted. The ability to miniaturize an assay allows sufficient data to be collected from scarce samples, while being able to interrogate multiple proteins simultaneously through multiplexing enables researchers to extract more data from each experiment and improve the biological relevance of the results significantly. This multiplexing ability provides the opportunity to quantitatively profile multiple signaling pathways from minute samples derived from very small cell populations. Furthermore, having the tools to directly study protein target binding in cells allows biologically relevant information to be preserved, including subcellular localization, posttranslational modifications, and the occurrence of multiple interactions with different accessory proteins and other scaffolding molecules. In this webinar, two examples of such approaches will be discussed. The first is the use of a method to amplify the signal in a target engagement assay using small samples, utilized to interrogate modulators of cytokine secretion. The second involves a so-called cellular thermal shift assay (CETSA) to detect protein-ligand interactions without the need to modify either the ligand or receptor, or the necessity for recombinant cell lines.

Internet and social networks in the promotion of higher education institutions

Internet and social networks have contributed to the development of communication between people. Different information, experiences, impressions of a number of people, everything becomes available to people around the world. This kind of communication via the Internet, including the development of web sites and building profiles on social networks, should also be used by higher education institutions. Prospective and current students can become even closer with colleges, while colleges can provide them with useful information and communicate with them in a much faster and easier way. This research points out the fact that students are increasingly using the Internet as a form of communication with higher education institutions, as well as social networks to get the necessary information. All this shows that this type of communication can become an important marketing tool to all schools which choose to actively attract as many potential students as possible and also to provide benefits to all current students offering them a considerable amount of relevant information.

Description of ionospheric disturbances observed by Vertical Ionospheric Sounding at 3 MHz

<p>High Frequency radio waves reflected by the ionosphere can provide a relevant amount of information within the composite received signal. The ionosphere is indeed a frequency dispersive, bi-refractive, absorbing medium, in which multipath propagation occurs due to disturbance on a varied time-spatial scale. On the time-spatial level of Small Scale Disturbances (SSD) the ionosphere dynamics, detectable by Vertical Ionospheric Sounding (VIS), is mainly dependent on wrinkled layers acting as multi-reflectors. The present paper discusses different aspects of the effects of multipath fading suffered by the wave along the propagation path and potentially associated with SSD. To achieve these objectives, a VIS campaign at a fixed frequency of 3.0 MHz was conducted at the ionospheric observatory in Rome (Latitude 41.8 N; Longitude 12.5 E), by collecting a series of measurements of the power variations in received echo signals recorded between two consecutive ionograms whose sounding repetition rate was set to 15 min. The obtained results show that: 1) the fading suffered by the wave follows either a Rayleigh trend or a Nakagami-Rice trend, or a mix of them, the mixed case being the most frequent (about 65 % of the analysed cases); 2) the predominant periodicities characterizing the power variation are less than 25 s; such values are compatible with the small scale ionospheric disturbances; 3) for all the 24 hours of the day the ionospheric reflector is pretty stable and for time intervals of 10-30 s the periods of stability occur with a percentage of occurrence ranging between 55% and 95 %; for time intervals of 190- 210 s the periods of stability occur instead with a percentage of occurrence ranging between 5% and 54 %.</p>

Combining Multimodal Wavefront Examination and Digital Refraction to Create a Rapid and Accurate Approach (XFraction) for a Total Visual System Assessment for Intraocular Lens Selection

Following advances in intraocular lens technology in recent years, greatly increased options are now available to the ophthalmic surgeon. However, there is a need for improved diagnostic technologies to optimize outcomes and select the best treatment strategies. A process combining multimodal wavefront examination and digital refraction, wavefront optimized refraction or ‘XFractionSM,’ has been recently developed to address this requirement. This novel fusion of techniques increases the amount of data that can be captured from each eye by orders of magnitude and is completed in much less time than former separate methods or manual refraction alone. The result is a process that enhances current procedures, provides superior patient diagnosis over previous techniques through the full optical pathway, and provides multiple benefits to both the patient and physician. The process enables the collection of a large amount of relevant information that makes available new levels of understanding about each patient’s unique visual system. Its use in clinical practice has been further associated with increased practice efficiency, enhanced optimized refractions, improved diagnostic surgical outcomes, and higher levels of patient satisfaction.

Roogle: an information retrieval engine for clinical data warehouse.

High amount of relevant information is contained in reports stored in the electronic patient records and associated metadata. R-oogle is a project aiming at developing information retrieval engines adapted to these reports and designed for clinicians. The system consists in a data warehouse (full-text reports and structured data) imported from two different hospital information systems. Information retrieval is performed using metadata-based semantic and full-text search methods (as Google). Applications may be biomarkers identification in a translational approach, search of specific cases, and constitution of cohorts, professional practice evaluation, and quality control assessment.

The impact of a dedicated placenta request form on the provision of clinical information at a tertiary centre

Aims To assess the impact of a dedicated placental pathology request form upon the provision of clinical information by clinicians in a tertiary hospital. Methods Consecutive series of placental pathology reports from before (98 cases) and after (92 cases) introduction of the request form were analysed for the amount of clinical information provided. Information was assessed as being clinically relevant or irrelevant. Results Use of the new form significantly improved recording of gestational age by clinicians (67% prior and 93% post). Clinicians using the new form gave significantly more information (1.57 points prior and 2.83 points post) and more of this information was considered useful in specimen handling and clinicopathological correlation (1.2 points prior and 2.1 points post). Discussion Relevant clinical information is vital to correct specimen handling and clinicopathological correlation. Implementation of a dedicated placenta request form significantly increases the frequency of recording of gestational age and the amount of information providedbyclinicians. Importantly, use of the form increases the amount of relevant information offered by referring clinicians. Increased relevant information assists in the ordering of appropriate ancillary tests, reduces time spent chasing clinical information and adds to the overall relevance and quality of placental pathology reports.

Review of Clinical Anesthesia, 5th Edition.

Mayo Clinic, Phoenix, Arizona. gaitan.brantley@mayo.eduReview of Clinical Anesthesia, 5th Edition. Edited by Neil Roy Connelly, M.D., David G. Silverman, M.D. Philadelphia, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2009. Pages: 315. Price: $64.95.The amount of relevant information in our specialty continues to grow, and mastery of all aspects seems at times a daunting task. There are numerous general and subspecialty journals continually publishing the most current happenings in research, and that which has staying power and becomes accepted knowledge eventually makes it into our textbooks. Selecting resources for learning seems a difficult task, and reading and mastering the content of just one textbook seem even more difficult.The authors of Review of Clinical Anesthesia , 5th Edition, have created a tool to aid the student and reader as he or she navigates through the various topics in our specialty. This is a question book that parallels the textbook Clinical Anesthesia , 6th Edition, in a chapter-by-chapter format.1Each chapter of questions is a complement to a corresponding chapter in Clinical Anesthesia , with full explanations of the answers and references to the location of the material. The questions are generally well written and are good representations of the content of the parent text. The chapters are not too extensive, each one being easily finished in one study session. This makes its usefulness even more attractive to the resident balancing a hectic work schedule with a regular study schedule. The authors suggest that the book is most useful if used as a pretest and posttest while reading Clinical Anesthesia because questions may reveal what content the reader has mastered and what should be reviewed. Similarly, they suggest that the book can be used in preparation for the anesthesiology written examinations because the multiple-choice and K-type formats are similar to those found on the In-Training Examination, the Anesthesiology Knowledge Tests, and the Anesthesiology Written Board Examination.Because learning styles are highly individualized, some students may not prefer this text format. The concise content of each chapter makes review of a broad topic, for example cardiac anesthesia, not quite as simple; one would want to have completed the chapters Cardiovascular Anatomy and Physiology, Echocardiography, and Anesthesia for Cardiac Surgery at a minimum before considering this topic reviewed. Because most residents study from multiple sources and the explanations only cite the accompanying text, it might not be the best review book for last-minute preparation for the written examinations for all residents.Nonetheless, the book is an excellent review. With more than 1,000 questions, it can serve as an excellent complement to other review material in preparation for the boards. An even more appropriate role of this book is for routine study not only throughout residency but also well after. Reading the larger textbook can be difficult, and using the review along with it in a regular study schedule would likely improve the learning curve for the student at all levels of training. Therefore, for the anesthesiology community that selects Clinical Anesthesia as their “go-to” reference text, I highly recommend selecting Review of Clinical Anesthesia to fully complement the learning experience and aid them in the mastery of one of our most revered resource textbooks.Mayo Clinic, Phoenix, Arizona. gaitan.brantley@mayo.edu

Impact on Cardiac Toxicity With Trastuzumab and Radiotherapy: The Question Is Still Ongoing

TO THE EDITOR: In a recent issue of Journal of Clinical Oncology, Halyard et al retrospectively examined adverse events data from the North Central Cancer Treatment Group phase III trial N9831 and directly evaluated the effect of trastuzumab on radiation-induced cardiac toxicity. At a median follow-up of 3.7 years, radiotherapy concurrently with trastuzumab did not increase relative frequency of cardiac events, regardless of treatment side, suggesting that concurrent adjuvant radiation therapy and trastuzumab was not associated with increased acute adverse events. To our knowledge, the cardiac effects of the interaction of trastuzumab and radiation therapy had not been reported before, and this content-rich article is one of the best pieces of literature that elaborates on the cardiac toxicity of concurrent use of trastuzumab and radiation therapy. However, several shortcomings are present and should be highlighted. Firstly, there is a need to focus not only on severe symptomatic cardiac disease. Subtle functional declines and minor cardiovascular changes may also increase mortality with longer follow-up. Unchanged value in left ventricular ejection fraction is not equated to a lack of cardiotoxicity and additional strategies for the monitoring of radiation-induced cardiotoxicity are being explored. Secondly, strategies involving concurrent targeted therapies and radiotherapy should be considered in randomized trials in which every effort should be made to minimize the dose to the heart. A substantial amount of relevant information should be required in further clinical trials, including doses delivered to cardiac structures, especially the coronary arteries. This information would be of first importance. Finally, preliminary experiences with trastuzumab suggest a need for continued cardiac follow-up. Close attention to the long-term cardiovascular adverse effect profile of targeted agents is imperative during their clinical development, particularly when evaluating combinations of new agents with radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy.

Correction: Length of Counseling Sessions and the Amount of Relevant Information Exchanged: A Study in Peruvian Clinics

Correction: Length of Counseling Sessions and the Amount of Relevant Information Exchanged: A Study in Peruvian Clinics