Personalized Diagnosis Research Articles

A predictive scoring system for therapy-failure in persons with chronic myeloid leukemia receiving initial imatinib therapy.

Data from 1,364 consecutive subjects with chronic-phase chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) receiving initial imatinib-therapy were interrogated to identify co-variates predicting therapy failure. Subjects were randomly divided into training (n = 908) and validation datasets (n = 456). In the training dataset, WBC count ≥120 × 10E + 9/L, haemoglobin concentration <115 g/L, blood basophils ≥12% and European Treatment and Outcome Study for CML Long-Term Survival (ELTS) risk score were significantly-associated with failure-free survival (FFS). Each co-variate was assigned 1 point to develop the imatinib-therapy failure (IMTF) model except ELTS high-risk category which was assigned 2 points based on multi-variable regression coefficients. Area under receiver-operator characteristic curve values in the IMTF model for 1-, 3- and 5-year FFS were 0.79-0.84 in the training dataset and 0.78-0.85 in the validation dataset. Calibration plots showed high agreement between predicted and observed outcomes. Decision curve analyses indicated subjects benefited from clinical use of this model. Cumulative incidences of imatinib-therapy failure and probabilities of FFS among the 5 risk cohorts (very low-, low-, intermediate-, high- and very high-risk) using the IMTF model were significantly different (all p values < 0.001). The IMTF model also correlated with probabilities of progression-free survival and survival (all p values < 0.001). These data should help physicians optimize TKI-therapy strategy at diagnosis in persons with chronic phase CML.

Disposable impedimetric nano-immunochips for the early and rapid diagnosis of Vitamin-D deficiency

Deficiency of Vitamin D is often misdiagnosed as its symptoms may not be manifested for several years. Long-standing of this deficiency is associated with cancer, osteoporosis, diabetes, blood clotting disorders, and recently it was involved in the progression of coronavirus 2019 infection. Therefore, the development of a point-of-care test for Vitamin D is extremely necessary to achieve early, faster, and personal diagnosis. Serum 25-hydroxyvitamin-D3 (25(OH)D3) is clinically considered as one of the remarkable biomarkers for the direct determination of vitamin D level.Herein, nanostructured-immunosensors were designed for the label-free impedimetric determination of 25(OH)D biomarker in human serum. To fabricate the sensing probe, the targeting antibody (anti-25(OH)D3) was chemically conjugated on the nanocomposite surface (AuNPs/RGO-SeO2) using 4-aminothiophenol (4-ATP) and glutaraldehyde (GA) as cross-linking agents. Through the assay optimization, screening of nanomaterials, determining the best ratio of the nanocomposite, adjusting the time of SAM-formation, and identifying the degree of cross-reactivity with other non-targeting molecules were studied and optimized. Eventually, a linear dynamic range of 0.05–200 ng/mL, and the lower limit of detection of 0.01 ng/mL was achieved. Furthermore, the proposed immunosensor was tested for the detection of 25(OH)D3 in human serum samples, and the results were in a good agreement with the result obtained by the ELISA test. Providing high selectivity, reproducibility, and stability, this designed sensor is recommended for clinical diagnosis of Vitamin D.

The perception of stress, behavior in stressful situations and mental health of bank employees within a German-Ukrainian comparative study.

The banking sector is a branch of the global labor market that is increasingly facing stress. This can have some negative effects on mental and physical health. The aim of the study was to examine the management of stress and the assessment of mental health in 2 European countries. The sample comprised 90 (52%) German and 83 (48%) Ukrainian bank employees (BA) (N = 173). To achieve the aim of the study, the following questionnaires were used: the Differential Stress Inventory (DSI), the Inventory for Personality Diagnosis in Situations (IPS) and the 12-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12). The participants were examined in regard to nationality. Age, gender, senior position and DSI types were considered as covariates. There were some significant national differences. The senior position, gender and age alone had little or no influence on the results. In stress management, the German sample showed unfavorable values of DSI and IPS categories. Significantly more German bank employees (10%) were overstressed (DSI type II) compared to Ukrainian ones (3%). Significant differences in stress trigger, stress manifestation and stress stabilization of DSI, and in almost all IPS categories, were found between the bank employees of both countries. More specifically, 20% of the German sample and only 8.8% of the Ukrainian sample reported impaired mental health. Bank employees from Germany and Ukraine differed in their perception of stress and behavior in stressful situations, based on the DSI and IPS results; the Germans were shown to perform worse. This is reflected in the higher level of mental health impairment among the Germans, which is demonstrated by the GHQ-12 results. However, there is a need for workplace health promotion and preventive programs for both samples. Int J Occup Med Environ Health. 2022;35(1):81-94.

Between the convention and conventional practice: Israeli social workers' recommendations regarding the legal capacity of people with disabilities.

BackgroundFollowing the convention on the rights of persons with disabilities (CRPD), various countries have recently amended their legal capacity laws with the aim of restricting the use of guardianship and increasing the use of other, less restrictive practices, mainly supported decision making. As social workers have a key role in carrying out these reforms, this study examines how Israeli social workers make legal capacity‐related decisions.MethodSemi‐structured interviews with 27 Israeli social workers.ResultsThematic analysis identified three factors driving social workers' recommendations regarding guardianship and supported decision‐making: the person's diagnosis and functioning level, and the presence of a supportive family. A fourth factor, the person's preferences, played a complex and more limited role.ConclusionsMany changes have yet to be made to fully apply the support paradigm in Israel, since social workers still tend to base their recommendations on factors not fully aligned with the CRPD.

Things to Consider When Automatically Detecting Parkinson’s Disease Using the Phonation of Sustained Vowels: Analysis of Methodological Issues

Diagnosing Parkinson’s Disease (PD) necessitates monitoring symptom progression. Unfortunately, diagnostic confirmation often occurs years after disease onset. A more sensitive and objective approach is paramount to the expedient diagnosis and treatment of persons with PD (PwPDs). Recent studies have shown that we can train accurate models to detect signs of PD from audio recordings of confirmed PwPDs. However, disparities exist between studies and may be caused, in part, by differences in employed corpora or methodologies. Our hypothesis is that unaccounted covariates in methodology, experimental design, and data preparation resulted in overly optimistic results in studies of PD automatic detection employing sustained vowels. These issues include record-wise fold creation rather than subject-wise; an imbalance of age between the PwPD and control classes; using too small of a corpus compared to the sizes of feature vectors; performing cross-validation without including development data; and the absence of cross-corpora testing to confirm results. In this paper, we evaluate the influence of these methodological issues in the automatic detection of PD employing sustained vowels. We perform several experiments isolating each issue to measure its influence employing three different corpora. Moreover, we analyze if the perceived dysphonia of the speakers could be causing differences in results between the corpora. Results suggest that each independent methodological issue analyzed has an effect on classification accuracy. Consequently, we recommend a list of methodological steps to be considered in future experiments to avoid overoptimistic or misleading results.

The Role of Structure MRI in Diagnosing Autism.

This study proposes a Computer-Aided Diagnostic (CAD) system to diagnose subjects with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The CAD system identifies morphological anomalies within the brain regions of ASD subjects. Cortical features are scored according to their contribution in diagnosing a subject to be ASD or typically developed (TD) based on a trained machine-learning (ML) model. This approach opens the hope for developing a new CAD system for early personalized diagnosis of ASD. We propose a framework to extract the cerebral cortex from structural MRI as well as identifying the altered areas in the cerebral cortex. This framework consists of the following five main steps: (i) extraction of cerebral cortex from structural MRI; (ii) cortical parcellation to a standard atlas; (iii) identifying ASD associated cortical markers; (iv) adjusting feature values according to sex and age; (v) building tailored neuro-atlases to identify ASD; and (vi) artificial neural networks (NN) are trained to classify ASD. The system is tested on the Autism Brain Imaging Data Exchange (ABIDE I) sites achieving an average balanced accuracy score of . This paper demonstrates the ability to develop an objective CAD system using structure MRI and tailored neuro-atlases describing specific developmental patterns of the brain in autism.

Clinical investigation and research on Axis Ⅱ evaluation of patients with temporomandibular disorders

Objective: To screen the physical, psychological and behavioral factors related to patients with temporomandibular disorders (TMD) by using Axis Ⅱ assessment instruments of diagnostic criteria for TMD(DC/TMD). And to provide a reference to establish personalized diagnosis and treatment plans for TMD patients so as to prevent TMD and reduce predisposing factors. Methods: A total of 141 TMD patients, who were admitted in the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery in School and Hospital of Stomatology, Wuhan University from October 2018 to February 2021 were selected. There were 121 females and 20 males, with an average age of 30 years. A total of 90 healthy people were included as controls. A full-time psychologist conducted relevant questionnaire surveys. The questionnaires include general clinical survey forms and TMD symptom questionnaire. In addition, Axis Ⅱ assessment instruments include graded chronic pain scale, jaw functional limitation scale, oral behaviors checklist, patient health questionnaire-9 (depression), generalized anxiety disorder scale, patient health questionnaire-15 (physical symptoms), etc. The main observational indicators include: pain level, pain impact rates, overall classification of chronic pain, limited chewing function score, limited motor function score, limited communication function score, total jaw function restricted score, depression score, anxiety score, somatic symptom score and oral behavior score.The survey data were imported into SPSS 22.0 software for statistical analysis. Results: In the TMD group 60.3% (85/141) patients had various degrees of pain, 24.1% (34/141) of those with pain effect grades from 1 to 3 and 61.0% (86/141) showed chronic pain overall grades from Ⅰ to Ⅳ. The chewing function restricted score was 2.67(1.17, 4.25), motor function restricted score was 4.25(1.75, 6.12), communication function restricted score was 1.13(1.00, 2.25) and total jaw function restricted score was 2.56(1.47, 4.15) respectively. Patients with mild depression or above accounted for 59.6%(84/141), patients with mild anxiety or above accounted for 56.7%(80/141), 46.1%(65/141) patients had somatization symptoms. Statistical differences (P<0.05) were determined between TMD group and control group in various scores of jaw function, oral behavior grading, depression, anxiety, and physical symptoms. Physical symptoms had significantly statistical difference between different diagnostic classification(P<0.05). Meanwhile, among the different chronic pain levels in the TMD group, there were statistical differences in the various scales of mandibular dysfunction, depression, anxiety, and somatization. In the TMD group, other significant differences were noticed between males and females in terms of the average score of mouth opening, verbal and facial communication, the total score of mandibular dysfunction as well as physical symptoms (P<0.05). Conclusions: Compared with the healthy people, patients with TMD had more abnormal oral behaviors, different restriction of the mandibular functional activities. At the same time, depression, anxiety, and somatization were more serious. Patients with osteoarthritis and subluxation of temporomandibular joint were more likely to suffer physical symptoms. TMD patients suffering from pain had more severe mandibular dysfunction and symptoms of depression, anxiety, and somatization.

Pathological and imaging features of Paget's disease and nipple adenoma: a comparative study.

Both Paget's disease (PD) and nipple adenoma (NA) are rare lesions occurred on nipple and share some similarities in clinical manifestations, but there are have different pathological manifestations and imaging findings. This study analyzed the clinicopathological and imaging features of PD in nipple and NA to improve our knowledge about these two diseases and to provide guidance for clinical diagnosis and treatment. Retrospectively analyzed 99 female patients confirmed by surgery and pathology from January 2014 to December 2018. The features of imaging examination included 95 cases of breast ultrasound, 83 cases of breast X-ray and 24 cases of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) were analyzed and compered the detection rate and diagnostic accuracy. The 99 patients consisted of 76 patients with PD and 23 patients with NA. Despite the similarity of clinical manifestations between PD and NA, the pathological features of these diseases were completely different. Differences in various imaging manifestations were found to facilitate differential diagnosis. Breast X-ray and ultrasound can discover the nipple areola changes such as mass and calcification, but some cases still show negative. Breast MRI can clearly show the areola lesions of nipple PD and NA, accurately evaluate the degree and size of breast lesions, and help clinicians choose appropriate and personalized diagnosis and treatment methods. The combination of multiple breast imaging examinations (including X-ray, ultrasound, and MRI) can improve the diagnosis of PD and NA and play a guiding role in the options for clinical treatment.

Tehnike vestačke inteligencije za poboljšanje psihijatrijske prakse - gde smo sada?

Currently, the world is entering the fourth industrial revolution - marked by artificial intelligence (AI) powered technologies. The growing ubiquity of AI technologies is already present in many sectors of modern society, but caution still prevails in medicine where their application is far from routine, although it is on the constant rise. Psychiatry has been recognized as one of the disciplines where significant contribution of AI technologies is expected for prediction, diagnosis, treatment and monitoring of persons with psychiatric disorders. Nearly half of the world's population live in countries that have fewer than one psychiatrist per 100 000 inhabitants, which is far below the health needs as the prevalence of psychiatric disorders is within the range of 10-20%. Thus, the question arises - whether AI technologies can help to fill the gap in unmet needs in psychiatry? The main types of autonomous technologies currently applied in psychiatry are machine learning and its subsets deep learning and computer vision, alongside natural language processing and chatbots. The present review will focus on the brief history of the concept, the utility of AI technologies in psychiatry, clinicians' attitudes, ethical dilemmas, clinical and scientific challenges. This review emphasizes that the psychiatric community should not be ignorant but could try to leave the comfort zone and do more to raise the awareness of AI technologies development achievements.

Machinery Fault Diagnosis Based on Domain Adaptation to Bridge the Gap Between Simulation and Measured Signals

In intelligent fault diagnosis, the success of artificial intelligence (AI) models is highly dependent on labeled training samples, which may not be obtained in real-world applications. Recently, a finite element method (FEM) simulation-based personalized diagnosis method was developed to overcome the problems of insufficient and incomplete labeled training samples. However, the simulation signals obtained using the FEM and measured signals actually have a certain deviation. To supplement the FEM simulation-based personalized diagnosis method, a fault diagnosis method using domain adaptation (DA) is proposed to bridge the gap between simulation signals and measured signals. First, the FEM is adopted to obtain sufficient and complete simulation samples of all the fault categories as the original fault samples in the source domain. Second, the original simulation fault samples are adjusted using a generative adversarial network (GAN)-based DA network to make them similar to the measured samples through the adversarial training of the refiner and domain discriminator. Last, credible adjustment fault samples and measured fault samples obtained in machinery are applied to a convolutional neural network (CNN) for training and testing to complete the fault classification. The data obtained from rolling element bearing and gear test rigs are utilized to explore the feasibility of the proposed method, and the classification accuracies reach 99.44% and 99.58%, respectively. The comparison investigations using experimental data of gears and bearings indicate that the present method can accurately classify faults in machinery.

P117: THE INTERNATIONAL HAEMOGLOBINOPATHY RESEARCH NETWORK (INHERENT): AN INTERNATIONAL INITIATIVE TO STUDY THE ROLE OF GENETIC MODIFIERS IN HAEMOGLOBINOPATHIES

Background: Haemoglobinopathies, including sickle cell disease (SCD) and thalassaemia syndromes, represent the commonest monogenic diseases in the world. Although their pathogenicity is well established, the diverse clinical manifestations and the varying degree of severity are less understood and are thought to be governed, in part, by genetic modifiers. Despite the identification and characterisation of a few genetic modifiers by previous studies, these are as yet insufficient to guide treatment recommendations or stratify patients reliably. Larger, multi-ethnic studies are needed to identify and validate further disease modifiers that can be used for patient stratification and personalised treatment. There is a growing need for deeper insight with the availability of novel targeted therapies and potentially curative options like gene therapy in both SCD and thalaessemia. Aims: The International Haemoglobinopathy Research Network (INHERENT) is a recently established network with the aim of investigating the role of genetic modifiers in haemoglobinopathies, through a large-scale, multi-ethnic genome-wide association study (GWAS). Methods: INHERENT brings together nine existing international or regional consortia in the field of haemoglobinopathies, namely ITHANET, RADeep, ARISE, SPARCO, SADaCC, REDAC, the HVP Global Globin Network, the International Health Repository, and the ClinGen Haemoglobinopathy VCEP. The activities of INHERENT are currently divided into five working groups, as follows: clinical, genotyping, data management and analysis, ethics, and knowledge translation. Participation in INHERENT is open for any group that can submit a minimum number of samples with their core phenotypic description. INHERENT membership is international and interdisciplinary and, currently, includes over 160 experts from 89 organisations, spanning 36 countries worldwide (Figure). INHERENT aims to recruit over 30,000 haemoglobinopathy patients, which is over one order of magnitude larger than any previous GWAS in the field. Summary: We demonstrate that the current membership of INHERENT has the potential to reach this sample size target. The large increase in the sample size and the diversity in the studied populations will enable novel discoveries and expand knowledge on haemoglobinopathy genetics, thus paving the way for advancing the science of personalised diagnosis and treatment.

Olfactory dysfunction and olfactory bulb volume in patients with deviated nasal septum

The purpose of the study is to demonstrate the possibility and information content of olfactory bulb volume measuring in healthy volunteers and patients with deviated nasal septum, as well as the relationship between the volume of the olfactory bulb and olfactory function. Material and methods. 28 men with deviated nasal septum aged 24 to 35 years (main group) and 21 clinically healthy volunteers, men aged 23 to 33 years (control group) were examined. All patients underwent checkup of the ENT organs and examinations on a 1.5 T MRI machine with 12-channel head coil. The sense of smell was examined using the extended Sniffin Sticks test (SST) (“Buerhard”, Hamburg, Germany) with the definition of 3 parameters: threshold, identification and discrimination. Results. In accordance with the design of the work, threshold, discrimination, identification subtests and MRI examination of the head were performed with the measurement of the olfactory bulb volume of patients in the main group and volunteers in the control group. In all participants in the control group was diagnosed normosmia in accordance with the TDI indicator, and in patients with deviated nasal septum – hyposmia. Olfactory function in patients deviated nasal septum was significantly lower on the narrower side as indicated for odor thresholds, odor recognition, and odor identification (P&lt;0.01). It was found that olfactory bulb volumes are larger on the wider side than on the narrower side (P&lt;0.01). Conclusion. Asymmetry in the size and volume of OB is observed only in patients with deviated nasal septum, it is absent in healthy volunteers. MRI visualization and morphometry of olfactory bulb, in addition to identifying of the nasal cavity, paranasal sinuses state, are informative in the process of preoperative examination of patients with deviated nasal septum. Olfactory bulb volume definition should be used for personalized diagnosis and quantitative assessment of olfactory dysfunction.

Surveillance utilizes multi-omics in cardiovascular disease: Diet and its potentiality in Preventive index

Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) is characterized by multidimensional risks including drug, diet, lifestyle, stress, and metabolomics diseases which cause mortality and morbidity depending on age and status of chronic diseases. However, emerging evidence indicated it is preventable health complications that depend on risk management along with lifestyle change, and personalized medication that include alternative measures like Diet use following molecular diagnostic and imaging analysis. CVD is mainly attributed to the narrowing of blood vessels through atherosclerotic lesions and/or thrombosis. Hypertension, obesity, and hyperlipidemia are major risk factors for the development of CVD and treating these diseases is essential in slowing down progression of CVD. Inflammation appears to play a pivotal role in CVD and can be measured through a simple blood assay (CRP). Multi-omics approaches have been essential in the development of treatments for CVD, in the prevention of CVD, and in the diagnosis of CVD. There are many outcomes available to help with diagnosing CVD and omics platforms have helped scientists and clinician develop these diagnostic tools. Radiomics has played a key part in the diagnosis of CVD as being able to view the diseased heart is essential in determining CVD progression and the treatment options suitable for that secondary disease related. Nutrigenomics is emerging as the future of medicine such as utilizing treatment strategy innovation instead of medications, but it is still in its infancy. Nutrigenomics will open the doors to different therapeutic drug targets and allow us the ability to be more specific in our treatment options. There are only a few gene-diet interactions documented that increase a person’s chances of developing CVD. Curating an individual diet and treatment plan based on somebody’s genetic disposition or skewed immune responses following personalized diagnosis will be essential in the survival of these severe CVD patients. Key issues referring to risk surveillance and prevention is a distant approach which reflects several factors: for example, what type of tools can be used to conduct diagnosis, molecular diagnostic tools detect what type of biomarkers are present prior to prescribing the personalized diet and to ensure diagnostic accuracy. Recently, increasing findings emphasize dual aspects of diet such as immune enhancers and modulators in which gut microbiota has been proven to play a major factor in development of CVD. The future direction of omics studies will foster the ability to test the impact of gut microbiome of a patient with CVD following diet driven organ protection as well as prescribe essential components of the diet that can be adjusted with proper probiotic medication. Proper diet adjustments can correct the organ dysfunction that occurred due to interaction between molecular mismatch and cellular damage following stress-mediated damage or chronic disease. Further micro-scale assays and molecular diagnostic techniques following nutrigenomics application to the patient could be beneficial to allow patient’ care shift from physician driven and clinic based to self-management with knowledge based at home treatment programs that work by envisioning molecular reprogramming and rejuvenation of damaged organ. These at home treatments can be utilized with development of radiological data with innovation of software. The aim of the short review is to visualize the current role of nutrigenomics and diet formulation for integrative care (e.g., diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of CVD) which would take advantage of earlier prevention synchronized with current medical tests, imaging techniques. Health economy like management can reduce medical cost with disease prevention disease and could modulate the following: enhance knowledge-based interaction between body and diet, discuss cognitive enhancement how sensing with molecular behavior under image-management platform, monitor drug surveillance of current treatment options in CVD and the pitfalls of current omics application and data transformation needs for patient care in the future.

Epidemiological characteristics of imported COVID-19 cases in Tianjin

Objective: To understand the epidemiological characteristics of imported COVID-19 cases in Tianjin, and provide references for risk assessment and control of imported COVID-19 cases. Methods: The information of imported COVID-19 cases were obtained from National Notifiable Disease Report System of China CDC. The data of imported COVID-19 cases reported from Tianjin airport and epidemiological surveys by CDCs at all levels from March 15, 2020 to August 31, 2021 were collected and analyzed by using software Excel 2010, SPSS 25.0 and R. Results: From March 15, 2020 to August 31, 2021, a total of 606 imported cases of COVID-19 were reported in Tianjin, in which 552 cases were finally included in the analysis. The male to female ratio of the cases was 1.8∶1, the age of the cases ranged from 3 to 77 years, and the cases were mainly reported in age group 20-39 years (59.8%). The areas where the imported case sojourned within 14 days included Europe (242 cases, 43.8%), Africa (139 cases, 25.2%), Americas (85 cases, 15.4%) and Asia (86 cases, 15.6%). The proportion of confirmed cases in autumn and winter was relatively high. During the study period, the proportion of infected persons found in custom entry quarantine decreased, and the proportion of persons with personal health declaration and under medical isolation observation increased. The interval between entry and diagnosis of infected persons tended to increase. Conclusion: The proportion of imported COVID-19 cases detected on the first day of entry at Tianjin airport decreased, and the interval to detect the infected persons trended to increase, to which close attention must be paid.

Identifying obstructive sleep apnea in geriatric outpatients with neuropsychological testing

AbstractBackgroundObstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is common in geriatric patients and has been associated with neurocognitive disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias. Dexter and Ebert (2019) reported a unique pattern of lower scores for immediate memory relative to delayed memory was observed in patients with OSA on the Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status (RBANS). The aim of the current investigation was to examine the frequency of confirmed OSA diagnosis in persons with snoring and immediate memory scores less than delayed memory scores in ambulatory geriatric patients referred for memory assessment.MethodPatients were initially assessed for memory complaints at the University of Wisconsin‐Madison Geriatric Memory Assessment Clinic (2016 ‐2020). All patients completed the Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status (RBANS, Randolph, 1998, 2012) as part of a multidisciplinary evaluation. Patients were referred for a sleep evaluation if sleep disordered breathing was reported and the score difference was noted with immediate memory being less than delayed memory on RBANS. Sleep evaluations consisted of either home sleep testing or polysomnography, based on clinical indication. Board‐certified sleep medicine physicians interpreted all sleep studies, and graded the severity of OSA as mild, moderate, or severe.ResultResults are depicted in Table 1. There were 251 patients referred for sleep evaluation (mean age 75.5 years). Of these, 158 patients completed sleep testing (93 males; 65 females), of which 127 (80.4%) were ultimately diagnosed with OSA. Among sleep study completers, 72 (57%) had moderate or worse sleep apnea. The proportion of cases with moderate or worse sleep apnea was similar for male (59%) and female (53%) completers.ConclusionThis retrospective investigation involved geriatric memory clinic patients with RBANS scores that were lower in immediate memory compared to delayed memory and evidence of snoring that resulted in a referral for a sleep study. The finding of OSA in 80% of the patients evaluated, and the comparable results of male and female patients suggests that all patients who snore and have this unique RBANS profile should be assessed for OSA.

Multi-Band Brain Network Analysis for Functional Neuroimaging Biomarker Identification.

The functional connectomic profile is one of the non-invasive imaging biomarkers in the computer-assisted diagnostic system for many neuro-diseases. However, the diagnostic power of functional connectivity is challenged by mixed frequency-specific neuronal oscillations in the brain, which makes the single Functional Connectivity Network (FCN) often underpowered to capture the disease-related functional patterns. To address this challenge, we propose a novel functional connectivity analysis framework to conduct joint feature learning and personalized disease diagnosis, in a semi-supervised manner, aiming at focusing on putative multi-band functional connectivity biomarkers from functional neuroimaging data. Specifically, we first decompose the Blood Oxygenation Level Dependent (BOLD) signals into multiple frequency bands by the discrete wavelet transform, and then cast the alignment of all fully-connected FCNs derived from multiple frequency bands into a parameter-free multi-band fusion model. The proposed fusion model fuses all fully-connected FCNs to obtain a sparsely-connected FCN (sparse FCN for short) for each individual subject, as well as lets each sparse FCN be close to its neighbored sparse FCNs and be far away from its furthest sparse FCNs. Furthermore, we employ the l1 -SVM to conduct joint brain region selection and disease diagnosis. Finally, we evaluate the effectiveness of our proposed framework on various neuro-diseases, i.e., Fronto-Temporal Dementia (FTD), Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), and Alzheimer's Disease (AD), and the experimental results demonstrate that our framework shows more reasonable results, compared to state-of-the-art methods, in terms of classification performance and the selected brain regions. The source code can be visited by the url https://github.com/reynard-hu/mbbna.

Study of gold nanoparticles’ preparation through ultrasonic spray pyrolysis and lyophilisation for possible use as markers in LFIA tests

Abstract To monitor the progress and prevent the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in real time and outside laboratories, it is essential to develop effective tests that can ensure rapid, selective, and reliable diagnosis of infected persons in different environments. Key in this regard is the lateral flow immunoassays (LFIAs) that can detect the presence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus quickly, with the aid of nanoparticles (NPs) and specific proteins. We report the use of gold (Au) NPs AuNPs synthesised from a gold(iii) chloride tetrahydrate precursor in a USP device and collected in a suspension composed of deionised water with polyvinylpyrrolidone as a stabiliser and cryoprotectant. In combination with freeze-drying of the AuNPs’ suspension to achieve water elimination, improved stability, and the target concentration, they exhibit the necessary properties for use as markers in LFIA rapid diagnostic tests. This was confirmed by complementary characterisation determined by using the techniques including inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometry, dynamic light scattering method and zeta-potential, ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersion spectrometer, and transmission electron microscopy, as well as with the preparation of a prototype LFIA test strip with AuNPs. Thus, such AuNPs, as well as the USP method, show promise for the development of new markers for use in LFIA.

Estimation of the fundamental learning loss and learning poverty related to COVID-19 pandemic in Mexico

There is evidence of learning loss due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but there is no related information for Mexico. The objective of the study is to estimate learning loss in reading and numeracy in Mexico. We compared the results of two household surveys conducted in 2019 and 2021. We interviewed 3161 children between 10 and 15 years. We estimated a learning loss according with SES in a range from 0.34–0.45 SD in reading and 0.62–0.82 SD in mathematics by COVID-19 pandemic, and an increase in learning poverty in a range of 25.7%–15.4% in reading and 29.8%–28.8% in numeracy. Gaps in fundamental learning by gender and SES increased. There is an urgent need develop a clear strategy to perform personalized diagnoses and implement remedial courses to address learning loss.

Single-cell detection by enhancement of fluorescence in waveguides for cancer diagnosis and therapy

Cancer is one of the most common diseases to threaten human health. If individuals are diagnosed with malignant tumors via a single cell, medical workers are greatly advantageous to early diagnose and intervene in malignant tumors therapy. In this paper, we propose a fluorescence detection map to rapidly distinguish whether the chromosomes of a cell are normal or abnormal by detecting the fluorescent intensity of a single cell. Herein, we draw a map from a single cell with an abnormal number of chromosomes that is monitored in real time. Moreover, this way offers precise and prompt detection of the surviving of cancer cells at or near the site of the tumor after treatments for cancer, which can achieve personalized cancer diagnosis and therapy. Therefore, cancer recurrences and metastasis can be effectively identified, utilizing this ultrasensitive detection method of an abnormal chromosome number.

Dual-network sodium alginate/polyacrylamide/laponite nanocomposite hydrogels with high toughness and cyclic mechano-responsiveness

Ionic conductive hydrogels with good mechanical strength and toughness have arisen a heated debate for their prospect in the fields of human motion sensors, sensory skins, and personal healthcare diagnosis. Nevertheless, the probable candidates rarely manage to meet the mechanical requirements to be used as wearable devices. As possible solutions, the dual network (DN) structure and nanocomposites (NC) have been adopted, respectively. Still, it is highly favorable yet challenging for the single DN or NC to design a hydrogel with toughness, high strength, stretchability, and fatigue resistance for potential applications. Herein, we combined the two commonly used strengthening strategies to prepare the sodium alginate/polyacrylamide/Laponite hydrogels (SPL hydrogels). The designed ionic conductive SPL hydrogels exhibited good mechanical properties, such as tensile strength and stretchability of up to ~206 KPa and ~854%, respectively, compressive strength of up to ~2136 KPa (90% strain), and high toughness (~134.78 kJ/m3). Besides, the designed ionic conductive hydrogels also possessed stable and timely mechano-responsive performances along with relative resistance changes (RRCs). It is envisioned that the designed high strength and toughness hydrogels may be promising for applications as bio-sensors and personal healthcare diagnoses.