Bone Mineral Density Prediction from CT Image: A Novel Approach using ANN.

Background: Though treatable, osteoporosis continues as a substantially underdiagnosed and undertreated condition. Bone mineral density (BMD) monitoring will definitely aid in the prediction and prevention of medical emergencies arising from osteoporosis. Although quantitative computed tomography (QCT) is one of the most widely accepted tools for measuring BMD, it lacks the contribution of bone architecture in predicting BMD, which is significant as aging progresses. This paper presents an innovative approach for the prediction of BMD incorporating bone architecture that involves no extra cost, time, and exposure to severe radiation. Methods: In this approach, the BMD is predicted using clinical CT scan images taken for other indications based on image processing and artificial neural network (ANN). The network used in this study is a standard backpropagation neural network having five input neurons with one hidden layer having 40 neurons with a tan-sigmoidal activation function. The Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) image properties extracted from QCT of human skull and femur bone of rabbit that are closely associated with the BMD are used as input parameters of the ANN. The density value of the bone which is computed from the Hounsfield units of QCT scan image through phantom calibration is used as the target value for training the network. Results: The ANN model predicts the density values using the image properties from the clinical CT of the same rabbit femur bone and is compared with the density value computed from QCT scan. The correlation coefficient between predicted BMD and QCT density valued to 0.883. The proposed network can assist clinicians in identifying early stage of osteoporosis and devise suitable strategies to improve BMD with no additional cost.

Carbon black and chitin nanofibers for green tyres: Preparation and property evaluation.

This research highlights the synergistic use of carbon black (CB) and chitin nanofibers (CHNFs) for developing green tyres for the first time. The CHNFs (12-30 nm) were prepared from chitin powder with the help of steam explosion and mild oxalic acid hydrolysis. The CHNFs were uniformly dispersed in natural rubber (NR) latex, dried, and mixed with CB in a two-roll mill to form NR/CB/CHNF composites. The NR/CB/CHNF composite at 1 phr CHNF loading exhibited tensile and tear strengths that were about 47 and 160 % greater than the NR-Neat, respectively. The dynamic mechanical analysis showed that the loss tangent (tan δ) at 60 °C was 50 % lower for the NR/CB/CHNF 1.0 composite than for the NR/CB50 composite. The study succeeded in developing a new green tyre tread formulation that would be helpful for attaining sustainability and a circular economy.

Determination of the Influence of Strut Connector on Stent Deployment.

Coronary artery stents are tubular structures employed together with angioplasty. Stented angioplasty is a clinical procedure widely applied in the treatment of atherosclerosis to reopen the blocked artery. It is a simple and fast curing minimally invasive clinical procedure. However, it is essential to understand the expansion characteristics of a stent before implantation since the stent geometry, inflating pressure, etc., influence the performance of stents. Finite element analysis and in vitro experiments are simultaneously employed before clinical testing to predict the characteristics during deployment. In this paper, the expansion and deployment characteristics of Meril Osum 2.75 × 24 coronary stent and Envision 3.5 × 28 stent were investigated to study the influence of strut connector on the expansion behaviour of the stent by experimental and computational methods. The current study analyzes the real-time deployment characteristics such as rate of expansion, stress on stent, recoil, dog boning, and foreshortening. The stent expansion characteristics obtained from experiments and simulations were found matching and observed that strut connector has a significant effect on stent expansion. Further, the curved connector of small radius of curvature shows better performance with high patency rate.

Magnetic resonance imaging findings in brain resulting from high-voltage electrical shock injury of the scalp.

We report a case of high-voltage electrical injury to scalp, focusing on the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) findings in brain. A 51-year-old male suffered burns to the right side of scalp and loss of consciousness following electric shock. Brain abnormalities were detected on MRI taken 4 days after the insult. Right parietal lobe neuroparenchyma beneath the scalp burn defect demonstrated homogeneous hypointensity on T1-weighted MR images, while T2-weighted images depicted hyperintensity mainly in white matter forming finger-like projections. Follow-up MRI showed that the abnormality had disappeared, indicating that the cerebral edema was reversible.

Enterolith with enterocolic fistula: the diagnostic approach.

An enterolith is a mixed concretion formed in GIT, usually rare in humans. Primary enteroliths are formed in small bowel, typically within a diverticulum and secondary enteroliths in gallbladder. This case report highlights the presence of an enterocolic fistula; probably a postradiotherapy complication; and an enterolith without associated small bowel or colonic diverticuli. We have discussed the various diagnostic modalities used to reach a preoperative diagnosis of this rare condition. Imaging plays an important role in the detection and management of acquired gastrointestinal fistulas. The more routine use of cross-sectional imaging (especially computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging) has altered the standard sequence of radiologic evaluation for possible fistulas, but fluoroscopic studies remain a valuable complement, especially for confirming and defining the anomalous communications.

New massive gravity and AdS(4) counterterms.

We show that the recently proposed Dirac-Born-Infeld extension of new massive gravity emerges naturally as a counterterm in four-dimensional anti-de Sitter space (AdS(4)). The resulting on-shell Euclidean action is independent of the cutoff at zero temperature. We also find that the same choice of counterterm gives the usual area law for the AdS(4) Schwarzschild black hole entropy in a cutoff-independent manner. The parameter values of the resulting counterterm action correspond to a c=0 theory in the context of the duality between AdS(3) gravity and two-dimensional conformal field theory. We rewrite this theory in terms of the gauge field that is used to recast 3D gravity as a Chern-Simons theory.

Immunostimulation of dendritic cells by cationic liposomes.

A nano-aggregate liposome-polycation-DNA (LPD), composed of a cationic lipid, protamine and plasmid DNA was found to effectively deliver a human papillomavirus (HPV)-E7 epitope antigen to the antigen presenting cells of the immune system, eliciting enhanced anti-tumor immune responses in mouse models of cervical carcinoma. Both the cationic liposome and plasmid DNA were essential for the full immunostimulation activity of LPD. Interestingly, cationic liposomes alone could stimulate the antigen presenting dendritic cells (DC) leading to the expression of co-stimulatory molecules, CD80 and CD86. However, cationic lipids could not stimulate DC for the expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines. Moreover, they were unable to enhance the expression of NF-kappaB, suggesting that dendritic cells stimulation by cationic lipids is signaled through an NF-kappaB independent mechanism. DC stimulation was specific to cationic lipids, the zwitterionic and anionic lipids showed little or no activity. The ability of different cationic lipids to stimulate the expression of co-stimulatory molecules on DC varied significantly. In general, the cationic lipids bearing ethyl phosphocholine head groups were better stimulants than their trimethylammonium counterparts. In case of the cationic lipids bearing trimethyl ammonium head groups, the ones bearing unsaturated or shorter saturated hydrophobic chains exhibited enhanced immunostimulatory activity. The LPS-induced TNF-alpha expression by dendritic cells was inhibited by active cationic lipids but not the inactive ones, suggesting the possible involvement of lipopolysaccharide binding protein (LBP) in cationic lipid mediated DC stimulation. Based on the structure-specific activation of dendritic cells by cationic lipids, a model for the immunostimulation of DC by such lipids is proposed.

Incorporation of oxyethylene units between hydrocarbon chain and pseudoglyceryl backbone in cationic lipid potentiates gene transfection efficiency in the presence of serum.

Four novel cationic lipids with different numbers of oxyethylene units at the linkage region between the pseudoglyceryl backbone and the hydrocarbon chains have been synthesized and used as mixtures with 1,2-dioleoyl-L-alpha-glycero-3-phosphatidyl ethanolamine (DOPE) for liposome-mediated gene transfection. Incorporation of different numbers of oxyethylene (-CH(2)CH(2)O-) units between long hydrocarbon chain at the C-1 and C-2 positions of the pseudoglyceryl skeleton improved the transfection efficiency considerably compared to the one in which the chains were connected via simple ether links. A pronounced improvement in the gene transfer efficiency was observed with the unsymmetrical cationic lipid 3 in which the long hydrocarbon at the C-1 position of the pseudoglyceryl segment is connected via two (-CH(2)CH(2)O-) units. Notably, the transfection ability of lipid 3 with DOPE in the presence of serum was significantly greater than LIPOFECTAMINE. This suggests that introduction of oxyethylene units between long hydrocarbon chains at the C-1 and C-2 positions of the pseudoglyceryl skeleton provides a novel strategy to achieve efficient gene transfer, especially in conditions where the presence of serum is critical.

Recurrent haematuria in coexisting IgA nephropathy and interstitial nephritis.

We report here a case of recurrent hematuria in a young man who presented with deteriorating renal function due to interstitial nephritis, secondary to, probably enteric fever. Immunofluorescence studies showed IgA nephropathy and ultrastructural studies revealed thin basement membrane nephropathy.