Automated detection of leukemia by pretrained deep neural networks and transfer learning: A comparison.

Leukemia is usually diagnosed by viewing the smears of blood and bone marrow using microscopes and complex Cytochemical tests can be used to authorize and classify leukemia. But these methods are costly, slow and affected by the proficiency and expertise of the specialists concerned. Leukemia can be detected with the help of image processing-based methods by analyzing microscopic smear images to detect the presence of leukemic cells and such techniques are simple, fast, cheap and not biased by the specialists. The proposed study presents a computer aided diagnosis system that uses pretrained deep Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) for detection of leukemia images against normal images. The use of pretrained networks is comparatively an easy method of applying deep learning for image analysis and the comparison results of the present study can be used to choose appropriate networks for diagnostic tasks. The microscopic images used in the proposed work were downloaded from a public dataset ALL-IDB. In the proposed work, image classification is done without using any image segregation and feature extraction practices and the study used pretrained series network AlexNet, VGG-16, VGG-19, Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) networks GoogLeNet, Inceptionv3, MobileNet-v2, Xception, DenseNet-201, Inception-ResNet-v2 and residual networks ResNet-18, ResNet-50 and ResNet-101 for performing the classification and comparison. A classification accuracy of 100% is obtained with all the pretrained networks used in the study for ALL_IDB1 dataset and for ALL_IDB2 dataset, 100% accuracy is obtained with all networks except the AlexNet and VGG-16. The efficacy of three optimization algorithms Stochastic Gradient Descent with Momentum (SGDM), Root Mean Square propagation (RMSprop) and Adaptive Moment estimation (ADAM) is also compared in all the classifications performed. The study considered the detection of leukemia in general only, and classification of leukemia into different types can be attempted as a future work.

Diverse effects of stress and additional adrenocorticotropic hormone on digitalis-like compounds in normal and nude mice.

Digitalis-like compounds (DLC) are steroidal hormones that are synthesized in, and released from, the adrenal gland, whose regulation may be directed by the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. Increasing evidence points to antitumour properties of these compounds and we hypothesized that the establishment of tumours in athymic nude mice may be facilitated by an abnormal synthesis or secretion of DLC. To explore this hypothesis, DLC concentrations were determined in the plasma, and in adrenal and hypothalamic tissues of nude compared to normal mice under basal conditions, and 30 min after a stress stimulus (i.p. injection of 100 micro l saline) with or without additional adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) 1 micro g/per animal. Simultaneously, plasma corticosterone and serum adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) concentrations were analysed. The basal DLC concentrations were similar in the plasma and the hypothalamus of both strains, whereas the basal adrenal DLC concentration was significantly lower in the nude mice compared to normal mice. The stress stimulus induced in normal mice a significant increase in DLC concentrations in the adrenal gland, the plasma and the hypothalamus. However, in nude mice, it caused an increase only in the adrenal gland and the hypothalamus, whereas the plasma DLC concentration was not affected. In both strains, the administration of ACTH in addition to injection stress did not provoke a further increase in DLC concentrations while inducing a significant increase in plasma corticosterone concentration. Regardless of the applied stimulus, the nude mice expressed significant lower DLC concentrations in the adrenal gland and the plasma compared to normal mice. The low basal adrenal DLC concentration in nude mice and their impaired DLC response towards stress- and ACTH stimulation both support an involvement of DLC in tumorigenesis.

Acid fog damage of beech at Hinokiboramaru-Tanzawa, Japan.

Decline of Japanese beech forest has been obvious at the Tanzawa Mountains near Tokyo. Observations on fog, precipitation and stem flow were performed during June-October, 1994 on both, NE (with healthy beech) and S-SE (with unhealthy beech) slopes, collecting samples biweekly. Chemical species were determined by ion-chromatography and pH meter. The results show that the pH of the precipitation was between 4.4-5.2, with no clear differences in the concentrations of chemical species between both sites and seasons. The pH of the fog water was high from May to the middle of August and lower from mid-August to October at both sites. The concentrations of most chemical species were higher in fog samples than precipitation samples. The concentrations of potassium and magnesium ions in the stem flow of an unhealthy tree on the S-SE slope were higher than those on the NE slope. In June-October, 1995, ten pairs of event fog water samples were obtained with indicating that the pH was below 4.0 for five pairs of event fog water samples. Lower pH value was obtained on the S-SE slope than on the NE slope in every event. Concentrations of most chemical species were always higher in the fog samples from the S-SE slope than those from the NE slope. The equivalent ratio of NO3-/nssSO4(2-) was higher in the fogs of higher acidity. From the result of atmospheric current analysis using a model, it was suggested that the polluted air over the Tokyo Metropolitan Area affected the fog acidity directly and also indirectly, according to the pressure patterns.

A family with hemiplegic migraine and focal seizures.

Familial hemiplegic migraine is a distinctive form of migraine with autosomal dominant inheritance. The patients undergo attacks of migraine complicated by hemiplegia. Seizures have not been reported as comprising a part of this syndrome. We describe three generations of a family with hemiplegic migraine and focal seizures occurring concurrently with the migrainous attacks. There were five affected family members whose clinical features included unilateral headache and transient hemiplegia. Two family members also had focal seizures during the migrainous attacks. One of the patients was treated with carbamazepine with good results. The only associated neurological finding was ataxia which was found in the oldest patient. The presence of focal seizures during an episode of hemiplegic migraine suggests that the two phenomena of migraine and focal seizures may share the same underlying pathophysiology.

[Endometriosis of the kidney (author's transl)]. / Endometriose der Niere.

Endometriosis of the left kidney complicated by urolithiasis is described. This represents the tenth case in the world literature of kidney endometriosis. The most common symptom is low back pain. Macroscopic hematuria was only present in half the cases. The preoperative radiological findings have been interpreted as tumor in four cases, contracted, pyelonephritic kidney in two cases and congenital abnormalities in two cases.