Hand-Crafted and Learned Feature Aggregation for Visual Marble Tiles Screening.

An important factor in the successful marketing of natural ornamental rocks is providing sets of tiles with matching textures. The market price of the tiles is based on the aesthetics of the different quality classes and can change according to the varying needs of the market. The classification of the marble tiles is mainly performed manually by experienced workers. This can lead to misclassifications due to the subjectiveness of such a procedure, causing subsequent problems with the marketing of the product. In this paper, 24 hand-crafted texture descriptors and 20 Convolution Neural Networks were evaluated towards creating aggregated descriptors resulting from the combination of one hand-crafted and one Convolutional Neural Network at a time. A marble tile dataset designed for this study was used for the evaluation process, which was also released publicly to further enable the research for similar studies (both on texture and dolomitic ornamental marble tile analysis). This was done to automate the classification of the marble tiles. The best performing feature descriptors were aggregated together in order to achieve an objective classification. The resulting model was embodied into an automatic screening machine designed and constructed as a part of this study. The experiments showed that the aggregation of the VGG16 and SILTP provided the best results, with an AUC score of 0.9944.

Memory Foam Pillow as an Intervention in Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome: A Preliminary Randomized Study.

Specific pillow use is a seldom studied or controlled factor in the setting of sleep disordered breathing. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of different pillows [own pillow (OP), memory foam pillow (MFP), generic laboratory pillow (LP)] on polysomnography (PSG)-derived parameters in patients with Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome (OSAS). Thirty-two consecutive patients with OSAS were randomly allocated into two groups with randomized pillow usage [Group A: 3 h with LP and 3 h with OP (Age: 53.8 ± 12.5 years, BMI: 32.1 ± 4.6 kg/m2); Group B: 3 h with LP and 3 h with MFP (Age: 52.0 ± 6.3 years, BMI: 30.6 ± 2.2 kg/m2)]. Statistically significant differences between pillow types were detected in desaturation index and heart rate. In Group B (with MFP), a statistically significant decrease of 47.0 ± 15.9% was observed in snoring events (p < 0.05) and 10.6 ± 6.7% in their duration (p < 0.05) compared to LP. On the other hand, group A with OP recorded a decrease of 29.1 ± 32.1% in snoring events and 32.5 ± 33.1% in duration, but these values were not statistically significant (p > 0.05) compared to LP. These findings indicate that pillow type and usage, often uncontrolled in OSAS studies (contribution to the field), may impact several PSG parameters and are related to a snoring subtype of the syndrome. Secondly, they indicate that a focus on the treatment of the snoring OSAS subtype warrants further dedicated investigation.

Physical Fitness Differences, Amenable to Hypoxia-Driven and Sarcopenia Pathophysiology, between Sleep Apnea and COVID-19.

Handgrip strength is an indirect indicator of physical fitness that is used in medical rehabilitation for its potential prognostic value. An increasing number of studies indicate that COVID-19 survivors experience impaired physical fitness for months following hospitalization. The aim of our study was to assess physical fitness indicator differences with another prevalent and hypoxia-driven disease, Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome (OSAS). Our findings showed differences between post-COVID-19 and OSAS groups in cardiovascular responses, with post-COVID-19 patients exhibiting higher values for heart rate and in mean arterial blood pressure. Oxygen saturation (SpO2) was lower in post-COVID-19 patients during a six-minute walking test (6MWT), whereas the ΔSpO2 (the difference between the baseline to end of the 6MWT) was higher compared to OSAS patients. In patients of both groups, statistically significant correlations were detected between handgrip strength and distance during the 6MWT, anthropometric characteristics, and body composition parameters. In our study, COVID-19 survivors demonstrated a long-term reduction in muscle strength compared to OSAS patients. Lower handgrip strength has been independently associated with a prior COVID-19 hospitalization. The differences in muscle strength and oxygenation could be attributed to the abrupt onset of the disorder, which does not allow compensatory mechanisms to act effectively. Targeted rehabilitation focusing on such residual impairments may thus be indispensable within the setting of post-COVID-19 syndrome.

A short course of preoperative radiotherapy improves prognosis of operable rectal carcinoma: a case control study.

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Randomized Swedish studies demonstrate the efficacy of a 5-fraction course of preoperative radiotherapy for rectal carcinoma. The present study evaluates the results in a single Greek institution over a 10-year period, with a similar regimen. METHODOLOGY: During the period of 1995-2000, 150 consecutive patients with Dukes' B or C rectal cancer were matched to receive preoperative radiotherapy (Group I) or not (Group II). Seventy-five patients received pelvic radiotherapy of 2500cGY/5 fractions, followed by surgery within one week. Radiotherapy was delivered through 4 portals, with the patient lying in the prone position. A CT scan was used to define treatment volume. The 5-fraction course was used for lesions that seemed readily resectable. Patients in both groups received adjuvant chemotherapy. Local recurrence, disease-free interval and 5-year survival were evaluated and analyzed. RESULTS: The disease-free interval was significantly longer in Group I (p < 0.0005). This benefit was mainly due to a significantly lower incidence of local recurrence in Group I (9/75, 12%) compared with Group II (30/75, 40%) (p < 0.0005). The incidence of distant metastases was not significantly different between the 2 groups. The 5-year survival for all patients, who underwent "curative" surgery was significantly higher in Group I (77.3%) as compared to Group II (39%), (p < 0.0005). CONCLUSIONS: Patients with resectable rectal cancer who received 2500cGy/5 fractions preoperative radiotherapy to the pelvis had excellent local control of disease, longer disease-free interval and higher 5-year survival than patients who did not. These patients were able to undergo sphincter preserving surgery and adjuvant chemotherapy.