Automated Detection of Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus Using CT Imaging for Calculating the Ventricle-to-Subarachnoid Volume Ratio.

Background And Purpose: Normal pressure hydrocephalus (NPH) is a diagnostic challenge because its clinical symptoms and imaging appearance resemble normal aging and other forms of dementia. Identifying NPH is essential so that patients can receive timely treatment to improve gait distortion and quality of life. An automated marker of NPH was developed and evaluated on clinical CT images, and its utility was assessed in a large patient cohort.

Cannabis exposure during pregnancy and perinatal outcomes: A cohort study.

Introduction: Cannabis potency and its use during pregnancy have increased in the last decade. The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of antenatal cannabis use on fetal growth, preterm birth and other perinatal outcomes.

Material And Methods: A propensity score-matched analysis was performed in women with singleton pregnancies attending a tertiary care site in Barcelona.

Global Neurosurgery: A Retrospective Cohort Study to Compare the Effectiveness of Two Training Methods in Resource-Poor Settings.

Background And Objectives: Many low- and middle-income countries are experiencing profound health care workforce shortages. Surgical subspecialists generally practice in large urban centers but are in high demand in rural areas. These subspecialists must be trained through sustainable programs to address this disparity.

Chatbots and messaging platforms in the classroom: An analysis from the teacher's perspective.

Messaging platforms are applications, generally mediated by an app, desktop program or the web, mainly used for synchronous communication among users. As such, they have been widely adopted officially by higher education establishments, after little or no study of their impact and perception by the teachers. We think that the introduction of these new tools and the opportunities and challenges they have needs to be studied carefully in order to adopt the model, as well as the tool, that is the most adequate for all parties involved.

Optical flow estimation from event-based cameras and spiking neural networks.

Event-based cameras are raising interest within the computer vision community. These sensors operate with asynchronous pixels, emitting events, or "spikes", when the luminance change at a given pixel since the last event surpasses a certain threshold. Thanks to their inherent qualities, such as their low power consumption, low latency, and high dynamic range, they seem particularly tailored to applications with challenging temporal constraints and safety requirements.

ZAP-X Gyroscopic Radiosurgery System: A Preliminary Analysis of Clinical Applications within a Retrospective Case Series.

Introduction: The ZAP-X Gyroscopic Radiosurgery system (ZAP Surgical Systems, Inc., San Carlos, CA, USA) is a novel high-dose targeted stereotactic radiosurgery platform for outpatient use that includes self-shielding, X-ray image guidance, and the capacity to aim the radiation beam gyroscopically at an intracranial lesion using 5 independent degrees of freedom. The ZAP-X Gyroscopic Radiosurgery system accomplishes these actions while meeting widely accepted standards for dose gradient and accuracy.

Treatment planning system and beam data validation for the ZAP-X: A novel self-shielded stereotactic radiosurgery system.

Purpose: To evaluate the treatment planning system (TPS) performance of the ZAP-X stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) system through nondosimetric, dosimetric, and end-to-end (E2E) tests.

Methods: A comprehensive set of TPS commissioning and validation tests was developed using published guidelines. Nondosimetric validation tests included information transfer, computed tomography-magnetic resonance (CT-MR) image registration, structure/contouring, geometry, dose tools, and CT density.

Rare Thyroid Transcription Factor 1-Positive Tumors of the Sellar Region: Barrow Neurological Institute Retrospective Case Series.

Objective: Granular cell tumors (GCTs), pituicytomas, and spindle cell oncocytomas are rare, nonfunctioning pituitary tumors sharing positive staining of thyroid transcription factor 1. We present our series, the first single-institutional report with long-term surgical follow-up of all 3 tumor types.

Methods: Our institutional pathology database was queried for these 3 pathologic diagnoses.

Cost Transparency in Neurosurgery: A Single-Institution Analysis of Patient Out-of-Pocket Spending in 13 673 Consecutive Neurosurgery Cases.

Background: Patient out-of-pocket (OOP) spending is an increasingly discussed topic; however, there is minimal data available on the patient financial burden of surgical procedures.

Objective: To analyze hospital and surgeon expected payment data and patient OOP spending in neurosurgery.

Methods: This is a retrospective cohort study of neurosurgical patients at a tertiary-referral center from 2013 to 2016.

Structure and Reactions of ^{11}Be: Many-Body Basis for Single-Neutron Halo.

The exotic nucleus ^{11}Be has been extensively studied and much experimental information is available on the structure of this system. We treat, within the framework of renormalized nuclear field theory in both configuration and 3D space, the mixing of bound and continuum single-particle states through the coupling to collective vibrations of the ^{10}Be core. We also take care of the Pauli principle acting not only between the single valence particle explicitly considered and those participating in the collective states, but also between fermions involved in two-phonon virtual states dressing the single-particle motion.

A Dataset for Visual Navigation with Neuromorphic Methods.

Standardized benchmarks in Computer Vision have greatly contributed to the advance of approaches to many problems in the field. If we want to enhance the visibility of event-driven vision and increase its impact, we will need benchmarks that allow comparison among different neuromorphic methods as well as comparison to Computer Vision conventional approaches. We present datasets to evaluate the accuracy of frame-free and frame-based approaches for tasks of visual navigation.

Risk of intrauterine growth restriction among HIV-infected pregnant women: a cohort study.

The purpose of this investigation was to study the risk of intrauterine growth restriction in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected women and to describe the associated risk factors. A cohort study was performed among HIV-infected women who delivered in a single tertiary centre in Barcelona, Spain, from January 2006 to December 2011. Consecutive singleton pregnancies delivered beyond 22 weeks of pregnancy were included.

Cooper pair transfer in nuclei.

The second-order distorted wave Born approximation implementation of two-particle transfer direct reactions which includes simultaneous and successive transfer, properly corrected by non-orthogonality effects, is tested with the help of controlled nuclear structure and reaction inputs against data spanning the whole mass table, and showed to constitute a quantitative probe of nuclear pairing correlations.

Vector disparity sensor with vergence control for active vision systems.

This paper presents an architecture for computing vector disparity for active vision systems as used on robotics applications. The control of the vergence angle of a binocular system allows us to efficiently explore dynamic environments, but requires a generalization of the disparity computation with respect to a static camera setup, where the disparity is strictly 1-D after the image rectification. The interaction between vision and motor control allows us to develop an active sensor that achieves high accuracy of the disparity computation around the fixation point, and fast reaction time for the vergence control.

Calculation of the transition from pairing vibrational to pairing rotational regimes between magic nuclei ¹⁰⁰Sn and ¹³²Sn via two-nucleon transfer reactions.

Absolute values of two-particle transfer cross sections along the Sn-isotopic chain are calculated. They agree with measurements within errors and without free parameters. Within this scenario, the predictions concerning the absolute value of the two-particle transfer cross sections associated with the excitation of the pairing vibrational spectrum expected around the recently discovered closed shell nucleus(50)(132)Sn(82) and the very exotic nucleus (50)(100)Sn(50) can be considered quantitative, opening new perspectives in the study of pairing in nuclei.

Evidence for phonon mediated pairing interaction in the halo of the nucleus ¹¹Li.

With the help of a unified nuclear-structure-direct-reaction theory we analyze the reaction ¹H(¹¹Li,⁹Li)³H. The two halo neutrons are correlated through the bare and the induced (medium polarization) pairing interaction. By considering all dominant reaction channels leading to the population of the 1/2⁻ (2.

Visual system based on artificial retina for motion detection.

We present a bioinspired model for detecting spatiotemporal features based on artificial retina response models. Event-driven processing is implemented using four kinds of cells encoding image contrast and temporal information. We have evaluated how the accuracy of motion processing depends on local contrast by using a multiscale and rank-order coding scheme to select the most important cues from retinal inputs.

Partitioning and interfacial tracers for differentiating NAPL entrapment configuration: column-scale investigation.

Research on the use of partitioning and interfacial tracers has led to the development of techniques for estimating subsurface NAPL amount and NAPL-water interfacial area. Although these techniques have been utilized with some success at field sites, current application is limited largely to NAPL at residual saturation, such as for the case of post-remediation settings where mobile NAPL has been removed through product recovery. The goal of this study was to fundamentally evaluate partitioning and interfacial tracer behavior in controlled column-scale test cells for a range of entrapment configurations varying in NAPL saturation, with the results serving as a determinant of technique efficacy (and design protocol) for use with complexly distributed NAPLs, possibly at high saturation, in heterogeneous aquifers.

[Influence of the intravenous nitroglycerin dose on the appearance of drug tolerance].

Background: There are few studies on the influence of different doses of intravenous nitroglycerin (NTG) on the appearance of drug tolerance.

Methods: A controlled clinical trial was performed in 40 patients admitted to an ICU with the diagnosis of acute myocardial infarction (AMI). The patients were divided into two groups: group A with a continuous perfusion of NTG at 2 mg/h, and group B with 4 mg/h.

Efficacy of flecainide in patients with supraventricular arrhythmias and respiratory insufficiency.

Objective: Evaluation of efficacy of intravenous flecainide to revert supraventricular arrhythmias to sinus rhythm in patients with respiratory insufficiency.

Design: Comparative randomized prospective trial.

Setting: ICU in a University Hospital.

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation with simultaneous chest and abdominal compression: comparative study in humans.

To assess the efficacy of the simultaneous application of chest and abdominal compression (SCAC) in cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), we performed a prospective study on 18 patients shortly after cardiac arrest. Three different CPR procedures were carried out consecutively: (1) Standard CPR; (2) CPR interposed with abdominal compression (IAC-CPR); and (3) SCAC-CPR. Standard CPR was repeated at the end of each sequence.