Personalized Video-Based Hand Taxonomy Using Egocentric Video in the Wild.

Objective: Hand function is central to inter- actions with our environment. Developing a comprehen- sive model of hand grasps in naturalistic environments is crucial across various disciplines, including robotics, ergonomics, and rehabilitation. Creating such a taxonomy poses challenges due to the significant variation in grasp- ing strategies that individuals may employ.

Deep generative priors for biomolecular 3D heterogeneous reconstruction from cryo-EM projections.

Cryo-electron microscopy has become a powerful tool to determine three-dimensional (3D) structures of rigid biological macromolecules from noisy micrographs with single-particle reconstruction. Recently, deep neural networks, e.g.

Robust and data-efficient generalization of self-supervised machine learning for diagnostic imaging.

Machine-learning models for medical tasks can match or surpass the performance of clinical experts. However, in settings differing from those of the training dataset, the performance of a model can deteriorate substantially. Here we report a representation-learning strategy for machine-learning models applied to medical-imaging tasks that mitigates such 'out of distribution' performance problem and that improves model robustness and training efficiency.

Grasp Analysis in the Home Environment as a Measure of Hand Function After Cervical Spinal Cord Injury.

Background: Following a spinal cord injury, regaining hand function is a top priority. Current hand assessments are conducted in clinics, which may not fully represent real-world hand function. Grasp strategies used in the home environment are an important consideration when examining the impact of rehabilitation interventions.

3DFlex: determining structure and motion of flexible proteins from cryo-EM.

Modeling flexible macromolecules is one of the foremost challenges in single-particle cryogenic-electron microscopy (cryo-EM), with the potential to illuminate fundamental questions in structural biology. We introduce Three-Dimensional Flexible Refinement (3DFlex), a motion-based neural network model for continuous molecular heterogeneity for cryo-EM data. 3DFlex exploits knowledge that conformational variability of a protein is often the result of physical processes that transport density over space and tend to preserve local geometry.

Hand Grasp Classification in Egocentric Video After Cervical Spinal Cord Injury.

Objective: The hand function of individuals with spinal cord injury (SCI) plays a crucial role in their independence and quality of life. Wearable cameras provide an opportunity to analyze hand function in non-clinical environments. Summarizing the video data and documenting dominant hand grasps and their usage frequency would allow clinicians to quickly and precisely analyze hand function.

Image Super-Resolution via Iterative Refinement.

We present SR3, an approach to image Super-Resolution via Repeated Refinement. SR3 adapts denoising diffusion probabilistic models (Ho et al. 2020), (Sohl-Dickstein et al.

Replicate analyses of OSPAR beach litter data.

Replicate surveys of beach litter have seldom been performed in the past. In this study, replicate surveys of beach litter were conducted on the beach north of Hörnum (Sylt, Germany), from 2015 to 2019, applying a slightly modified OSPAR protocol of beach litter monitoring. Descriptive statistics and power analyses were calculated on data resulting from these replicate surveys, to find out whether the scatter of replicate beach litter data decreases and the statistical power increases with increasing numbers of replicate surveys.

Experience with the Crescent cannula for adult respiratory VV ECMO: a case series.

Introduction: The Crescent is a recently introduced dual lumen cannula by which veno-venous extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (VV ECMO) is delivered. It has a number of features that enhance its ease of placement, pressure-flow dynamics and may reduce catheter-related complication rates.

Methods: We present the first case series of its kind analysing this device by means of a retrospective observational study of prospectively collected data from the first year of its use in a high volume severe acute respiratory failure centre (Glenfield, UK).

3D variability analysis: Resolving continuous flexibility and discrete heterogeneity from single particle cryo-EM.

Single particle cryo-EM excels in determining static structures of protein molecules, but existing 3D reconstruction methods have been ineffective in modelling flexible proteins. We introduce 3D variability analysis (3DVA), an algorithm that fits a linear subspace model of conformational change to cryo-EM data at high resolution. 3DVA enables the resolution and visualization of detailed molecular motions of both large and small proteins, revealing new biological insight from single particle cryo-EM data.

Non-uniform refinement: adaptive regularization improves single-particle cryo-EM reconstruction.

Cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM) is widely used to study biological macromolecules that comprise regions with disorder, flexibility or partial occupancy. For example, membrane proteins are often kept in solution with detergent micelles and lipid nanodiscs that are locally disordered. Such spatial variability negatively impacts computational three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction with existing iterative refinement algorithms that assume rigidity.

Baseline and power analyses for the assessment of beach litter reductions in the European OSPAR region.

Marine litter pollution is a global environmental problem. Beach litter is a part of this problem, and is widely monitored in Europe. The European Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) requires a reduction of beach litter.

OSPAR standard method and software for statistical analysis of beach litter data.

The aim of this study is to develop standard statistical methods and software for the analysis of beach litter data. The optimal ensemble of statistical methods comprises the Mann-Kendall trend test, the Theil-Sen slope estimation, the Wilcoxon step trend test and basic descriptive statistics. The application of Litter Analyst, a tailor-made software for analysing the results of beach litter surveys, to OSPAR beach litter data from seven beaches bordering on the south-eastern North Sea, revealed 23 significant trends in the abundances of beach litter types for the period 2009-2014.

Audit of postoperative pain management after open thoracotomy and the incidence of chronic postthoracotomy pain in more than 500 patients at a tertiary center.

Study Objective: To evaluate the quality of postoperative pain relief during the first 3 days after surgery and to evaluate with the incidence of persistent pain at 6 months after surgery.

Design: Retrospective single-center audit.

Setting: University hospital.

cryoSPARC: algorithms for rapid unsupervised cryo-EM structure determination.

Single-particle electron cryomicroscopy (cryo-EM) is a powerful method for determining the structures of biological macromolecules. With automated microscopes, cryo-EM data can often be obtained in a few days. However, processing cryo-EM image data to reveal heterogeneity in the protein structure and to refine 3D maps to high resolution frequently becomes a severe bottleneck, requiring expert intervention, prior structural knowledge, and weeks of calculations on expensive computer clusters.

Building Proteins in a Day: Efficient 3D Molecular Structure Estimation with Electron Cryomicroscopy.

Discovering the 3D atomic-resolution structure of molecules such as proteins and viruses is one of the foremost research problems in biology and medicine. Electron Cryomicroscopy (cryo-EM) is a promising vision-based technique for structure estimation which attempts to reconstruct 3D atomic structures from a large set of 2D transmission electron microscope images. This paper presents a new Bayesian framework for cryo-EM structure estimation that builds on modern stochastic optimization techniques to allow one to scale to very large datasets.

Improving healthcare practice behaviors: an exploratory study identifying effective and ineffective behaviors in healthcare.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present the results of exploratory research designed to develop an awareness of healthcare behaviors, with a view toward improving the customer satisfaction with healthcare services. It examines the relationship between healthcare providers and their consumers/patients/clients.

Design/methodology/approach: The study uses a critical incident methodology, with both effective and ineffective behavioral specimens examined across different provider groups.

The need for thorough phase II studies in medicines development for Alzheimer's disease.

An important factor in the universal failure in phase III trials in mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease in the past decade is the lack of phase II clinical data prior to entering phase III, with common reliance on biomarker results alone. Conduction of two learn-confirm cycles according to the Sheiner model would allow go/no-go decision making to include reliable clinical efficacy data prior to conducting phase III and would likely bring the rate of late stage failure more into line with that of other neurological indications. In studies in earlier disease stages, combined phase IIB/III adaptive approaches merit consideration in view of the long timelines of each study, though advantages and disadvantages of this approach versus the classical development pathway still need careful assessment.

Spinal Cord Segmentation by One Dimensional Normalized Template Matching: A Novel, Quantitative Technique to Analyze Advanced Magnetic Resonance Imaging Data.

Spinal cord segmentation is a developing area of research intended to aid the processing and interpretation of advanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). For example, high resolution three-dimensional volumes can be segmented to provide a measurement of spinal cord atrophy. Spinal cord segmentation is difficult due to the variety of MRI contrasts and the variation in human anatomy.

Four quadrant transversus abdominis plane block and continuous transversus abdominis plane analgesia: a 3-year prospective audit in 124 patients.

Study Objective: Transversus abdominis plane (TAP) blocks have been reported to be an effective method of providing analgesia after abdominal surgery. To perform a prospective audit on the effectiveness of a novel technique of providing continuous transversus abdominis plane (TAP) analgesia in patients undergoing emergency and elective abdominal surgery.

Design: Prospective single center audit over a 3-year period.

Statistical analyses of the results of 25 years of beach litter surveys on the south-eastern North Sea coast.

In the North Sea, the amount of litter present in the marine environment represents a severe environmental problem. In order to assess the magnitude of the problem and measure changes in abundance, the results of two beach litter monitoring programmes were compared and analysed for long-term trends applying multivariate techniques. Total beach litter pollution was persistently high.

Characterizing the location of spinal and vertebral levels in the human cervical spinal cord.

Background And Purpose: Advanced MR imaging techniques are critical to understanding the pathophysiology of conditions involving the spinal cord. We provide a novel, quantitative solution to map vertebral and spinal cord levels accounting for anatomic variability within the human spinal cord. For the first time, we report a population distribution of the segmental anatomy of the cervical spinal cord that has direct implications for the interpretation of advanced imaging studies most often conducted across groups of subjects.

Fast Exact Search in Hamming Space With Multi-Index Hashing.

There is growing interest in representing image data and feature descriptors using compact binary codes for fast near neighbor search. Although binary codes are motivated by their use as direct indices (addresses) into a hash table, codes longer than 32 bits are not being used as such, as it was thought to be ineffective. We introduce a rigorous way to build multiple hash tables on binary code substrings that enables exact k-nearest neighbor search in Hamming space.

Randomized placebo-controlled adjunctive study of an extract of withania somnifera for cognitive dysfunction in bipolar disorder.

Objective: Cognitive impairments contribute significantly to inadequate functional recovery following illness episodes in bipolar disorder, yet data on treatment interventions are sparse. We assessed the cognitive effects of a standardized extract of the medicinal herb Withania somnifera (WSE) in bipolar disorder.

Method: Sixty euthymic subjects with DSM-IV bipolar disorder were enrolled in an 8-week, double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized study of WSE (500 mg/d) as a procognitive agent added adjunctively to the medications being used as maintenance treatment for bipolar disorder.