Evaluation of vermillion border descriptors and relevance vector machines discrimination model for making probabilistic predictions of solar cheilosis on digital lip photographs.

Introduction: Solar cheilosis (SC), a common precancer of the lower lip with a high potential to progress to invasive squamous cell carcinoma, presents with characteristic morphological vermillion-skin border alterations, like the border retraction.

Aim: To determine robust macro-morphological descriptors of the vermillion border from non-standardized digital photographs and to exploit a probabilistic model for SC recognition in real clinical environments.

Methods: Lip borders of 150 individuals (75 SC patients, 75 non-SC controls) were quantified on the basis of the extent of vermillion retraction and the degree of border irregularity employing fractal features and type-P Fourier descriptors.

Electric field effects on alanine tripeptide in sodium halide solutions.

The electric field effects on conformational properties of trialanine in different halide solutions were explored with long-scale molecular dynamics simulations. NaF, NaCl, NaBr and NaI solutions of low (0.2 M) and high (2 M) concentrations were exposed to a constant electric field of 1000 V/m.

The effect of calcium and vitamin D supplementation on osteoporotic rabbit bones studied by vibrational spectroscopy.

Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy is utilized to examine the effects of increased calcium, vitamin D, and combined calcium-vitamin D supplementation on osteoporotic rabbit bones with induced inflammation. The study includes different bone sites (femur, tibia, humerus, vertebral rib) in an effort to explore possible differences among the sites. We evaluate the following parameters: mineral-to-matrix ratio, carbonate content, and non-apatitic species (labile acid phosphate and labile carbonate) contribution to bone mineral.

Spatial fuzzy c-means algorithm with adaptive fuzzy exponent selection for robust vermilion border detection in healthy and diseased lower lips.

Introduction: Accurate lip contour identification is demanding since variations in color, form and surface texture, even in normal lips, introduce artifacts in non-adapted segmentation algorithms. Herein, a method for vermilion border detection and quantification in healthy and diseased lower lips is presented.

Aim: To quantify the morphological irregularities of lower lip border, to validate its discriminative power in solar cheilosis diagnosis and to provide supportive tools toward, cost effective, non invasive, disease monitoring.

Ca/P concentration ratio at different sites of normal and osteoporotic rabbit bones evaluated by Auger and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy.

Osteoporosis is a systemic skeletal disorder associated with reduced bone mineral density and the consequent high risk of bone fractures. Current practice relates osteoporosis largely with absolute mass loss. The assessment of variations in chemical composition in terms of the main elements comprising the bone mineral and its effect on the bone's quality is usually neglected.