Predicting cardiovascular disease risk using photoplethysmography and deep learning.

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are responsible for a large proportion of premature deaths in low- and middle-income countries. Early CVD detection and intervention is critical in these populations, yet many existing CVD risk scores require a physical examination or lab measurements, which can be challenging in such health systems due to limited accessibility. We investigated the potential to use photoplethysmography (PPG), a sensing technology available on most smartphones that can potentially enable large-scale screening at low cost, for CVD risk prediction.

Assistive AI in Lung Cancer Screening: A Retrospective Multinational Study in the United States and Japan.

Purpose To evaluate the impact of an artificial intelligence (AI) assistant for lung cancer screening on multinational clinical workflows. Materials and Methods An AI assistant for lung cancer screening was evaluated on two retrospective randomized multireader multicase studies where 627 (141 cancer-positive cases) low-dose chest CT cases were each read twice (with and without AI assistance) by experienced thoracic radiologists (six U.S.

An intentional approach to managing bias in general purpose embedding models.

Advances in machine learning for health care have brought concerns about bias from the research community; specifically, the introduction, perpetuation, or exacerbation of care disparities. Reinforcing these concerns is the finding that medical images often reveal signals about sensitive attributes in ways that are hard to pinpoint by both algorithms and people. This finding raises a question about how to best design general purpose pretrained embeddings (GPPEs, defined as embeddings meant to support a broad array of use cases) for building downstream models that are free from particular types of bias.

Deep Learning Detection of Active Pulmonary Tuberculosis at Chest Radiography Matched the Clinical Performance of Radiologists.

Background The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends chest radiography to facilitate tuberculosis (TB) screening. However, chest radiograph interpretation expertise remains limited in many regions. Purpose To develop a deep learning system (DLS) to detect active pulmonary TB on chest radiographs and compare its performance to that of radiologists.

Comparative Evaluation of Antibacterial Effect of GIC Containing Chlorhexidine and Miswak on and in Early Childhood Caries Children: A PCR Study.

Background And Aim: The therapeutic procedures used in the treatment of caries do not always eliminate all the microorganisms. Persisting cariogenic bacteria can cause recurrent caries and failure of restoration. Incorporation of an antimicrobial agent in the restorative material may be of paramount significance.

Congo red dot test in the early prediction and diagnosis of pre-eclampsia in a tertiary health care centre in India.

Objectives: To demonstrate the use of urine congophilia quantification in the prediction and diagnosis of pre-eclampsia using Congo red dot test.

Study Design: A prospective cohort study in 378 consecutive pregnant women was conducted. All eligible, consenting women of gestational age between 10 and 34 weeks were enrolled in the study.

Characterization of L. root extract and its evaluation of cardioprotective effect in Wistar rat model.

Objectives: L. (RC) is a well-known and highly valuable medicinal plant in the Ayurvedic system. The present study involves evaluating antioxidant and cardioprotective property of RC root extract.

A point mutation in AgrC determines cytotoxic or colonizing properties associated with phenotypic variants of ST22 MRSA strains.

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a major cause of skin and soft tissue infections. One of the highly successful and rapidly disseminating clones is MRSA ST22 commonly associated with skin tropism. Here we show that a naturally occurring single amino acid substitution (tyrosine to cysteine) at position 223 of AgrC determines starkly different ST22 S.

Molecular analysis of PRRT2 gene in a case of paroxysmal kinesigenic dyskinesia patient.

Paroxysmal kinesigenic dyskinesia (PKD) is an abnormal involuntary movement that is episodic or intermittent, with sudden onset, and the attacks are induced by sudden movement. Mutations in proline-rich transmembrane protein 2 (PRRT2) gene have been implicated in the cause of this disorder. This study presents a case of PKD on the basis of clinical findings supported and evidences obtained through a mutational analysis.

Novel rearrangements in the staphylococcal cassette chromosome mec type V elements of Indian ST772 and ST672 methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus strains.

Staphylococcus aureus is a commensal gram positive bacteria which causes severe and non severe infections in humans and livestock. In India, ST772 is a dominant and ST672 is an emerging clone of Staphylococcus aureus. Both cause serious human diseases, and carry type V SCCmec elements.

Mutant-bin: unsupervised haplotype estimation of viral population diversity without reference genome.

High genetic variability in viral populations plays an important role in disease progression, pathogenesis, and drug resistance. The last few years has seen significant progress in the development of methods for reconstruction of viral populations using data from next-generation sequencing technologies. These methods identify the differences between individual haplotypes by mapping the short reads to a reference genome.

Genome sequencing unveils a novel sea enterotoxin-carrying PVL phage in Staphylococcus aureus ST772 from India.

Staphylococcus aureus is a major human pathogen, first recognized as a leading cause of hospital-acquired infections. Community-associated S. aureus (CA-SA) pose a greater threat due to increase in severity of infection and disease among children and healthy adults.

Draft genome sequence of Staphylococcus aureus ST672, an emerging disease clone from India.

We report the draft genome sequence of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) strain ST672, an emerging disease clone in India, from a septicemia patient. The genome size is about 2.82 Mb with 2,485 open reading frames (ORFs).

Necrotizing fasciitis caused by a variant of epidemic methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus -15.

We report a case of necrotizing fasciitis (NF), caused by community-acquired epidemic methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus 15 (EMRSA 15). The patient had a prolonged recovery period following treatment with antibiotics and surgical debridement of the infected part. Molecular characterization revealed that the isolate carried Staphylococcal Cassette Chromosome mec (SCC mec) type IV harboring Panton-Valentine Leucocidin (pvl) gene and having accessory gene regulator (agr) type I.

Draft genome sequence of Staphylococcus aureus 118 (ST772), a major disease clone from India.

We report the draft genome sequence of an ST772 Staphylococcus aureus disease isolate carrying staphylococcal cassette chromosome mec (SCCmec) type V from a pyomyositis patient. Our de novo short read assembly is ∼2.8 Mb and encodes a unique Panton-Valentine leukocidin (PVL) phage with structural genes similar to those of ϕ7247PVL and novel lysogenic genes at the N termini.

Unsupervised two-way clustering of metagenomic sequences.

A major challenge facing metagenomics is the development of tools for the characterization of functional and taxonomic content of vast amounts of short metagenome reads. The efficacy of clustering methods depends on the number of reads in the dataset, the read length and relative abundances of source genomes in the microbial community. In this paper, we formulate an unsupervised naive Bayes multispecies, multidimensional mixture model for reads from a metagenome.

Clonal complexes and virulence factors of Staphylococcus aureus from several cities in India.

Background: Diseases from Staphylococcus aureus are a major problem in Indian hospitals and recent studies point to infiltration of community associated methicillin resistant S. aureus (CA-MRSA) into hospitals. Although CA-MRSA are genetically different from nosocomial MRSA, the distinction between the two groups is blurring as CA-MRSA are showing multidrug resistance and are endemic in many hospitals.

Modulation of cellular radiation responses by 2-deoxy-D-glucose and other glycolytic inhibitors: implications for cancer therapy.

Background: 2-Deoxy-D-glucose (2-DG), a glycolytic inhibitor, was observed earlier to increase DNA, chromosomal, and cellular damage in tumor cells, by inhibiting energy-dependent repair processes. Lonidamine (LND) selectively inhibits glycolysis in cancer cells. It damages the condensed mitochondria in these cells, impairing thereby the activity of hexokinase (predominantly attached to the outer mitochondrial membranes).

Optimizing radiotherapy of brain tumours by a combination of temozolomide & lonidamine.

Background & Objective: Temozolomide (TMZ), a second generation alkylating drug, an effective cytotoxic agent as well as radiosensitizer for malignant brain tumours, has side effects like myelosuppression. Lonidamine (LND) increases the effectiveness of several experimental multiple chemotherapy protocols, without increasing bone marrow toxicities and is effective in brain tumour patients. The objective of the present studies was to investigate whether combining clinically relevant doses of LND and TMZ could increase the proliferation and radiation response of malignant human brain tumour cells in vitro.