Assessing relative risks of municipal wastewater disposal options for Southeast Florida.

A comparative assessment of the risks of the three current wastewater effluent disposal options and three other potential options was conducted for Southeast Florida communities. The question was how the risk to humans from the use of potable reuse compares to the other five available wastewater disposal alternatives. The need for this type of risk assessment is due to the potential to use potable reuse as a water supply and the potential resistance from the public as a result of such a proposal.

Thyroid Ultrasound Image Database and Marker Mask Inpainting Method for Research and Development.

Objective: The main objective of this study was to build a rich and high-quality thyroid ultrasound image database (TUD) for computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) systems to support accurate diagnosis and prognostic modeling of thyroid disorders. Because most of the raw thyroid ultrasound images contain artificial markers, which seriously affect the robustness of CAD systems because of their strong prior location information, we propose a marker mask inpainting (MMI) method to erase artificial markers and improve image quality.

Methods: First, a set of thyroid ultrasound images were collected from the General Hospital of the Northern Theater Command.

RGGC-UNet: Accurate Deep Learning Framework for Signet Ring Cell Semantic Segmentation in Pathological Images.

Semantic segmentation of Signet Ring Cells (SRC) plays a pivotal role in the diagnosis of SRC carcinoma based on pathological images. Deep learning-based methods have demonstrated significant promise in computer-aided diagnosis over the past decade. However, many existing approaches rely heavily on stacking layers, leading to repetitive computational tasks and unnecessarily large neural networks.

RGSB-UNet: Hybrid Deep Learning Framework for Tumour Segmentation in Digital Pathology Images.

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a prevalent gastrointestinal tumour with high incidence and mortality rates. Early screening for CRC can improve cure rates and reduce mortality. Recently, deep convolution neural network (CNN)-based pathological image diagnosis has been intensively studied to meet the challenge of time-consuming and labour-intense manual analysis of high-resolution whole slide images (WSIs).

Adversarial co-training for semantic segmentation over medical images.

Background And Objective: Abundant labeled data drives the model training for better performance, but collecting sufficient labels is still challenging. To alleviate the pressure of label collection, semi-supervised learning merges unlabeled data into training process. However, the joining of unlabeled data (e.

HSNet: A hybrid semantic network for polyp segmentation.

Automatic polyp segmentation can help physicians to effectively locate polyps (a.k.a.

Uncertainty teacher with dense focal loss for semi-supervised medical image segmentation.

In medical scenarios, obtaining pixel-level annotations for medical images is expensive and time-consuming, even if considering its importance for automating segmentation tasks. Due to the scarcity of labels in the training phase, semi-supervised methods are widely applied for various medical tasks. To better utilize the unlabeled data, several works have explored the method of uncertainty estimation and exhibited huge success.

Uncertainty-aware deep co-training for semi-supervised medical image segmentation.

Semi-supervised learning has made significant strides in the medical domain since it alleviates the heavy burden of collecting abundant pixel-wise annotated data for semantic segmentation tasks. Existing semi-supervised approaches enhance the ability to extract features from unlabeled data with prior knowledge obtained from limited labeled data. However, due to the scarcity of labeled data, the features extracted by the models are limited in supervised learning, and the quality of predictions for unlabeled data also cannot be guaranteed.

Genetics of non-isolated hemivertebra: A systematic review of fetal, neonatal, and infant cases.

Hemivertebra is a congenital vertebral malformation caused by unilateral failure of formation during embryogenesis that may be associated with additional abnormalities. A systematic review was conducted to investigate genetic etiologies of non-isolated hemivertebra identified in the fetal, neonatal, and infant periods using PubMed, Cochrane database, Ovid Medline, and ClinicalTrials.gov from inception through May 2022 (PROSPERO ID CRD42021229576).

Frontal inverted papillomas: A 25-year study.

Objectives/hypothesis: This study analyzes the treatment outcomes of frontal inverted papillomas (FIPs) in an attempt to provide guidelines for surgery selection.

Study Design: Retrospective case series.

Methods: The treatment results of 29 FIPs classified into five categories were retrospectively analyzed.

Templating sub-10 nm atomic layer deposited oxide nanostructures on graphene via one-dimensional organic self-assembled monolayers.

Molecular-scale control over the integration of disparate materials on graphene is a critical step in the development of graphene-based electronics and sensors. Here, we report that self-assembled monolayers of 10,12-pentacosadiynoic acid (PCDA) on epitaxial graphene can be used to template the reaction and directed growth of atomic layer deposited (ALD) oxide nanostructures with sub-10 nm lateral resolution. PCDA spontaneously assembles into well-ordered domains consisting of one-dimensional molecular chains that coat the entire graphene surface in a manner consistent with the symmetry of the underlying graphene lattice.

Self-assembly and photopolymerization of sub-2 nm one-dimensional organic nanostructures on graphene.

While graphene has attracted significant attention from the research community due to its high charge carrier mobility, important issues remain unresolved that prevent its widespread use in technologically significant applications such as digital electronics. For example, the chemical inertness of graphene hinders integration with other materials, and the lack of a bandgap implies poor switching characteristics in transistors. The formation of ordered organic monolayers on graphene has the potential to address each of these challenges.

Electronic chemical pathology consultation service and dried blood spot metabolic screening in hospital patients.

Aim: Inborn errors of metabolism (IEM) are an unpopular and difficult subject and most clinicians are unfamiliar with them. Although chemical pathologists have a long-standing practice in advising test strategy and result interpretation especially from primary care, such consultations are usually informal, unstructured and those related to IEM are infrequently requested. This study aims to provide a formal electronic consultation service and to apply tandem mass spectrometry-based dried blood spot metabolic screening (DBSM) as a rapid first-line test for patients suspected of IEM.

Neuronal programmed cell death-1 ligand expression regulates retinal ganglion cell number in neonatal and adult mice.

Objectives: During mouse retina maturation, the final number of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) is determined by highly regulated programmed cell death. Previous studies demonstrated that the immunoregulatory receptor programmed cell death-1 (PD-1) promotes developmental RGC death. To identify the functional signaling partner(s) for PD-1, we identified retinal expression of PD-1 ligands and examined the effect of PD-1 ligand expression on RGC number.

Prevalence of human papillomavirus, Epstein-Barr virus, p21, and p53 expression in sinonasal inverted papilloma, nasal polyp, and hypertrophied turbinate in Hong Kong patients.

Background: The purpose of this study of human papillomavirus (HPV), Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), p21, and p53 in sinonasal inverted papilloma (IP) was to help elucidate its pathogenesis.

Methods: Seventy-three IPs, 48 nasal polyps, and 85 hypertrophied turbinates were subjected to HPV polymerase chain reaction (PCR) study. Seventy-three IPs, 30 nasal polyps, and 32 hypertrophied turbinates were subjected to EBV in situ hybridization (ISH), p21, and p53 immunohistochemical (IHC) studies.

A case-control study of the risk factors associated with sinonasal inverted papilloma.

Background: The etiology of sinonasal inverted papilloma (IP) is unknown. This study was designed to evaluate the possible risk factors associated with IP Methods: This is a case-control epidemiology study in a tertiary referral center. Fifty patients with IP and 150 matched controls were interviewed using a questionnaire on suspected risk factors.

A case-control study of the risk factors associated with sinonasal inverted papilloma.

Background: The etiology of sinonasal inverted papilloma (IP) is unknown. This study was designed to evaluate the possible risk factors associated with IP Methods: This is a case-control epidemiology study in a tertiary referral center. Fifty patients with IP and 150 matched controls were interviewed using a questionnaire on suspected risk factors.

Treatment results of sinonasal inverted papilloma: an 18-year study.

Background: This article reviews our treatment results of sinonasal inverted papilloma (SNIP) over the past 18 years. A retrospective observational study was performed.

Methods: Fifty-six patients with SNIP seen between 1990 and 2008 with follow-up of >2 years were retrospectively analyzed.

The roles and limitations of computed tomography in the preoperative assessment of sinonasal inverted papillomas.

Background: Preoperative radiological assessment of sinonasal inverted papilloma (SNIP) is important in the planning of surgical treatment. This study investigates the roles and limitations of preoperative plain computed tomography (CT) scan in the preoperative assessment of SNIP.

Methods: Plain CT scans from 30 patients with SNIP were reviewed retrospectively by a radiologist who had no prior knowledge of the final surgical findings.