In this study, we propose a novel unsupervised Change Detection (CD) model to detect flood extent using Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) time series data. The proposed model is based on a ...spatiotemporal variational autoencoder, trained with reconstruction and contrastive learning techniques. The change maps are generated with a proposed novel algorithm that utilizes differences in latent feature distributions between pre-flood and post-flood data. The model is evaluated on nine different flood events by comparing the results with reference flood maps collected from the Copernicus Emergency Management Services (CEMS) and Sen1Floods11 dataset. We conducted a range of experiments and ablation studies to investigate the performance of our model. We compared the results with existing unsupervised models. The model achieved an average of 70% Intersection over Union (IoU) score which is at least 7% better than the IoU from existing unsupervised CD models. In the generalizability test, the proposed model outperformed supervised models ADS-Net (by 10% IoU) and DAUSAR (by 8% IoU), both trained on Sen1Floods11 and tested on CEMS sites. Our implementation will be available here https://github.com/RituYadav92/CLVAE-Unsupervised_Change_Detection_TimeSeriesSAR.
•Algorithm for change map based on the latent parameters from the trained encoder.•Utilize SAR time series by adopting a convolutional LSTM in VAE network.•Fully self-supervised training using simplified contrastive learning.•Lightweight with 576,395 parameters, easy to test and deploy.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
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Introduction:
Catheter ablation for atrial fibrillation is a common therapeutic strategy for paroxysmal and persistent AF patients, but long-term success rates are imperfect. ...Maintenance of sinus rhythm prior to ablation with antiarrhythmic drug therapy has improved outcomes in patients undergoing ablation compared to ablation procedure alone. Amiodarone has superior efficacy relative to other AADs. Whether the failure of amiodarone to maintain sinus rhythm prior to ablation is a predictor of poor outcomes is unknown.
Methods:
Total 307 patients received amiodarone in a span of 1y before undergoing catheter ablation for AF from January 2014 to March 2019. Patients were divided into amiodarone success (n=183) and amiodarone failure (n=124) groups based on the response to pre-ablation amiodarone treatment. Follow-up was done for 12 months post-ablation to assess outcomes (arrhythmia recurrence and adverse events). Procedural success was defined by the absence of documented arrhythmia (>30s) without any antiarrhythmic agents beyond a 90d blanking period.
Results:
Ablation procedure success rate at 1y was 57.7% overall. 1y success rate in the amiodarone success group was comparable to that in the amiodarone failure group (55.7% vs. 60.5%; p=0.54). Success rates following ablation did not vary by the response to amiodarone when analyzed for paroxysmal or persistent AF subgroups.
Conclusion:
Failure to restore and maintain sinus rhythm on amiodarone therapy is not a predictor of adverse ablation procedure outcomes and should not be used as a patient selection criteria for consideration of ablation.
Lack of awareness of screening methods, risk factors, and symptoms may lead to late diagnosis and poor prognosis of cervical cancer. The plan of this study was to assess the level of awareness about ...cervical cancer and HPV vaccine among females of rural and urban areas of Haryana, India. This cross-sectional study was performed using a comprehensive self-designed questionnaire on 1500 women of urban (700) and rural (800) background aged 18–65 years, evaluating their knowledge for cervical cancer and screening, HPV infection and its preventive measure, and symptoms and risk factors. Data obtained was analyzed and interpreted by using simple percentages and bar charts. Most of the participants were aged between 21 and 30 years and had college level education. Majority of the women from rural areas had poor knowledge about cervical cancer (55%) and its screening (75%), HPV infection (87.5%), and HPV vaccine (95%) compared with urban areas. Knowledge about symptoms and risk factors was very low in both rural and urban areas. Whatever little knowledge the women had about cervical cancer was from college education, friends, neighbors, relatives, and medical practitioner or doctors. The survey pointed to the critical need to educate women about cervical cancer and its early diagnosis, related risk factors, symptoms, and preventive measures which can be achieved by launching extensive awareness programs for educating females about cervical cancer in India.
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EMUNI, FIS, FZAB, GEOZS, GIS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, MFDPS, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, SBMB, SBNM, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VKSCE, ZAGLJ
Purpose: This study focused on the genetic screening of Myocilin (MYOC), Cytochrome P450 family 1 subfamily B member 1 (CYP1B1), Optineurin (OPTN), and SIX homeobox 6 (SIX6) genes in a family with ...coexistence of primary congenital glaucoma (PCG) and juvenile open-angle glaucoma (JOAG). Methods: Sanger sequencing was used to examine the coding region of all four genes. Six different online available algorithms were used for the pathogenicity prediction of missense variant. Structural analysis was done using Garnier-Osguthorpe-Robson (GOR), PyMol, ChimeraX, and Molecular Dynamic (MD) Simulations (using Graphics Processing Unit (GPU)-enabled Desmond module of Schrödinger). Results: There were a total of three sequence variants within the family. All seven algorithms determined that a single mutation, G538E, in the OPTN gene is pathogenic. The loops connecting the strands became more flexible, as predicted structurally and functionally by pathogenic mutations. Mutations create perturbations and conformational rearrangements in proteins, hence impairing their functioning. Conclusion: In this study, we describe a North Indian family in which members were having JOAG and PCG due to a rare homozygous/heterozygous mutation in OPTN. The coexistence of two types of glaucoma within a single pedigree suggests that certain OPTN mutations may be responsible for the onset of different glaucoma phenotypes.
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DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
This study examines the predictability of real-time news data on investors’ buying behaviour in the futures market, using supervised sentiment analysis. Market sentiment or traders’ buying behaviour ...is captured at the bid-ask stage of price formation using the net buying pressure (NBP). Any significant change in NBP patterns defines an “interesting market event”. Real-time news headlines are automatically labelled using interesting market events, assuming a lag between the market information and its impact on buying behaviour. News was found to have an impact on the market buying behaviour of the S&P NIFTY index futures with an optimal lag of 5 minutes. Manual labelling of the news data validated this empirical finding.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
Floods are occurring across the globe, and due to climate change, flood events are expected to increase in the coming years. Current situations urge more focus on efficient monitoring of floods and ...detecting impacted areas. In this study, we propose two segmentation networks for flood detection on uni-temporal Sentinel-1 Synthetic Aperture Radar data. The first network is “Attentive U-Net”. It takes VV, VH, and the ratio VV/VH as input. The network uses spatial and channel-wise attention to enhance feature maps which help in learning better segmentation. “Attentive U-Net” yields 67% Intersection Over Union (IoU) on the Sen1Floods11 dataset, which is 3% better than the benchmark IoU. The second proposed network is a dual-stream “Fusion network”, where we fuse global low-resolution elevation data and permanent water masks with Sentinel-1 (VV, VH) data. Compared to the previous benchmark on the Sen1Floods11 dataset, our fusion network gave a 4.5% better IoU score. Quantitatively, the performance improvement of both proposed methods is considerable. The quantitative comparison with the benchmark method demonstrates the potential of our proposed flood detection networks. The results are further validated by qualitative analysis, in which we demonstrate that the addition of a low-resolution elevation and a permanent water mask enhances the flood detection results. Through ablation experiments and analysis we also demonstrate the effectiveness of various design choices in proposed networks. Our code is available on Github at
https://github.com/RituYadav92/UNI_TEMP_FLOOD_DETECTION
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Introduction: Cervical cancer is the second most common gynaecological malignancy worldwide. Persistent Human Papillomavirus (HPV) infection is the principal risk factor leading to cervical ...carcinogenesis and causes a large number of casualties. Aim: To estimate the risk factors and symptoms related to cervical carcinoma and to check for mono-infection or co-infections of low-risk and high-risk HPVs in Northern Indian females. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted from January 2019 to January 2021 on 110 confirmed cervical cancer tissue samples collected from the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Pandit BD Sharma University of Health Sciences, Rohtak, Haryana, India. Information about risk factors and symptoms was collected using a semistructured proforma. Detection of HPV infection and HPV genotyping (16, 18, 33, 58, 6, and 11) was done by using type-specific Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR). Fisher’s exact test was applied to determine the association of high- risk HPV infection with other risk factors using GraphPad Prism Version 6 (La Jolla, California, USA). A p-value of ≤0.05 was considered significant. Results: Of all the studied cases, 68 (62%) were above 55 years old, 67 (61%) were in a postmenopausal state, and 86 (78%) were from a rural background. Irregular menstruation was observed in 99 (90%) cases, bleeding after menopause in 59 (54%) cases, and early age at first intercourse in 57 (52%) cases were the most common symptoms. HPV infection was found in all cases of cervical carcinoma. The incidence of high- risk-HPV16 (84%) and HPV18 (73%) was the most prominent, while the incidence of low-risk-HPV6 (7.2%) and HPV11 (6%) was the lowest. Co-infection of HPV16/18 was the Highest in 60 (54.5%) cases, followed by HPV16/33 in 13 (11.8%) cases. Multi-infection of HPV types 16/18/33 was found in 10 (9.1%) cases, and multi-infection of HPV types 16/18/33/6/11, except HPV58, was found in one patient. Conclusion: Higher age, postmenopausal status, early age at intercourse, and poor menstrual hygiene were significantly associated with high-risk HPV co-infection. Educating women about the risk factors and symptoms of cervical cancer and screening for high-risk HPVs in rural women are required to reduce the prevalence of cervical cancer in Northern India.
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IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Currently, therapies such as chimeric antigen receptor-T Cell (CAR-T) and immune checkpoint inhibitors like programmed cell death protein-1 (PD-1) blockers are showing promising results for numerous ...cancer patients. However, significant advancements are required before CAR-T therapies become readily available as off-the-shelf treatments, particularly for solid tumors and lymphomas. In this review, we have systematically analyzed the combination therapy involving engineered CAR-T cells and anti PD-1 agents. This approach aims at overcoming the limitations of current treatments and offers potential advantages such as enhanced tumor inhibition, alleviated T-cell exhaustion, heightened T-cell activation, and minimized toxicity. The integration of CAR-T therapy, which targets tumor-associated antigens, with PD-1 blockade augments T-cell function and mitigates immune suppression within the tumor microenvironment. To assess the impact of combination therapy on various tumors and lymphomas, we categorized them based on six major tumor-associated antigens: mesothelin, disialoganglioside GD-2, CD-19, CD-22, CD-133, and CD-30, which are present in different tumor types. We evaluated the efficacy, complete and partial responses, and progression-free survival in both pre-clinical and clinical models. Additionally, we discussed potential implications, including the feasibility of combination immunotherapies, emphasizing the importance of ongoing research to optimize treatment strategies and improve outcomes for cancer patients. Overall, we believe combining CAR-T therapy with PD-1 blockade holds promise for the next generation of cancer immunotherapy.
Two new Schiff base ligands comprising benzothiazole derivatives, namely (N,N′,E,N,N′E)-N,N′-(1,3-phenylenebis(methanylylidene))bis(5-nitrobenzodthiazoL2-amine (L1) and ...(N,N′,E,N,N′E)-N,N′-(1,3-phenylene-bis(methanylylidene))bis(5-methylthiazo-L2-amine (L2), have been synthesized and thoroughly characterized using FTIR, 1H NMR, mass UV/vis and fluorescence spectral techniques. Further, L1 and L2 lead to the formation of lanthanide complexes 1–6 with Ce(III), Nd(III), and Pr(III) ions in 1:2 (metal:ligand) stoichiometry. UV/vis spectra of L1, L2 and 1–6 exhibit characteristic ligand centered absorptions in the range of 230–350 nm. Besides, both ligands and complexes show significant emissions and good anti-bacterial activity against pathogenic bacteria. Ligands and complexes display anti-bacterial activity against bacteria Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) (MTCC 1144) causing skin infection and food poisoning and pimple-causing bacteria propionic bacteria acnes (P. acnes) (MTCC 1951).
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GEOZS, IJS, NUK, OILJ, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
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