Precise teeth segmentation from dental panoramic X-ray images is an important task in dental practice. However, several issues including poor image contrast, blurring borders of teeth, presence of ...jaw bones and other mouth elements, makes reading and examining such images a challenging and time-consuming task for dentists. Thus, developing a precise and automated segmentation technique is required.
This study aims to develop and test a novel multi-fusion deep neural net consisting of encoder-decoder architecture for automatic and accurate teeth region segmentation from panoramic X-ray images.
The encoder has two different streams based on CNN which include the conventional CNN stream and the Atrous net stream. Next, the fusion of features from these streams is done at each stage to encode the contextual rich information of teeth. A dual-type skip connection is then added between the encoder and decoder to minimise semantic information gaps. Last, the decoder comprises deconvolutional layers for reconstructing the segmented teeth map.
The assessment of the proposed model is performed on two different dental datasets consisting of 1,500 and 1,000 panoramic X-ray images, respectively. The new model yields accuracy of 97.0% and 97.7%, intersection over union (IoU) score of 91.1% and 90.2%, and dice coefficient score (DCS) of 92.4% and 90.7% for datasets 1 and 2, respectively.
Applying the proposed model to two datasets outperforms the recent state-of-the-art deep models with a relatively smaller number of parameters and higher accuracy, which demonstrates the potential of the new model to help dentists more accurately and efficiently diagnose dental diseases in future clinical practice.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Free riding is a severe problem in P2P systems. Although many incentive mechanisms based on reputation have been proposed to mitigate problem of free riding, reputation management fails to evolve as ...an evolutionary stable strategy (ESS) due to cost involved in keeping track of reputation. We prove that a system setting with one time entry fee, imposed on new comers and distributed among the peers that calculate reputation, makes reputation-based resource allocation an ESS. Then, we simulate the system model using evolutionary dynamics for its performance evaluation.
The research paper 1 proposes a differential privacy algorithm in the context of Federated Learning and provides its performance analysis, mainly focusing on proving a convergence bound for the loss ...function. In this paper, we show that some of the mathematical derivations given in 1 are not valid. Thus the bounds they prove in the paper do not hold for all loss functions. In this work, we give the correct derivation of the best possible local sensitivity bound, which is valid for all loss functions. We also state the modifications in the bounds for global sensitivity and the standard deviation of the Gaussian noise added, both before and after aggregation.
Free-riding is a severe problem in peer-to-peer systems. It can be controlled by adopting an effective resource allocation mechanism. This paper game theoretically analyzes a resource allocation ...mechanism, through two non-cooperative games viz., demand game and reputation game. This mechanism ensures that demands made by peers are commensurate to their shared capacity. We show that Nash equilibrium behavior of agents in our model is cooperative, which leads to fair and efficient allocation of network resource. Our findings show that through this mechanism, the system reaches to equilibrium where peers interact in groups formed on the basis of their capacities.
Purpose of the Review
To provide an overview of current interventional pain management techniques for primary headaches with a focus on peripheral nerve stimulation and nerve blocks.
Recent Findings
...Despite a plethora of treatment modalities, some forms of headaches remain intractable to conservative therapies. Interventional pain modalities have found a niche in treating headaches. Individuals resistant to common regimens, intolerant to pharmaceutical agents, or those with co-morbid factors that cause interactions with their therapies are some instances where interventions could be considered in the therapeutic algorithm. In this review, we will discuss these techniques including peripheral nerve stimulation, third occipital nerve block (TON), lesser occipital nerve block (LON), greater occipital nerve block (GON), sphenopalatine block (SPG), radiofrequency ablation (RFA), and cervical epidural steroid injections (CESI).
Summary
Physicians have used several interventional techniques to treat primary headaches. While many can be treated pharmacologically, those who continue to suffer from refractory or severe headaches may see tremendous benefit from a range of more invasive treatments which focus on directly inhibiting the painful nerves. While there is a plethora of evidence suggesting these methods are effective and possibly durable interventions, there is still a need for large, prospective, randomized trials to clearly demonstrate their efficacy.
Fluoride is known to contaminate groundwater in many countries notably India, Sri Lanka, China, rift valley countries in East Africa, Turkey and parts of South Africa. Sporadic incidence of high ...fluoride content in groundwater has been reported in 19 states and union territories across the country (CGWB 2010; Pol 2012). The fluoride occurrences in top aquifer system are endemic in many parts of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana, Bihar and Kerala (Agarwal et al. 1997; Latha et al. (1999); Gopalakrishnan et al. (2012). The toxicity of fluoride is generally influenced by high ambient temperature, alkalinity, calcium and magnesium contents in drinking water (BIS 1991). High level of fluoride posses serious health hazards to humans and irreversible damage to plants. The present study was carried out to assess the fluoride concentration of groundwater in the selected villages around Khapa town of Nagpur district.
Perioperative malnutrition has proven to be challenging to define, diagnose, and treat. Despite these challenges, it is well known that suboptimal nutritional status is a strong independent predictor ...of poor postoperative outcomes. Although perioperative caregivers consistently express recognition of the importance of nutrition screening and optimization in the perioperative period, implementation of evidence-based perioperative nutrition guidelines and pathways in the United States has been quite limited and needs to be addressed in surgery-focused recommendations. The second Perioperative Quality Initiative brought together a group of international experts with the objective of providing consensus recommendations on this important topic with the goal of (1) developing guidelines for screening of nutritional status to identify patients at risk for adverse outcomes due to malnutrition; (2) address optimal methods of providing nutritional support and optimizing nutrition status preoperatively; and (3) identifying when and how to optimize nutrition delivery in the postoperative period. Discussion led to strong recommendations for implementation of routine preoperative nutrition screening to identify patients in need of preoperative nutrition optimization. Postoperatively, nutrition delivery should be restarted immediately after surgery. The key role of oral nutrition supplements, enteral nutrition, and parenteral nutrition (implemented in that order) in most perioperative patients was advocated for with protein delivery being more important than total calorie delivery. Finally, the role of often-inadequate nutrition intake in the posthospital setting was discussed, and the role of postdischarge oral nutrition supplements was emphasized.
International experience and evidence-based practices have shown that reduction in variability through use of protocolized perioperative care improves surgical outcomes and reduces costs to patients ...and healthcare systems. In this series of Expert Opinions, we provide consensus recommendations for the various components of perioperative care to aid with the development of enhanced recovery after surgery protocols.
Internet of Things (IoT) devices have enabled communications in resource-limited computing environments. Sensor nodes from the multiple IoT devices collectively work for many applications, such as ...disaster management, border security management, smart farming, smart cities, etc. In such applications, the data from a single source node is often destined for multiple nodes. Multicast communication is preferred over unicast or broadcast communication for such applications, as multicast uses fewer resources. Efficient construction of the multicast tree leads to cost-effective multicast transmission. This article introduces a path selection game (PSGame), a game-theoretic approach that formulates the construction problem of the least-cost multicast tree as a potential game. Our proposed path selection algorithm (PSA) quickly converges to the pure Nash equilibrium (PNE), bringing the least cost multicast tree. Our findings show that the overhead incurred in terms of energy consumption and delay is minimal in the proposed algorithm compared to other mechanisms. The theoretical analysis proves that the proposed algorithm quickly converges to PNE in <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">O(n.r_{\max }) </tex-math></inline-formula> steps. It also proves that the cost ratio between the proposed solution and the centralized optimum will be bounded by <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">\log (n) </tex-math></inline-formula>. The numerical analysis substantiates the theoretical analysis.
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