The main goal of this study was to assess the potential of SAR backscatter signatures (RH and RV) retrieved from hybrid-polarized RISAT-1 SAR data in providing relevant information about the wheat ...growth parameters (leaf area index or LAI, plant water content or PWC, plant volume or PV and wet biomass or WB) over the entire growing season. The study was carried out over the parts of Bharatpur and Mathura districts located in Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh (India), respectively. The three-date time series hybrid-polarized dataset was collected coincident to which a comprehensive ground truth campaign was organised. We propose that refining the total backscatter (σtotal0) values after minimising the effect of underlying/background soil cover, would result in more accurate retrieval of plant parameters since it is the vegetation backscatter, which ultimately has a direct correlation with the crop biophysical parameters. It was achieved using a semi-empirical water cloud model (WCM) based approach. The applicability of four different combinations of canopy descriptors, i.e. leaf area index (LAI), plant water content (PWC), leaf water area index (LWAI) and interaction factor (IF that takes into consideration the moisture distribution per unit volume) was tested on the RH and RV backscatter. We found that WCM based on LAI and IF as the two canopy descriptors modelled the total backscatter with a significantly high coefficient of determination (R2 = 0.90 and 0.85, respectively) and RMSE of 1.18 and 1.25 dB, respectively. Subsequently, this set was used to retrieve the soil-corrected vegetation backscatter (σveg0) values. A comparative evaluation of the retrieval accuracy between plant parameters estimated from σtotal0 (σT_RHo, σT_RVo) and σveg0 (σV_RHo, σV_RVo) was performed using rigorously trained multi-layer perceptron (MLP) neural networks. The findings suggest that the prediction accuracy considerably improved when the backscatter of underlying/background soil cover was eliminated. The designed networks (with σtotal0 as input) retrieved plant water content and plant volume with the highest accuracy of 0.82 and 0.80, respectively while it increased dramatically to 0.87 and 0.89 when the inputs were substituted by σveg0. The present study is a first step towards retrieving crop parameters from hybrid-polarized data and thus possesses the potential to serve as a reference for further research initiatives.
•Wheat biophysical parameters retrieval using RISAT1 hybrid-polarized backscatter•Modelling of soil corrected backscatter (σveg0) using water cloud model•Use of a unique crop canopy descriptor (IF) to represent crop heterogeneity•Neural network technique to retrieve wheat biophysical parameters•LAI, plant volume, plant water & wet biomass estimated with σοveg and σοtotal
This volume contains a selection of papers presented at the 7th Nirma University International Conference on Engineering 'NUiCONE 2019'. This conference followed the successful organization of four ...national conferences and six international conferences in previous years. The main theme of the conference was "Technologies for Sustainable Development", which is in line with the "SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOAL" established by the United Nations. The conference was organized with many inter-disciplinary technical themes encompassing a broad range of disciplines and enabling researchers, academicians and practitioners to choose between ideas and themes. Besides, NUiCONE-2019 has also presented an exciting new set of events to engage practicing engineers, technologists and technopreneurs from industry through special knowledge sharing sessions involving applied technical papers based on case-study applications, white-papers, panel discussions, innovations and technology products. This proceedings will definitely provide a platform to proliferate new findings among researchers. * Advances in Transportation Engineering * Emerging Trends in Water Resources and Environmental Engineering * Construction Technology and Management * Concrete and Structural Engineering * Futuristic Power System * Control of Power Electronics Converters, Drives and E-mobility * Advanced Electrical Machines and Smart Apparatus * Chemical Process Development and Design * Technologies and Green Environment * Sustainable Manufacturing Processes * Design and Analysis of Machine and Mechanism * Energy Conservation and Management * Advances in Networking Technologies * Machine Intelligence / Computational Intelligence * Autonomic Computing * Control and Automation * Electronic Communications * Electronics Circuits and System Design * Signal Processing *
Simplified treatment regimens for HIV-1 may have advantages. In this open-label, randomized, controlled trial, patients with HIV-1 infection who had not previously received antiretroviral therapy ...were given oral induction therapy, then treated with either monthly injections of long-acting cabotegravir and rilpivirine or standard treatment. At 48 weeks, similar viral suppression was observed with the two regimens.
Metastasis remains the main reason for renal cell carcinoma (RCC)-associated mortality. Tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKI) impart clinical benefit for most patients with RCC, but the determinants of ...response are poorly understood. We report an integrated genomic and transcriptomic analysis of patients with metastatic clear cell RCC (ccRCC) treated with TKI therapy and identify predictors of response. Patients in the COMPARZ phase III trial received first-line sunitinib or pazopanib with comparable efficacy. RNA-based analyses revealed four distinct molecular subgroups associated with response and survival. Characterization of these subgroups identified mutation profiles, angiogenesis, and macrophage infiltration programs to be powerful predictors of outcome with TKI therapy. Notably, predictors differed by the type of TKI received. Our study emphasizes the clinical significance of angiogenesis and immune tumor microenvironment and suggests that the critical effects its various aspects have on TKI efficacy vary by agent. This has broad implications for optimizing precision treatment of RCC. SIGNIFICANCE: The determinants of response to TKI therapy in metastatic ccRCC remain unknown. Our study demonstrates that key angiogenic and immune profiles of the tumor microenvironment may affect TKI response. These findings have the potential to inform treatment personalization in patients with RCC.
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Objective: Efficacy and safety of long-acting cabotegravir (CAB) and rilpivirine (RPV) dosed intramuscularly every 4 or 8 weeks has been demonstrated in three Phase 3 trials. Here, factors associated ...with virologic failure at Week 48 were evaluated post hoc . Design and methods: Data from 1039 adults naive to long-acting CAB+RPV were pooled in a multivariable analysis to examine the influence of baseline viral and participant factors, dosing regimen and drug concentrations on confirmed virologic failure (CVF) occurrence using a logistic regression model. In a separate model, baseline factors statistically associated with CVF were further evaluated to understand CVF risk when present alone or in combination. Results: Overall, 1.25% ( n = 13/1039) of participants experienced CVF. Proviral RPV resistance-associated mutations (RAMs), HIV-1 subtype A6/A1, higher BMI (associated with Week 8 CAB trough concentration) and lower Week 8 RPV trough concentrations were significantly associated ( P < 0.05) with increased odds of CVF (all except RPV trough are knowable at baseline). Few participants (0.4%) with zero or one baseline factor had CVF. Only a combination of at least two baseline factors (observed in 3.4%; n = 35/1039) was associated with increased CVF risk (25.7%, n = 9/35). Conclusion: CVF is an infrequent multifactorial event, with a rate of approximately 1% in the long-acting CAB+RPV arms across Phase 3 studies (FLAIR, ATLAS and ATLAS-2M) through Week 48. Presence of at least two of proviral RPV RAMs, HIV-1 subtype A6/A1 and/or BMI at least 30 kg/m 2 was associated with increased CVF risk. These findings support the use of long-acting CAB+RPV in routine clinical practice.
The current analysis was performed to evaluate the impact of PIK3CA hotspot mutations on everolimus efficacy in BOLERO-2 participants, using cell-free DNA (cfDNA) from plasma samples collected at the ...time of patient randomisation.
PIK3CA H1047R, E545K, and E542K mutations in plasma-derived cfDNA were analysed by droplet digital PCR (ddPCR). Median PFS was estimated for patient subgroups defined by PIK3CA mutations in each treatment arm.
Among 550 patients included in cfDNA analysis, median PFS in everolimus vs placebo arms was similar in patients with tumours that had wild-type or mutant PIK3CA (hazard ratio (HR), 0.43 and 0.37, respectively). Everolimus also prolonged median PFS in patients with PIK3CA H1047R (HR, 0.37) and E545K/E542K mutations (HR=0.30) with a similar magnitude.
Mutation analysis of plasma-derived cfDNA by ddPCR suggests that PFS benefit of everolimus was maintained irrespective of PIK3CA genotypes, consistent with the previous analysis of archival tumour DNA by next-generation sequencing.
Purpose To determine long-term efficacy and safety of riboflavin/ultraviolet A corneal cross-linking (CXL). Design Prospective cohort study. Methods Thirty-six patients (36 eyes) who underwent ...epithelium-off CXL at a University Hospital (Guy's and St Thomas' National Health Service Foundation Trust) 6–8 years previously were examined. The main outcome measures were refractive error, visual acuity, corneal topographic keratometry, ultrasonic pachymetry, and topography-derived corneal wavefront. Results At 7 years compared to preoperative values, mean spherical equivalent refractive error (SEQ) increased by +0.78 diopter (D) ( P < .005) and mean simulated topographic keratometry (SimK) and mean maximum keratometry (Kmax) reduced by −0.74 D ( P < .0001) and −0.91 D ( P < .0001), respectively. Uncorrected distance acuity (UCDA) ( P < .0005) and corrected distance acuity (CDVA) ( P < .0001) had improved and root mean square (RMS) ( P < .0005), coma ( P < .0005), and secondary astigmatism ( P < .005) lessened. At 7 years compared to 1 year, CDVA improved ( P < .05); mean SimK ( P < .0005) and mean Kmax ( P < .005) reduced by −0.45 D and −0.56 D, respectively; and RMS ( P < .0005) and coma ( P < .0005) decreased. At 7 years compared to 5 years, CDVA improved ( P < .05) and trefoil reduced ( P < .05). No treated eyes progressed. In 29 initially untreated fellow eyes mean SimK increased by +0.54 D ( P < .02), mean Kmax by +0.87 D ( P < .05), and refractive astigmatism increased ( P < .0005). Conclusions Following corneal cross-linking, improvements in topographic and wavefront parameters evident at 1 year were seen to continue to improve at 5 years and were maintained at 7 years. No treated eyes progressed over the 7-year follow-up period.
Background:
Increases in fatal synthetic opioid overdoses over the past 8 years have left states scrambling for effective means to curtail these deaths. Many states have implemented policies and ...increased service capacity to address this rise. To better understand the effectiveness of policy level interventions we estimated the impact of the presence of naloxone access laws (NALs) on synthetic opioid fatalities at the state level.
Methods:
A multivariable longitudinal linear mixed model with a random intercept was used to determine the relationship between the presence of NALs and synthetic opioid overdose death rates, while controlling for, Good Samaritan laws, opioid prescription rate, and capacity for medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD), utilizing a quadratic time trajectory. Data for the study was collected from the National Vital Statistics System using multiple cause-of-death mortality files linked to drug overdose deaths.
Results:
The presence of an NAL had a significant (univariate P-value = .013; multivariable p-value = .010) negative relationship to fentanyl overdose death rates. Other significant controlling variables were quadratic time (univariate and multivariable P-value < .001), MOUD (univariate P-value < .001; multivariable P-value = .009), and Good Samaritan Law (univariate P-value = .033; multivariable P-value = .018).
Conclusion:
Naloxone standing orders are strongly related to fatal synthetic opioid overdose reduction. The effect of NALs, MOUD treatment capacity, and Good Samaritan laws all significantly influenced the synthetic opioid overdose death rate. The use of naloxone should be a central part of any state strategy to reduce overdose death rate.
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