An improvement of the monotone fast iterative shrinkage-thresholding algorithm (MFISTA) for faster convergence is proposed in this paper. Our motivation is to reduce the reconstruction time of ...compressed sensing problems in magnetic resonance imaging. The proposed modification introduces an extra term, which is a multiple of the proximal-gradient step, into the so-called momentum formula used for the computation of the next iterate in MFISTA. In addition, the modified algorithm selects the next iterate as a possibly improved point obtained by any other procedure, such as an arbitrary shift, a line search, or other methods. As an example, an arbitrary-length shift in the direction from the previous iterate to the output of the proximal-gradient step is considered. The resulting algorithm accelerates MFISTA in a manner that varies with the iterative steps. Convergence analysis shows that the proposed modification provides improved theoretical convergence bounds, and that it has more flexibility in its parameters than the original MFISTA. Since such problems need to be studied in the context of functions of several complex variables, a careful extension of FISTA-like methods to complex variables is provided.
Since several anticancer drugs are known to become more cytotoxic to cells in an acidic milieu, we have attempted to utilize the carbonic anhydrase inhibitor, Acetazolamide, to acidify the blood and ...tumor of C3H mice bearing the FSaIIC fibrosarcoma in order to sensitize tumor cells in vivo to CDDP, Melphalan, BCNU, SR4233 or PtCl4 (Fast Black)2 +/- hyperthermia. The direct cytotoxic interactions between the anticancer drugs and Acetazolamide were tested in FSaIIC cells in vitro with the monacidifying diuretic Chlorothrozide as a control. When cells were exposed to CDDP both diuretics protected against cytotoxicity in a dose dependent fashion. In contrast, cells exposed to Melphalan were minimally sensitized and those exposed to BCNU, SR4233, or PtCl4 (Fast Black)2 were essentially unaffected by the presence of the diuretic agents. Both diuretics were essentially non-toxic to cells in vitro, and, interestingly, both drugs markedly protected cells against hyperthermia under low pH conditions. In vitro, however, Acetzolamide produced a tumor growth delay of 2.3 days alone when given at 10 mg/kg i.p. once (the most effective dose) and produced additive growth delays with CDDP and Melphalan, but probably greater than additive delays with SR4233 and PtCl4 (Fast Black)2. When Acetazolamide was given daily for 5 days starting on the day the anticancer drugs were given once (day 7) essentially no further increase in tumor growth delay of nearly 16 days was observed versus only 4,6 days for the drug alone. When hyperthermia (43 degrees C min.) was delivered locally to the tumor after i.p. injection of the drugs, further growth delays were produced for every drug combination which probably were additive in extent. Blood and urine pH determinations revealed that a pH drop of 1 units occurred in the blood and a pH elevation of 1 to 21 units occurred in the urine 1 hr. after i.p. injection of Acetazolamide. These results indicate that this carbonic anhydrase inhibitor can add to the anticancer activity of the drugs tested. The mechanism may involve its ability to acidify the intratumoral environment, but other mechanisms can not be excluded.
Background. Super-spreading events, in which an individual with measurably high connectivity is responsible for infecting a large number of people, have been observed. Our goal is to determine the ...impact of hand hygiene noncompliance among peripatetic (eg, highly mobile or highly connected) healthcare workers compared with less-connected workers. Methods. We used a mote-based sensor network to record contacts among healthcare workers and patients in a 20-bed intensive care unit. The data collected from this network form the basis for an agent-based simulation to model the spread of nosocomial pathogens with various transmission probabilities. We identified the most-and least-connected healthcare workers. We then compared the effects of hand hygiene noncompliance as a function of connectedness. Results. The data confirm the presence of peripatetic healthcare workers. Also, agent-based simulations using our real contact network data confirm that the average number of infected patients was significantly higher when the most connected healthcare worker did not practice hand hygiene and significantly lower when the least connected healthcare workers were noncompliant. Conclusions. Heterogeneity in healthcare worker contact patterns dramatically affects disease diffusion. Our findings should inform future infection control interventions and encourage the application of social network analysis to study disease transmission in healthcare settings.
Simultaneous fuzzy segmentation of multiple objects Carvalho, Bruno M.; Herman, Gabor T.; Kong, T. Yung
Discrete Applied Mathematics,
10/2005, Letnik:
151, Številka:
1
Journal Article, Conference Proceeding
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Fuzzy segmentation is a technique that assigns to each element in an image (which may have been corrupted by noise and/or shading) a grade of membership in an object (which is believed to be ...contained in the image). In an earlier work, the first two authors extended this concept by presenting and illustrating an algorithm which simultaneously assigns to each element in an image a grade of membership in each one of a number of objects (which are believed to be contained in the image). In this paper, we prove the existence of such a fuzzy segmentation that is uniquely specified by a desirable mathematical property, show further examples of its use in medical imaging, and illustrate that on several biomedical examples a new implementation of the algorithm that produces the segmentation is approximately seven times faster than the previously used implementation. We also compare our method with two recently published related methods.
EMT-6 murine mammary tumors were made resistant to cis-diamminedichloroplatinum (II) (CDDP), carboplatin, cyclophosphamide (CTX), or thiotepa in vivo by treatment of tumor-bearing animals with the ...drug during a 6-month period. In spite of high levels of in vivo resistance, no significant resistance was observed when the cells from these tumors were exposed to the drugs in vitro. The pharmacokinetics of CDDP and CTX were altered in animals bearing the respective resistant tumors. The resistance of all tumor lines except for the EMT-6/thiotepa decreased during 3 to 6 months in vivo passage in the absence of drugs. These results indicate that very high levels of resistance to anticancer drugs can develop through mechanisms that are expressed only in vivo.
Organized into five main sections, this paper provides an introduction to cyberethics-an interdisciplinary field of applied ethics. In Section 1, definitions of some key terms, such as cyberethics ...and cybertechnology, are proposed and a brief description of the historical development of the field of cyberethics is provided. Section 2 examines the question of whether cyberethics issues are unique or special ethical issues. In Section 3, cyberethics issues are examined from three distinct perspectives involving applied ethics: professional, philosophical, and descriptive. Section 4 briefly analyzes the standard methodological framework used in applied-ethics research, and it shows why that framework is not adequate for identifying some kinds of cyberethics issues. In Section 5, a comprehensive and unified methodological framework, which incorporates the expertise of computer scientists, information professionals, philosophers, and social scientists, is proposed as an alternative to the traditional method.
We report on the measurement of the size of the particle-emitting source from two-baryon correlations with ALICE in high-multiplicity pp collisions at s=13 TeV. The source radius is studied with low ...relative momentum p–p, p‾–p‾, p–Λ , and p‾–Λ‾ pairs as a function of the pair transverse mass mT considering for the first time in a quantitative way the effect of strong resonance decays. After correcting for this effect, the radii extracted for pairs of different particle species agree. This indicates that protons, antiprotons, Λ s, and Λ‾ s originate from the same source. Within the measured mT range (1.1–2.2) GeV/c2the invariant radius of this common source varies between 1.3 and 0.85 fm. These results provide a precise reference for studies of the strong hadron–hadron interactions and for the investigation of collective properties in small colliding systems.
Experimental results are presented on event-by-event net-proton fluctuation measurements in Pb–Pb collisions at sNN=2.76 TeV, recorded by the ALICE detector at the CERN LHC. These measurements have ...as their ultimate goal an experimental test of Lattice QCD (LQCD) predictions on second and higher order cumulants of net-baryon distributions to search for critical behavior near the QCD phase boundary. Before confronting them with LQCD predictions, account has to be taken of correlations stemming from baryon number conservation as well as fluctuations of participating nucleons. Both effects influence the experimental measurements and are usually not considered in theoretical calculations. For the first time, it is shown that event-by-event baryon number conservation leads to subtle long-range correlations arising from very early interactions in the collisions.
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