In this paper, we present a human-based computation approach for the analysis of peripheral blood smear (PBS) images images in patients with Sickle Cell Disease (SCD). We used the Mechanical Turk ...microtask market to crowdsource the labeling of PBS images. We then use the expert-tagged erythrocytesIDB dataset to assess the accuracy and reliability of our proposal. Our results showed that when a robust consensus is achieved among the Mechanical Turk workers, probability of error is very low, based on comparison with expert analysis. This suggests that our proposed approach can be used to annotate datasets of PBS images, which can then be used to train automated methods for the diagnosis of SCD. In future work, we plan to explore the potential integration of our findings with outcomes obtained through automated methodologies. This could lead to the development of more accurate and reliable methods for the diagnosis of SCD.
The escalating volume of healthcare waste (HCW) generated by healthcare facilities poses a pressing challenge for all nations. Adequate management and disposal of this waste are imperative to ...mitigate its adverse impact on human lives, wildlife, and the environment. Addressing this issue in Bosnia and Herzegovina involves the establishment of a regional center dedicated to HCW management. In practice, there are various treatments available for HCW management. Therefore, it is necessary to determine the priority for procuring different treatments during the formation of this center. To assess these treatment devices, expert decision-making employed the fuzzy-rough approach. By leveraging extended sustainability criteria, experts initially evaluated the significance of these criteria and subsequently assessed the devices for HCW treatment. Employing the fuzzy-rough LMAW (Logarithm Methodology of Additive Weights), the study determined the importance of criteria, highlighting "Air emissions" and "Annual usage costs" as the most critical factors. Utilizing the fuzzy-rough CoCoSo (the Combined Compromise Solution) method, six devices employing incineration or sterilization for HCW treatment were ranked. The findings indicated that the "Rotary kiln" and "Steam disinfection" emerged as the most favorable devices for HCW treatment based on this research. This conclusion was validated through comparative and sensitivity analyses. This research contributes by proposing a solution to address Bosnia and Herzegovina's HCW challenge through the establishment of a regional center dedicated to HCW management.
Challenges that museums face in collections management, many of which are directly related to sustainability, represent another set of issues that require consideration. As collections require ...increasing investment of resources from the institutions that safeguard them — and despite efforts among museums and other heritage institutions to maximise productivity in terms of creating displays and using their collections in other ways — only a small minority of museum objects are displayed or exploited at all (Lambert Citation2012), and for a limited period of time. Additionally, museums must manage a steady influx of newly acquired objects, even though volumes may vary between different types of collections. One way of addressing such challenges and the complexity of sustaining the crucial role of museum collections in contemporary societies is to take what we call a ‘circular economy approach’. In a circular economy, goods are circulated within the same economic system through different levels of re-use, such as re-marketing, repair and technological updates. If it is not possible to reuse them, they are recycled or remanufactured from the ‘waste’ to remain in the system, thus avoiding the creation of actual waste as much as possible (Seadon Citation2010).As part of our research, we analysed the applicability of a circular waste management model in museum collections management, and, drawing on this analysis, conceptualised a circular economy-based model for collections management that incorporates the adaptive re-use of museum objects in formal education.
In this work we propose an approach to select the classification method and features, based on the state-of-the-art, with best performance for diagnostic support through peripheral blood smear images ...of red blood cells. In our case we used samples of patients with sickle-cell disease which can be generalized for other study cases. To trust the behavior of the proposed system, we also analyzed the interpretability. We pre-processed and segmented microscopic images, to ensure high feature quality. We applied the methods used in the literature to extract the features from blood cells and the machine learning methods to classify their morphology. Next, we searched for their best parameters from the resulting data in the feature extraction phase. Then, we found the best parameters for every classifier using Randomized and Grid search. For the sake of scientific progress, we published parameters for each classifier, the implemented code library, the confusion matrices with the raw data, and we used the public erythrocytesIDB dataset for validation. We also defined how to select the most important features for classification to decrease the complexity and the training time, and for interpretability purpose in opaque models. Finally, comparing the best performing classification methods with the state-of-the-art, we obtained better results even with interpretable model classifiers.
Sustainable development goals are used as a guidance for strategies development on local, regional and national levels. The importance of including young people in this complex process is recognized ...in all relevant documents (i.e. Agenda 21), however it is not an easy task to elicit opinions and preferences from the youth. Furthermore, the assessment of the sustainable development goals itself presents a challenge for the noisy data and nonlinear relationships in data. Popular approach is fuzzy set models where expert knowledge is presented with comprehensible rules; however expert knowledge elicitation takes a long time too. Several studies proposed an adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system approach that combines the fuzzy set theory to model expert knowledge with neural networks for inferring rules and membership functions from data to assess the sustainable development performance. We base our assumptions that ANFIS can be used to predict the importance of sustainable development pillars from the demographic data of young people. For this purpose, we have conducted an online survey on sustainable development goals opinions and importance of young people in Serbia. The sample of 386 respondents has been split into a training sample of 300 instances (to generate membership functions and fuzzy rules) and a testing sample of 86 instances to predict the importance of the three pillars. We have conducted a trace-driven simulation test to validate the results of the proposed ANFIS model. Results of the study provided insights into how the young people in Serbia assess the importance of sustainable development goals. Secondly, the results suggest that ANFIS can be applied to predict values of importance of the three sustainable development pillars with the relative error of Rel Err < 5%. It must be noted that the considered model could be further improved by using training samples with more data.
A quantitative RT real-time PCR method was developed for the detection and quantification of Tomato mosaic virus (ToMV) in irrigation waters. These have rarely been monitored for the presence of ...plant pathogenic viruses, mostly due to the lack of efficient and sensitive detection methods. The newly developed method presented here offers a novel approach in monitoring the health status of environmental waters. ToMV was reliably detected at as low as 12 viral particles per real-time PCR reaction, which corresponds to the initial concentration of approximately 4.2 x 10-¹⁰ mg (6,300 viral particles) of ToMV per ml of sample. The sensitivity of the method was further improved by including the Convective Interaction Media® (CIM) monolithic chromatographic columns for quick and efficient concentration of original water samples. Seven out of nine water sources from different locations in Slovenia tested positive for ToMV, after concentrating the sample. Four samples tested ToMV-positive without the concentrating procedure. The presence and integrity of infective ToMV particles in the original sample, as well as in the chromatographic fraction, was confirmed using different methods from test plants, DAS ELISA to electron microscopy and real-time PCR. In this study, we propose a unique and simple diagnostic scheme for rapid, efficient, and sensitive monitoring of irrigation waters that could also be adopted for other plant, human or animal viruses.
The focus of the article is the protection of the rights of crime victims in the Netherlands. The goal of the research is to explain the comprehensiveness of reforms (from 1980) and demonstrate ...examples of good practice (related to harmonization with the Victims' Rights Directives 2012/29EU). Permanent reforms overcame the passive role of the victim in the criminal procedure where the special rights of victim are guaranteed. The victim becomes the central figure of the criminal justice system. The author points out special solutions in Dutch law, such as victim's right to speak to the court (pointing out to the consequences of victimization etc.), mediation, transactio (diversion in criminal process), compensation order, "advance arrangement" for payment victim's claim by the Central Fine Collection Agency, if it is not paid within the given time. The procedure of compensation from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Fund is described. It is crucial to establish an effective organizational framework for the realization of victim's rights, suited to the needs of a concrete society.
Introduction. The COVID-19 pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus has led to significant public health problems, severe complications, and functional impairment in persons who have recovered from ...this disease. Case report. A 60-years-old male deconditioned patient was transferred from Corona 4 Center to the Center for Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation of the University Clinical Center in Kragujevac for a post-COVID rehabilitation due to pronounced muscle weakness and inability to walk. After functional testing, an individual rehabilitation plan was created and a kinesitherapy program was adjusted daily based on the patient's respiratory status. After the kinesitherapy program, Respivol was used-a volumetric medical device for breathing exercises in patients with respiratory difficulties. At the time of admission, the patient could not move independently, could not move from the lying to the sitting position on his own, and could not maintain balance in the sitting position. Hypotrophy caused by prolonged inactivity of the muscles of the whole body dominated the clinical picture. A six-week rehabilitation treatment performed on the patient showed a significant improvement in functionality (FIM test), muscle strength (manual muscle test), daily life activity (Barthel index), as well as a reduction of anxiety (GAD-7 scale). Conclusion. The goal of the rehabilitation program is to restore the patient's state of functionality before the initiation of COVID-19 treatment, so that they can perform their regular professional activities and achieve complete independence in performing activities of daily living (ADL).
A new chromatographic medium, Convective Interaction Media
® (CIM) disk monolithic columns, was applied to plant virus concentration. The ability of the columns to concentrate highly diluted plant ...viruses was tested on a model plant virus, rod-shaped tomato mosaic virus (ToMV). Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was used for the quantitative analysis. The virus was concentrated using a strong anion exchanger, CIM quaternary amine (QA) disk monolithic column. A high salt concentration was used to elute the concentrated virus from the columns. It has been demonstrated that ToMV, which had been diluted considerably below the sensitivity of ELISA, was concentrated by several orders of magnitude in the one-step procedure. Concentrated virus preparations could be used directly for ELISA testing. In comparison with methods described for concentrating plant viruses from irrigation water, the above procedure may provide a much faster and more efficient way to concentrate highly diluted plant viruses. The procedure could be applied to the testing of other highly diluted plant viruses, and to concentrating viruses for antiserum production.
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