Listening to the heart sounds is a common practice in identifying cardiac malfunctions. Since this method has many limitations, tools that aid physicians in their diagnosis of heart diseases are very ...useful. This paper presents a software tool to predict cardiac abnormalities which can be identified using heart sounds. Both heart sound information and symptoms are used in disease prediction. First audio inputs at four clinically important locations on the chest are acquired using an electronic stethoscope and entered to a database with symptoms for each patient. After de-noising, prominent features and statistical parameters needed for disease detection are extracted from the heart sound samples using several algorithms. Then the disease classification is performed to find out possible disease and murmur types. The software tool reported in this paper is capable of identifying normal heart sounds and abnormal heart sounds with possible kind of disease and murmurs presented there. Hence, it helps doctors to detect diseases early and can be integrated as a standard module of electronic stethoscope software.
In medical image registration, the quantification of registration errors is important in deciding the capabilities of a registration technique for a given problem, and/or for a given pair of images. ...The most common approach is the geometrical registration error called Target Registration Error (TRE) that measures the distance between corresponding landmarks in the target and registered images. However, finding sufficient number of corresponding landmarks is not always possible in medical images, and therefore, other measures such as, image similarity measures and surface-based error metrics have been used in quantification of registration errors. Surface-based error quantification is more appropriate than intensity-based methods, but the widely used surface-based Closest Point Registration Error (CPRE) is known for under-estimating registration errors. In this paper, we present a surface-based method for quantification of registration errors using Matched Points Registration Error (MPRE) by computing distances between ¿matched-points¿ on segmented object surfaces in target and registered images. We compared small rigid registration errors of tube-shaped and closed surface objects quantified using MPRE with TRE and CPRE, and showed that MPRE did not show a significant difference from TRE and that CPRE was significantly lower than both MPRE and TRE.
The properties of the usual one-sample T-statistic under nonnormal universes are investigated using Edgeworth expansions, and the findings reinforce the observations made by many authors in the past. ...Sufficient conditions for combining two independent unbiased estimators of a common mean in order to obtain a uniformly better (in variance sense) unbiased estimator is given. An upper bound for the inefficiency of such an estimator is also presented using a Kantorovich inequality. Heteroskedasticity-robust test procedures for the one-sample and two-sample problems are developed. An unbiased estimator of the variance of the ordinary least squares estimator of the slope parameter of a heteroskedastic simple linear regression model without intercept is given and performance of this estimator is assessed using Monte-Carlo simulations.
An interactive cadaver dissection simulator Karunasekara, P.P.C.R.; Dissanayake, M.M.; Nanayakkara, N.D.
2009 International Conference on Industrial and Information Systems (ICIIS),
2009-Dec.
Conference Proceeding
Cadaver dissection is a valuable tool in anatomy teaching for medical students. With practical constraints that anatomy teachers face today, they seek to improve the quality of teaching using ...computer aided novel teaching methods. In this paper, we propose a cadaver dissection simulator based on the digital anatomical images of Visible Human Project dataset. The simulator would be used as a pre-lab tool to get familiar with the dissection process. Students are able to interact with the tool and define an organ or an area of a region to be removed. By defining and removing each successive organ/region, dissection could be carried out as it is being done in the laboratory. The original true colour is preserved in the rendered volume to impart a real life experience. In developing the simulator, the original digital images were pre-processed by ¿The Visible Human Preprocessing Toolkit¿ plug-in of ImageJ. Further processing was done through the Visualization Toolkit (VTK) to remove unnecessary patches that remained in the background. Segmentation of the preprocessed images was carried out by the ¿LiveWire¿ plug-in in ImageJ. Finally, true colour visualization was carried out through VTK. We successfully demonstrated the simulator for dissection in the abdomen region.
In this paper, we present an automatic model based image segmentation system, which combines a multi-resolution discrete dynamic contour (DDC) model refinement procedure and the domain knowledge of ...the image class. The segmentation begins on a low-resolution image by defining an open DDC model, followed by a contour growing process generates the closed DDC model, which deforms progressively towards higher resolution images. A combination of knowledge based fuzzy inference system (FIS) and a set of adaptive region based operators is used to enhance the edges of interest and to govern the DDC model deformation. With the above process we were able to greatly reduce the sensitivity to the initial model, thus paving the way for automatic segmentation on noisy images. Domain knowledge of a particular class of images is encapsulated within the FIS such that it can be easily changed for different image classes. We applied this algorithm successfully to detect the organ boundary in ultra-sound images of prostates and examples are shown in order to illustrate the advantages of the proposed method.
Abstract
Background
One-fifth of the Sri Lankan population consists of adolescents, with 71% of them schooling. An extreme need exists in the country for the introduction of evidence-based ...interventions for the psychosocial well-being of adolescents. The present study assessed the effectiveness of an educational intervention to promote the psychosocial well-being of school-going adolescents in grade nine in Western Province, Sri Lanka.
Materials and methods
A quasi-experimental study was conducted among grade nine students in Western Province in 2019. Panadura Medical Officer of Health (MOH) area was selected as the interventional area (IA), and Kelaniya MOH area was identified as the control area (CA). Teachers at schools in the IA received training on psychosocial health promotion of adolescents. They delivered the activity-based educational intervention package to the grade nine students as 20-min classroom sessions for three months. Pre- and post-intervention assessments of attitudes and practices related to the psychosocial well-being of adolescents were conducted using an interviewer-administered questionnaire. Categorical data were compared using Chi-Square or Fisher’s exact test. Mann–Whitney U test was applied to determine the difference between the medians of the pre-and post-intervention scores on attitude and practices for psychosocial well-being.
Results
A total of 1040 grade nine students were enrolled. There was a statistically significant increase in median score on attitudes 81.8 (IQR:75.5–85.5) to 82.3(IQR:78.6–87.2 and practices 81.7(IQR: 76.1–85.7) to 83.1(IQR: 79.1–86.9) in the IA while there was no significant difference in the CA. The proportion of bullied adolescents in the past 30 days reduced significantly from 14.8% (
n
= 38) to 7.9% (
n
= 20) in IA(
p
= .03), whereas there was a slight reduction from 17.1% (
n
= 44) to 11.3% (
n
= 26) in CA (
p
= .17).
Conclusions
The present psychosocial intervention is effective in improving the psychosocial well-being of school adolescents, though long-term effectiveness was not assessed. It is recommended to utilise study findings in deciding to introduce the present intervention to basic and in-service teacher training packages and school curricula with necessary modifications.
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