Current Issue : July - September Volume : 2019 Issue Number : 3 Articles : 5 Articles
Segmentation of liver tumors plays an important role in the choice of therapeutic strategies for liver disease and treatment\nmonitoring. In this paper, we generalize the process of a level set with a novel algorithm of dynamic regulation to energy\nfunctional parameters.Thepresented method is fully automatic once the tumor has been detected. First, a 3D convolutional neural\nnetwork with dense layers for classification is used to estimate current contour location relative to the tumor boundary. Second,\nthe output 3D CNN probabilities can dynamically regulate parameters of the level set functional over the process of segmentation.\nFinally, for full automation, appropriate initializations and local window size are generated based on the current contour position\nprobabilities. We demonstrate the proposed method on the dataset of MICCAI 2017 LiTS Challenge and 3DIRCADb that include\nlow contrast and heterogeneous tumors as well as noisy images. To illustrate the strength of our method, we evaluated it against the\nstate-of-the-art methods. Compared with the level set framework with fixed parameters, our method performed better significantly\nwith an average DICE improvement of 0.15. We also analyzed a challenging dataset 3DIRCADb of tumors and obtained\na competitive DICE of 0.85 ± 0.06 with the proposed method....
Background:My Diabetes My Way (MDMW) is the National Health Service (NHS)\nScotland website for people with diabetes and their carers. It consists of an interactive\ninformation website and an electronic personal health record (ePHR) available to the\n291,981 people with diabetes in Scotland. We aimed to analyse the demographic characteristics\nof current registrants and system usage and activity during 2016.\nMethods: We analysed system audit trails to monitor user activity and page accesses\non the information website, and logins and activity within the ePHR. The ePHR contains\ndata from SCI-Diabetes, NHS Scotlandâ??s flagship diabetes record, sourcing data\nfrom primary and secondary care, specialist screening services and laboratory systems.\nWe reviewed patient registration characteristics to collate demographic data for the\nMWDH cohort, then compared this to aggregate data published in the 2016 Scottish\nDiabetes Survey.The Scottish Diabetes Survey is an annual population-based report\ndetailing diabetes statistics for the whole diabetes population in NHS Scotland.\nResults:The MDMW information website received an average of 101,382 page\naccesses per month during 2016 (56.9% increase from 2015; n = 64,607). ePHR registrants\nwere more likely to be younger (p < 0.001) and have an ethnicity of â??whiteâ?\n(p < 0.001) than the background diabetes population. At the end of 2016, 11,840 people\nwith diabetes had accessed their personal clinical information (58.6% increase since\nend 2015; n = 7464). During 2016, an average of 1907 people accessed their records\neach month (48.3% increase from 2015; n = 1286).\nConclusion:My Diabetes My Way is a useful tool aid to diabetes self-management.\nThe service is unique in offering records access to a national population, providing\ninformation from all relevant diabetes-related sources, rather than a single silo. MDMW\nsupports the diabetes improvement, self-management, healthcare quality and eHealth\nstrategies of the Scottish Government. The service also has potential to be adapted to\nwork with other clinical systems and conditions....
Background: Digital media are increasingly abundant and used to seek health information, however, to date very little\nis known on parentsâ?? seeking behavior in the context of childâ??s health and development outside English-speaking and\nScandinavian countries. By investigating the prevalence of, and reasons for use, we studied parentsâ?? perception of the\nInternet as a resource for improving their health-related knowledge.\nMethods: The survey was conducted in a random sample of 2573 Swiss-German parents with at least one child aged\nless-than 2 years old. Parents received a mailed invitation to fill in an online questionnaire. Two reminders were sent, the\nlater with a paper questionnaire attached. The questionnaire included questions on use of print, digital, and personal\ninformation sources, as well as different information situations: general health and development or illness. We\nran descriptive analyses on information seeking behavior, type of digital media used, reasons of use. We also\nconducted regression analyses to explore factors associated with parental perceptions with regard to the\nInternetâ??s utility as a source for health information.\nResults: A total of 769 questionnaires were returned (response rate 30%). Nearly all parents (91%) used digital\nmedia for seeking information on their childâ??s health and development, and the main reason for use was indicated as\nbeing the 24/7 availability of information. Search engines (55%) and webpages for parents (47%) were by far the most\nfrequently used digital media. Generally, the internet is perceived as a good resource, especially by fathers (OR = 1.80,\n95% CI: 1.03â??3.16). However, a large percentage of parents are skeptical about the correctness of online info (91%), are\nunsure about their interpretive understanding, and ask for guidance from their pediatrician (67%).\nConclusions: The Internet has become a highly frequented source of information for Swiss-German parents on childrenâ??s\nhealth with largely valuable perceptions of its utility. Digital media are used in addition to and not in replacement of print\nmedia and personal contacts. Increasing parental guidance by health and public health professionals could improve\nparental digital health utilization and empower parents in the new role they adopt....
Background. Impulse control disorders in Parkinsonâ??s disease (PD) represent emerging problems with potentially devastating\nconsequences. The standard screening methods for impulse control disorders are clinically imperfect. Although it is rarely\nreported, many patients utilize the Internet to fulfill their compulsive behaviors because of its easy accessibility. We designed a\nstudy to test the hypothesis that an active screening for excessive Internet use and Internet addiction might improve the\nsensitivity of identification of impulse control disorders. Methods. The standard screening method included the Questionnaire\nfor Impulsive-Compulsive Disorders in Parkinsonâ??s Disease and the modified Minnesota Impulsive Disorders Interview. In the\nsecond round, the Problematic Internet Use Questionnaire was also assessed for detecting excessive Internet use. Results. While\nthe standard approach identified 19 patients out of 106 (17.9%) with any type of impulse control disorders, screening for the\nproblematic Internet use detected 29 patients with impulse control disorders (27.4%) having significantly better efficacy over the\nstandard method (p= 0.004, the McNemar test). Conclusions. Our study suggests that the screening for problematic Internet use\nby the Problematic Internet Use Questionnaire is an effective, feasible, and easy-to-use add-on method for identifying PD\npatients with impulse control disorders more efficiently and probably at earlier stages....
Quality of life (QoL) indicators are now being adopted as clinical outcomes in clinical\ntrials on cancer treatments. Technology-free daily monitoring of patients is complicated,\ntime-consuming and expensive due to the need for vast amounts of resources and personnel. The\nalternative method of using the patientsâ?? own phones could reduce the burden of continuous\nmonitoring of cancer patients in clinical trials. This paper proposes monitoring the patientsâ?? QoL by\ngathering data from their own phones. We considered that the continuous multiparametric\nacquisition of movement, location, phone calls, conversations and data use could be employed to\nsimultaneously monitor their physical, psychological, social and environmental aspects. An open\naccess phone app was developed (Human Dynamics Reporting Service (HDRS)) to implement this\napproach. We here propose a novel mapping between the standardized QoL items for these\npatients, the European Organization for the Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life\nQuestionnaire (EORTC QLQ-C30) and define HDRS monitoring indicators. A pilot study with\nuniversity volunteers verified the plausibility of detecting human activity indicators directly\nrelated to QoL....
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