Adsorptive removal of aniline by granular activated carbon from aqueous solutions with catechol and resorcinol

In the present paper, the removal of aniline by adsorption process onto granular activated carbon (GAC) is reported from aqueous solutions containing catechol and resorcinol separately. The Taguchi experimental design was applied to study the effect of such parameters as the initial component concentrations (C(0,i)) of two solutes (aniline and catechol or aniline and resorcinol) in the solution, temperature (T), adsorbent dosage (m) and contact time (t). The L27 orthogonal array consisting of five parameters each with three levels was used to determine the total amount of solutes adsorbed on GAC (q(tot), mmol/g) and the signal-to-noise ratio. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to determine the optimum conditions. Under these conditions, the ANOVA shows that m is the most important parameter in the adsorption process. The most favourable levels of process parameters were T = 303 K, m = 10 g/l and t = 660 min for both the systems, qtot values in the confirmation experiments carried out at optimum conditions were 0.73 and 0.95 mmol/g for aniline-catechol and aniline-resorcinol systems, respectively.

Identification of brain regions responsible for Alzheimer's disease using a Self-adaptive Resource Allocation Network

In this paper, we present a novel approach for the identification of brain regions responsible for Alzheimer's disease using the Magnetic Resonance (MR) images. The approach incorporates the recently developed Self-adaptive Resource Allocation Network (SRAN) for Alzheimer's disease classification using voxel-based morphometric features of MR images. SRAN classifier uses a sequential learning algorithm, employing self-adaptive thresholds to select the appropriate training samples and discard redundant samples to prevent over-training. These selected training samples are then used to evolve the network architecture efficiently. Since, the number of features extracted from the MR images is large, a feature selection scheme (to reduce the number of features needed) using an Integer-Coded Genetic Algorithm (ICGA) in conjunction with the SRAN classifier (referred to here as the ICGA-SRAN classifier) have been developed. In this study, different healthy/Alzheimer's disease patient's MR images from the Open Access Series of Imaging Studies data set have been used for the performance evaluation of the proposed ICGA-SRAN classifier. We have also compared the results of the ICGA-SRAN classifier with the well-known Support Vector Machine (SVM) and Extreme Learning Machine (ELM) classifiers. The study results clearly show that the ICGA-SRAN classifier produces a better generalization performance with a smaller number of features, lower misclassification rate and a compact network. The ICGA-SRAN selected features clearly indicate that the variations in the gray matter volume in the parahippocampal gyrus and amygdala brain regions may be good indicators of the onset of Alzheimer's disease in normal persons.

Computer-Aided Fetal Cardiac Scanning using 2D Ultrasound

Fetal heart biometry is an indicator for providing information about the presence of heart chambers, their growth, and well being. As a clinical routine, ultrasonic scanning based fetal biometry is performed during the second trimester by skilled specialists. Such procedures are often considered tedious and time consuming. Detection of congenital heart abnormalities, such as septal defects, affects the proper functioning of the heart during the growth of the fetus, and such defects can be identified if the fetal heart structure and its features like size, shape, and symmetry are monitored. Recently, attempts have been made to provide computer-aided automated procedure where the performance depends on the efficacy of the developed algorithms. This work focuses on computer aided automated fetal cardiac scanning using 2-D ultrasonic imaging from fetal heart biometry. The process involves extracting frames from the cine-loop sequences followed by removal of noise using morphological filters. The chamber region is recognized by introducing automated region of interest (ROI). Experimental simulation study demonstrates the efficiency of algorithm in detecting the shape of each chamber. The identified chamber shape will further facilitate in automated measurement of fetal heart chamber and thus reduces the qualitative visualization errors.

Do laparoscopic colectomy techniques compromise oncologic principles?

BACKGROUND

Benefits of laparoscopic techniques over traditional open techniques in colon surgery are well recognized. Although both hand-assisted laparoscopic colectomy (HALC) and laparoscopic-assisted colectomy (LAC) can beeffective in the treatment of colon cancer, the superiority of either technique has yet to be determined for oncologic procedures.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

A five-year retrospective study comparing outcomes of hand-assisted laparoscopic and laparoscopic-assisted colectomies for cancer was conducted at our community-based teaching hospital. Demographic data, tumor location and stage of the disease were analyzed. Outcomes compared between the two procedures included number of lymph nodes retrieved, presence of positive margins, operative time, length of stay, and number of early postoperative complications.

RESULTS

Fifty patients underwent HALC, while 23 underwent LAC during the study period. Demographic data were similar between the two groups. Operative time was longer for LAC, compared with HALC (178 vs. 125 min., p < 0.05), however, the average number of lymph nodes retrieved was significantly higher in LAC compared with HALC (14 vs. 10, p < 0.05). No significant differences were recorded for positive margins, postoperative complications, or the length of hospital stay.

CONCLUSIONS

While HALC was more prevalent at our institution and proved to be associated with decreased operative times, the number of lymph nodes retrieved was sub-optimal and compared less favorably with LAC. Above all, oncologic principles should be respected and achieved regardless of the operative technique used.