Voice Pathologies Classification and Detection Using EMD-DWT Analysis Based on Higher Order Statistic Features

BackgroundThe voice is a prominent tool allowing people to communicate and to change information in their daily activities. However, any slight alteration in the voice production system may affect the voice quality. Over the last years, researchers in biomedical engineering field worked to develop a robust automatic system that may help clinicians to perform a preventive diagnosis in order to detect the voice pathologies in an early stage.MethodIn this context, pathological voice detection and classification method based on EMD-DWT analysis and Higher Order Statistics (HOS) features, is proposed. Also DWT coefficients features are extracted and tested. To carry out our experiments a wide subset of voice signal from normal subjects and subjects which suffer from the five most frequent pathologies in the Saarbrücken Voice Database (SVD), is selected. In The first step, we applied the Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) to the voice signal. Afterwards, among the obtained candidates of Intrinsic Mode Functions (IMFs), we choose the robust one based on temporal energy criterion. In the second step, the selected IMF was decomposed via the Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT). As a result, two features vector includes six HOSs parameters, and a features vector includes six DWT features were formed from both approximation and detail coefficients. In order to classify the obtained data a support vector machine (SVM) is employed. After having trained the proposed system using the SVD database, the system was evaluated using voice signals of volunteer's subjects from the Neurological department of RABTA Hospital of Tunis.ResultsThe proposed method gives promising results in pathological voices detection. The accuracies reached 99.26% using HOS features and 93.1% using DWT features for SVD database. In the classification, an accuracy of 100% was reached for “Funktionelle Dysphonia vs. Rekrrensparese” based on HOS features. Nevertheless, using DWT features the accuracy achieved was 90.32% for “Hyperfunktionelle Dysphonia vs. Rekurrensparse”. Furthermore, in the validation the accuracies reached were 94.82%, 91.37% for HOS and DWT features, respectively. In the classification the highest accuracies reached were for classifying “Parkinson versus Paralysis” 94.44% and 88.87% based on HOS and DWT features, respectively.ConclusionHOS features show promising results in the automatic voice pathology detection and classification compared to DWT features. Thus, it can reliably be used as noninvasive tool to assist clinical evaluation for pathological voices identification.     

Comparative analysis of root sprouting and its vigour in temperate herbs: anatomical correlates and environmental predictors

Background and AimsRoot sprouting (RS), i.e. the ability to form adventitious buds on roots, is an important form of clonal growth in a number of species, and serves as both a survival strategy and a means of spatial expansion, particularly in plants growing in severely and recurrently disturbed habitats. Occurrence and/or success of plants in severely and recurrently disturbed habitats are determined by two components, namely the ability to produce adventitious buds on roots and the vigour of their production. As mechanisms behind different magnitudes of RS remain unclear, our study investigates: (1) whether the presence or absence of specific tissues in roots can promote or limit RS; and (2) whether there is some relationship between RS ability, RS vigour and species niche.MethodsWe studied RS ability together with RS vigour in 182 Central European herbaceous species under controlled experimental conditions. We used phylogenetic logistic regressions to model the presence of RS, RS vigour, the relationship between RS and anatomical traits and the relationship between RS and parameters of species niches.Key ResultsA quarter of herbs examined were able to produce adventitious buds on roots. They were characterized by their preference for open dry habitats, the presence of secondary root thickening and the occurrence of sclerified cortical cells in roots. Root sprouting vigour was not associated with any specific anatomical pattern, but was correlated with the environmental niches of different species, indicating that preferred disturbed and dry habitats might represent a selection pressure for more vigorous root sprouters than undisturbed and wet habitats.ConclusionsOur study shows that sprouting from roots is quite common in temperate dicotyledonous herbs. Two components of RS – ability and vigour – should be considered separately in future studies. We would also like to focus more attention on RS in herbs from other regions as well as on external forces and internal mechanisms regulating evolution and the functions of RS in both disturbed and undisturbed habitats.     

新辅助化疗后腋窝病理完全缓解乳腺癌的预后分析

摘要 目的：研究乳腺癌患者新辅助化疗（NAC）后达到腋窝淋巴结病理完全缓解（pathologic complete response of axillary,apCR）的远期生存以及影响远期生存的相关因素分析。方法：回顾性分析哈尔滨医科大学附属肿瘤医院乳腺外科624例乳腺癌患者的住院资料,采用Kaplan-Meier生存分析以及COX回归分析的统计学分析方法,分析乳腺癌患者新辅助化疗后腋窝状态与无病生存（DFS）和总生存（OS）的关系及影响apCR预后的因素。结果：apCR与非apCR患者比较DFS（P=0.013）和OS（P=0.037）差异具有统计学意义,apCR患者的预后与年龄、肿瘤大小、肿瘤受体状态、HER-2、ki67状态、分子分型等因素无相关性。结论：与非apCR患者相比,乳腺癌患者新辅助化疗后apCR患者预后更好,但apCR患者预后良好的因素仍需进一步临床试验分析。     

美洲大蠊乙醇提取物对香烟引起小鼠肺脏氧化应激的干预效果研究

美洲大蠊提取物具有显著的抗肿瘤、抗菌和抗肝纤维化等作用,但是,其对肺脏抗氧化应激效果的研究未见报道,本文主要探讨美洲大蠊乙醇提取物对熏烟小鼠血液和肺脏抗氧化应激的效果.选用雌性KM小鼠28只,随机分为对照组、熏烟组、低剂量和高剂量美洲大蠊醇提物组各7只,除对照组灌胃生理盐水外,其他各组每天中午和下午采用烟熏处理,持续31 d,其中第17天开始高剂量和低剂量组每天晚上灌胃美洲大蠊醇提物,实验结束后计算肺脏系数,检测血浆和肺脏组织匀浆中MDA、SOD、CAT、NO、GSH-Px和肺脏SOD、GSH-PX、CAT基因mRNA表达的水平以及肺脏组织病理结构的变化.结果表明:各组间肺脏系数和血浆、肺脏中总SOD和CAT的活力差异无统计学意义(P>0.05),但是与对照组相比,熏烟组显著升高了血浆和肺脏中NO以及肺脏中MDA的含量,显著降低了血浆中GSH-PX的活力和肺脏中该基因表达,差异具有统计学意义(P<0.05);而与熏烟组相比,低剂量和高剂量美洲大螊醇提物组均显著降低了血浆和肺脏中NO和MDA的水平,显著升高了肺脏GSH-PX的活力及其基因表达,高剂量组还显著升高了血浆中GSH-PX的活力,差异均具有统计学意义(P<0.05);高剂量美洲大蠊醇提物还对香烟造成的肺组织损害具有缓解作用.研究结果表明美洲大蠊乙醇提取物对熏烟小鼠血液和肺组织具有较好的抗氧化应激功能.     

Evaluation of the standards compliance of the queen bees reared in the Mediterranean region in Turkey

The influence of different commercial queen producers on the quality of Apis mellifera queens was assessed. It was aimed to determine the quality characteristics of queens reared by commercial queen producers located in the province of Antalya, which is an important region in queens production due to its climatic characteristics. For this purpose, the quality characteristics of a total of 105 queen bees obtained from 21 enterprises were determined. Differences between the enterprises in terms of the number of spermatozoa (P < 0.01) were determined. In terms of the diameter of spermatheca, spermatheca volume and live weight, statistical differences between the enterprises were also observed (P < 0.05). When the relationships between the measured characteristics were examined, significant values were obtained statistically between live weight and diameter of spermathecae (0.268) and spermatheca volume (0.258). It was also determined that there is a significant correlation between spermatheca diameter and spermatheca volume (0.995). The spermatheca diameter of a good quality queen bee should not be <1.2 mm, spermatheca volume 0.90 mm³ and live weight not <200 mg. Only live weight was found to be within the normal quality standard values when the average results of the quality criteria are taken into consideration. Other characters such as spermathecae diameter, spermathecae volume and number of spermatozoa in spermathecae seem to be below quality standard values.     

Circulating plasma microRNAs in colorectal neoplasia: A pilot study in assessing response to therapy

IntroductionCurrent serological surveillance markers to monitor colorectal cancer (CRC) or colorectal advanced adenomas (CAA) are hampered by poor sensitivity and specificity. The aim of this study is to identify and validate a panel of plasma microRNAs which change in expression after resection of such lesions.MethodsA prospectively maintained colorectal surgery database was queried for patients in whom both pre- and post-procedural serum samples had been obtained. An initial screening analysis of CRC and CAA patients (5 each) was conducted using screening cards for 380 miRNAs. Four identified miRNAs were combined with a previously described panel of 7 miRNAs that were diagnostically predictive of CRC and CAA. Differential miRNA expression was assessed using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction(qRT-PCR).ResultsFifty patients were included (n = 27 CRC, n = 23 CAA). There was no difference in age, gender, or race profile of CRC patients compared to CAA patients. Six miRNA were significantly increased after CRC resection (miR-324, let7b, miR-454, miR-374a, miR-122, miR-19b, all p<0.05), while three miRNAs were significantly increased following CAA resection (miR-454, miR-374a, miR-122, all p<0.05). Three miRNA were increased in common for both (miR-454, miR-374a, miR-122).DiscussionThe expression of miRNAs associated with neoplasia (either CRC or CAA) was significantly increased following surgical resection or endoscopic removal of CRC or CAA. Future studies should focus on the evaluation of these miRNAs in CRC and CAA prognosis.     

Pattern classification of kinematic and kinetic running data to distinguish gender,shod/barefoot and injury groups with feature ranking

The identification of differences between groups is often important in biomechanics. This paper presents group classification tasks using kinetic and kinematic data from a prospective running injury study. Groups composed of gender, of shod/barefoot running and of runners who developed patellofemoral pain syndrome (PFPS) during the study, and asymptotic runners were classified.

The features computed from the biomechanical data were deliberately chosen to be generic. Therefore, they were suited for different biomechanical measurements and classification tasks without adaptation to the input signals. Feature ranking was applied to reveal the relevance of each feature to the classification task.

Data from 80 runners were analysed for gender and shod/barefoot classification, while 12 runners were investigated in the injury classification task. Gender groups could be differentiated with 84.7%, shod/barefoot running with 98.3%, and PFPS with 100% classification rate. For the latter group, one single variable could be identified that alone allowed discrimination.