Residual U-Network for Breast Tumor Segmentation from Magnetic Resonance Images

Breast cancer positions as the most well-known threat and the main source of malignant growth-related morbidity and mortality throughout the world. It is apical of all new cancer incidences analyzed among females. Two features substantially influence the classification accuracy of malignancy and benignity in automated cancer diagnostics. These are the precision of tumor segmentation and appropriateness of extracted attributes required for the diagnosis. In this research, the authors have proposed a ResU-Net (Residual U-Network) model for breast tumor segmentation. The proposed methodology renders augmented, and precise identification of tumor regions and produces accurate breast tumor segmentation in contrast-enhanced MR images. Furthermore, the proposed framework also encompasses the residual network technique, which subsequently enhances the performance and displays the improved training process. Over and above, the performance of ResU-Net has experimentally been analyzed with conventional U-Net, FCN8, FCN32. Algorithm performance is evaluated in the form of dice coefficient and MIoU (Mean Intersection of Union), accuracy, loss, sensitivity, specificity, F1score. Experimental results show that ResU-Net achieved validation accuracy & dice coefficient value of 73.22% & 85.32% respectively on the Rider Breast MRI dataset and outperformed as compared to the other algorithms used in experimentation.     

Nanoalumina-supported Mn2O3 as efficient adsorbent for removal of fluoride and arsenic from water: a study from lab to field

Journal of Materials Science - Water pollution with heavy metals has been a problem for the environment and human health. The cohabitation of As(III) and fluoride in groundwater has gotten...     

Hybridization of stochastic reduced basis methods with polynomial chaos expansions

We propose a hybrid formulation combining stochastic reduced basis methods with polynomial chaos expansions for solving linear random algebraic equations arising from discretization of stochastic partial differential equations. Our objective is to generalize stochastic reduced basis projection schemes to non-Gaussian uncertainty models and simplify the implementation of higher-order approximations. We employ basis vectors spanning the preconditioned stochastic Krylov subspace to represent the solution process. In the present formulation, the polynomial chaos decomposition technique is used to represent the stochastic basis vectors in terms of multidimensional Hermite polynomials. The Galerkin projection scheme is then employed to compute the undetermined coefficients in the reduced basis approximation. We present numerical studies on a linear structural problem where the Youngs modulus is represented using Gaussian as well as lognormal models to illustrate the performance of the hybrid stochastic reduced basis projection scheme. Comparison studies with the spectral stochastic finite element method suggest that the proposed hybrid formulation gives results of comparable accuracy at a lower computational cost.     

A novel self‐healing key distribution scheme based on vector space access structure and MDS codes

Self‐healing group key distribution protocols are useful in applications that have a dynamic group structure. These include broadcast transmission systems and multicast networks such as pay‐per‐view television, embedded and sensor networks, and cellular and wireless networks. To cater to the requirements of these applications, several self‐healing group key distribution protocols are proposed in the literature. Many of these schemes are vulnerable to polynomial factorization or insider replay attacks. Some other schemes impose constraints on the users joining the group or revoked from the group. Motivated by these and other shortcomings of the existing schemes, we hereby propose a novel self‐healing group key distribution protocol. Some of the features of this scheme include that (a) the number and the set of revoked users is not constrained, (b) the communication group can consist of any set of users, and (c) a revoked user is allowed to rejoin the group in any of the later sessions. The scheme is analyzed for its security, and it is found to provide anywise forward and backward secrecy. It is also found to resist anywise collusion attack. Communication and computation complexity of the scheme is analyzed; while doing so, various possible realizations of the scheme is discussed. In addition to the theoretical analysis, the proposed scheme is experimentally verified for its correctness using OMNET++ network simulator.     

Chemokine-Cytokine Networks in the Head and Neck Tumor Microenvironment

Head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCCs) are aggressive diseases with a dismal patient prognosis. Despite significant advances in treatment modalities, the five-year survival rate in patients with HNSCC has improved marginally and therefore warrants a comprehensive understanding of the HNSCC biology. Alterations in the cellular and non-cellular components of the HNSCC tumor micro-environment (TME) play a critical role in regulating many hallmarks of cancer development including evasion of apoptosis, activation of invasion, metastasis, angiogenesis, response to therapy, immune escape mechanisms, deregulation of energetics, and therefore the development of an overall aggressive HNSCC phenotype. Cytokines and chemokines are small secretory proteins produced by neoplastic or stromal cells, controlling complex and dynamic cell–cell interactions in the TME to regulate many cancer hallmarks. This review summarizes the current understanding of the complex cytokine/chemokine networks in the HNSCC TME, their role in activating diverse signaling pathways and promoting tumor progression, metastasis, and therapeutic resistance development.     

Adsorption of casein onto alkali treated bentonite

The adsorption measurements of casein onto alkali treated bentonite were performed at room temperature and fixed pH (11.8) with an object to study the mode of casein adsorption at the alkali treated bentonite surfaces. The adsorption isotherm was found to have a Langmuir nature. The adsorption was pH dependent and increased with a decrease in temperature. The adsorption was quite sensitive to the presence of Cl⁻, SO, and PO ions and showed many interesting variations with increasing concentrations of the added anions. Various kinetic and adsorption parameters such as the adsorption coefficient, rate constants for adsorption and desorption, diffusion constant, and penetration rate constant were calculated. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 78: 1656–1663, 2000     

“Poly (sulfur/oil) impregnated cotton: A newly developed material for effective oil removal from contaminated water”

In this work, a unique material has been developed by carrying out in situ co-polymerization of sulfur and triglycerides (edible oil) within the cotton fibers to yield poly (sulfur/oil) impregnated cotton (PSOIC) composite material. The adsorbent was characterized by Fourier transform infrared, X-ray diffraction, and SEM analysis. The equilibrium oil uptake studies were carried out in batch mode experiments and the sorption data were analyzed by various sorption isotherm models. The Langmuir model was found to be best fitted with maximum oil sorption capacity Q_o of 9.52 g/g polymer. On the contrary, the conventional poly (sulfur/oil) adsorbent showed a Q_o value of 2.35 g/g polymer, thus indicating the suitability and superiority of PSOIC over PSO material. The newly developed PSOIC material could be pressed in the form of sheets and was successful in removing oil/grease layer from the oil/water mixture. The adsorbent showed fair re-generation capacity, thus minimizing the cost effectiveness to employ in large-scale removal processes.     

Effect of sol composition on dielectric and ferroelectric properties of PZT composite films

Crack free calcium modified PZT composite films have been synthesized using modified sol-gel process by depositing the slurries prepared by mixing powder of composition PbZr_0.52Ti_0.48O₃ and sol of composition Pb_(1−x)Ca_xZr_0.52Ti_0.48O₃ (where x = 0, 0.06, 0.1) on Pt(1 1 1)/Ti/SiO₂/Si substrate. The infilteration process has also been employed which resulted in dense microstructure of the films. Thickness of the films as measured by SEM of cross section of the films was more than 25 μm. The XRD patterns of the resultant films consisted of pure perovskite phase and no peak related to either pyrochlore phase or Pt substrate was observed. The room temperature dielectric constant and loss were compared. The temperature dependence of dielectric constant revealed that T_C of all the films was same, i.e., 351 °C, in spite of different compositions of the sol used. Well saturated PE-loops of the films show that the films were ferroelectric in nature.     

Discrimination of maize crop with hybrid polarimetric RISAT1 data

Microwave remote sensing provides an attractive approach to determine the spatial variability of crop characteristics. Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) image data provide unique possibility of acquiring data in all weather conditions. Several studies have used fully polarimetric data for extracting crop information, but it is limited by swath width. This study aimed to delineate maize crop using single date hybrid dual polarimetric Radar Imaging Satellite (RISAT)-1, Fine Resolution Stripmap mode (FRS)-1 data. Raney decomposition technique was used for explaining different scattering mechanisms of maize crop. Supervised classification on the decomposition image discriminated maize crop from other land-cover features. Results were compared with Resourcesat-2, Linear Imaging Self Scanner (LISS)-III optical sensor derived information. Spatial agreement of 91% was achieved between outputs generated from Resourcesat-2, LISS-III sensor and RISAT-1 data.     

Corrosion behaviour of Terfenol-D

The corrosion behaviour of pseudo-binary compound Tb_0.3Dy_0.7Fe_1.92 (Terfenol-D) was studied in 3.5% NaCl and 0.01 N Na₂SO₄ solutions using Tafel polarisation, linear polarisation, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and weight loss techniques. Electrochemical testing revealed the adverse effect of chloride ions, as corrosion rates were higher in 3.5% NaCl solutions than in 0.01 N Na₂SO₄ solutions. The effect of aeration was studied by conducting experiments in freely-aerated, deaerated and fully-aerated conditions. Absence of oxygen accelerated corrosion in chloride environment, due to increased hydrogen interaction in presence of destabilised surface films. The improved corrosion resistance in chloride-free environment was correlated with morphological features of the corroded surfaces. Micro-compositional analysis of the corrosion products revealed that the corrosion products were primarily rich in rare earth elements. A comparison of all experimental techniques showed that Tafel extrapolation and EIS techniques provided reliable estimates of corrosion rate.