Digital Commons Network^™

Profiles Of Hiv Care Disruptions Among Adult Patients Lost To Follow-Up In Zambia: A Latent Class Analysis, Aaloke Mody, Kombatende Sikombe, Laura K. Beres, Sandra Simbeza, Njekwa Mukamba, Ingrid Eshun-Wilson, Sheree Schwartz, Jake Pry, Nancy Padian, Charles B. Holmes, Carolyn Bolton-Moore, Izukanji Sikazwe, Elvin H. Geng

2020-Current year OA Pubs

BACKGROUND: Patients report varied barriers to HIV care across multiple domains, but specific barrier patterns may be driven by underlying, but unobserved, behavioral profiles.

METHODS: We traced a probability sample of patients lost to follow-up (>90 days late) as of July 31, 2015 from 64 clinics in Zambia. Among those found alive, we ascertained patient-reported reasons for care disruptions. We performed latent class analysis to identify patient subgroups with similar patterns of reasons reported and assessed the association between class membership and care status (ie, disengaged versus silently transferred to a new site).

RESULTS: Among 547 patients, we identified …

A Genetic Mouse Model With Postnatal Nf1 And P53 Loss Recapitulates The Histology And Transcriptome Of Human Malignant Peripheral Nerve Sheath Tumor, Akira Inoue, Laura J Janke, Brian L Gudenas, Hongjian Jin, Yiping Fan, Joshua Paré, Michael R Clay, Paul A Northcott, Angela C Hirbe, Xinwei Cao

2020-Current year OA Pubs

BACKGROUND: Malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumors (MPNST) are aggressive sarcomas. Somatic inactivation of

METHODS: We combined 2 genetically modified alleles, an

RESULTS: Postnatal

CONCLUSIONS: The NP-Plp model recapitulates human MPNST genetically, histologically, and molecularly.

A Phase Ii Study Of Laser Interstitial Thermal Therapy Combined With Doxorubicin In Patients With Recurrent Glioblastoma, Omar H Butt, Alice Y Zhou, Jiayi Huang, William A Leidig, Alice E Silberstein, Milan G Chheda, Tanner M Johanns, George Ansstas, Jingxia Liu, Grayson Talcott, Ruth Nakiwala, Joshua S Shimony, Albert H Kim, Eric C Leuthardt, Jian L Campian, Et Al.

2020-Current year OA Pubs

BACKGROUND: The blood-brain barrier (BBB) is a major limiting factor for drug delivery in brain tumors. Laser interstitial thermal therapy (LITT) disrupts the peritumoral BBB. In this study, we examine survival in patients with recurrent glioblastoma (GBM) treated with LITT followed by low-dose doxorubicin, a potent anti-neoplastic drug with poor BBB permeability.

METHODS: Forty-one patients with recurrent GBM were enrolled; thirty patients were evaluable. Participants underwent LITT followed by 6 weekly doxorubicin treatments starting within one week (Early Arm) or at 6-8 weeks (Late Arm) after LITT. The overall survival (OS), local progression-free survival (PFS), and any PFS were compared …

The Next Generation Of Ocular Pathogen Detection, Sharon L. Sabapathypillai, Hayley R. James, Rachael R. L. Lyerla, Lynn Hassman

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Metagenomic next-generation sequencing is a powerful method for pathogen detection that combines advanced genome sequencing technology with cutting-edge bioinformatics to analyze microbial populations. Metagenomic next-generation sequencing has the potential to identify uncommon, unculturable, and even previously unidentified pathogens from a clinical isolate. Of particular interest to ophthalmology, this robust data extraction can occur from very small volume clinical samples. Here we discuss the opportunities and limitations of this technique and their current and future application to ophthalmic diagnostics.

Nonliteral Language Processing Across The Lifespan, Kathrin Rothermich, Cristal Giorio, Sharon Falkins, Lindsay Leonard, Angela Roberts

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Studies investigating the effects of aging on nonliteral language processing have mainly focused on one sensory modality, for example written vignettes. In the current study, we used a video-based task to examine the effect of healthy aging on social communication perception using a novel database called RISC (Relation Inference in Social Communication). By means of an online recruitment platform, we asked young, middle-aged, and older adults between the ages of 18 and 76 (N = 100) to evaluate videos of actors using different forms of literal and nonliteral language, such as sarcasm or teasing. The participants' task was to infer …

Does Circulating Progesterone Mediate The Associations Of Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms In Progesterone Receptor (Pgr)-Related Genes With Mammographic Breast Density In Premenopausal Women?, Favour A Akinjiyan, Yunan Han, Jingqin Luo, Adetunji T Toriola

2020-Current year OA Pubs

UNLABELLED: Progesterone is a proliferative hormone in the breast but the associations of genetic variations in progesterone-regulated pathways with mammographic breast density (MD) in premenopausal women and whether these associations are mediated through circulating progesterone are not clearly defined. We, therefore, investigated these associations in 364 premenopausal women with a median age of 44 years. We sequenced 179 progesterone receptor (PGR)-related single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). We measured volumetric percent density (VPD) and non-dense volume (NDV) using Volpara. Linear regression models were fit on circulating progesterone or VPD/NDV separately. We performed mediation analysis to evaluate whether the effect of a SNP …

Effective Connectivity Extracts Clinically Relevant Prognostic Information From Resting State Activity In Stroke, Mohit H Adhikari, Joseph Griffis, Joshua S Siegel, Michel Thiebaut De Schotten, Gustavo Deco, Andrea Instabato, Matthieu Gilson, Maurizio Corbetta

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Recent resting-state functional MRI studies in stroke patients have identified two robust biomarkers of acute brain dysfunction: a reduction of inter-hemispheric functional connectivity between homotopic regions of the same network, and an abnormal increase of ipsi-lesional functional connectivity between task-negative and task-positive resting-state networks. Whole-brain computational modelling studies, at the individual subject level, using undirected effective connectivity derived from empirically measured functional connectivity, have shown a reduction of measures of integration and segregation in stroke as compared to healthy brains. Here we employ a novel method, first, to infer whole-brain directional effective connectivity from zero-lagged and lagged covariance matrices, then, …

Smaller Spared Subcortical Nuclei Are Associated With Worse Post-Stroke Sensorimotor Outcomes In 28 Cohorts Worldwide, Sook-Lei Liew, Catherine E Lang, Anup K Bhattacharya, Et Al.

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Up to two-thirds of stroke survivors experience persistent sensorimotor impairments. Recovery relies on the integrity of spared brain areas to compensate for damaged tissue. Deep grey matter structures play a critical role in the control and regulation of sensorimotor circuits. The goal of this work is to identify associations between volumes of spared subcortical nuclei and sensorimotor behaviour at different timepoints after stroke. We pooled high-resolution T

Perceived Barriers To Assessing Understanding And Appreciation Of Informed Consent In Clinical Trials: A Mixed-Method Study, Erin D Solomon, Jessica Mozersky, Kari Baldwin, Matthew P Wroblewski, Meredith V Parsons, Melody Goodman, James M Dubois

2020-Current year OA Pubs

INTRODUCTION: Participants and research professionals often overestimate how well participants understand and appreciate consent information for clinical trials, and experts often vary in their determinations of participant's capacity to consent to research. Past research has developed and validated instruments designed to assess participant understanding and appreciation, but the frequency with which they are utilized is unknown.

METHODS: We administered a survey to clinical researchers working with older adults or those at risk of cognitive impairment (

RESULTS: We found that using a validated assessment of consent is relatively uncommon, being used by only 44% of researchers who had an opportunity. …

Accurate Diagnosis Of Colorectal Cancer Based On Histopathology Images Using Artificial Intelligence, K. S. Wang, G. Yu, C. Xu, X. H. Meng, J. Zhou, W. Zhou, Et. Al.

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

Background: Accurate and robust pathological image analysis for colorectal cancer (CRC) diagnosis is time-consuming and knowledge-intensive, but is essential for CRC patients’ treatment. The current heavy workload of pathologists in clinics/hospitals may easily lead to unconscious misdiagnosis of CRC based on daily image analyses. Methods: Based on a state-of-the-art transfer-learned deep convolutional neural network in artificial intelligence (AI), we proposed a novel patch aggregation strategy for clinic CRC diagnosis using weakly labeled pathological whole-slide image (WSI) patches. This approach was trained and validated using an unprecedented and enormously large number of 170,099 patches, > 14,680 WSIs, from > 9631 subjects that covered …

Clinicopathologic Implications Of Complement Genetic Variants In Kidney Transplantation, Zhen Ren, Stephen J Perkins, Latisha Love-Gregory, John P Atkinson, Anuja Java

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Genetic testing has uncovered rare variants in complement proteins associated with thrombotic microangiopathy (TMA) and C3 glomerulopathy (C3G). Approximately 50% are classified as variants of uncertain significance (VUS). Clinical risk assessment of patients carrying a VUS remains challenging primarily due to a lack of functional information, especially in the context of multiple confounding factors in the setting of kidney transplantation. Our objective was to evaluate the clinicopathologic significance of genetic variants in TMA and C3G in a kidney transplant cohort. We used whole exome next-generation sequencing to analyze complement genes in 76 patients, comprising 60 patients with a TMA and …

Effect Of Spectral Bandwidths On Linear Feature Extraction: An Evaluation Of Landsat Etm+ And Oli Sensors, Ali Imanian, Adel Asadi, Majid Hashemi Tangestani, Saeid Homayouni, Ali Faghih

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

Hitherto there have been many studies comparing the usefulness of OLI and ETM+ sensors for linear feature extraction. However, not too much attention has been paid to the differences in the bandwidth of the two sensors. In this study, the suitability of Landsat ETM+ and OLI sensors for automatic detection of linear features by LINE algorithm was compared. In this study, eight regions in northern, central and southern parts of Iran were selected based on the diversity of lithology, the pristine status, and lack of human activities for the comparison of the two datasets. Results revealed that LINE algorithm performed …

Calculation Of Real Evapotranspiration By The Application Of Metric Method On Landsat-8 Data, Ali Imanian, Majid Hashemi Tangestani, Adel Asadi, Mohammad Zare

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

In geological remote sensing approaches for estimating evapotranspiration, METRIC method is among the most modern and precise approaches that many positive experiments have been reported regarding its applicability. In this study, the value of actual evapotranspiration (ET) occurred in Marvdasht farmlands, Fars province, Iran, was calculated instantaneously (hourly) and daily (24 hours), at 24 April 2017 using METRIC method and Lansat-8 data. In order to accuracy assessment of the results, estimated values were compared to the values calculated with Penman Monteith method in places that covers by alfafa crop. Our observations showed that ET values obtained via METRIC model on …

Health Disparities And Treatment Approaches In Portopulmonary Hypertension And Idiopathic Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension: An Analysis Of The Pulmonary Hypertension Association Registry, Hilary M Dubrock, Murali Chakinala, Et Al.

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Compared to idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension (IPAH), patients with portopulmonary hypertension (POPH) have worse survival. Health disparities may contribute to these differences but have not been studied. We sought to compare socioeconomic factors in patients with POPH and IPAH and to determine whether socioeconomic status and/or POPH diagnosis were associated with treatment and health-care utilization. We performed a cross-sectional study of adults enrolled in the Pulmonary Hypertension Association Registry. Patients with IPAH (n = 344) and POPH (n = 57) were compared. Compared with IPAH, patients with POPH were less likely to be college graduates (19.6% vs. 34.9%, p = …