Human Urinary Metabolomics as Biomarkers in Tobacco Users: A Systematic Review.

Aim: Urine as a biofluid has been rarely used as a diagnostic fluid in oral diseases. The article aims to systematically review the utility of human urinary carcinogen metabolites as an approach for obtaining important information about tobacco and cancer. Materials and Methods: The following article reviews the use of urine and its metabolites as biomarkers in various lesions of the oral cavity including oral squamous cell carcinoma and as a screening method in evaluating tobacco and its components. A bibliographic comprehensive search was carried out in the main databases: PUBMED, SciELO, Google Scholar, VHL, and LILACS for articles that were published from 1985 to 2020. The inclusion criteria were "urinary metabolites," "oral cancer/HNSCC," "body fluids," "tobacco," and "metabolomics." A total of 55 articles were collected which included laboratory studies, systematic reviews, and literature of urinary metabolites in tobacco users. Results: Most of the studies carried out show accurate results with high sensitivity of urinary metabolite biomarkers in individuals with tobacco-based habits and lesions caused by them. Conclusion: The review indicates that urinary metabolite analysis demonstrates its applicability for the diagnosis and prognosis of disease. Urine is a remarkable and useful biofluid for routine testing and provides an excellent resource for the discovery of novel biomarkers, with an advantage over tissue biopsy samples due to the ease and less invasive nature of collection.

Ovarian cancer with osteoblastic bone metastasis - A rare case report.

ABSTRACT: Ovarian cancer with bone involvement occurs rarely with an incidence of 0.1-0.12%. The common sites of bone metastasis are vertebrae, pelvic bones, and the skull. Patients present with severe localized bone pain, swelling, and difficulty in walking. We report a rare case of a 53-year-old female with metastatic epithelial serous adenocarcinoma of the ovary presented with multiple bony lesions in pelvic bones involving the sacrum, bilateral ilium, ischium and pubic bones and the right femur in the region of greater trochanter, smaller lesions in the left femur, and dorso lumbar vertebral metastasis while undergoing treatment as a part of distant spread. Radiologically, the osteolytic lesions are the most common, but in our case, the lesions are osteoblastic, which is rare.

Machine Learning Methods for Multiscale Physics and Urban Engineering Problems.

We present an overview of four challenging research areas in multiscale physics and engineering as well as four data science topics that may be developed for addressing these challenges. We focus on multiscale spatiotemporal problems in light of the importance of understanding the accompanying scientific processes and engineering ideas, where "multiscale" refers to concurrent, non-trivial and coupled models over scales separated by orders of magnitude in either space, time, energy, momenta, or any other relevant parameter. Specifically, we consider problems where the data may be obtained at various resolutions; analyzing such data and constructing coupled models led to open research questions in various applications of data science. Numeric studies are reported for one of the data science techniques discussed here for illustration, namely, on approximate Bayesian computations.

Case series: Megalopapillae in twins - Congenital or hereditary?

To the best of the author's knowledge, bilateral megalopapilla are entities with an unknown inheritance pattern, and this is the first case presentation of bilateral megalopapilla in twin siblings. One of the twins presented to the outpatient department with a frontal headache, while the other was asymptomatic. Upon examination of the first family members, the asymptomatic paternal grandfather had a similar presentation of megalopapilla. As a result, this report will help in determining the genetic pattern of development of this optic disc anomaly, as well as its crucial differential diagnosis.

Diagnostic utility of PCR in detection of clinical cases and carriers of leprosy: A cross sectional study at a tertiary care teaching hospital in central India.

PURPOSE: Since ancient era leprosy is existing across the world. India, Indonesia and Brazil still harbour major proportion of global cases. Child leprosy and Grade II disability indicate delayed diagnosis and persistence of transmission in community. So, this study was conducted with aim to evaluate the diagnostic efficacy of PCR in comparison to SSS (Slit Skin Smear) microscopy for detection of leprosy in early stages in both cases and carriers (contacts). METHODS: A cross sectional observational study was conducted on 100 subjects including 50 clinically diagnosed new cases of leprosy and their 50 contacts. Each group was subjected to SSS (Slit Skin Smear) microscopy and PCR using RLEP gene as target. RESULTS: The overall male: female ratio was 2.44. The Slit Skin smear (SSS) microscopy positivity was 34% (n = 17/50) among cases while it was 0% (n = 0/50) among contacts. The overall positivity for PCR was 42% (n = 42/100) being 66% (n = 33/50) in cases and 18% (n = 9/50) in contacts. About 30% (n = 25/83) of all the microscopically negative subjects were found to be positive by PCR. CONCLUSIONS: PCR was found to be a better diagnostic tool both among cases and their contacts. It should be used for screening contacts for early diagnosis and treatment and thus preventing transmission in community. KEY MESSAGE: To diagnose case and contacts of leprosy in early stages even in very low bacterial density using PCR.

Winsorization for Robust Bayesian Neural Networks.

With the advent of big data and the popularity of black-box deep learning methods, it is imperative to address the robustness of neural networks to noise and outliers. We propose the use of Winsorization to recover model performances when the data may have outliers and other aberrant observations. We provide a comparative analysis of several probabilistic artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques for supervised learning case studies. Broadly, Winsorization is a versatile technique for accounting for outliers in data. However, different probabilistic machine learning techniques have different levels of efficiency when used on outlier-prone data, with or without Winsorization. We notice that Gaussian processes are extremely vulnerable to outliers, while deep learning techniques in general are more robust.

Correction: Comparative analysis of various clinical specimens in detection of SARS-CoV-2 using rRT-PCR in new and follow up cases of COVID-19 infection: Quest for the best choice.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0249408.].

Comparative analysis of various clinical specimens in detection of SARS-CoV-2 using rRT-PCR in new and follow up cases of COVID-19 infection: Quest for the best choice.

BACKGROUND: An appropriate specimen is of paramount importance in Real Time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (rRT-PCR) based diagnosis of novel coronavirus (nCoV) disease (COVID-19). Thus, it's pertinent to evaluate various diversified clinical specimens' diagnostic utility in both diagnosis and follow-up of COVID-19. METHODS: A total of 924 initial specimens from 130 COVID-19 symptomatic cases before initiation of treatment and 665 follow up specimens from 15 randomly selected cases comprising of equal number of nasopharyngeal swab (NPS), oropharyngeal swab (OPS), combined NPS and OPS (Combined swab), sputum, plasma, serum and urine were evaluated by rRT-PCR. RESULTS: Demographic analysis showed males (86) twice more affected by COVID-19 than females (44) (p = 0.00001). Combined swabs showed a positivity rate of 100% followed by NPS (91.5%), OPS (72.3%), sputum (63%), while nCoV was found undetected in urine, plasma and serum specimens. The lowest cycle threshold (Ct) values of targeted genes E, ORF1b and RdRP are 10.56, 10.14 and 12.26 respectively and their lowest average Ct values were found in combined swab which indicates high viral load in combined swab among all other specimen types. Analysis of 665 follow-up multi-varied specimens also showed combined swab as the last specimen among all specimen types to become negative, after an average 6.6 (range 4-10) days post-treatment, having lowest (15.48) and average (29.96) Ct values of ORF1b respectively indicating posterior nasopharyngeal tract as primary nCoV afflicted site with high viral load. CONCLUSION: The combined swab may be recommended as a more appropriate specimen for both diagnosis and monitoring of COVID-19 treatment by rRT-PCR for assessing virus clearance to help physicians in taking evidence-based decision before discharging patients. Implementing combined swabs globally will definitely help in management and control of the pandemic, as it is the need of the hour.

Potential of Ca2+ in Mycobacterium tuberculosis H37Rv Pathogenesis and Survival.

The host-pathogen interaction and involvement of calcium (Ca2+) signaling in tuberculosis infection is crucial and plays a significant role in pathogenesis. Ca2+ is known as a ubiquitous second messenger that could control multiple processes and is included in cellular activities like division, motility, stress response, and signaling. However, Ca2+ is thought to be a regulative molecule in terms of TB infection but its binding relation with proteins/substrates molecules which are influenced with Ca2+ concentrations in host-pathogen interaction requires attention. So, in this review, our primary goal is to focus on some Ca2+ substrates/proteins and their imperative involvement in pathogenesis, which is unclear. We have discussed several Ca2+-binding substrate and protein that affect intracellular mechanism of infected host cell. The major involvement of these proteins/substrates including calmodulin (CaM), calpain, annexin, surfactant protein A (SP-A), surfactant protein D (SP-D), calprotectin (MRP8/14), and PE_PGRS family protein are considered to be significant; however, their detailed understanding in mycobacterium infection is limited. In this aspect, this study will help in adding up our understanding in TB biology and additionally in the development of new therapeutic approach to reduce TB pandemic worldwide.