Bio-medical imaging (X-ray, CT, ultrasound, ECG), genome sequences applications of deep neural network and machine learning in diagnosis, detection, classification, and segmentation of COVID-19: a Meta-analysis & systematic review.

This review investigates how Deep Machine Learning (DML) has dealt with the Covid-19 epidemic and provides recommendations for future Covid-19 research. Despite the fact that vaccines for this epidemic have been developed, DL methods have proven to be a valuable asset in radiologists' arsenals for the automated assessment of Covid-19. This detailed review debates the techniques and applications developed for Covid-19 findings using DL systems. It also provides insights into notable datasets used to train neural networks, data partitioning, and various performance measurement metrics. The PRISMA taxonomy has been formed based on pretrained(45 systems) and hybrid/custom(17 systems) models with radiography modalities. A total of 62 systems with respect to X-ray(32), CT(19), ultrasound(7), ECG(2), and genome sequence(2) based modalities as taxonomy are selected from the studied articles. We originate by valuing the present phase of DL and conclude with significant limitations. The restrictions contain incomprehensibility, simplification measures, learning from incomplete labeled data, and data secrecy. Moreover, DML can be utilized to detect and classify Covid-19 from other COPD illnesses. The proposed literature review has found many DL-based systems to fight against Covid19. We expect this article will assist in speeding up the procedure of DL for Covid-19 researchers, including medical, radiology technicians, and data engineers.

PulDi-COVID: Chronic obstructive pulmonary (lung) diseases with COVID-19 classification using ensemble deep convolutional neural network from chest X-ray images to minimize severity and mortality rates.

Background and Objective: In the current COVID-19 outbreak, efficient testing of COVID-19 individuals has proven vital to limiting and arresting the disease's accelerated spread globally. It has been observed that the severity and mortality ratio of COVID-19 affected patients is at greater risk because of chronic pulmonary diseases. This study looks at radiographic examinations exploiting chest X-ray images (CXI), which have become one of the utmost feasible assessment approaches for pulmonary disorders, including COVID-19. Deep Learning(DL) remains an excellent image classification method and framework; research has been conducted to predict pulmonary diseases with COVID-19 instances by developing DL classifiers with nine class CXI. However, a few claim to have strong prediction results; because of noisy and small data, their recommended DL strategies may suffer from significant deviation and generality failures. Methods: Therefore, a unique CNN model(PulDi-COVID) for detecting nine diseases (atelectasis, bacterial-pneumonia, cardiomegaly, covid19, effusion, infiltration, no-finding, pneumothorax, viral-Pneumonia) using CXI has been proposed using the SSE algorithm. Several transfer-learning models: VGG16, ResNet50, VGG19, DenseNet201, MobileNetV2, NASNetMobile, ResNet152V2, DenseNet169 are trained on CXI of chronic lung diseases and COVID-19 instances. Given that the proposed thirteen SSE ensemble models solved DL's constraints by making predictions with different classifiers rather than a single, we present PulDi-COVID, an ensemble DL model that combines DL with ensemble learning. The PulDi-COVID framework is created by incorporating various snapshots of DL models, which have spearheaded chronic lung diseases with COVID-19 cases identification process with a deep neural network produced CXI by applying a suggested SSE method. That is familiar with the idea of various DL perceptions on different classes. Results: PulDi-COVID findings were compared to thirteen existing studies for nine-class classification using COVID-19. Test results reveal that PulDi-COVID offers impressive outcomes for chronic diseases with COVID-19 identification with a 99.70% accuracy, 98.68% precision, 98.67% recall, 98.67% F1 score, lowest 12 CXIs zero-one loss, 99.24% AUC-ROC score, and lowest 1.33% error rate. Overall test results are superior to the existing Convolutional Neural Network(CNN). To the best of our knowledge, the observed results for nine-class classification are significantly superior to the state-of-the-art approaches employed for COVID-19 detection. Furthermore, the CXI that we used to assess our algorithm is one of the larger datasets for COVID detection with pulmonary diseases. Conclusion: The empirical findings of our suggested approach PulDi-COVID show that it outperforms previously developed methods. The suggested SSE method with PulDi-COVID can effectively fulfill the COVID-19 speedy detection needs with different lung diseases for physicians to minimize patient severity and mortality.

Application of Deep Learning Techniques in Diagnosis of Covid-19 (Coronavirus): A Systematic Review.

Covid-19 is now one of the most incredibly intense and severe illnesses of the twentieth century. Covid-19 has already endangered the lives of millions of people worldwide due to its acute pulmonary effects. Image-based diagnostic techniques like X-ray, CT, and ultrasound are commonly employed to get a quick and reliable clinical condition. Covid-19 identification out of such clinical scans is exceedingly time-consuming, labor-intensive, and susceptible to silly intervention. As a result, radiography imaging approaches using Deep Learning (DL) are consistently employed to achieve great results. Various artificial intelligence-based systems have been developed for the early prediction of coronavirus using radiography pictures. Specific DL methods such as CNN and RNN noticeably extract extremely critical characteristics, primarily in diagnostic imaging. Recent coronavirus studies have used these techniques to utilize radiography image scans significantly. The disease, as well as the present pandemic, was studied using public and private data. A total of 64 pre-trained and custom DL models concerning imaging modality as taxonomies are selected from the studied articles. The constraints relevant to DL-based techniques are the sample selection, network architecture, training with minimal annotated database, and security issues. This includes evaluating causal agents, pathophysiology, immunological reactions, and epidemiological illness. DL-based Covid-19 detection systems are the key focus of this review article. Covid-19 work is intended to be accelerated as a result of this study.

Prevalence and severity of secondary traumatic stress and optimism in Indian health care professionals during COVID-19 lockdown.

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has brought to light the lacunae in the preparedness of healthcare systems across the globe. This preparedness also includes the safety of healthcare providers (HCPs) at various levels. Sudden spread of COVID-19 infection has created threatening and vulnerable conditions for the HCPs. The current pandemic situation has not only affected physical health of HCPs but also their mental health. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to understand the prevalence and severity of secondary traumatic stress, optimism parameters, along with states of mood experienced by the HCPs, viz., doctors, nurses and allied healthcare professionals (including Physiotherapist, Lab technicians, Phlebotomist, dieticians, administrative staff and clinical pharmacist), during the COVID-19 lockdown in India. METHODOLOGY: The assessment of level of secondary traumatic stress (STS), optimism/pessimism (via Life Orientation Test-Revised) and current mood states experienced by Indian HCPs in the present COVID-19 pandemic situation was done using a primary data of 2,008 HCPs from India during the first lockdown during April-May 2020. Data was collected through snow-ball sampling technique, reaching out to various medical health care professionals through social media platforms. RESULT: Amongst the study sample 88.2% of doctors, 79.2 of nurses and 58.6% of allied HCPs were found to have STS in varying severity. There was a female preponderance in the category of Severe STS. Higher optimism on the LOTR scale was observed among doctors at 39.3% followed by nurses at 26.7% and allied health care professionals 22.8%. The mood visual analogue scale which measures the "mood" during the survey indicated moderate mood states without any gender bias in the study sample. CONCLUSION: The current investigation sheds light on the magnitude of the STSS experienced by the HCPs in the Indian Subcontinent during the pandemic. This hitherto undiagnosed and unaddressed issue, calls for a dire need of creating better and accessible mental health programmes and facilities for the health care providers in India.

In vitro demonstration of apoptosis mediated photodynamic activity and NIR nucleus imaging through a novel porphyrin.

We synthesized a novel water-soluble porphyrin THPP and its metalated derivative Zn-THPP having excellent triplet excited state quantum yields and singlet oxygen generation efficiency. When compared to U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved and clinically used sensitizer Photofrin, THPP showed ca. 2-3-fold higher in vitro photodynamic activity in different cell lines under identical conditions. The mechanism of the biological activity of these porphyrin systems has been evaluated through a variety of techniques: 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay, comet assay, poly(ADP-ribose)polymerase (PARP) cleavage, CM-H(2)DCFDA assay, DNA fragmentation, flow cytometric analysis, fluorescence, and confocal microscopy, which confirm the apoptotic cell death through predominantly reactive oxygen species (ROS). Moreover, THPP showed rapid cellular uptake and are localized in the nucleus of the cells as compared to Hoechst dye and Photofrin, thereby demonstrating its use as an efficient sensitizer in photodynamic therapy and live cell NIR nucleus imaging applications.

αB-crystallin, a small heat shock protein, modulates NF-κB activity in a phosphorylation-dependent manner and protects muscle myoblasts from TNF-α induced cytotoxicity.

αB-crystallin, a member of the small heat shock protein family, has been implicated in various biological functions including response to heat shock, differentiation and apoptosis, the mechanisms of which have not been well understood. Myoblasts, the precursor cells in muscle regeneration, when subjected to growth factor deprivation differentiate to form myotubes or undergo apoptosis. During differentiation, myoblasts express elevated levels of αB-crystallin as well as TNF-α but the connecting link between these proteins in cell signaling is not clearly understood. We have therefore investigated the role of αB-crystallin in TNF-α induced regulation of NF-κB. We demonstrate that in response to TNF-α treatment, αB-crystallin associates with IKKß and activate its kinase activity, facilitating the degradation of phosphorylated I-kBα, a prime step in NF-κB activation. Reducing the level of αB-crystallin using the RNAi approach reduces the translocation of p65, further confirming the role of αB-crystallin in NF-κB activation. Our study shows that the ability of αB-crystallin to activate NF-κB depends on its phosphorylation status. The present study shows that αB-crystallin-dependent NF-κB activation protects myoblasts from TNF-α induced cytoxicity by enhancing the expression of the anti-apoptotic protein, Bcl 2. Thus, our study identifies yet another mechanism by which αB-crystallin exerts its anti-apoptotic activity.

Ubiquitin-proteasome-mediated degradation and synthesis of MyoD is modulated by alphaB-crystallin, a small heat shock protein, during muscle differentiation.

alphaB-crystallin, a small heat shock protein, plays an important role in muscle homeostasis. It gets up-regulated during muscle differentiation and mice lacking alphaB-crystallin die prematurely with extensive muscle wastage. We have examined the role of alphaB-crystallin in muscle development using C2C12 myoblasts as a model system. Over-expression of alphaB-crystallin delays the muscle differentiation program significantly. C2C12 myoblasts over-expressing alphaB-crystallin (CRYAB-C2C12) display defect in cell-cycle exit upon induction of differentiation. During differentiation, CRYAB-C2C12 cells exhibit sustained level of cyclin D1 and delay in p21 and myogenin expression as compared to C2C12 cells. We find less accumulation of MyoD in CRYAB-C2C12 cells than in C2C12 cells. In vivo protein stability studies reveal faster ubiquitin-proteasome-mediated MyoD degradation in CRYAB-C2C12 cells (t(1/2)=1.42 h) than in C2C12 cells (t(1/2)=2.37 h). Immuno-precipitation experiments showed that MyoD gets ubiquitinated at earlier time points in CRYAB-C2C12 cells than in C2C12 cells. Our data reveal alterations in the synthesis and degradation of MyoD in CRYAB-C2C12 cells. The level of alphaB-crystallin as well as its Ser-59 phosphorylated form increases with increasing time of differentiation. Our studies show, inter alia, that alphaB-crystallin modulates myogenesis by altering MyoD level and provide an interesting insight in its role in myogenesis.

Common celiacomesenteric trunk: a rare anatomic variation / Tronco único celíaco-mesentérico: uma variante anatômica rara

Common celiacomesenteric trunk, with the celiac and superior mesenteric arteries having a common origin from the aorta, is the least frequently reported anatomic variation of all abdominal vascular anomalies. Knowledge of variations concerning the celiac trunk and superior mesenteric artery are of great importance for both surgical approaches and angiographic examinations. Clinicians should keep in mind these variations to avoid complications.

O tronco único celíaco-mesentérico, com as artérias celíaca e mesentérica superior tendo uma origem comum a partir da aorta, é a variante anatômica menos reportada dentre todas as anomalias vasculares abdominais. Conhecer as variantes do tronco celíaco e da artéria mesentérica superior é de grande importância tanto para abordagens cirúrgicas quanto para exames angiográficos. É importante que os médicos tenham em mente essas variantes a fim de evitar complicações.

Comparison of a novel semi-nested polymerase chain reaction (PCR) with a uniplex PCR for the detection of Acanthamoeba genome in corneal scrapings.

A semi-nested polymerase chain reaction (snPCR) was developed to improve the sensitivity of detection of Acanthamoeba sp. genome from corneal scrapings of Acanthamoeba keratitis patients. The snPCR was developed using a laboratory designed inner forward primer targeting the 450-bp product of the 18s rRNA-gene-based PCR. The snPCR was optimized using 11 Acanthamoeba sp. culture isolates and further applied onto 35 corneal scrapings from keratitis patients. The sensitivity and specificity of the snPCR was compared against conventional methods (smear and/or culture-gold standard) and the uniplex PCR described by Schroeder et al. Eleven out of the 35 corneal scrapings were positive by the gold standard and snPCR, whereas only 3 of these 11 were positive by the uniplex PCR. The clinical sensitivity and specificity of the snPCR was 100% when compared with the gold standard. DNA sequencing was performed on first round amplicons of four culture isolates and one specimen, and all of them were identified as genus Acanthamoeba when compared with the GenBank database sequences. Application of snPCR on the 11 culture isolates yielded amplicons ranging 120-160 bp in size, indicating sequence variation among the different culture isolates. The clinical sensitivity of snPCR was higher than the conventional methods and the uniplex PCR reported earlier.

Changes in cholesterol levels in the plasma membrane modulate cell signaling and regulate cell adhesion and migration on fibronectin.

The number and distribution of lipid molecules, including cholesterol in particular, in the plasma membrane, may play a key role in regulating several physiological processes in cells. We investigated the role of membrane cholesterol in regulating cell shape, adhesion and motility. The acute depletion of cholesterol from the plasma membrane of cells that were well spread and motile on fibronectin caused the rounding of these cells and decreased their adhesion to and motility on fibronectin. These modifications were less pronounced in cells plated on laminin, vitronectin or plastic, indicating that cholesterol-mediated changes in adhesion and motility are more specific for adhesion mediated by fibronectin-specific integrins, such as alpha5beta1. These changes were accompanied by remodeling of the actin cytoskeleton, the spatial reorganization of paxillin in the membrane, and changes to the dynamics of alpha5 integrin and paxillin-rich focal adhesions. Levels of tyrosine phosphorylation at position 576/577 of FAK and Erk1/Erk2 MAP-kinase activity levels were both lower in cholesterol-depleted than in control cells. These levels normalized only on fibronectin when cholesterol was reincorporated into the cell membrane. Thus, membrane cholesterol content has a specific effect on certain signaling pathways specifically involved in regulating cell motility on fibronectin and organization of the actin cytoskeleton.

Association of alphaB-crystallin, a small heat shock protein, with actin: role in modulating actin filament dynamics in vivo.

Disruption of cytoskeletal assembly is one of the early effects of any stress that can ultimately lead to cell death. Stabilization of cytoskeletal assembly, therefore, is a critical event that regulates cell survival under stress. alphaB-crystallin, a small heat shock protein, has been shown to associate with cytoskeletal proteins under normal and stress conditions. Earlier reports suggest that alphaB-crystallin could prevent stress-induced aggregation of actin in vitro. However, the molecular mechanisms by which alphaB-crystallin stabilizes actin filaments in vivo are not known. Using the H9C2 rat cardiomyoblast cell line as a model system, we show that upon heat stress, alphaB-crystallin preferentially partitions from the soluble cytosolic fraction to the insoluble cytoskeletal protein-rich fraction. Confocal microscopic analysis shows that alphaB-crystallin associates with actin filaments during heat stress and the extent of association increases with time. Further, immunoprecipitation experiments show that alphaB-crystallin interacts directly with actin. Treatment of heat-stressed H9C2 cells with the actin depolymerzing agent, cytochalasin B, failed to disorganize actin. We show that this association of alphaB-crystallin with actin is dependent on its phosphorylation status, as treatment of cells with MAPK inhibitors SB202190 or PD98059 results in abrogation of this association. Our results indicate that alphaB-crystallin regulates actin filament dynamics in vivo and protects cells from stress-induced death. Further, our studies suggest that the association of alphaB-crystallin with actin helps maintenance of pinocytosis, a physiological function essential for survival of cells.

Arginine hydrochloride enhances the dynamics of subunit assembly and the chaperone-like activity of alpha-crystallin.

PURPOSE: Alpha-crystallin, a major eye lens protein, bears homology with small heat shock proteins (sHsps) and exhibits molecular chaperone-like activity. Structural perturbation by temperature or low concentrations of denaturants leads to enhancement of its chaperone-like activity. We have earlier demonstrated similar enhancement of chaperone-like activity using biologically compatible solutes such as arginine hydrochloride and aminoguanidine. The purpose of the present study is to get an insight into the mechanism of the arginine induced enhancement of chaperone-like activity of alpha-crystallin. METHODS: The effect of arginine hydrochloride on the chaperone-like activity of alpha-crystallin at 25 degrees C was studied using DTT induced aggregation of insulin as a model system. Changes in the accessibility of the thiol group near the end of the alpha-crystallin domain in the absence and the presence of arginine hydrochloride were studied using dithiobisnitrobenzoic acid. Fluorescence resonance energy transfer studies were performed to investigate changes in the dynamics of the subunit assembly. Urea induced denaturation studies of alpha-crystallin were carried out to investigate structural destabilization of alpha-crystallin, if any, in the presence of arginine hydrochloride. RESULTS: Arginine hydrochloride increases the chaperone-like activity of alpha-crystallin several fold towards DTT induced aggregation of insulin at room temperature. Our study shows that both the extent and the rate of accessibility of the thiol group are increased in the presence of arginine. Fluorescence resonance energy transfer experiments show that arginine hydrochloride significantly increases the subunit exchange between the oligomers of alpha-crystallin. Arginine induced structural perturbation and loosening of subunit assembly of alpha-crystallin leads to overall destabilization of the protein as reflected by the urea denaturation study. CONCLUSIONS: Arginine perturbs the tertiary and quaternary structure of alpha-crystallin and enhances the dynamics of the subunit assembly leading to enhanced chaperone-like activity. Thus, in addition to size, surface hydrophobicity, and charge distribution, the dynamics of the subunit assembly appears to be one of the critical factors that can modulate the chaperone activity.