Dronedarone for the Treatment of Atrial Arrhythmias in Adults With Congenital Heart Disease.

BACKGROUND: Atrial tachyarrhythmias are common and difficult to treat in adults with congenital heart disease. Dronedarone has proven effective in patients without congenital heart disease, but data are limited about its use in adults with congenital heart disease of moderate to great complexity. METHODS: A single-center, retrospective chart review of 21 adults with congenital heart disease of moderate to great complexity who were treated with dronedarone for atrial tachyarrhythmias was performed. RESULTS: The median (IQR) age at dronedarone initiation was 35 (27.5-39) years. Eleven patients (52%) were male. Ten patients (48%) had New York Heart Association class I disease, 10 (48%) had class II disease, and 1 (5%) had class III disease. Ejection fraction at initiation was greater than 55% in 11 patients (52%), 35% to 55% in 9 patients (43%), and less than 35% in 1 patient (5%). Prior treatments included ß-blockers (71%), sotalol (38%), amiodarone (24%), digoxin (24%), and catheter ablation (38%). Rhythm control was complete in 5 patients (24%), partial in 6 (29%), and inadequate in 10 (48%). Two patients (10%) experienced adverse events, including nausea in 1 (5%) and cardiac arrest in 1 (5%), which occurred 48 months after initiation of treatment. There were no deaths during the follow-up period. The median (IQR) follow-up time for patients with complete or partial rhythm control was 20 (1-54) months. CONCLUSION: Dronedarone can be effective for adult patients with congenital heart disease and atrial arrhythmias for whom more established therapies have failed, and with close monitoring it can be safely tolerated.

Computational pathology: A survey review and the way forward.

Computational Pathology (CPath) is an interdisciplinary science that augments developments of computational approaches to analyze and model medical histopathology images. The main objective for CPath is to develop infrastructure and workflows of digital diagnostics as an assistive CAD system for clinical pathology, facilitating transformational changes in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer that are mainly address by CPath tools. With evergrowing developments in deep learning and computer vision algorithms, and the ease of the data flow from digital pathology, currently CPath is witnessing a paradigm shift. Despite the sheer volume of engineering and scientific works being introduced for cancer image analysis, there is still a considerable gap of adopting and integrating these algorithms in clinical practice. This raises a significant question regarding the direction and trends that are undertaken in CPath. In this article we provide a comprehensive review of more than 800 papers to address the challenges faced in problem design all-the-way to the application and implementation viewpoints. We have catalogued each paper into a model-card by examining the key works and challenges faced to layout the current landscape in CPath. We hope this helps the community to locate relevant works and facilitate understanding of the field's future directions. In a nutshell, we oversee the CPath developments in cycle of stages which are required to be cohesively linked together to address the challenges associated with such multidisciplinary science. We overview this cycle from different perspectives of data-centric, model-centric, and application-centric problems. We finally sketch remaining challenges and provide directions for future technical developments and clinical integration of CPath. For updated information on this survey review paper and accessing to the original model cards repository, please refer to GitHub. Updated version of this draft can also be found from arXiv.

Prevalence and antimicrobial resistance profile of Salmonella typhi infection in Iraq, 2019-2021.

INTRODUCTION: Salmonella typhi could infect the intestinal tract and the bloodstream or invade body organs and secrete endotoxins. It is endemic in developing countries. It is increasingly evolving antimicrobial resistance to several commonly used antimicrobial agents. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A cross-sectional study was done at Iraqi Communicable Disease Control Center, where all confirmed cases of Salmonella typhi are reported, for a period 2019-2021. All demographic, epidemiological and clinical characteristics of patients, comorbidities, type of samples, distribution of S. typhi by age and gender, time distribution in each year and profile of bacterial resistance and sensitivity to antibiotics were gathered and analysed. RESULTS: Most samples were taken from blood. The mean age of cases during 2019, 2020 and 2021 was 18.7 ± 6.5, 17.7 ± 14.1 and 17.3 ± 12.8. Males constituted 56.7%, 58.5% and 39.8%, respectively. Some cases had comorbidities. Most cases had headache and fever. Some of them had nausea, diarrhoea, vomiting and epigastric pain. The age and sex were significantly associated with years of reporting. The most months of case reporting were June-July (2019 and 2021), Jan. -Feb. (2020). There was an obvious increase in S. typhi resistance to ceftriaxone (92.2%, 86.1%, 88.8%) and ampicillin (77.1%, 76.9%, 81.27%). There was a gradual increase in sensitivity to tetracycline (83.1%, 88.1%, 94%), cotrimoxazole (86.7%, 86.1%, 92.2%), ciprofloxacin (78.3%, 90.1%, 87.8%) and cefixime (77.7%, 72.3%, 72.7%). CONCLUSIONS: There was a sharp rise in resistance rates of the S. typhi in Iraq (during 2019-2021) to ceftriaxone and ampicillin, while there were highest sensitivity rates to imipenem, aztreonam and chloramphenicol. The following recommendations were made: (1) Improvement of general hygiene and food safety measures. (2) Emphasis on vaccination and surveillance of Salmonella infection. (3) Rational use of appropriate antibiotics through implementation of treatment guidelines. (5) Educate communities and travelers about the risks of S. typhi and its preventive measures.

Impact of sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitors on kidney outcomes in type 2 diabetes: A tertiary center experience.

BACKGROUND: Diabetic nephropathy (DN) is a complication of chronic hyperglycemia associated with diabetes mellitus (DM). Several studies have demonstrated the positive impact of sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 (SGLT2) inhibitors on kidney outcomes. The objective of the study was to evaluate the effects of dapagliflozin, an SGLT2 inhibitor, on kidney outcomes in Saudi patients with type 2 DM. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Study included all Saudi patients with type 2 DM who visited our center from August 1, 2021, to July 31, 2022, and had been on dapagliflozin for at least 3 months. Data was abstracted through chart review for all patients included in the study. Paired t-test or Wilcoxon signed-rank test were used to compare the results before and after treatment for continuous variables and the McNemar test was used to compare the results for categorical data. RESULTS: Study included 184 Saudi patients with type 2 diabetes with a mean age of 61.32 years (SD=9.37). Dapagliflozin 10 mg/day significantly reduced hemoglobin A1C (HbA1C) from a mean (SD) of 9.00 to 8.40 (P < 0.001). Among a subgroup of patients with significant proteinuria (n = 83), dapagliflozin significantly reduced ACR from a median of 93.1 to 64.9 mg/g (P = 0.001). Following treatment, the estimated glomerular filtration rate improved from a mean of 69.83 to 71.68 mL/min and the mean arterial pressure (MAP) fell from 90.03 to 89.06 mmHg, both were not statistically significant. Despite a statistically insignificant increase in the episodes of urinary tract infections (UTIs), the hospitalization rate declined. No episodes of amputations or ketoacidosis occurred during the study period. CONCLUSION: SGLT2 inhibitors had beneficial effects among Saudi patients with type 2 diabetes by improving diabetic control and lowering proteinuria. Dapagliflozin did not result in significant harm, including UTIs, amputations, and ketoacidosis.

The State of Cardiac Rehabilitation in Saudi Arabia: Barriers, Facilitators, and Policy Implications.

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a critical public health issue in Saudi Arabia, where it is the leading cause of death. The economic burden of CVD in the country is expected to triple by 2035, reaching $9.8 billion. This paper provides an overview of CVD in Saudi Arabia and its risk factors, impact on healthcare, and effects on patients' quality of life. The review emphasizes the potential of cardiac rehabilitation (CR) programs in addressing the CVD epidemic. CR programs have been shown to reduce morbidity, mortality, and hospital readmissions while improving patients' cardiovascular health and overall well-being. However, these programs are underutilized and inaccessible in Saudi Arabia. The paper highlights the urgent need for CR programs in the country and suggests key strategies for implementation. These include increasing patient referrals, tailoring programs to individual needs, enhancing patient education, and making CR accessible through home-based options. Fostering multidisciplinary collaboration and developing tailored guidelines for Arab countries can further enhance the impact of CR programs. In conclusion, this review underscores the vital importance of comprehensive CR programs in Saudi Arabia to combat the rising CVD burden, improve patient quality of life, and align with the goals of the Saudi 2030 Vision for a healthier society.

The Incidence of Acute Peritonitis Secondary to Different Sites of Viscus Perforation.

Objective The incidence of peritonitis secondary to viscus perforation will be examined to determine the most common sites of perforation and associated comorbidities. Methods This is a retrospective observational study based on data collected from the King Fahad Hospital of the University (KFUH). This research targeted patients who had viscus organ perforation and the relation of peritonitis secondary to it. The sample was taken from patients under the care of the General Surgery Department from the first of Feb 2016 to the 12th of Sep 2022. The final sample consisted of 450 patients. The method of diagnosis of peritonitis was mainly clinical, and the surgical approach was either through an exploratory laparotomy or a diagnostic laparoscopy. Incidental findings of viscus organ perforation were noted in addition to certain postoperative complications (e.g., adhesions) and hospital stay. Results Analysis of the results showed a significant relation (p<0.001) between viscus organ perforation and peritonitis. The most common comorbidities associated with secondary peritonitis were hypertension (12, 24.5%), diabetes mellitus (10, 20.4%), any abdominal mass (3, 6.1%), and inflammatory bowel disease (1, 2%). However, a chi-square analysis has shown no significant association between peritonitis and the targeted associated comorbidities. Conclusion Perforation of the small intestine carries the biggest association with peritonitis incidence, in addition to comorbidities such as hypertension and diabetes mellitus. Further study to establish the value of these factors might contribute to decreasing the morbidity and mortality of secondary peritonitis.

Transtubular Transoral Approach for Irreducible Ventral Craniovertebral Junction Compressive Pathologies: Surgical Technique and Outcome.

Introduction: To investigate the use of a tubular retractor to provide access to the craniovertebral junction (CVJ) sparing the soft palate with the aim of reducing complications associated with traditional transoral approach but yet allowing adequate decompression of the CVJ. Materials and methods: Twelve consecutive patients with severe myelopathy (JOA-score less than 11) from ventral CVJ compression were operated between 2014-2020 using a tubular retractor assisted transoral decompression. Results: All patients improved neurologically statistically (p=0.02). There were no posterior pharynx wound infections or rhinolalia. There was one case with incomplete removal of the lateral wall of odontoid and one incidental durotomy. Conclusions: A Tubular retractor provides adequate access for decompression of the ventral compression of CVJ. As the tubular retractor pushed away the uvula, soft palate and pillars of the tonsils as it docked on the posterior pharyngeal wall, the traditional complications associated with traditional transoral procedures is completely avoided.

Genome-wide copy number variant screening of Saudi schizophrenia patients reveals larger deletions in cases versus controls.

Introduction: Genome-wide association studies have discovered common polymorphisms in regions associated with schizophrenia. No genome-wide analyses have been performed in Saudi schizophrenia subjects. Methods: Genome-wide genotyping data from 136 Saudi schizophrenia cases and 97 Saudi controls in addition to 4,625 American were examined for copy number variants (CNVs). A hidden Markov model approach was used to call CNVs. Results: CNVs in schizophrenia cases were twice as large on average than CNVs in controls (p = 0.04). The analyses focused on extremely large >250 kilobases CNVs or homozygous deletions of any size. One extremely large deletion was noted in a single case (16.5 megabases on chromosome 10). Two cases had an 814 kb duplication of chromosome 7 spanning a cluster of genes, including circadian-related loci, and two other cases had 277 kb deletions of chromosome 9 encompassing an olfactory receptors gene family. CNVs were also seen in loci previously associated with schizophrenia, namely a 16p11 proximal duplication and two 22q11.2 deletions. Discussion: Runs of homozygosity (ROHs) were analyzed across the genome to investigate correlation with schizophrenia risk. While rates and sizes of these ROHs were similar in cases and controls, we identified 10 regions where multiple cases had ROHs and controls did not.

Insilco identification and characterization of superoxide dismutase gene family in Brassica rapa.

Superoxide Dismutase SODs are defense associated proteins that detoxify ROS and primarily serve as scavengers. They have been described in numerous plant species, but their in-depth characterization in Brassica rapa has not been reported. Therefore, the present investigation on genome wide study of SOD gene family was conducted to identify BrSOD genes, their domain-based organization, gene structure analysis, phylogenetic analysis, intron-exon structure of genes and expression analysis. The sequence characterization of Super oxide dismutase gene family in Brassica rapa, their syntenic associateship of conserved motifs and phylogenetic correlationship, prediction of cis-elements and determing the expression analysis in distinct tissues namely plant callus, root, stem, leaf, flower, and silique under abiotic conditions have been analysed using different software's. The study on SOD gene family identified 17 BrSOD genes which were grouped into eight BrCu-ZnSODs and nine BrFe-MnSODs domain-based organization. Furthermore, the conserved character of BrSODs were confirmed by intron-exon organisation, motif arrangements and domain architectural investigations. Expression analysis using RNA Sequence data of different developmental stages proclaimed that genes were manifested in all six tissues with an exception of BrCu-ZnSOD3, which was not manifested in roots; however, whose transcript was detected in all other tested tissues. The study has genome wide insight into the occurrence and functional specifications of BrSOD gene family in Brassica rapa that can be potentially utilized in breeding program for resilience to climate change and abiotic stresses tolerance Brassica variety.

Where is the nerve? Review of operation note documentation practice for inguinal hernia repair.

INTRODUCTION: Careful identification and management of inguinal nerves during inguinal hernia repair is important to avoid iatrogenic injury. Documentation of this practice may inform postoperative clinical management. We set out to investigate how often surgeons identify inguinal nerves and document findings and management in their operation notes. METHODS: We carried out a retrospective review of operation notes at a single district general hospital. We analysed operation notes for documentation of identification and intraoperative management (preservation or sacrifice) of the inguinal nerves (iliohypogastric, ilioinguinal, genital branch of genitofemoral nerve). We collected data on the baseline characteristics of the patients, hernia characteristics and primary operating surgeons for subgroup analysis. RESULTS: A total of 100 patients were included in the analysis. Identification of any inguinal nerves (generic 'nerve') was documented in 17% of operation notes. Documentation in the operation notes of named individual nerves was limited. No documentation of intraoperative management of inguinal nerves was found in 83% of operation notes. Preservation of the inguinal nerves (generic 'nerve') was recorded in 8% and sacrifice recorded in 9% of cases. Subgroup analysis revealed similar incidence of documentation of identification and management of inguinal nerves across grades of primary surgeon, with overall incidence low for all grades. CONCLUSION: This study reveals a lack of appreciation of the importance of documenting identification and management of inguinal nerves in operation notes. Further consideration of the potential implications of poor documentation would be beneficial to improve standards.

Estimation and Optimization of Tool Wear in Conventional Turning of 709M40 Alloy Steel Using Support Vector Machine (SVM) with Bayesian Optimization.

Cutting tool wear reduces the quality of the product in production processes. The optimization of both the machining parameters and tool life reliability is an increasing research trend to save manufacturing resources. In the present work, we introduced a computational approach in estimating the tool wear in the turning process using artificial intelligence. Support vector machines (SVM) for regression with Bayesian optimization is used to determine the tool wear based on various machining parameters. A coated insert carbide tool 2025 was utilized in turning tests of 709M40 alloy steel. Experimental data were collected for three machining parameters like feed rate, depth of cut, and cutting speed, while the parameter of tool wear was calculated with a scanning electron microscope (SEM). The SVM model was trained on 162 experimental data points and the trained model was then used to estimate the experimental testing data points to determine the model performance. The proposed SVM model with Bayesian optimization achieved a superior accuracy in estimation of the tool wear with a mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) of 6.13% and root mean square error (RMSE) of 2.29%. The results suggest the feasibility of adopting artificial intelligence methods in estimating the machining parameters to reduce the time and costs of manufacturing processes and contribute toward greater sustainability.

Parental access to hospitalised children during infectious disease pandemics such as COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in many hospitals severely limiting or denying parents access to their hospitalised children. This article provides guidance for hospital managers, healthcare staff, district-level managers and provincial managers on parental access to hospitalised children during a pandemic such as COVID-19. It: (i) summarises legal and ethical issues around parental visitation rights; (ii) highlights four guiding principles; (iii) provides 10 practical recommendations to facilitate safe parental access to hospitalised children; (iv) highlights additional considerations if the mother is COVID-19-positive; and (v) provides considerations for fathers. In summary, it is a child's right to have access to his or her parents during hospitalisation, and parents should have access to their hospitalised children; during an infectious disease pandemic such as COVID-19, there is a responsibility to ensure that parental visitation is implemented in a reasonable and safe manner. Separation should only occur in exceptional circumstances, e.g. if adequate in-hospital facilities do not exist to jointly accommodate the parent/caregiver and the newborn/infant/child. Both parents should be allowed access to hospitalised children, under strict infection prevention and control (IPC) measures and with implementation of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs), including handwashing/sanitisation, face masks and physical distancing. Newborns/infants and their parents/caregivers have a reasonably high likelihood of having similar COVID-19 status, and should be managed as a dyad rather than as individuals. Every hospital should provide lodger/boarder facilities for mothers who are COVID-19-positive, COVID-19-negative or persons under investigation (PUI), separately, with stringent IPC measures and NPIs. If facilities are limited, breastfeeding mothers should be prioritised, in the following order: (i) COVID-19-negative; (ii) COVID-19 PUI; and (iii) COVID-19-positive. Breastfeeding, or breastmilk feeding, should be promoted, supported and protected, and skin-to-skin care of newborns with the mother/caregiver (with IPC measures) should be discussed and practised as far as possible. Surgical masks should be provided to all parents/caregivers and replaced daily throughout the hospital stay. Parents should be referred to social services and local community resources to ensure that multidisciplinary support is provided. Hospitals should develop individual-level policies and share these with staff and parents. Additionally, hospitals should ideally track the effect of parental visitation rights on hospital-based COVID-19 outbreaks, the mental health of hospitalised children, and their rate of recovery.

Screening for depression, anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive disorders among secondary school students in Al-Hasa Region, Saudi Arabia.

BACKGROUND: The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of anxiety, depression, and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and assess their severity in both male and female secondary school students. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This cross-sectional study was conducted among secondary school students in Al Hasa region. A sample of student was selected using multi-stage sampling technique. Data were collected using valid self administered questionnaires (Patient Health Questionnaire 9, Anxiety Disorder 7, and Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive scale). Study was approved by institutional ethical review committee, and informed consent was obtained from each participant. SPSS used for data entry and analysis. Chi-square test was used to test for statistical significance. RESULTS: A total of 1783 of students, 930 males and 853 females, were enrolled in the study. The prevalence of depression, anxiety, and OCD was 76.2%, 49.9%, and 61.6%, respectively. Most of the diagnosed students had mild forms of the diseases, fewer had moderate form, and very few had severe forms. The most significant risk factor was gender, but other risk factors were significant for some of the diseases. CONCLUSION: The prevalence of the three diseases is high and significantly associated with gender. Further work is needed to evaluate this high prevalence and assess the severity of the diseases and other risk factors.

Suicidal Ideation Among Medical Students in Dammam, Saudi Arabia.

Background: Medical students are at high risk of suicidal ideation. Aim: We aimed to obtain information on suicidal ideation among medical students in Dammam located in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. Method: This cross-sectional study was conducted at the College of Medicine affiliated with Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. Suicidal ideation in the past 12 months was assessed based on responses to four questions in the depression subscale of the General Health Questionnaire 28 (GHQ-28). In addition, data were collected to examine the association of suicidal ideation with various factors. Results: We found that 1 in 3 medical students in the study had suicidal ideation in the past 12 months, while around 40% had lifetime suicidal ideation. Suicidal ideation was associated with feelings of parental neglect, history of physical abuse, and dissatisfaction with academic performance. Limitations: The cross-sectional nature of this study limits its ability to determine causality regarding suicidal ideation. Conclusion: These rates are considerably high when compared with rates from studies in other countries around the world. This study provides a reference in the field of suicidology for this region of Saudi Arabia.

Chronic groin pain following open inguinal hernia repair: has consenting practice improved?

INTRODUCTION: Chronic groin pain following inguinal hernia surgery is a common and potentially debilitating complication, and yet patients are infrequently informed of this risk. This leaves surgeons open to negligence claims, especially given recent changes to case law, which for the first time highlighted the need for a more patient-centred approach to risk disclosure. We investigated how these changes have influenced our consenting practice with respect to the disclosure of this risk. METHODS: We compared how often surgeons discussed the risk of chronic groin pain with adults undergoing elective open unilateral inguinal hernia mesh repairs in 2019 and 2009. The first 50 patients in each of these two years were retrospectively compared. Discussions during the initial consultation and on the day of surgery were assessed by reviewing clinic letters, medical notes and consent forms. FINDINGS: The risk of chronic pain was discussed with significantly more patients in 2019 than in 2009 (96% v 54%, p<0.0001). Most of these discussions occurred on the day of surgery (92% v 54%, p<0.0001). Only a few patients had these discussions during their initial consultation (18% v 4%, p<0.025). CONCLUSIONS: Discussing the risk of chronic groin pain has improved significantly over the past 10 years. However, these discussions occur mostly on the day of surgery, which gives patients very little time to weigh up the risk. This potentially invalidates the consent they give for surgery. Patients should be given an opportunity to discuss their operative risks in advance of their operation.

Predicting the Tool Wear of a Drilling Process Using Novel Machine Learning XGBoost-SDA.

Tool wear negatively impacts the quality of workpieces produced by the drilling process. Accurate prediction of tool wear enables the operator to maintain the machine at the required level of performance. This research presents a novel hybrid machine learning approach for predicting the tool wear in a drilling process. The proposed approach is based on optimizing the extreme gradient boosting algorithm's hyperparameters by a spiral dynamic optimization algorithm (XGBoost-SDA). Simulations were carried out on copper and cast-iron datasets with a high degree of accuracy. Further comparative analyses were performed with support vector machines (SVM) and multilayer perceptron artificial neural networks (MLP-ANN), where XGBoost-SDA showed superior performance with regard to the method. Simulations revealed that XGBoost-SDA results in the accurate prediction of flank wear in the drilling process with mean absolute error (MAE) = 4.67%, MAE = 5.32%, and coefficient of determination R2 = 0.9973 for the copper workpiece. Similarly, for the cast iron workpiece, XGBoost-SDA resulted in surface roughness predictions with MAE = 5.25%, root mean square error (RMSE) = 6.49%, and R2 = 0.975, which closely agree with the measured values. Performance comparisons between SVM, MLP-ANN, and XGBoost-SDA show that XGBoost-SDA is an effective method that can ensure high predictive accuracy about flank wear values in a drilling process.

Prediction and Optimization of Surface Roughness in a Turning Process Using the ANFIS-QPSO Method.

This study presents a prediction method of surface roughness values for dry and cryogenic turning of AISI 304 stainless steel using the ANFIS-QPSO machine learning approach. ANFIS-QPSO combines the strengths of artificial neural networks, fuzzy systems and evolutionary optimization in terms of accuracy, robustness and fast convergence towards global optima. Simulations revealed that ANFIS-QPSO results in accurate prediction of surface roughness with RMSE = 4.86%, MAPE = 4.95% and R2 = 0.984 for the dry turning process. Similarly, for the cryogenic turning process, ANFIS-QPSO resulted in surface roughness predictions with RMSE = 5.08%, MAPE = 5.15% and R2 = 0.988 that are of high agreement with the measured values. Performance comparisons between ANFIS-QPSO, ANFIS, ANFIS-GA and ANFIS-PSO suggest that ANFIS-QPSO is an effective method that can ensure a high prediction accuracy of surface roughness values for dry and cryogenic turning processes.

Focus Quality Assessment of High-Throughput Whole Slide Imaging in Digital Pathology.

One of the challenges facing the adoption of digital pathology workflows for clinical use is the need for automated quality control. As the scanners sometimes determine focus inaccurately, the resultant image blur deteriorates the scanned slide to the point of being unusable. Also, the scanned slide images tend to be extremely large when scanned at greater or equal 20X image resolution. Hence, for digital pathology to be clinically useful, it is necessary to use computational tools to quickly and accurately quantify the image focus quality and determine whether an image needs to be re-scanned. We propose a no-reference focus quality assessment metric specifically for digital pathology images that operate by using a sum of even-derivative filter bases to synthesize a human visual system-like kernel, which is modeled as the inverse of the lens' point spread function. This kernel is then applied to a digital pathology image to modify high-frequency image information deteriorated by the scanner's optics and quantify the focus quality at the patch level. We show in several experiments that our method correlates better with ground-truth z -level data than other methods, which is more computationally efficient. We also extend our method to generate a local slide-level focus quality heatmap, which can be used for automated slide quality control, and demonstrate the utility of our method for clinical scan quality control by comparison with subjective slide quality scores.

Convolutional Deblurring for Natural Imaging.

In this paper, we propose a novel design of image deblurring in the form of one-shot convolution filtering that can directly convolve with naturally blurred images for restoration. The problem of optical blurring is a common disadvantage to many imaging applications that suffer from optical imperfections. Despite numerous deconvolution methods that blindly estimate blurring in either inclusive or exclusive forms, they are practically challenging due to high computational cost and low image reconstruction quality. Both conditions of high accuracy and high speed are prerequisites for high-throughput imaging platforms in digital archiving. In such platforms, deblurring is required after image acquisition before being stored, previewed, or processed for high-level interpretation. Therefore, on-the-fly correction of such images is important to avoid possible time delays, mitigate computational expenses, and increase image perception quality. We bridge this gap by synthesizing a deconvolution kernel as a linear combination of finite impulse response (FIR) even-derivative filters that can be directly convolved with blurry input images to boost the frequency fall-off of the point spread function (PSF) associated with the optical blur. We employ a Gaussian low-pass filter to decouple the image denoising problem for image edge deblurring. Furthermore, we propose a blind approach to estimate the PSF statistics for two Gaussian and Laplacian models that are common in many imaging pipelines. Thorough experiments are designed to test and validate the efficiency of the proposed method using 2054 naturally blurred images across six imaging applications and seven state-of-the-art deconvolution methods.

Mental health research in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia: A review of trend and visibility over four decades.

In the last few decades, there has been significant advancement in higher education and research in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) However, no research has quantified the studies on mental health in Saudi Arabia. The aim of this review was to review literature on mental health in KSA over the last four decades and compare it with studies done in other medical and surgical specialties. This narrative review is based on research published in the global scientific database of Web of Science, Scopus and Medline/PubMed. Mental Health Research of Saudi Arabia published since 1975 was retrieved. Publications related to other medical specialties such as surgery, internal medicine and pharmacology were also retrieved for comparison. A total of 159,796 studies related to medical and non-medical specialties were conducted in Saudi Arabia. A total of 52,699 related to medical specialties, 670 of which were on mental health and 52,029 on other medical specialties. At the beginning of the last decade there was a sharp increase in medical research (including mental health) publications from Saudi Arabia. Mental health research does not differ from research in other medical specialties in its output. In spite of the huge strides made in research in KSA, the provision of support for mental health research in the Kingdom is inadequate. Possible challenges and recommendations have been identified.