We aimed to assess the value of ¹¹C-choline PET in patients with primary hyperparathyroidism and negative or discordant results on ^99mTc-sestamibi imaging and neck ultrasound. Methods: Eighty-seven such patients were assessed and subsequently underwent parathyroidectomy. PET/CT image data were analyzed semiquantitatively using SUV_max and SUV ratios (target to contralateral thyroid gland and carotid artery). A positive PET/CT result was defined as focal uptake significantly higher than regular thyroid tissue. Ectopic foci were also considered positive. Inconclusive PET/CT cases were defined as a lesion with uptake equal to normal thyroid tissue. If no prominent or ectopic uptake was detectable, the PET/CT result was considered negative. Results: When dichotomizing the ¹¹C-choline PET/CT imaging results by defining lesions with both positive and inconclusive uptake as positive, we found 84 of 92 lesions (91.3%) to have true-positive uptake whereas 8 lesions (8.7%) had false-positive uptake. One lesion showed false-negative uptake; the sensitivity was 98.8%. The corresponding positive predictive value for lesions was 91.3%. The mean SUV_max was 6.15 ± 4.92 in 72 lesions with positive uptake (70 patients) and 2.96 ± 2.32 in 20 lesions with inconclusive uptake (18 patients). Conclusion: These results in a large group of patients indicate that ¹¹C-choline PET/CT is a promising tool for parathyroid adenoma localization when ultrasound and ^99mTc-sestamibi imaging yield negative or discordant results.

A microbe found in mosquitoes that appears to block malaria could be used to control spread of the disease in humans, according to researchers in Kenya and Britain.

Before the coronavirus pandemic, bioengineer Jim Collins and his team combined the power of AI with synthetic biology in an effort to combat a different looming crisis: antibiotic-resistant superbugs. Collins explains how they pivoted their efforts to begin developing a series of tools and antiviral compounds to help fight COVID-19 -- and shares their plan to discover seven new classes of antibiotics over the next seven years. (This ambitious plan is a part of The Audacious Project, TED's initiative to inspire and fund global change.)

Chomsky, Noam -- Political and social views.

London : printed for B. and J. White, 1797.

Boston : Nathan Hale, 1835.

London : Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1842.

London : Macmillan, 1894.

London : Elliot Stock, 1886.

London : J. Churchill, 1839.

London : John Bale, 1897.

Resurrecting an old idea about assessing school quality could allow schools to examine a broad range of data on performance and practices and lead to improvement.

Sihai Dave Zhao, Yet Tien Nguyen.

Source: Electronic Journal of Statistics, Volume 14, Number 1, 110--142.

Abstract:
It is frequently of interest to identify simultaneous signals, defined as features that exhibit statistical significance across each of several independent experiments. For example, genes that are consistently differentially expressed across experiments in different animal species can reveal evolutionarily conserved biological mechanisms. However, in some problems the test statistics corresponding to these features can have complicated or unknown null distributions. This paper proposes a novel nonparametric false discovery rate control procedure that can identify simultaneous signals even without knowing these null distributions. The method is shown, theoretically and in simulations, to asymptotically control the false discovery rate. It was also used to identify genes that were both differentially expressed and proximal to differentially accessible chromatin in the brains of mice exposed to a conspecific intruder. The proposed method is available in the R package github.com/sdzhao/ssa.

This paper presents a new open source Python framework for causal discovery from observational data and domain background knowledge, aimed at causal graph and causal mechanism modeling. The cdt package implements an end-to-end approach, recovering the direct dependencies (the skeleton of the causal graph) and the causal relationships between variables. It includes algorithms from the `Bnlearn' and `Pcalg' packages, together with algorithms for pairwise causal discovery such as ANM.

Increasing number of sectors which affect human lives, are using Machine Learning (ML) tools. Hence the need for understanding their working mechanism and evaluating their fairness in decision-making, are becoming paramount, ushering in the era of Explainable AI (XAI). In this contribution we introduced a few intrinsically interpretable models which are also capable of dealing with missing values, in addition to extracting knowledge from the dataset and about the problem. These models are also capable of visualisation of the classifier and decision boundaries: they are the angle based variants of Learning Vector Quantization. We have demonstrated the algorithms on a synthetic dataset and a real-world one (heart disease dataset from the UCI repository). The newly developed classifiers helped in investigating the complexities of the UCI dataset as a multiclass problem. The performance of the developed classifiers were comparable to those reported in literature for this dataset, with additional value of interpretability, when the dataset was treated as a binary class problem.

Dissenters, Religious -- Great Britain.

Some Democrats took "Believe Women" literally until Joe Biden was accused. Now they're relearning that guilt-by-accusation doesn't serve justice.

‘What on earth were they doing there?’ one researcher asks

At 5,000 years old, the weapon predates the era when humans first started using tin to make bronze

The findings further refute the outdated notion that humans' capacity for complex artistic expression evolved exclusively in Europe

The bacterial strain can break down some of the toxic components of polyurethane plastic

Researchers lifted the ancient Egyptian mummy out of her coffin for the first time in 100 years and, to their surprise, uncovered the ancient artworks

Mary Pearson, who was briefly engaged to the writer's brother, may be the real-life counterpart of Lydia Bennet from "Pride and Prejudice"

The "lost" apples will help restore genetic, culinary diversity to a crop North America once produced in astonishing variety

The ancient Egyptian girl was only 15 or 16 years old when she died

The new viruses are not harmful to humans or closely related to SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19

Sketches from the workshop of French engineer Gustave Eiffel suggest a different plan for Lady Liberty’s upraised arm

In 1799, Alexander von Humboldt set foot in the jungles of Cumana, in present-day Venezuela. What ensued was a detailed scientific mission to learn more about the natural world.

The premier’s office confirmed the news in an email statement, blaming visibility issues under "very specific lighting conditions."

With a discovery that could rewrite the immunology textbooks, an international group of scientists, including the teams of Bart Lambrecht, Martin Guilliams, Hamida Hammad, and Charlotte Scott (all from the VIB-UGent Center for Inflammation Research) identified a new type of antigen-presenting immune cell.

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If you're yearning for all the gardening shows that have been cancelled, you can still be inspired by exploring gorgeous virtual gardens now and throughout the summer, from the comfort of your armchair.

A 53-year-old man has been arrested in connection with smuggling firearms into the country.

The latest iPad Pro featuring 1TB of storage and cellular connectivity is on sale at Amazon for just $1,299.99. Models with less storage and just Wi-Fi are also marked down.

ONE of the trying things about being a drinks columnist is the number of wines I have to taste in order to write this Shakespearian text for you guys. Products have to be really special to stand out from the crowd and, thankfully, they occasionally still do.

Student misbehavior and discipline is a major source of friction between principals and teachers. Veteran educators share how they build consensus around discipline in their schools.

Active termination of life in newborns with myelomeningocele because of assumed suffering in these newborns has been extensively discussed. However, the level of discomfort and pain in these newborns has never been substantially assessed.

This is the first study presenting quantitative data on discomfort and pain in newborns with myelomeningocele. Therefore, it can be of guidance in the choice of treatment: either active treatment or palliative care in the context of end-of-life decisions. (Read the full article)

Quantum machine learning, an emerging field that combines machine learning and quantum physics, is the focus of research to discover possible treatments for COVID-19, according to Penn State researchers, who believe that this method could be faster and more economical than the current methods used for drug discovery.

From 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, March 28, members of the Penn College community will welcome thousands of potential enrollees and their families, opening wide the doors to a landmark institution that has helped tomorrow makers fulfill their destinies for more than a century.

The National Sustainable Structures Center of Pennsylvania College of Technology, the mid-Atlantic administrator of the Building Operator Certification, will offer two BOC Level I courses at a 75% discount made possible by a grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.

A new study finds that materials often portray scientists as geniuses working alone—a framing that can make students think science isn't for them.