Improved Breast Cancer Classification Through Combining Graph Convolutional Network and Convolutional Neural Network

AimIn a pilot study to improve detection of malignant lesions in breast mammograms, we aimed to develop a new method called BDR-CNN-GCN, combining two advanced neural networks: (i) graph convolutional network (GCN); and (ii) convolutional neural network (CNN).MethodWe utilised a standard 8-layer CNN, then integrated two improvement techniques: (i) batch normalization (BN) and (ii) dropout (DO). Finally, we utilized rank-based stochastic pooling (RSP) to substitute the traditional max pooling. This resulted in BDR-CNN, which is a combination of CNN, BN, DO, and RSP. This BDR-CNN was hybridized with a two-layer GCN, and yielded our BDR-CNN-GCN model which was then utilized for analysis of breast mammograms as a 14-way data augmentation method.ResultsAs proof of concept, we ran our BDR-CNN-GCN algorithm 10 times on the breast mini-MIAS dataset (containing 322 mammographic images), achieving a sensitivity of 96.20±2.90%, a specificity of 96.00±2.31% and an accuracy of 96.10±1.60%.ConclusionOur BDR-CNN-GCN showed improved performance compared to five proposed neural network models and 15 state-of-the-art breast cancer detection approaches, proving to be an effective method for data augmentation and improved detection of malignant breast masses.     

Foreign Media Systems

Conferences, proceedings of three recent international telecommunications

Yves de la Haye, ed. Marx and Engles on the Means of Communication (International General, P.O. Box 350, New York, N.Y. 10013---$4.50 or £2.25, paper)

David Hargreaves' Adult Literacy and Broadcasting: The BBC's Experience (London: Frances Pinter/New York: Nichols, 1980---$22.50)

Christopher Bagley and Gajendra K. Verma's Racial Prejudice, the Individual and Society (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books/Farnborough: Saxon House, 1979--- $19.00)

David Morley's The Nationwide Audience: Structure and Deconding (British Film Institute, 127 Charing Cross Rd., London WC2H oEA---£.2.95 or about $$7.50, paper)

Barbara Coulton's Louis MacNeice in the BBC (London: Faber and Faber/Lawrence, Mass.: Merrimach Book Service, 1980---E12.50/$31.00)

Australia, a report from Henry Mayer of some recent material from

World Bank, catalog of publications from     

Evaluation of a Training Program in Aging Research for Social Work Faculty

Since 2004, we have offered a postgraduate training program in aging research for social work faculty from across the country. The overarching goal of the program is to expand the pool of social work faculty engaged in aging research. This, in turn, will reinvigorate participants' teaching; prepare them to update aging-related content in the curriculum, with special emphasis on cultural diversity and methodological issues; and enhance their ability to motivate new generations of students to pursue the study of aging. Program design includes an initial 8-day institute in Summer I; ongoing consultation, update meetings at several national conventions, and a 4-day midyear meeting during the intervening year; and a follow-up institute during Summer II. Between 2004 and 2009, seven cohorts of social work faculty (with 14–15 members in each cohort) participated in the program. More than 40 percent of the participants were from communities of color including African American, Hispanic American, Native American, and Asian American. This article reports the results of initial evaluation from two most recent cohorts (Cohort 6 and Cohort 7). In addition, it reports the results of a follow-up study we conducted in June 2010 on cohorts 1–5. Key lessons learned in offering the program are also shared.     

Negotiating meanings of gender justice: Critical reflections on dialogs and debates in a non-governmental organization (NGO)

In this paper, we reflect upon how dialogs and debates in a non-governmental organization (NGO) – CARE India in the context of a girls’ education project shaped staff members’ understandings of gender justice. As CARE India staff shared their experiences in the field, in the organization, and in domestic spaces during gender training sessions and other forums, their different politics in these spaces shaped how they translated global discourses of gender justice to produce fluid, contested, and contextual understandings. While these dialogs included the voices of diverse social actors in identifying the capabilities needed for gender justice in education, they were often reframed by local NGO actors.     

The embedding theorems of Whitney and Nash

We begin by briefly motivating the idea of a manifold and then discuss the embedding theorems of Whitney and Nash that allow us to view these objects inside appropriately large Euclidean spaces.     

Investigating the Alignment of Bhutanese Mathematics Teachers’ Planned Approaches Within the Context of a Reformed Curriculum

Reform of mathematics education has been in focus in many countries including those in major economic transition. This paper reports a segment of a study which was conducted in Bhutan, where a reformed elementary mathematics curriculum has been recently introduced. The reformed curriculum is based on social constructivism and its design has been influenced by the USA’s National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) standards. This paper reports upon the planned teaching of a sample of elementary (primary) teachers in their implementation of the reformed curriculum. The data for this part of the investigation were aggregated from a qualitative survey of randomly selected elementary school teachers (N = 72) from 40 schools across the country. A set of 3 analytical rubrics, based on intentions embedded in the curriculum, was developed to analyse the alignment of teachers’ planned sample learning activities with the intentions of the curriculum. Our conclusions are that while the curriculum’s intentions might be meaningfully stated in the curriculum documents, implementation remains problematic because there appears to be a mis-alignment between curriculum intentions and classroom practices. For instance, teachers by not adopting evidence-based approaches recommended in the curriculum document and are continuing to deny students opportunities to achieve deep understanding in achieving national priorities. This paper also argues that the proposed analytical rubrics may be of value for Bhutanese mathematics educators and, with minor modification, educators in other contexts, as they critique planned and actual practices.     

Correlation between chemical components of billary calculi and bile & sera and bile of gallstone patients

Total cholesterol, total bilirubin, calcium, oxalate, inorganic phosphate, magnesium, iron, copper, sodium and potassium were analyzed quantitatively in gallstones, bile of gall bladder and sera of 200 patients of cholelithiasis (52 cholesterol, 76 mixed and 72 pigment stone patients) and their contents were correlated between calculi and bile and sera and bile in these three type of stone patients. A significant positive correlation was observed between total cholesterol, total bilirubin of calculi and bile, copper of bile and sera of cholesterol stone patients, copper of calculi and bile, total bilirubin, oxalate, magnesium, potassium of sera and bile of pigment stone patients and oxalate and iron of stone and bile, total bilirubin, oxalate, sodium of sera and bile of mixed stone patients. A significant negative correlation was found between magnesium of serum and bile of cholesterol stone patients, oxalate of calculi and bile of pigment stone patients and magnesium of serum and bile of mixed stone patients.     

Effect of increasing duration of diabetes mellitus type 2 on glycated hemoglobin and insulin sensitivity

Non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM) is the most rapidly growing chronic metabolic disorder in the world. With advancement in the age and duration of diabetes there is a gradual tendency for the level of blood sugar to rise along with a subsequent increase in the HbA1c as well as in the fasting insulin level. Whether this is an aging process or increased frequency of diabetes is still controversial. The correlation between glucose and insulin sensitivity is consistent with the idea that the degree of chronic hyperglycemia is a cause of excessive insulin resistance in type 2 diabetes, i.e. the insulin resistance which characterizes type 2 diabetes but not nondiabetic subjects matched for age, gender, family history and duration of diabetes. The study comprised a total of 76 subjects out of which 30 were normal, non-diabetic persons and the rest 46 were diabetics with different duration of time in years, after being diagnosed diabetic. Data was analyzed after dividing the subjects into four groups—Group 1 comprised of one year old diabetics, Group 2 was made up of those, who had diabetes, for the past 2–5 years, Group 3 included patients who were diabetic since more than 5 years and Group 4 included non-diabetics as the normal control group. The results obtained indicated that the HbA1c levels showed a significant increase with the duration of diabetes as well as the insulin level showed a significant correlation after adjustment for age, sex and duration of diabetes.     

Effect of vitamin E on platelet enzymatic anti-oxidants in the patients of myocardial infarction

Effect of administration of 600 mg. vitamin E each day, for six days, was observed on activity of some of the anti-oxidant enzymes and levels of malondialdehyde (as an index of free radical mediated damage) in the platelets of patients reperfused after myocardial infarction. It has been found that vitamin E administration significantly lowers the level of malondialdehyde in the patients. Vitamin E administration increases the activities of anti oxidant enzymes (viz. superoxide dismutase, glutathione reductase and catalase) tested both in the patients and healthy controls. Vitamin E administration causes general stimulation of anti-oxidant enzyme activities both in healthy persons and the patients, however, lowering of lipid per-oxidation upon administration of vitamin E is specific for patients. These findings exhibit beneficial role of vitamin E administration in the management of the patients reperfused after myocardial infarction.     

LWT–DSR based new robust framework for watermark extraction under intentional attack conditions

This paper proposes a new watermarking approach using dynamic stochastic resonance (DSR) based tuning operation to extract the watermark logo from the watermarked image that has undergone different intentional and signal processing attacks. This method is intended to provide remedies from the shortcomings of the technique proposed by Lin et al. (2008), and invalidates the effect of intentional attacks recently designed by Meerwald et al. (2009). The algorithm incorporates three level image decomposition using lifting wavelet transform (LWT) and low-pass subband is utilized for data hiding purpose. Watermark bits are embedded into the blocks of non-overlapped wavelet coefficients of the cover image by quantizing the two maximum coefficients of the corresponding block. In watermark extraction process, the DSR is applied by performing the tuning operation on coefficient blocks of attacked watermarked image. It is a parameter dependent approach that enhances the performance of watermark extraction, where the parameters of DSR inherently depend on the image properties such as standard deviation or variance. As far as security is concerned, the randomization of wavelet coefficients, blocks, and watermark bits helps the framework to be more secure. The proposed technique is also examined against multiple watermarking attack and successfully proves its authenticity and ownership. Comparison of the proposed technique with recent techniques shows remarkable improvement in terms of robustness and security against various intentional, signal processing, and geometrical attacks.