Calcium Pattern Assessment in Patients with Severe Aortic Stenosis Via the Chou’s 5-Steps Rule

Abstract

Background: Progression of aortic valve calcifications (AVC) leads to aortic valve stenosis (AS). Importantly, the AVC degree has a great impact on AS progression, treatment selection and outcomes. Methods of AVC assessment do not provide accurate quantitative evaluation and analysis of calcium distribution and deposition in a repetitive manner. Objective: We aim to prepare a reliable tool for detailed AVC pattern analysis with quantitative parameters. Methods: We analyzed computed tomography (CT) scans of fifty patients with severe AS using a dedicated software based on MATLAB version R2017a (MathWorks, Natick, MA, USA) and ImageJ version 1.51 (NIH, USA) with the BoneJ plugin version 1.4.2 with a self-developed algorithm. Results: We listed unique parameters describing AVC and prepared 3D AVC models with color pointed calcium layer thickness in the stenotic aortic valve. These parameters were derived from CT-images in a semi-automated and repeatable manner. They were divided into morphometric, topological and textural parameters and may yield crucial information about the anatomy of the stenotic aortic valve. Conclusion: In our study, we were able to obtain and define quantitative parameters for calcium assessment of the degenerated aortic valves. Whether the defined parameters are able to predict potential long-term outcomes after treatment, requires further investigation.

Comparative Study of Single Biological Neuron with an Artificial Neuro

“…It is anticipated that the Web-Server will be very useful because the vast majority of biological scientists can easily get their desired results without the need to go through the complicated equations in [1] that were presented just for the integrity in developing the predictor. Also, note that the web-server predictor has been developed by strictly observing the guidelines of "Chou's 5-steps rule" and hence have the following notable merits (see, e.g., [2][3][4] and three comprehensive review papers [5][6][7]): (1) crystal clear in logic development, (2) completely transparent in operation, (3) easily to repeat the reported results by other investigators, (4) with high potential in stimulating other sequence-analyzing methods, and (5) very convenient to be used by the majority of experimental scientists. It has not escaped our notice that during the development of iDNA6mA-PseKNC web-server, the approach of general pseudo amino acid components [8] or PseAAC [9] had been utilized and hence its accuracy would be much higher than its counterparts, as concurred by many investigators [10][11][12].…”

Paravalvular leak prediction after transcatheter aortic valve replacement with self-expandable prosthesis based on quantitative aortic calcification analysis

“…Technical aspects of CT data acquisition and AVC quantification have been described in detail previously (12,13). The AVCs were presented and analyzed in a twofold manner:…”

The Development of Gordon Life Science Institute: Its Driving Force and Accomplishments

“…The Institute was the birth-place or cradle of the famous 5-steps rule [71], which has been used in nearly all the areas of computational biology (see, e.g., [5,11,13,16,28,32,[99][100][101][102][103][104][105][106][107][108][109][110][111]), material science [112], and even the commercial science (e.g., the bank account systems). The only difference between them is how to formulate the statistical samples or events with an effective mathematical expression that can truly reflect their intrinsic correlation with the target to be predicted.…”