Sex diagnosis of skeletal remains represents one of the main problems in the forensic osteological practice. The purpose of the paper was to apply discriminant analysis as the method of its solution--in the set of measurements carried out on the hyoid bone. Classical procedure by R. A. Fisher yielded the set of linear discriminant functions applicable also in cases of injured bones, which is the relatively frequent situation. Information efficiency of the method proved to be quite satisfactory--in case of complete set of all six measurement level of misclassification should not reach over four per cent of the items to diagnose.

• MeSH
• Sex Determination Analysis * MeSH
• Humans MeSH
• Hyoid Bone anatomy & histology   MeSH
• Forensic Medicine methods   MeSH
• Check Tag
• Humans MeSH
• Male MeSH
• Female MeSH
• Publication type
• Journal Article MeSH

In the present paper the role of linear discriminant analysis is delimitated all along with a range of problems which could be solved using this method in appropriate conditions. The analysis is given of possibilities on how to involve the decrease in number of variables in a model, and how to predict probability of incorrect classification. As an example of application, the prediction of dog survival is calculated in radiobiological experiment on the basis of biochemical and hematological values which were obtained by the 2nd day after the irradiation as well as an error probability was determined.

• MeSH
• Discriminant Analysis * MeSH
• Publication type
• English Abstract MeSH
• Journal Article MeSH

Recent techniques of image analysis brought the possibility to recognize subjects based on discriminative image features. We performed a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-based classification study to assess its usefulness for outcome prediction of first-episode schizophrenia patients (FES). We included 39 FES patients and 39 healthy controls (HC) and performed the maximum-uncertainty linear discrimination analysis (MLDA) of MRI brain intensity images. The classification accuracy index (CA) was correlated with the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) and the Global Assessment of Functioning scale (GAF) at 1-year follow-up. The rate of correct classifications of patients with poor and good outcomes was analyzed using chi-square tests. MLDA classification was significantly better than classification by chance. Leave-one-out accuracy was 72%. CA correlated significantly with PANSS and GAF scores at the 1-year follow-up. Moreover, significantly more patients with poor outcome than those with good outcome were classified correctly. MLDA of brain MR intensity features is, therefore, able to correctly classify a significant number of FES patients, and the discriminative features are clinically relevant for clinical presentation 1 year after the first episode of schizophrenia. The accuracy of the current approach is, however, insufficient to be used in clinical practice immediately. Several methodological issues need to be addressed to increase the usefulness of this classification approach.

• MeSH
• Discriminant Analysis MeSH
• Adult MeSH
• Humans MeSH
• Linear Models * MeSH
• Magnetic Resonance Imaging methods   MeSH
• Brain Mapping * MeSH
• Young Adult MeSH
• Brain pathology   MeSH
• Image Processing, Computer-Assisted methods   MeSH
• Psychiatric Status Rating Scales MeSH
• Schizophrenia diagnosis   MeSH
• Check Tag
• Adult MeSH
• Humans MeSH
• Young Adult MeSH
• Male MeSH
• Publication type
• Journal Article MeSH

The hyoid bone is characterized by sexually dimorphic features, enabling it to occasionally be used in the sex determination aspect of establishing the biological profile in skeletal remains. Based on a sample of 298 fused and non-fused hyoid bones, the present paper compares several methodological approaches to sexing human hyoid bones in order to test the legitimacy of osteometrics-based linear discriminant equations and to explore the potentials of symbolic regression and methods of geometric morphometrics. In addition, two sets of published predictive models, one of which originated in an indigenous population, were validated on the studied sample. The results showed that the hyoid shape itself is a moderate sex predictor and a combination of linear measurements is a better representation of sex-related differences. The symbolic regression was shown to exceed the predictive powers of linear discriminant function analysis when two models based on a logistic and step regression reached 96% of correctly classified cases. There was a positive correlation between discriminant scores and an individual's age as the sex assessment was highly skewed in favour of males. This suggests that the human hyoid undergoes age-related modifications which facilitates determination of male bones and complicates determination of females in older individuals. The validation of discriminant equations by Komenda and Černý (1990) and Kindschud et al. (2010) revealed that there are marked inter-population and inter-sample differences which lessened the power to correctly determine female hyoid bones.

• Keywords
• Geometric morphometrics, Hyoid bone, Linear discriminant function analysis, Sex determination, Symbolic regression,
• MeSH
• Analysis of Variance MeSH
• Discriminant Analysis MeSH
• Adult MeSH
• Middle Aged MeSH
• Humans MeSH
• Linear Models MeSH
• Young Adult MeSH
• Multivariate Analysis MeSH
• Observer Variation MeSH
• Hyoid Bone anatomy & histology   MeSH
• Reproducibility of Results MeSH
• Aged, 80 and over MeSH
• Aged MeSH
• Software MeSH
• Forensic Anthropology MeSH
• Sex Determination by Skeleton methods   MeSH
• Imaging, Three-Dimensional MeSH
• Check Tag
• Adult MeSH
• Middle Aged MeSH
• Humans MeSH
• Young Adult MeSH
• Male MeSH
• Aged, 80 and over MeSH
• Aged MeSH
• Female MeSH
• Publication type
• Journal Article MeSH
• Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't MeSH

Forensic anthropology has developed classification techniques for sex estimation of unknown skeletal remains, for example population-specific discriminant function analyses. These methods were designed for populations that lived mostly in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Their level of reliability or misclassification is important for practical use in today's forensic practice; it is, however, unknown. We addressed the question of what the likelihood of errors would be if population specificity of discriminant functions of the tibia were disregarded. Moreover, five classification functions in a Czech sample were proposed (accuracies 82.1-87.5 %, sex bias ranged from -1.3 to -5.4 %). We measured ten variables traditionally used for sex assessment of the tibia on a sample of 30 male and 26 female models from recent Czech population. To estimate the classification accuracy and error (misclassification) rates ignoring population specificity, we selected published classification functions of tibia for the Portuguese, south European, and the North American populations. These functions were applied on the dimensions of the Czech population. Comparing the classification success of the reference and the tested Czech sample showed that females from Czech population were significantly overestimated and mostly misclassified as males. Overall accuracy of sex assessment significantly decreased (53.6-69.7 %), sex bias -29.4-100 %, which is most probably caused by secular trend and the generally high variability of body size. Results indicate that the discriminant functions, developed for skeletal series representing geographically and chronologically diverse populations, are not applicable in current forensic investigations. Finally, implications and recommendations for future research are discussed.

• Keywords
• Discriminant function analysis, Forensic anthropology population data, GAME method, Population specificity, Sex determination, Tibia,
• MeSH
• Anatomic Landmarks MeSH
• Discriminant Analysis MeSH
• Adult MeSH
• Middle Aged MeSH
• Humans MeSH
• Neural Networks, Computer MeSH
• Aged, 80 and over MeSH
• Aged MeSH
• Forensic Anthropology MeSH
• Tibia anatomy & histology   diagnostic imaging   MeSH
• Sex Determination by Skeleton * MeSH
• Check Tag
• Adult MeSH
• Middle Aged MeSH
• Humans MeSH
• Male MeSH
• Aged, 80 and over MeSH
• Aged MeSH
• Female MeSH
• Publication type
• Journal Article MeSH

In this study, berry dimensions and shape traits, which are important for the design of the grape processing system and the classification of 10 different grape varieties grown in same ecological conditions ('Ata Sarısı', 'Barış', 'Dımışkı', 'Hatun Parmağı', 'Helvani', 'Horoz Karası', 'Hönüsü', 'İtalia', 'Mevlana Sarısı', and 'Red Globe') were determined; differences between the varieties were identified with the use of discriminant analysis. The largest grape varieties were identified as 'Ata Sarısı' and 'Red Globe'. The 'Red Globe' and 'Helvani' varieties had geometrically sphere-like shape. The 'Barış' variety had the lowest size averages. According to elliptic Fourier analysis, the primary source of shape variation was ellipse and sphere-looking varieties. However, shape variation was seen due to the existence of a small number of drop-like varieties. According to discriminant analysis, shape differences of the varieties were defined by two discriminant functions. Based on these discriminant functions, the greatest classification performance was achieved for 'Mevlana Sarısı' and 'Dımışkı'. In scatter plots, three shape definitions (sphere, ellipse, and drop) were made for grape varieties. Cluster analysis revealed 4 sub-groups. The first sub-group included the 'Mevlana Sarısı' variety; the second sub-group included the 'Hönüsü', 'Hatun Parmağı', 'Dımışkı', and 'Horoz Karası' varieties; the third sub-group included the 'Ata Sarısı' variety; the fourth sub-group included the 'Barış', 'Helvani', 'İtalia', and 'Red Globe' varieties. The variety in the first group had a geometrically ellipse-like shape, the largest length, and the smallest width. The size data were the smallest for the second sub-group. The third sub-group, with the ellipse-like shape, had the large size data. The grape varieties the closest to the sphere were classified in the fourth group, and these varieties had the large sizes.

• Keywords
• contour analysis, elliptic Fourier analysis, physical characteristics, projected area, surface area,
• Publication type
• Journal Article MeSH

Vertebral measurements have been shown to provide accurate classification of sex. However, the use of vertebral discriminant functions (DFs) in forensic anthropology and bioarchaeology is limited due to the unknown degree of their population specificity. Additionally, the performance of vertebral DFs has not yet been assessed at higher posterior probability thresholds. In this study, we tested the performance of previously published DFs for sex classification from Th12 and L1 vertebrae within a range of 0.5-0.95 posterior probabilities in a model of geographically distant population based on an autopsy Central European (CE) sample (Czech Republic; n=72) from the 1930s. Further, we derived new pooled DFs from a sample representing ecogeographically diverse populations, new DFs derived from the autopsy CE sample, and new Medieval CE DFs derived from the Pohansko sample (n=129) and evaluated their performance at our testing autopsy CE sample. Most vertebral measurements showed population specificity in sex assessment. However, we identified two Th12 measurements (anteroposterior body diameter and mediolateral body diameter) usable for sex estimation across populations. We showed that the accuracy of vertebral DFs can be increased to 95% of correctly classified individuals in up to 64% of the studied sample by setting a higher posterior probability threshold. Finally, we showed that even the DFs derived from relatively small subsamples (30% of the population size) can provide accurate sex classification. This finding highlights the applicability of the hybrid approach in sex classification from vertebrae. To facilitate sex classification from vertebrae, we provide a software tool for sex classification from any vertebral measurement and reference samples tested in this study including the previously published DFs.

• Keywords
• Central Europe, Discriminant function analysis, Forensic anthropology population data, Posterior probability, Sex classification, Sexual dimorphism,
• MeSH
• Lumbar Vertebrae anatomy & histology   MeSH
• Discriminant Analysis MeSH
• Thoracic Vertebrae anatomy & histology   MeSH
• Humans MeSH
• Forensic Anthropology MeSH
• Sex Determination by Skeleton methods   MeSH
• Check Tag
• Humans MeSH
• Male MeSH
• Female MeSH
• Publication type
• Journal Article MeSH
• Geographicals
• Czech Republic MeSH

We investigated a combination of three classification algorithms, namely the modified maximum uncertainty linear discriminant analysis (mMLDA), the centroid method, and the average linkage, with three types of features extracted from three-dimensional T1-weighted magnetic resonance (MR) brain images, specifically MR intensities, grey matter densities, and local deformations for distinguishing 49 first episode schizophrenia male patients from 49 healthy male subjects. The feature sets were reduced using intersubject principal component analysis before classification. By combining the classifiers, we were able to obtain slightly improved results when compared with single classifiers. The best classification performance (81.6% accuracy, 75.5% sensitivity, and 87.8% specificity) was significantly better than classification by chance. We also showed that classifiers based on features calculated using more computation-intensive image preprocessing perform better; mMLDA with classification boundary calculated as weighted mean discriminative scores of the groups had improved sensitivity but similar accuracy compared to the original MLDA; reducing a number of eigenvectors during data reduction did not always lead to higher classification accuracy, since noise as well as the signal important for classification were removed. Our findings provide important information for schizophrenia research and may improve accuracy of computer-aided diagnostics of neuropsychiatric diseases.

• Keywords
• Average linkage, Centroid method, Classification, Computational neuroanatomy, Intersubject principal component analysis (isPCA), Modified maximum uncertainty linear discriminant analysis (mMLDA),
• MeSH
• Algorithms MeSH
• Diagnosis, Computer-Assisted methods   MeSH
• Discriminant Analysis MeSH
• Adult MeSH
• Humans MeSH
• Magnetic Resonance Imaging methods   MeSH
• Adolescent MeSH
• Young Adult MeSH
• Schizophrenia diagnosis   MeSH
• Sensitivity and Specificity MeSH
• Check Tag
• Adult MeSH
• Humans MeSH
• Adolescent MeSH
• Young Adult MeSH
• Male MeSH
• Publication type
• Journal Article MeSH
• Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't MeSH

The p53 tumor suppressor protein is a transcription factor that mediates the cell's response to various kinds of stress by preventing cell division and/or inducing apoptosis. p53 gene mutations have been detected in nearly 50% of human cancers. These gene aberrations are mostly missense point mutations located predominantly in the central DNA-binding domain. In addition to the classical inactivating mutations, there are also dominant-negative, gain-of-function, temperature-sensitive, and cold-sensitive, discriminating, superactive p53 mutations, and some mutations that do not inactivate p53 activity. Several approaches have been developed for detection and analyses of p53 mutations: first, immunochemical methods have been developed to detect p53 protein levels; second, molecular analyses targeting changes in DNA structure are utilized; and third, functional assays are used to explore the biological properties of the p53 protein. Functional analysis of separated alleles in yeast targets the transactivation capability of the p53 protein expressed in yeast cells. This method uses p53 mRNA isolated from cells and tissues to produce a p53 product by RT-PCR. This method has undergone continuous improvement and now serves as a powerful tool for distinguishing various functional types of p53 mutations. Understanding the exact impact of p53 mutation on its function is an important prerequisite for establishment of efficient anti-cancer therapies.

• MeSH
• Genes, p53 * MeSH
• Humans MeSH
• Mutation MeSH
• DNA Mutational Analysis methods   MeSH
• Tumor Suppressor Protein p53 analysis   genetics   physiology   MeSH
• Saccharomyces cerevisiae genetics   MeSH
• Tissue Distribution MeSH
• Check Tag
• Humans MeSH
• Publication type
• Journal Article MeSH
• Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't MeSH
• Review MeSH
• Names of Substances
• Tumor Suppressor Protein p53 MeSH

BACKGROUND: Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common arrhythmia and can lead in the long-term to atrial remodelling. Three-dimensional speckle-tracking echocardiography allows evaluation of left atrial function and the magnitude of remodelling processes. METHODS: Echocardiography loops were collected between December 2021 and December 2022. Only valid atrial loops with sinus rhythm during examination were included. The Spearman test was used to establish correlation matrices of left atrial parameters, with uni-, multivariate and binary logistic regression to predict the presence or absence of AF. RESULTS: A total of 116 patients (50% females) aged 76.9 ± 11.2 years were included in the analysis. Males and females differed in anthropometric and other clinical parameters. Intra- and interobserver variability was 1.12% and 1.85%, respectively. 2D and 3D left atrial volumes correlated significantly (r = .8, P<.0001). Almost all left atrium strain measurements uni- and multivariately predicted the presence of AF, binary logistic regression model identified 2 independent parameters, left atrial longitudinal strain reservoir (LASr, P = .042) and LAS conduit phase (P = .044). LASr was significantly greater in patients without a history of AF than in patient with a history of AF (16 ± 16 and 10.5 ± 7.1, respectively; P = .012). LASr was able to discriminate between a history of paroxysmal AF and its absence with 72% specificity and 68% sensitivity with a cut-off value of 14% (AUC 0.72, 95% CI 0.62-0.82, P < .0001). CONCLUSIONS: Three-dimensional left atrial reservoir function can differentiate patients with paroxysmal AF from patients without a history of this arrhythmia.

• Keywords
• atrial fibrillation, left atrial reservoir function, three-dimensional atrial strain,
• Publication type
• Journal Article MeSH