Pictorial information about subclinical atherosclerosis reduces the CVD risk: Results from the VIPVIZA RCT

Funding Acknowledgements Type of funding sources: Public Institution(s). Main funding source(s): Region Västerbotten and the Swedish Research Council Background The VIPVIZA trial has previously shown beneficial effects on cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk scores 1 year after sending pictorial information of carotid ultrasound imaging (Picture 1) to individuals and their physicians Purpose To investigate whether the beneficial effects on CVD-risk observed at 1-year were sustained over three years Methods VIPVIZA is a pragmatic prospective open-label randomized controlled trial with blinded evaluators performed within a CVD prevention programme integrated in the regular primary health care in Västerbotten County, Sweden. Individuals aged 40, 50 or 60 years old with one CVD risk factor were enrolled and randomised 1:1 to intervention (n = 1749, pictorial information about subclinical atherosclerosis provided to participants and physicians, Picture 1) or control group(n = 1783, no information to participants or physicians). Intervention participants also recieved a follow-up phone call and the corresponding physicians written guideline-based information about the clinical significance of carotid ultrasound results. Participants were examined at baseline (2013-2016), after one and at three years Results A significant beneficial effect on cardiovascular risk was observed at the 3-year follow-up; Framingham Risk Score (FRS) was 13.38 for the intervention group and 14.08 for the control group(p = 0.047) and SCORE was 1.69 vs. 1.82(p = 0.022) respectively. The 3-year results adjusted for sex and educational level showed significant differences between the intervention and control group in FRS, SCORE, P-Total-Cholesterol, P-LDL-Cholesterol and waist circumference in favour of the intervention group. Analysis by sex showed difference in differences(DID) in FRS for men -1.19(95% CI -2.01 to -0.37) and -0.50(95% CI -0.93 to -0.07) for women and in SCORE for men -0.20(95% CI -0.33 to -0.06) and -0.08 (95% CI -0.13 to -0.04) for women, between the two groups over 3 years. Similarly, there were significant differences in DID in all educational groups. Further stratification by baseline FRS and SCORE risk category, showed a beneficial pattern of the intervention in all risk groups, however the DID at the 3-year follow-up was statistically significant only in the intermediate risk group for both FRS -1.34(95% CI -2.13 to -0.56) and SCORE -0.19(95% CI -0.32 to -0.05) Conclusions This study provides evidence of sustained effects over three years of pictorial information of subclinical carotid atherosclerosis on the reduction of cardiovascular risk regardless of sex and educational level. Importantly, a statistically significant intervention effect was seen in the intermediate risk group, where the majority of CVD events occur. Visualization of subclinical atherosclerosis may be one way to approach individuals at intermediate risk of CVD, a group where sufficient prevention is often overlooked. However, further studies are needed to investigate the intervention effect on hard end points as CVD-events and death. Abstract Figure. Picture 1

Understanding pictorial metaphor in comic book covers: A test of the contextual and structural frameworks

Conceptual metaphor theory proposes that metaphor is a mental function, rather than solely a literary device. As such, metaphors may be present in any by-product of human cognition, including pictorial art. Crawford and Juricevic previously proposed two heuristic frameworks for the identification and interpretation of metaphor in pictures, which have been shown to be capable of describing how pictorial metaphors are identified and interpreted in the comic book medium. The present study tested artists’ preference for combinations of contextual and structural pictorial information in comic book cover images. We analysed usages of exaggerated size in comic book cover art, as exaggerated size is a pictorial device, which may be used both literally and metaphorically. The goal was to assess how contextual and structural information is combined, and how literal and metaphorical information interacts, both when it is congruent and incongruent. This analysis of the use of exaggerated size in comic book art indicates that artists prefer to produce images that have congruent combinations of literal and metaphoric pictorial information, or the incongruent combination of metaphoric contextual information and literal structural information. Artists do not, however, prefer to produce images that have the incongruent combination of metaphorical structural information and literal contextual information. Taken together with the Corpus Analysis Relevance Theory (CART) argument, this pattern suggests that when processing information, our cognitive systems prefer metaphorical interpretations over literal interpretations and contextual information over structural information.

Re-examining the Rijksmuseum’s Oldest Ship Model: A 44-Gun Directorate Ship?

The oldest ship model in the Rijksmuseum’s collection is of a Dutch warship with forty-four cannon. It has been suggested in the past that the model represents a ship that once belonged to one of the urban directorates which provided warships to escort merchant convoys in the first half of the seventeenth century. By combining archival and pictorial information, the article concludes that it is in fact improbable that the model depicts a specific ship belonging to one of the urban directorates. It is more likely that it is of an as yet unknown vessel, perhaps built for export, or that it is a generic model, designed to decorate the premises of the Amsterdam shipyard De Boot, whose owner ultimately donated the model to the museum in the nineteenth century, but which dates back to the sixteen-forties, the period in which the model was built.

Digital Image Processing Using Machine Learning

Main aim of Digital Image Processing Using Machine Learning is to extract important data from images. Using this extracted information description, interpretation and understanding of the scene can be provided by the machine. Main point of image processing is to modify images in to desired manner. Image processing is called as altering and analyzing pictorial information of images. In our daily life we come across different type of image processing best example of image processing in our daily life is our brain sensing lot of images when we see images with eyes and processing is done is very less time.