Iran: Protests, politics and power 16 November 2022 — 6:00PM TO 7:00PM Anonymous (not verified) 18 October 2022 Online

Join Robert Macaire, UK ambassador to Iran (2018-21), and others to discuss what the protests mean for Iran’s domestic, regional and global power.

Protests in Iran, spurred after Masha Amini died in police custody, have drawn focus on how Iranians feel about state repression, a struggling economy and global isolation. Iran is facing the most adamant challenge to its power structure since the ‘green movement’ in 2009 with protests taking place in more than 50 cities and towns across the country. There is no sign that the government will back down but what will that decision mean for the power it can wield at home and abroad?

This conversation examines how the protests impact Iran’s domestic power, its regional relationships and its relations with the US.

• What do the protests demonstrate about Iran’s power domestically and regionally?

• How do the protests influence the JCPOA?

• What will the government gain if they hold a hard line on protesters?

• How do the protests impact Iran’s regional activities?

As with all members events, questions from the audience drive the conversation.

Read the transcript. 

Quantification of ¹⁸F-FDG PET images is useful for accurate diagnosis and evaluation of various brain diseases, including brain tumors, epilepsy, dementia, and Parkinson disease. However, accurate quantification of ¹⁸F-FDG PET images requires matched 3-dimensional T₁ MRI scans of the same individuals to provide detailed information on brain anatomy. In this paper, we propose a transfer learning approach to adapt a pretrained deep neural network model from amyloid PET to spatially normalize ¹⁸F-FDG PET images without the need for 3-dimensional MRI. Methods: The proposed method is based on a deep learning model for automatic spatial normalization of ¹⁸F-FDG brain PET images, which was developed by fine-tuning a pretrained model for amyloid PET using only 103 ¹⁸F-FDG PET and MR images. After training, the algorithm was tested on 65 internal and 78 external test sets. All T₁ MR images with a 1-mm isotropic voxel size were processed with FreeSurfer software to provide cortical segmentation maps used to extract a ground-truth regional SUV ratio using cerebellar gray matter as a reference region. These values were compared with those from spatial normalization-based quantification methods using the proposed method and statistical parametric mapping software. Results: The proposed method showed superior spatial normalization compared with statistical parametric mapping, as evidenced by increased normalized mutual information and better size and shape matching in PET images. Quantitative evaluation revealed a consistently higher SUV ratio correlation and intraclass correlation coefficients for the proposed method across various brain regions in both internal and external datasets. The remarkably good correlation and intraclass correlation coefficient values of the proposed method for the external dataset are noteworthy, considering the dataset’s different ethnic distribution and the use of different PET scanners and image reconstruction algorithms. Conclusion: This study successfully applied transfer learning to a deep neural network for ¹⁸F-FDG PET spatial normalization, demonstrating its resource efficiency and improved performance. This highlights the efficacy of transfer learning, which requires a smaller number of datasets than does the original network training, thus increasing the potential for broader use of deep learning–based brain PET spatial normalization techniques for various clinical and research radiotracers.

C-X-C motif chemokine receptor 4 (CXCR4)–directed imaging has gained clinical interest in aiding clinical diagnostics in primary aldosteronism (PA). We retrospectively evaluated the feasibility of CXCR4-directed scintigraphy using the novel CXCR-4 ligand [^99mTc]Tc-pentixatec in patients with PA. Methods: Six patients (mean age ± SD, 49 ± 15 y) underwent CXCR4-directed scintigraphy (including planar imaging and SPECT/CT) 30, 120, and 240 min after injection of 435 ± 50 MBq of [^99mTc]Tc-pentixatec. Adrenal CXCR4 expression was analyzed by calculating lesion-to-contralateral ratios (LCRs). Imaging results were correlated to clinical information. Histopathology and clinical follow-up served as the standard of reference. Results: Three subjects showed lateralization of adrenal tracer accumulation, with a mean maximum lesion-to-contralateral ratio of 1.65 (range, 1.52–1.70), which correlated with morphologic findings on CT. One individual underwent adrenalectomy and presented with complete biochemical and clinical remission at follow-up. Histopathologic workup confirmed unilateral aldosterone-producing adenoma. Conclusion: [^99mTc]Tc-pentixatec scintigraphy with SPECT in patients with PA is feasible and might offer a valuable alternative to CXCR4-directed imaging with [⁶⁸Ga]Ga-pentixafor PET.

Unspecific bone uptake (UBU) related to [¹⁸F]PSMA-1007 PET/CT imaging represents a clinical challenge. We aimed to assess whether a combination of clinical, biochemical, and imaging parameters could predict skeletal metastases in patients with [¹⁸F]PSMA-1007 bone focal uptake, aiding in result interpretation. Methods: We retrospectively analyzed [¹⁸F]PSMA-1007 PET/CT performed in hormone-sensitive prostate cancer (PCa) patients at 3 tertiary-level cancer centers. A fourth center was involved in performing an external validation. For each, a volume of interest was drawn using a threshold method to extract SUV_max, SUV_mean, PSMA tumor volume, and total lesion PSMA. The same volume of interest was applied to CT images to calculate the mean Hounsfield units (HU_mean) and maximum Hounsfield units. Clinical and laboratory data were collected from electronic medical records. A composite reference standard, including follow-up histopathology, biochemistry, and imaging data, was used to distinguish between PCa bone metastases and UBU. PET readers with less (n = 2) or more (n = 2) experience, masked to the reference standard, were asked to visually rate a subset of focal bone uptake (n = 178) as PCa metastases or not. Results: In total, 448 bone [¹⁸F]PSMA-1007 focal uptake specimens were identified in 267 PCa patients. Of the 448 uptake samples, 188 (41.9%) corresponded to PCa metastases. Ongoing androgen deprivation therapy at PET/CT (P < 0.001) with determination of SUV_max (P < 0.001) and HU_mean (P < 0.001) independently predicted bone metastases. A composite prediction score, the bone uptake metastatic probability (BUMP) score, achieving an area under the receiver-operating-characteristic curve (AUC) of 0.87, was validated through a 10-fold internal and external validation (n = 89 bone uptake, 51% metastatic; AUC, 0.92). The BUMP score’s AUC was significantly higher than that of HU_mean (AUC, 0.62) and remained high among lesions with HU_mean in the first tertile (AUC, 0.80). A decision-curve analysis showed a higher net benefit with the score. Compared with the visual assessment, the BUMP score provided added value in terms of specificity in less-experienced PET readers (88% vs. 54%, P < 0.001). Conclusion: The BUMP score accurately distinguished UBU from bone metastases in PCa patients with [¹⁸F]PSMA-1007 focal bone uptake at PET imaging, offering additional value compared with the simple assessment of the osteoblastic CT correlate. Its use could help clinicians interpret imaging results, particularly those with less experience, potentially reducing the risk of patient overstaging.

This analysis aimed to identify clinical factors associated with positivity on repeat ⁶⁸Ga-PSMA-11 PET/CT after a negative scan in patients with recurrent prostate cancer (PCa) under observation. Methods: This single-center, retrospective analysis included patients who underwent at least 2 ⁶⁸Ga-PSMA-11 PET/CT scans (PET1 and PET2) at UCLA between October 2016 and June 2021 for recurrent PCa with negative PET1 and no PCa-related treatments between the 2 scans. Using Prostate Cancer Molecular Imaging Standardized Evaluation criteria to define negative and positive scans, the final cohort was divided into PET2-negative (PET2-Neg) and PET2-positive (PET2-Pos). The same PET1 was used twice in the more than 2 PET cases with inclusion criteria fulfilled. Patient characteristics and clinical parameters were compared between the 2 cohorts using Mann–Whitney U test and Fisher exact test. Areas under the curve (AUCs) of the receiver operating characteristic and the Youden index were computed to determine the discrimination ability of statistically significant factors and specific cut points that maximized sensitivity and specificity, respectively. Results: The final analysis included 83 sets of 2 PET/CT scans from 70 patients. Thirty-nine of 83 (47%) sets were PET2-Neg, and 44 of 83 (53%) sets were PET2-Pos. Prostate-specific antigen (PSA) increased from PET1 to PET2 for all 83 (100%) sets of scans. Median PSA at PET1 was 0.4 ng/mL (interquartile range, 0.2–1.0) and at PET2 was 1.6 ng/mL (interquartile range, 0.9–3.8). We found higher serum PSA at PET2 (median, 1.8 vs. 1.1 ng/mL; P = 0.015), absolute PSA difference (median, 1.4 vs. 0.7 ng/mL; P = 0.006), percentage of PSA change (median, +270.4% vs. +150.0%: P = 0.031), and median PSA velocity (0.044 vs. 0.017 ng/mL/wk, P = 0.002) and shorter PSA doubling time (DT; median, 5.1 vs. 8.3 mo; P = 0.006) in the PET2-Pos cohort than in the PET2-Neg cohort. Receiver operating characteristic curves showed cutoffs for PSA at PET2 of 4.80 ng/mL (sensitivity, 34%; specificity, 92%; AUC, 0.66), absolute PSA difference of 0.95 ng/mL (sensitivity, 62%; specificity, 71%; AUC, 0.68), percentage of PSA change of a positive 289.50% (sensitivity, 48%; specificity, 82%; AUC, 0.64), PSA velocity of 0.033 ng/mL/wk (sensitivity, 57%; specificity, 80%; AUC, 0.70), and PSA DT of 7.91 mo (sensitivity, 71%; specificity, 62%; AUC, 0.67). Conclusion: Patients with recurrent PCa under observation after a negative ⁶⁸Ga-PSMA-11 PET/CT scan with markedly elevated serum PSA levels and shorter PSA DT are more likely to have positive findings on repeat ⁶⁸Ga-PSMA-11 PET/CT.

Tumor hypoxia, an integral biomarker to guide radiotherapy, can be imaged with ¹⁸F-fluoromisonidazole (¹⁸F-FMISO) hypoxia PET. One major obstacle to its broader application is the lack of standardized interpretation criteria. We sought to develop and validate practical interpretation criteria and a dedicated training protocol for nuclear medicine physicians to interpret ¹⁸F-FMISO hypoxia PET. Methods: We randomly selected 123 patients with human papillomavirus–positive oropharyngeal cancer enrolled in a phase II trial who underwent 123 ¹⁸F-FDG PET/CT and 134 ¹⁸F-FMISO PET/CT scans. Four independent nuclear medicine physicians with no ¹⁸F-FMISO experience read the scans. Interpretation by a fifth nuclear medicine physician with over 2 decades of ¹⁸F-FMISO experience was the reference standard. Performance was evaluated after initial instruction and subsequent dedicated training. Scans were considered positive for hypoxia by visual assessment if ¹⁸F-FMISO uptake was greater than floor-of-mouth uptake. Additionally, SUV_max was determined to evaluate whether quantitative assessment using tumor-to-background ratios could be helpful to define hypoxia positivity. Results: Visual assessment produced a mean sensitivity and specificity of 77.3% and 80.9%, with fair interreader agreement ( = 0.34), after initial instruction. After dedicated training, mean sensitivity and specificity improved to 97.6% and 86.9%, with almost perfect agreement ( = 0.86). Quantitative assessment with an estimated best SUV_max ratio threshold of more than 1.2 to define hypoxia positivity produced a mean sensitivity and specificity of 56.8% and 95.9%, respectively, with substantial interreader agreement ( = 0.66), after initial instruction. After dedicated training, mean sensitivity improved to 89.6% whereas mean specificity remained high at 95.3%, with near-perfect interreader agreement ( = 0.86). Conclusion: Nuclear medicine physicians without ¹⁸F-FMISO hypoxia PET reading experience demonstrate much improved interreader agreement with dedicated training using specific interpretation criteria.

EU-Turkey Customs Union: Prospects for Modernization and Lessons for Brexit 12 December 2018 — 12:30PM TO 1:30PM Anonymous (not verified) 26 November 2018 Chatham House | 10 St James's Square | London | SW1Y 4LE

Turkey and the EU have been in a customs union since 1995. Both sides recognize that the current agreement is in need of modernization and have agreed to open negotiations to expand its scope to include services, public procurement, agriculture and other elements that would help bring it into the 21st century.

At the same time, the UK Parliament is debating whether to approve the agreement on the UK’s withdrawal from the EU. It includes a backstop which – if triggered – would keep the UK and the EU in a single customs territory which would limit the disruption of withdrawal but hamper Britain’s ability to pursue an independent trade policy. The political declaration proposes building on this customs arrangement as the basis for the future relationship.

In this context, the speaker will discuss the current EU-Turkey customs union arrangement and its shortcomings, examine the prospects for its modernization and share his insights on the lessons for the UK’s future trading relationship with the EU.

The event will launch the briefing paper ‘EU-Turkey Customs Union: Prospects for Modernization and Lessons for Brexit’.

Attendance at this event is by invitation only.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has determined commonly used oral phenylephrine is "not effective" and has proposed its removal from over-the-counter nasal decongestants.

Genetic-testing lab 23andMe plans to cut its workforce by 40% and end its therapeutics program in an effort to cut costs, the company announced Monday.

Lunchables are being pulled from school menus throughout the United States, after food manufacturer Kraft Heinz announced Tuesday that demand for the meal kits has dropped.

CHANDLER, Ariz., Oct. 23, 2024 — The global edge computing market is expected to grow by more than 30 percent in the next five years, serving mission-critical applications in the […]

The post Microchip Expands 64-Bit Portfolio with High-Performance PIC64HX Microprocessors for Edge Computing appeared first on HPCwire.

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Oct. 25, 2024 — ServiceNow has announced that enterprise software industry veteran Amit Zavery will join the company as president, chief product officer (CPO), and chief operating officer […]

The post Google Cloud and Oracle Veteran Amit Zavery to Spearhead Product and Engineering at ServiceNow appeared first on HPCwire.

Last week NSF issued a request for the next round of proposals for its Quantum Leap Challenge Institutes (QLCI). First established in 2020, the QLCI program, as directed by National […]

The post NSF Seeks Proposals for Next Round of Quantum Leap Challenge Institutes appeared first on HPCwire.

Noritaka Hoshi, Senior Manager, AI Platform Division, talks about the impetus for and challenges within the development of SX-Aurora TSUBASA or a massive SIMD, created to handle enormous computing and […]

The post Advance Science, Technology and Sophistication with SX-Aurora TSUBASA or Vector Processor or Vector Engine (VE) appeared first on HPCwire.

Raghunandan Mathur, Senior Systems Engineer, NEC, discusses now with modern day programming frameworks designed around the paradigms of scalar architectures and vector-like extensions, many present-day programmers expect a major learning […]

The post Ease of programming on NEC’s Vector Engine or SX-Aurora TSUBASA appeared first on HPCwire.

Software implementation in high-performance computing is getting more fragmented as organizations opt for tools in their walled garden environments.  However, a new organization formed under the Linux Foundation could bring […]

The post Public and Private Sectors Team up to Solve HPC Software Problem  appeared first on HPCwire.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 30, 2024 — The U.S. Department of the Treasury (Treasury) today issued a final rule (Final Rule) to implement Executive Order 14105 of August 9, 2023, “Addressing United […]

The post US Treasury Issues Final Rule Addressing Investments in Certain National Security Technologies and Products appeared first on HPCwire.

FREMONT, Calif., Nov. 6, 2024 — AMAX, an AMD Elite Partner and a global leader in end-to-end GPU cluster solutions and advanced cooling technologies, announced its latest lineup of servers powered […]

The post AMAX Expands Server Portfolio with New AMD EPYC 9005 Series Processors for AI and HPC Workloads appeared first on HPCwire.

LONDON, Nov. 1, 2024 — Quantum Motion, a UK-based quantum computing scale-up founded by Professor John Morton, University College London (UCL), and Professor Simon Benjamin, University of Oxford, has worked […]

The post Quantum Motion and Goldman Sachs Identify Quantum Applications in Financial Services Project appeared first on HPCwire.

An arms contractor is making "good progress" on the production of five B-21 Raider stealth bombers, U.S. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall disclosed during a speech on Monday.

The USNS Choctaw County has arrived in Beirut, Lebanon, to participate in a first-of-its-kind mission intended to strengthen military ties between the countries, the U.S. Navy said Tuesday.

Making the Most of Today’s Cloud-First Approach to Running HPC and AI Workloads With Penguin Scyld Cloud Central™ Bursting to cloud has long been used to complement on-premises HPC capacity […]

The post Penguin Computing Scyld Cloud Central™: A New Cloud-First Approach to HPC and AI Workloads appeared first on HPCwire.

Data centers are experiencing increasing power consumption, space constraints and cooling demands due to the unprecedented computing power required by today’s chips and servers. HVAC cooling systems consume approximately 40% […]

The post How Direct Liquid Cooling Improves Data Center Energy Efficiency appeared first on HPCwire.

HPE’s cooling expert, Jason Zeiler, explains why liquid cooling is ideally suited to cool next-generation accelerators for greater efficiency, sustainability, and density in future AI data centers In this article […]

The post Liquid Cooling: A Cool Approach for AI appeared first on HPCwire.

TROY, Mich., Oct. 17, 2024 — Altair, a global leader in computational intelligence, is proud to announce its collaboration with Motivo, a product engineering firm for clients in the mobility, […]

The post Altair’s HPC and Simulation Solutions Advance Motivo’s Aerospace Prototyping appeared first on HPCwire.

Nov. 6, 2024 — Harnessing the power artificial intelligence (AI) and the world’s fastest supercomputers, a research team led by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory has developed […]

The post Argonne Team Breaks New Ground in AI-driven Protein Design appeared first on HPCwire.

Nov. 11, 2024 — Forschungszentrum Jülich and its partners in the QSolid project have begun operating Germany’s first prototype quantum computer featuring optimized qubit quality. This prototype lays the groundwork […]

The post Jülich Leads QSolid Quantum Prototype Toward Hybrid HPC Integration for Industry and Research appeared first on HPCwire.

Consumers thinking of dining out for their next meal may want to consider one instruction for the server -- hold the salt.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has determined commonly used oral phenylephrine is "not effective" and has proposed its removal from over-the-counter nasal decongestants.

AI may be a priority at American companies, but the difficulty in managing data and obtaining high quality data to train AI models is becoming a bigger hurdle to achieving […]

The post AI Has a Data Problem, Appen Report Says appeared first on HPCwire.

Around this same time last year, I expounded on what the “Future of AI” may entail. A lot has happened in the 12 months since then, including new approaches, new […]

The post Bill Gropp on ‘Different Approaches to AI’ appeared first on HPCwire.

March 20, 2024 — The Pawsey Supercomputing Research Centre invites Australian-based research groups to join the Pawsey Uptake Project call. This initiative will provide teams with access to dedicated Pawsey […]

The post Pawsey Invites Australian Researchers to Advance Scientific Innovation Through the Pawsey Uptake Project appeared first on HPCwire.

Nov. 8. 2024 — High-performance computing (HPC) has been an indispensable research tool for accessing physical realms difficult, or impossible, to achieve with experiment alone. For several decades, the Department […]

The post ECP: ‘Forward’ Projects Boost US Leadership in Advanced Computing and AI appeared first on HPCwire.

Genetic-testing lab 23andMe plans to cut its workforce by 40% and end its therapeutics program in an effort to cut costs, the company announced Monday.

Congress is voting on a bill Tuesday that will empower the executive branch to remove the tax-exempt status from any nonprofit it deems to be supporting terrorists.

A team of U.S. employees at Hachette wrote an open letter to management in protest over a new conservative book imprint created in wake of last week's Donald Trump victory headed by a known far-right publisher.

Lunchables are being pulled from school menus throughout the United States, after food manufacturer Kraft Heinz announced Tuesday that demand for the meal kits has dropped.

NASA said on Tuesday that it will restart its Mentor-Protégé Program for contractors on Friday to expand commercial markets with eligible small businesses.

A new technology developed by NASA to predict space weather showed that Hurricane Helene produced "enormous" waves in the Earth's upper atmosphere as it came ashore on Sept. 26, the agency says.

Lose weight with no effort using the ripple effect.

Higher consumption of these foods was linked to improved memory by the study.

In this ode to improvisation, musician and comedian Reggie Watts beatboxes, raps, loops his own rhythms and reflects upon the everyday power of turning the mundane into magic. After all, he says, we're all just making it up as we go along.