"Ultrasound is the most commonly used diagnostic imaging technique during pregnancy. It is cheap, does not require ionizing radiation and can be performed at the bedside. Despite these advantages, it does have some drawbacks such as relatively low imaging quality, low contrast, and high variability. With these constraints, automating the interpretation of ultrasound images is challenging. With the development of hardware and open-source software packages, deep learning has emerged, achieving state-of-the-art performance in various research fields, notably medical image analysis involving classification, segmentation, and object detection. Due to its increased performance with large dataset, it has gained great interest in clinical practice. I will first talk about the deep learning applications to ultrasound in pregnancy, and then introduce our fully automated ultrasound screening tool developed based on deep learning and image processing techniques and its application to the human placenta in early pregnancy."

Workshop on Byzantine iconography.

Myocardial infarction (MI) results in the loss of millions of cardiomyocytes, and the formation of a non-contractile scar, ultimately leading to heart failure. Despite more than a decade of research on cardiac regeneration, clinical study results using standard stem cell approaches have been disappointing and currently the only cure is heart transplantation. One possible solution is to identify novel small molecules that can activate the resident epicardial cells in the human heart, by promoting Epithelial-to-Mesenchymal Transition (EMT), and regenerate the infarcted heart. This talk will present the results of the drug screens we have developed using a machine learning-based image analysis protocol, which allows us to automatically calculate the percentage of EMT for each experimental image. Free Pizza will be served after the talk.

Poetry of Belonging is an exploration of north-Indian Muslim identity at a time when the Indian nation state did not exist. Between 1850 and 1950, when precolonial forms of cultural traditions such as the musha’irah were undergoing deep and intricate transformations, certain Muslim voices imagined, negotiated, and articulated ways of what it meant to be Muslim through new and shifting vocabularies. Using poetry as an archive, the book traces the history of the musha’irah, the formal site of the poetic symposium, as a way of understanding public spaces through the changing economic, social, political, and technological contexts of the time. It seeks to chart changing ideas of watan (homeland) and hubb-e watanī (patriotism) in order to offer new perspectives on how Muslim intellectuals, poets, political leaders, and journalists conceived of their relationship to India while simultaneously expressing attachment to the umma or transnational Muslim community.

This book reconstructs Hindu–Muslim relations from a European standpoint. Drawing from the Indian context, the author explores options for Western Europe – a region grappling with the refugee crisis and populist reactions to the growth of Muslim minorities. The author shows how India can serve not only as a model but also as a warning for Europe. For example, European liberals may learn not only from the achievements of Indian secularism but also from its crisis. Based on extensive interviews with Indians from diverse backgrounds, from politicians to social activists and from the middle class to slum dwellers, the volume investigates a wide range of perspectives: Hindu and Muslim, religious and secular, moderate and militant. Relevant, engaging and accessible, this book speaks to a broad audience of concerned citizens and policy makers. Scholars of political science, sociology, modern history, cultural studies and South Asian studies will be particularly interested.

Ann Tashi Slater’s research and writing on her Tibetan family history investigate identity and cultural legacy, dialogue across generations and borders, and the responsibility of individual and collective memory. Slater will read from her work and discuss her family history from 1920s Tibet to twenty-first-century Darjeeling—including the friendship between her great-grandfather, S.W. Laden-La, and the Thirteenth Dalai Lama—offering a unique look at Tibetan social and political life in Darjeeling and Lhasa, as well as vanishing traditions.