A Feature Selection Strategy to Optimize Retinal Vasculature Segmentation

Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is a complication of diabetes mellitus that appears in the retina. Clinitians use retina images to detect DR pathological signs related to the occlusion of tiny blood vessels. Such occlusion brings a degenerative cycle between the breaking off and the new generation of thinner and weaker blood vessels. This research aims to develop a suitable retinal vasculature segmentation method for improving retinal screening procedures by means of computer-aided diagnosis systems. The blood vessel segmentation methodology relies on an effective feature selection based on Sequential Forward Selection, using the error rate of a decision tree classifier in the evaluation function. Subsequently, the classification process is performed by three alternative approaches: artificial neural networks, decision trees and support vector machines. The proposed methodology is validated on three publicly accessible datasets and a private one provided by Hospital Sant Joan of Reus. In all cases we obtain an average accuracy above 96% with a sensitivity of 72% in the blood vessel segmentation process. Compared with the state-of-the-art, our approach achieves the same performance as other methods that need more computational power. Our method significantly reduces the number of features used in the segmentation process from 20 to 5 dimensions. The implementation of the three classifiers confirmed that the five selected features have a good effectiveness, independently of the classification algorithm.     

Automatic Segmentation and Detection System for Varicocele Using Ultrasound Images

The enlarged veins in the pampiniform venous plexus, known as varicocele disease, are typically identified using ultrasound scans. The medical diagnosis of varicocele is based on examinations made in three positions taken to the right and left testicles of the male patient. The proposed system is designed to determine whether a patient is affected. Varicocele is more frequent on the left side of the scrotum than on the right and physicians commonly depend on the supine position more than other positions. Therefore, the experimental results of this study focused on images taken in the supine position of the left testicles of patients. There are two possible vein structures in each image: a cross-section (circular) and a tube (non-circular) structure. This proposed system identifies dilated (varicocele) veins of these structures in ultrasound images in three stages: preprocessing, processing, and detection and measurement. These three stages are applied in three different color modes: Grayscale, Red-Green-Blue (RGB), and Hue, Saturation, and Value (HSV). In the preprocessing stage, the region of interest enclosing the pampiniform plexus area is extracted using a median filter and threshold segmentation. Then, the processing stage employs different filters to perform image denoising. Finally, edge detection is applied in multiple steps and the detected veins are measured to determine if dilated veins exist. Overall implementation results showed the proposed system is faster and more effective than the previous work.     

Unconstrained Hand Dorsal Veins Image Database and Recognition System

Hand veins can be used effectively in biometric recognition since they are internal organs that, in contrast to fingerprints, are robust under external environment effects such as dirt and paper cuts. Moreover, they form a complex rich shape that is unique, even in identical twins, and allows a high degree of freedom. However, most currently employed hand-based biometric systems rely on hand-touch devices to capture images with the desired quality. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, most hand-based biometric systems have become undesirable due to their possible impact on the spread of the pandemic. Consequently, new contactless hand-based biometric recognition systems and databases are desired to keep up with the rising hygiene awareness. One contribution of this research is the creation of a database for hand dorsal veins images obtained contact-free with a variation in capturing distance and rotation angle. This database consists of 1548 images collected from 86 participants whose ages ranged from 19 to 84 years. For the other research contribution, a novel geometrical feature extraction method has been developed based on the Curvelet Transform. This method is useful for extracting robust rotation invariance features from vein images. The database attributes and the veins recognition results are analyzed to demonstrate their efficacy.     

A tutorial on the segmentation of metallographic images: Taxonomy,new MetalDAM dataset,deep learning-based ensemble model,experimental analysis and challenges

Image segmentation is an important issue in many industrial processes, with high potential to enhance the manufacturing process derived from raw material imaging. For example, metal phases contained in microstructures yield information on the physical properties of the steel. Existing prior literature has been devoted to develop specific computer vision techniques able to tackle a single problem involving a particular type of metallographic image. However, the field lacks a comprehensive tutorial on the different types of techniques, methodologies, their generalizations and the algorithms that can be applied in each scenario. This paper aims to fill this gap. First, the typologies of computer vision techniques to perform the segmentation of metallographic images are reviewed and categorized in a taxonomy. Second, the potential utilization of pixel similarity is discussed by introducing novel deep learning-based ensemble techniques that exploit this information. Third, a thorough comparison of the reviewed techniques is carried out in two openly available real-world datasets, one of them being a newly published dataset directly provided by ArcelorMittal, which opens up the discussion on the strengths and weaknesses of each technique and the appropriate application framework for each one. Finally, the open challenges in the topic are discussed, aiming to provide guidance in future research to cover the existing gaps.     

Research on image segmentation of Miao costume patterns based on the RSKP-UNet model北大核心CSCD

The Miao nationality is the sixth largest ethnic group in China which has a history of thousands of years. It has created a unique material culture and spiritual culture in its development process and the Miao costume is a highly condensed collection of the material and spiritual culture of the Miao nationality. As one of the unique symbols of Miao culture the Miao costume has profound cultural heritage and cultural connotations. The patterns of the Miao costume are particularly eye-catching as they not only symbolize the wisdom of the Miao people in thousands of years of production and life but also symbolize the pursuit of the good spirit of the Miao people. However under the impact of modern pop culture and foreign culture these cultural symbols are gradually disappearing. In order to protect and inherit them the Miao costume pattern segmentation has become the most important work. However the Miao costume pattern segmentation is quite difficult. At present there are few studies on the extraction classification identification and preservation of the features of Miao costume pattern segmentation. With the excellent segmentation performance of the U-Net model and the advantages of easy deployment the paper improves the basic structure of the U-Net model and proposes a Miao costume pattern segmentation algorithm based on the RSKP-UNet Residual Selective-Kernel Parallel U-Net model. The algorithm adds Residual modules in the encoder part of the U-Net model to improve the feature extraction capability of the model and embeds the SKNet modules and ParNet modules in the decoder part to enhance the feature expression capability of the model. The paper uses evaluation metrics to measure the segmentation performance of the model and compares it with four segmentation models based on deep learning. The paper not only combines the current research focus-deep learning and attention mechanism but also introduces the Lovász-hinge loss function to effectively solve the problem of class imbalance in the Miao costume patterns. The RSKP-UNet model is better than other models in various segmentation indicators. Compared with the benchmark model U-Net the Dice coefficient IoU precision recall and accuracy are improved by 6. 98% 11. 07% 2. 89% 6. 75% and 3. 92% . The segmentation algorithm proposed in this paper realizes the extraction of the element content of the Miao costume patterns through image segmentation of Miao costume patterns which can be used to build the Miao costume pattern database in this way thus helping designers relevant researchers and organizations to provide research foundation and completing the protection and inheritance of the Miao costume culture. The paper also provides some reference for the segmentation research of other minority costume patterns. © 2022 Authors. All rights reserved.     

Bottom-up image detection of water channel slope damages based on superpixel segmentation and support vector machine

The operation of water supply channels is threatened by the occasionally occurred slope damages. Timely detection of their occurrence is critical for the rapid enforcement of mitigation measures. However, current practices based on routine inspection and structural heath monitoring are inefficient, laborious and tend to be biased. As an attempt to address the limitations, this paper proposes a bottom-up image detection approach for slope damages, which includes four steps, i.e. superpixel segmentation, feature handcrafting, superpixel classification based on support vector machine (SVM), and slope damage recognition. The approach employs a bottom-up strategy to infer the upper-level slope condition from the classification results of individual superpixels in the bottom level. Experiments were conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach. The handcrafted feature “LBP + HSV” was demonstrated to be effective in characterizing the image features of slope damages. An SVM model with “LBP + HSV” as input can reliably identify the slope condition in superpixels. Based on the SVM model, the bottom-up strategy achieved high recognition performance, of which the overall accuracy can be up to 91.7%. The proposed approach has potential to facilitate the early and comprehensive awareness of slope damages along the entire route of water channel by the integration with unmanned aerial vehicles.     

GCAT-U-Net嵌入全局坐标注意力机制的遥感地块分割网络

遥感影像的地块背景特征复杂,当前地块分割方法不能较好地处理模糊的边缘信息,导致分割精度不理想;文章利用注意力机制处理地块特征,提出了一种基于全局坐标注意力机制的遥感地块分割网络:GCAT-U-Net;该方法在U-Net网络基础上嵌入了全局坐标注意力机制,加强了深度神经网络对于遥感影像数据中重要特征的关注度;在公开的GID数据集上的实验结果表明,文章提出的模型将准确率从0.9041提升到了0.9227,比传统U-Net网络提高了2百分点;结合特征自身重要性和特征位置信息的全局坐标注意力机制有助于更精确的目标定位,其输出相较于嵌入单一注意力机制,地块边界更为清晰,提升效果更为显著。     

Automated coronal hole segmentation from Solar EUV Images using the watershed transform

Region of interest segmentation in solar images is the subject of frequent research in solar physics. This study outlines watershed by immersion segmentation to identify coronal hole areas in solar images acquired using the Extreme UV Imaging Telescope (EIT). Solutions presented here produce highly accurate segmentation results of coronal holes of irregular shape, and what is more, they do so for images representing varied solar activity, recorded in different years and months. In addition, the solutions presented here make all the methods used operate very quickly. These methods include: the preprocessing step before the watershed segmentation, the watershed segmentation itself, and also the postprocessing of solar images after the watershed segmentation. The mean duration of the entire segmentation process of solar images amounts to 342 ms for a single coronal hole, without the parallel implementation of the methods used. The experiments were carried out on a computer with an Intel Core i7 CPU @ 2 GHz and 4 GB RAM. After the seed point is identified inside the coronal hole, the segmentation runs automatically.     

基于涂层厚度模型的机器人喷涂轨迹规划研究

为了实现大型复杂曲面的喷涂轨迹规划,提出一种基于涂层厚度模型的高铁白车身机器人喷涂轨迹规划方法。基于静态涂层厚度的椭圆双β分布模型,分析喷涂的累计涂层厚度分布规律,提出一种用于评估相对不均匀性的指标RU,并基于RU指标,通过轨迹重叠的方式保证了涂层厚度的一致性。通过曲曲面的分割与合并,实现了喷涂区域的划分,同时基于包围盒法确定了机器人喷涂路径点空间坐标信息。实验结果表明：基于涂层厚度模型的轨迹规划方法能够有效保证喷涂效果的均匀性,并成功应用于高铁白车身的机器人喷涂加工,显著提升了喷涂质量与效率。     

石拱桥的有限弹簧法分析及其安全性评价

依据计算几何学的分割理论,开发了对石拱桥进行任意形状单元划分的计算机前处理系统,提出了用有限弹簧法模拟石拱桥力学性能的计算方法。其特点是能够把石拱桥的拱圈看成个别石材块体构成的不连续体,考虑拱圈随着偏心压缩而引起的石材块体间开口变形的同时,也考虑拱背填料和拱圈的相互作用及其它的荷载分散效果。数值模拟了多跨石拱桥在分布活荷载及其水平地震荷载作用下的力学性能,并进行了安全性评价。