Automatic classification of Human Epithelial type 2 cell Indirect Immunofluorescence images using Cell Pyramid Matching

This paper describes a novel system for automatic classification of images obtained from Anti-Nuclear Antibody (ANA) pathology tests on Human Epithelial type 2 (HEp-2) cells using the Indirect Immunofluorescence (IIF) protocol. The IIF protocol on HEp-2 cells has been the hallmark method to identify the presence of ANAs, due to its high sensitivity and the large range of antigens that can be detected. However, it suffers from numerous shortcomings, such as being subjective as well as time and labour intensive. Computer Aided Diagnostic (CAD) systems have been developed to address these problems, which automatically classify a HEp-2 cell image into one of its known patterns (e.g., speckled, homogeneous). Most of the existing CAD systems use handpicked features to represent a HEp-2 cell image, which may only work in limited scenarios. We propose a novel automatic cell image classification method termed Cell Pyramid Matching (CPM), which is composed of regional histograms of visual words coupled with the Multiple Kernel Learning framework. We present a study of several variations of generating histograms and show the efficacy of the system on two publicly available datasets: the ICPR HEp-2 cell classification contest dataset and the SNPHEp-2 dataset.     

Visual learning and classification of human epithelial type 2 cell images through spontaneous activity patterns

Identifying the presence of anti-nuclear antibody (ANA) in human epithelial type 2 (HEp-2) cells via the indirect immunofluorescence (IIF) protocol is commonly used to diagnose various connective tissue diseases in clinical pathology tests. As it is a labour and time intensive diagnostic process, several computer aided diagnostic (CAD) systems have been proposed. However, the existing CAD systems suffer from numerous shortcomings due to the selection of features, which is commonly based on expert experience. Such a choice of features may not work well when the CAD systems are retasked to another dataset. To address this, in our previous work, we proposed a novel approach that learns a set of filters from HEp-2 cell images. It is inspired by the receptive fields in the mammalian's vision system, since the receptive fields can be thought as a set of filters for similar shapes. We obtain robust filters for HEp-2 cell classification by employing the independent component analysis (ICA) framework. Although, this approach may be held back due to one particular problem; ICA learning requires a sufficiently large volume of training data which is not always available. In this paper, we demonstrate a biologically inspired solution to address this issue via the use of spontaneous activity patterns (SAP). The spontaneous activity patterns, which are related to the spontaneous neural activities initialised by the chemical release in the brain, are found as the typical stimuli for the visual cell development of newborn animals. In the classification system for HEp-2 cells, we propose to model SAP as a set of small image patches containing randomly positioned Gaussian spots. The SAP image patches are generated and mixed with the training images in order to learn filters via the ICA framework. The obtained filters are adopted to extract the set of responses from a HEp-2 cell image. We then employ regions from this set of responses and stack them into “cubic regions”, and apply a classification based on the correlation information of the features. We show that applying the additional SAP leads to a better classification performance on HEp-2 cell images compared to using only the existing patterns for training ICA filters. The improvement on classification is particularly significant when there are not enough specimen images available in the training set, as SAP adds more variations to the existing data that makes the learned ICA model more robust. We show that the proposed approach consistently outperforms three recently proposed CAD systems on two publicly available datasets: ICPR HEp-2 contest and SNPHEp-2.     

Multi-context unsupervised domain adaption for HEp-2 cell classification using maximum partial classifier discrepancy

Identifying human epithelial-2 (HEp-2) cells in indirect immune fluorescence (IIF) is the most commonly used method for the diagnosis of autoimmune diseases. Although supervised deep learning networks have made remarkable progress on HEp-2 cell staining pattern classification, the high-performance relies on a large amount of labeled training data. Unfortunately, large-scale labeled datasets are scarce due to the expensive costs of labeling medical images. Therefore, we propose an unsupervised domain adaption (UDA) model, namely MDA-MPCD, to classify unlabeled HEp-2 cell samples. The proposed model involves two major aspects: (a) multi-context domain adaption (MDA) generator and (b) maximum partial classifier discrepancy (MPCD) architecture. The MDA generator can extract multi-context features from complex cell images while providing more comprehensive and diverse information for the classifier. The MPCD architecture, utilizing the mapping variation of feature transfer, focuses on the discrepancy from the cross-domain gap by separating the activations in the classifier. The proposed model dominates all comparison methods during evaluation, achieving 85.35% and 96.08% mean accuracy on two UDA tasks, respectively. Furthermore, the model is demonstrated to adapt from rich label domain to unlabeled domain by detailed ablation experiments and visualization results. The proposed MDA-MPCD has potential as a clinical scheme, enabling effective and accurate classification of HEp-2 cell staining pattern without labeling the target data.

     

Computer-aided diagnosis of auto-immune disease using capsule neural network

Manual analysis of the indirect-immunofluorescence (IIF) human epithelial cell Type-2 (HEp-2) cell image for the diagnosis of an auto-immune disease is a subjective and time-consuming process, and it is also prone to human-errors. The present work proposes an automatic capsule neural network (CapsNet) based framework for HEp-2 cell image classification to compensate for the deficiencies present in the prominent convolution neural network (CNN) based frameworks. In CNNs, the spatial relationship between the features present in the anti-nuclear antibodies (ANA) patterns, found in the IIF HEp-2 cell image (ANA-IIF image) is lost which increases the chance of detection of false-positives. In the proposed CapsNet based model, the max-pooling layer has been replaced with advanced dynamic routing algorithm and scalar outputs are replaced with the vector output, thus the richer representation of the same feature without the loss of spatial relationship with respect to the other features are made possible. The proposed framework recognizes ANA-IIF images with an average accuracy of 95.00% for 10-fold cross-validations. The experimental result also shows that the proposed model performs better than the other CNN based classification models for human epithelial cell image classification task.

     

Fisher tensors for classifying human epithelial cells

Analyzing and classifying Human Epithelial type 2 (HEp-2) cells using Indirect Immunofluorescence protocol has been the golden standard for detecting connective tissue diseases such as Rheumatoid Arthritis. However, this suffers from numerous shortcomings such as being subjective as well as time and labor intensive. Recently, several studies explore the advantages of artificial systems to automate the process, not only to reduce the test turn-around time but also to deliver more consistent results. In this paper, we extend the conventional bag of word models from Euclidean space to non-Euclidean Riemannian manifolds and utilize them to classify the HEp-2 cells. The main motivation comes from the observation that HEp-2 cells can be efficiently described by symmetric positive definite matrices which lie on a Riemannian manifold. With this motivation, we first discuss an intrinsic bag of Riemannian words model. We then propose Fisher tensors which can in turn encode additional information about the distribution of the signatures in a bag of word model. Experiments on two challenging HEp-2 images datasets, namely ICPRContest and SNPHEp-2 show that the proposed methods obtain notable improvements in discrimination accuracy, in comparison to baseline and several state-of-the-art methods. The proposed framework, while hand-crafted towards cell classification, is a generic framework for object recognition. This is supported by assessing the performance of our proposal on a challenging texture classification task.     

HEp-2 fluorescence pattern classification

Automation of HEp-2 cell pattern classification would drastically improve the accuracy and throughput of diagnostic services for many auto-immune diseases, but it has proven difficult to reach a sufficient level of precision. Correct diagnosis relies on a subtle assessment of texture type in microscopic images of indirect immunofluorescence (IIF), which has, so far, eluded reliable replication through automated measurements. Following the recent HEp-2 Cells Classification contest held at ICPR 2012, we extend the scope of research in this field to develop a method of feature comparison that goes beyond the analysis of individual cells and majority-vote decisions to consider the full distribution of cell parameters within a patient sample. We demonstrate that this richer analysis is better able to predict the results of majority vote decisions than the cell-level performance analysed in all previous works.     

The usage of soft-computing methodologies in interpreting capsule endoscopy

Computerised processing of medical images can ease the search of the representative features in the images. The endoscopic images possess rich information expressed by texture and regions affected by diseases, such as ulcer or coli, may have different texture features. In this paper schemes have been developed to extract features from the texture spectra in the chromatic and achromatic domains for a selected region of interest from each colour component histogram of images acquired by the M2A Swallowable Imaging Capsule. The implementation of neural network schemes and the concept of fusion of multiple classifiers have been also adopted in this paper. The preliminary test results support the feasibility of the proposed method.     

基于深度残差收缩网络的HEp-2图像识别

人上皮细胞（HEp-2）检测抗核抗体是诊断自身免疫性疾病的常用方法,HEp-2细胞图像识别对许多自身免疫性疾病的诊疗具有重要意义。针对目前主要采用手工评估方法造成效率低效、劳动强度高等问题,提出一种基于深度残差收缩网络的HEp-2细胞图像分类模型。该模型在深度残差网络基础上进行改进,残差学习模块使用恒等映射方法可以训练更深层次的网络。在每个残差学习模块内部嵌入一个软阈值非线性变换子网络,软阈值用以消除数据中的噪声和冗余信息,这些阈值通过子网络自动学习。实验表明,该方法具有良好的性能,优于其他深度神经网络方法。     

HEp-2 cell pattern classification with discriminative dictionary learning

The paper presents a supervised discriminative dictionary learning algorithm specially designed for classifying HEp-2 cell patterns. The proposed algorithm is an extension of the popular K-SVD algorithm: at the training phase, it takes into account the discriminative power of the dictionary atoms and reduces their intra-class reconstruction error during each update. Meanwhile, their inter-class reconstruction effect is also considered. Compared to the existing extension of K-SVD, the proposed algorithm is more robust to parameters and has better discriminative power for classifying HEp-2 cell patterns. Quantitative evaluation shows that the proposed algorithm outperforms general object classification algorithms significantly on standard HEp-2 cell patterns classifying benchmark¹ and also achieves competitive performance on standard natural image classification benchmark.     

基于格式塔心理学原理的几何活动轮廓模型

基于格式塔心理学原理提出了一种几何活动轮廓模型,并将其应用于图像分割。当轮廓曲线远离目标边界时,应用格式塔心理学目标-背景原则,其能量函数主要由区域间差异性组成;当轮廓曲线位于目标边界附近时,应用格式塔心理学接近性原则,其能量函数主要由区域内一致性组成。该模型符合知觉特性,是几何活动轮廓模型的一般形式,且融合图像区域信息和边界信息。通过侧脑室和肿瘤医学图像分割实验,其结果表明,该模型对模糊边界图像的自动分割具有一定的普适性,能达到满意的分割效果。将该模型应用到多目标的免疫细胞图像分割中,能一次性完成将细胞质从细胞核和体液两种不同背景中分割出来的任务。     

基于超图模型的图像目标识别

基于类属超图模型给出简单图像和复杂图像目标的识别方法。通过提取简单图像的稳健尺度不变特征变换特征,得到其对应的属性图,采用RSOM聚类树的思想和K近邻方法快速实现对简单图像的目标识别。复杂图像存在较大的背景干扰和遮挡的影响,通过滑动窗方法在待识别图像中定位待识别目标区域,并将该区域从待识别图像中分出,然后采用与简单图像识别方法类似的方法完成目标识别,减少背景干扰和遮挡的影响。仿真实验表明,2种图像目标识别方法是有效的。     

基于无损水印的医学图像篡改检测和高质量恢复

目的 采用无损数字水印算法对医学图像进行篡改检测和恢复是一个重要的研究领域。针对现有方法在区域划分和块特征值选取上的不足,提出一种新的基于四叉树分解和线性加权插值技术的无损水印算法。方法 首先对原始的医学图像进行四叉树分解,得到非固定尺寸且具有高同质性的图像块;然后利用线性加权插值方法计算每个图像块的特征值作为水印信息,最后采用基于混沌的简单可逆整数变换进行水印嵌入。结果 在提取端当水印图像没有受到篡改时,原始的图像能被无损恢复;当受到篡改时,算法能精确定位篡改区域并能高质量恢复,采用本文算法恢复的图像质量较现有方法高出20 dB左右。另外,在水印图像遭到较大程度篡改时,本文算法的正检率和负检率均优于现有方法。结论 实验结果表明,本文算法相比现有方法具有更高的嵌入容量、篡改检测精确性、恢复图像质量。算法适用于医学图像的完整性认证和篡改检测中。     

融合深度网络和浅层纹理特征的甲状腺结节癌变超声图像诊断

目的 在甲状腺结节图像中对甲状腺结节进行良恶性分析,对于甲状腺癌的早期诊断有着重要的意义。随着医疗影像学的发展,大部分的早期甲状腺结节可以在超声图像中准确地检测出来,但对于结节的性质仍然缺乏准确的判断。因此,为实现更为准确的早期甲状腺结节良恶性超声图像诊断,避免不必要的针刺或其他病理活检手术、减轻病患生理痛苦和心理压力及其医疗费用,提出一种基于深度网络和浅层纹理特征融合的甲状腺结节良恶性分类新算法。方法 本文提出的甲状腺结节分类算法由4步组成。首先对超声图像进行尺度配准、人工标记以及图像复原去除以增强图像质量。然后,对增强的图像进行数据扩展,并作为训练集对预训练过的GoogLeNet卷积神经网络进行迁移学习以提取图像中的深度特征。同时,提取图像的旋转不变性局部二值模式（LBP）特征作为图像的纹理特征。最后,将深度特征与图像的纹理特征相融合并输入至代价敏感随机森林分类器中对图像进行良恶性分类。结果 本文方法在标准的甲状腺结节癌变数据集上对甲状腺结节图像取得了正确率99.15%,敏感性99.73%,特异性95.85%以及ROC曲线下面积0.997 0的的好成绩,优于现有的甲状腺结节图像分类方法。结论 实验结果表明,图像的深度特征可以描述医疗超声图像中病灶的整体感官特征,而浅层次纹理特征则可以描述超声图像的边缘、灰度分布等特征,将二者统一的融合特征则可以更为全面地描述图像中病灶区域与非病灶区域之间的差异以及不同病灶性质之间的差异。因此,本文方法可以准确地对甲状腺结节进行分类从而避免不必要手术、减轻病患痛苦和压力。     

High capacity data hiding schemes for medical images based on difference expansion

Since the difference expansion (DE) technique was proposed, many researchers tried to, improve its performance in terms of hiding capacity and visual quality. In this paper, a new scheme, based on DE is proposed in order to increase the hiding capacity for medical images. One of the characteristics of medical images, among the other types of images, is the large smooth regions. Taking advantage of this characteristic, our scheme divides the image into two regions; smooth region and non-smooth region. For the smooth region, a high embedding capacity scheme is applied, while the original DE method is applied to the non-smooth region. Sixteen DICOM images of different modalities were used for testing the proposed schemes. The results showed that the proposed scheme has higher hiding capacity compared to the original schemes.     

Subclass Discriminant Analysis of morphological and textural features for HEp-2 staining pattern classification

Classifying HEp-2 fluorescence patterns in Indirect Immunofluorescence (IIF) HEp-2 cell imaging is important for the differential diagnosis of autoimmune diseases. The current technique, based on human visual inspection, is time-consuming, subjective and dependent on the operator's experience. Automating this process may be a solution to these limitations, making IIF faster and more reliable. This work proposes a classification approach based on Subclass Discriminant Analysis (SDA), a dimensionality reduction technique that provides an effective representation of the cells in the feature space, suitably coping with the high within-class variance typical of HEp-2 cell patterns. In order to generate an adequate characterization of the fluorescence patterns, we investigate the individual and combined contributions of several image attributes, showing that the integration of morphological, global and local textural features is the most suited for this purpose. The proposed approach provides an accuracy of the staining pattern classification of about 90%.