Multiple abdominal organ segmentation: an atlas-based fuzzy connectedness approach.

Organ segmentation is an important step in various medical image applications. In this paper, a presegmented atlas is incorporated into the fuzzy connectedness (FC) framework for automatic segmentation of abdominal organs. First, the atlas is registered onto the subject to provide an initial segmentation. Then, a novel method is applied to estimate the necessary FC parameters such as organ intensity features, seeds, and optimal FC threshold automatically and subject adaptively. In order to overcome the intensity overlapping between the neighboring organs, a shape modification approach based on Euclidean distance and watershed segmentation is used. This atlas-based segmentation method has been tested on some abdominal CT and MRI images from Chinese patients. Experimental results indicate the validity of this segmentation method for various image modalities.     

Image segmentation based on fuzzy connectedness using dynamic weights.

Traditional segmentation techniques do not quite meet the challenges posed by inherently fuzzy medical images. Image segmentation based on fuzzy connectedness addresses this problem by attempting to capture both closeness, based on characteristic intensity, and "hanging togetherness," based on intensity homogeneity, of image elements to the target object. This paper presents a modification and extension of previously published image segmentation algorithms based on fuzzy connectedness, which is computed as a linear combination of an object-feature-based and a homogeneity-based component using fixed weights. We provide a method, called fuzzy connectedness using dynamic weights (DyW), to introduce directional sensitivity to the homogeneity-based component and to dynamically adjust the linear weights in the functional form of fuzzy connectedness. Dynamic computation of the weights relieves the user of the exhaustive search process to find the best combination of weights suited to a particular application. This is critical in applications such as analysis of cardiac cine magnetic resonance (MR) images, where the optimal combination of affinity component weights can vary for each slice, each phase, and each subject, in spite of data being acquired from the same MR scanner with identical protocols. We present selected results of applying DyW to segment phantom images and actual MR, computed tomography, and infrared data. The accuracy of DyW is assessed by comparing it to two different formulations of fuzzy connectedness. Our method consistently achieves accuracy of more than 99.15% for a range of image complexities: contrast 5%-65%, noise-to-contrast ratio of 6%-18%, and bias field of four types with maximum gain factor of up to 10%.     

Detection of Infarct Lesions From Single MRI Modality Using Inconsistency Between Voxel Intensity and Spatial Location—A 3-D Automatic Approach

Detection of infarct lesions using traditional segmentation methods is always problematic due to intensity similarity between lesions and normal tissues, so that multispectral MRI modalities were often employed for this purpose. However, the high costs of MRI scan and the severity of patient conditions restrict the collection of multiple images. Therefore, in this paper, a new 3-D automatic lesion detection approach was proposed, which required only a single type of anatomical MRI scan. It was developed on a theory that, when lesions were present, the voxel-intensity-based segmentation and the spatial-location-based tissue distribution should be inconsistent in the regions of lesions. The degree of this inconsistency was calculated, which indicated the likelihood of tissue abnormality. Lesions were identified when the inconsistency exceeded a defined threshold. In this approach, the intensity-based segmentation was implemented by the conventional fuzzy c-mean (FCM) algorithm, while the spatial location of tissues was provided by prior tissue probability maps. The use of simulated MRI lesions allowed us to quantitatively evaluate the performance of the proposed method, as the size and location of lesions were prespecified. The results showed that our method effectively detected lesions with 40-80% signal reduction compared to normal tissues (similarity index >0.7). The capability of the proposed method in practice was also demonstrated on real infarct lesions from 15 stroke patients, where the lesions detected were in broad agreement with true lesions. Furthermore, a comparison to a statistical segmentation approach presented in the literature suggested that our 3-D lesion detection approach was more reliable. Future work will focus on adapting the current method to multiple sclerosis lesion detection.     

Rule-based automatic segmentation of color images

A rule-based segmentation algorithm for color images has been presented in this paper. The proposed strategy is similar to region growing algorithm where the seed points are automatically selected and grown. The similarity percents of neighboring pixels are calculated by means of fuzzy reasoning rules, and the merging of the pixels with regions is performed by comparing the similarity percent with the similarity threshold value. The algorithm does not require any prior knowledge of the number of regions existing in the image and decreases the computational load required for the fuzzy c-means (FCM). Several computer simulations have been performed and the results have been discussed. The simulation results indicate that the proposed algorithm yields segmented color image of perfect accuracy.     

Atlas-based fuzzy connectedness segmentation and intensity nonuniformity correction applied to brain MRI

A framework that combines atlas registration, fuzzy connectedness (FC) segmentation, and parametric bias field correction (PABIC) is proposed for the automatic segmentation of brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). First, the atlas is registered onto the MRI to initialize the following FC segmentation. Original techniques are proposed to estimate necessary initial parameters of FC segmentation. Further, the result of the FC segmentation is utilized to initialize a following PABIC algorithm. Finally, we re-apply the FC technique on the PABIC corrected MRI to get the final segmentation. Thus, we avoid expert human intervention and provide a fully automatic method for brain MRI segmentation. Experiments on both simulated and real MRI images demonstrate the validity of the method, as well as the limitation of the method. Being a fully automatic method, it is expected to find wide applications, such as three-dimensional visualization, radiation therapy planning, and medical database construction     

冲激信号SAR成像的方位分辨率分析

本文在分析冲激信号SAR成像特点的基础上,在发射和接收均为"超宽带信号"、"大方位积累角"的情况下,推导出了冲激信号SAR方位分辨率的解析表达式,并通过仿真实验验证了其正确性.     

基于直方图的自适应图像去噪滤波器

对于那些明显偏离高斯型白噪声的加性噪声,如拖尾脉冲噪声,高斯脉冲噪声等,已有方法的滤噪性能会严重退化.为此,该文提出了一种去除脉冲噪声的新方法.该方法首先由被污染图像估计出原图像的直方图.然后应用模糊集理论,利用加权策略得到了一个符合图像灰度分布统计规律的模糊隶属度函数,以此隶属度函数构建一个加权平均滤波器. 新方法有效地利用了原图像的先验知识,能够根据图像区域特性差异及脉冲噪声强弱自适应地采用不同的滤波尺度.文章比较了传统滤波器、已有的模糊滤波器和本文方法的结果.实验表明本文方法具有更好的效果.     

Combining low-, high-level and empirical domain knowledge for automated segmentation of ultrasonic breast lesions

Breast cancer is the most frequently diagnosed malignancy and the second leading cause of mortality in women. In the last decade, ultrasound along with digital mammography has come to be regarded as the gold standard for breast cancer diagnosis. Automatically detecting tumors and extracting lesion boundaries in ultrasound images is difficult due to their specular nature and the variance in shape and appearance of sonographic lesions. Past work on automated ultrasonic breast lesion segmentation has not addressed important issues such as shadowing artifacts or dealing with similar tumor like structures in the sonogram. Algorithms that claim to automatically classify ultrasonic breast lesions, rely on manual delineation of the tumor boundaries. In this paper, we present a novel technique to automatically find lesion margins in ultrasound images, by combining intensity and texture with empirical domain specific knowledge along with directional gradient and a deformable shape-based model. The images are first filtered to remove speckle noise and then contrast enhanced to emphasize the tumor regions. For the first time, a mathematical formulation of the empirical rules used by radiologists in detecting ultrasonic breast lesions, popularly known as the "Stavros Criteria" is presented in this paper. We have applied this formulation to automatically determine a seed point within the image. Probabilistic classification of image pixels based on intensity and texture is followed by region growing using the automatically determined seed point to obtain an initial segmentation of the lesion. Boundary points are found on the directional gradient of the image. Outliers are removed by a process of recursive refinement. These boundary points are then supplied as an initial estimate to a deformable model. Incorporating empirical domain specific knowledge along with low and high-level knowledge makes it possible to avoid shadowing artifacts and lowers the chance of confusing similar tumor like structures for the lesion. The system was validated on a database of breast sonograms for 42 patients. The average mean boundary error between manual and automated segmentation was 6.6 pixels and the normalized true positive area overlap was 75.1%. The algorithm was found to be robust to 1) variations in system parameters, 2) number of training samples used, and 3) the position of the seed point within the tumor. Running time for segmenting a single sonogram was 18 s on a 1.8-GHz Pentium machine.     

Automated seeded lesion segmentation on digital mammograms

Segmenting lesions is a vital step in many computerized mass-detection schemes for digital (or digitized) mammograms. The authors have developed two novel lesion segmentation techniques-one based on a single feature called the radial gradient index (RGI) and one based on simple probabilistic models to segment mass lesions, or other similar nodular structures, from surrounding background. In both methods a series of image partitions is created using gray-level information as well as prior knowledge of the shape of typical mass lesions. With the former method the partition that maximizes the RGI is selected. In the latter method, probability distributions for gray-levels inside and outside the partitions are estimated, and subsequently used to determine the probability that the image occurred for each given partition. The partition that maximizes this probability is selected as the final lesion partition (contour). The authors tested these methods against a conventional region growing algorithm using a database of biopsy-proven, malignant lesions and found that the new lesion segmentation algorithms more closely match radiologists' outlines of these lesions. At an overlap threshold of 0.30, gray level region growing correctly delineates 62% of the lesions in the authors' database while the RGI and probabilistic segmentation algorithms correctly segment 92% and 96% of the lesions, respectively     

Reinforcement Ant Optimized Fuzzy Controller for Mobile-Robot Wall-Following Control

This paper proposes a reinforcement ant optimized fuzzy controller (FC) design method, called RAOFC, and applies it to wheeled-mobile-robot wall-following control under reinforcement learning environments. The inputs to the designed FC are range-finding sonar sensors, and the controller output is a robot steering angle. The antecedent part in each fuzzy rule uses interval type-2 fuzzy sets in order to increase FC robustness. No a priori assignment of fuzzy rules is necessary in RAOFC. An online aligned interval type-2 fuzzy clustering (AIT2FC) method is proposed to generate rules automatically. The AIT2FC not only flexibly partitions the input space but also reduces the number of fuzzy sets in each input dimension, which improves controller interpretability. The consequent part of each fuzzy rule is designed using Q-value aided ant colony optimization (QACO). The QACO approach selects the consequent part from a set of candidate actions according to ant pheromone trails and Q-values, both of whose values are updated using reinforcement signals. Simulations and experiments on mobile-robot wall-following control show the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed RAOFC.     

基于人工靶向免疫疗法的红外手部痕迹目标提取

红外手部热痕迹图像是特殊的模糊图像,该文提出一种人工靶向免疫疗法对其进行手部目标提取。首先依据序列图像中像素灰度的变化趋势设计了先天性免疫识别进行初分割;然后借鉴免疫的提呈机制,根据热扩散特性定义同心圆模板提取特征;基于模板特征对模糊像素集适应性免疫识别;最后,指尖指谷病变检测分析,实施靶向治疗,保证了手的形态特征。与分水岭、SOM网络以及近几年研究成果进行了比较,表明提出的算法在目标提取率、绝对误差率均优于现有算法,提取结果更符合手的形态,同时扩展了应用热痕迹信息的时间跨度。     

Method for segmenting chest CT image data using an anatomicalmodel: preliminary results

Presents an automated, knowledge-based method for segmenting chest computed tomography (CT) datasets. Anatomical knowledge including expected volume, shape, relative position, and X-ray attenuation of organs provides feature constraints that guide the segmentation process. Knowledge is represented at a high level using an explicit anatomical model. The model is stored in a frame-based semantic network and anatomical variability is incorporated using fuzzy sets. A blackboard architecture permits the data representation and processing algorithms in the model domain to be independent of those in the image domain. Knowledge-constrained segmentation routines extract contiguous three-dimensional (3-D) sets of voxels, and their feature-space representations are posted on the blackboard. An inference engine uses fuzzy logic to match image to model objects based on the feature constraints. Strict separation of model and image domains allows for systematic extension of the knowledge base. In preliminary experiments, the method has been applied to a small number of thoracic CT datasets. Based on subjective visual assessment by experienced thoracic radiologists, basic anatomic structures such as the lungs, central tracheobronchial tree, chest wall, and mediastinum were successfully segmented. To demonstrate the extensibility of the system, knowledge was added to represent the more complex anatomy of lung lesions in contact with vessels or the chest wall. Visual inspection of these segmented lesions was also favorable. These preliminary results suggest that use of expert knowledge provides an increased level of automation compared with low-level segmentation techniques. Moreover, the knowledge-based approach may better discriminate between structures of similar attenuation and anatomic contiguity. Further validation is required     

Hierarchical maximum-likelihood classification for improvedaccuracies

Among the supervised parametric classification methods, the maximum-likelihood (MLH) classifier has become popular and widespread in remote sensing. Reliable prior probabilities are not always freely available, and it is a common practice to perform the MLH classification with equal prior probabilities. When equal prior probabilities are used, the advantages in MLH classification may not be attained. This study has explored a hierarchical pixel classification (HPC) method to estimate prior probabilities for the spectral classes from the Landsat thematic mapper (TM) data and spectral signatures. The TM pixels were visualized in multidimensional feature space relative to the spectral class probability surfaces. The pixels that fell within more than one probability region or outside all probability regions were categorized as the pixels likely to misclassify. Prior probabilities were estimated from the pixels that fell within spectral class probability regions. The pixels most likely to be correctly classified do not need extra information and were classified according to the probability region in which they fell. The pixels likely to be misclassified need additional information and were classified by MLH classification with the estimated prior probabilities. The classified image resulting from the HPC showed increased accuracy over three classification methods. Visualization of pixels in multidimensional feature space, relative to the spectral class probability reforms, overcome the practical difficulty in estimating prior probabilities while utilizing the available information     

用于自动识别遥感图像路网信息的改进模糊连接度方法

针对遥感图像中路网信息的自动识别问题,该文将小波模极大值边缘检测方法和模糊连接度方法结合,提出一种改进的模糊连接度方法。采用小波模极大值边缘检测方法进行模糊连接度种子点的自动选择,解决传统模糊连接度理论中种子点难以自动选择的问题。在此基础上,对传统的模糊相似度计算公式进行简化,在保证路网识别准确性的同时,大大减少了计算量。采用来自Quickbird高分辨商业遥感卫星的3组影像进行实验,验证了该文提出的路网识别方法具有较高的准确性和计算速度。     

Temporal change analysis for characterization of mass lesions in mammography

In this paper, we present a fully automated computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) program to detect temporal changes in mammographic masses between two consecutive screening rounds. The goal of this work was to improve the characterization of mass lesions by adding information about the tumor behavior over time. Towards this goal we previously developed a regional registration technique that finds for each mass lesion on the current view a location on the prior view where the mass was most likely to develop. For the task of interval change analysis, we designed two kinds of temporal features: difference features and similarity features. Difference features indicate the (relative) change in feature values determined on prior and current views. These features may be especially useful for lesions that are visible on both views. Similarity features measure whether two regions are comparable in appearance and may be useful for lesions that are visible on the prior view as well as for newly developing lesions. We evaluated the classification performance with and without the use of temporal features on a dataset consisting of 465 temporal mammogram pairs, 238 benign, and 227 malignant. We used cross validation to partition the dataset into a training set and a test set. The training set was used to train a support vector machine classifier and the test set to evaluate the classifier. The average A(z) value (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve) for classifying each lesion was 0.74 without temporal features and 0.77 with the use of temporal features. The improvement obtained by adding temporal features was statistically significant (P = 0.005). In particular, similarity features contributed to this improvement. Furthermore, we found that the improvement was comparable for masses that were visible and for masses that were not visible on the prior view. These results show that the use of temporal features is an effective approach to improve the characterization of masses.     

Fuzzy-Based Knowledge Discovery from Heterogeneous Data in Planting Systems for Elderly LOHAS

In this paper, we propose a knowledge discovery method based on the fuzzy set theory to help elders with plant cultivation. Initially, the fuzzy sets are constructed by using the feature selection and statistical interval estimation. The min-max inference and the center of gravity defuzzification method are then used to output a candidate pattern set. Finally, a pattern discovery is adopted to obtain the patterns from the candidate set for the cultivation suggestions by considering the frequency weight and user's experience. In order to demonstrate the performance of our method in planting systems, we conduct a clicks-and-mortar cultivation platform, namely Eden Garden, for the elderly lifestyles of health and sustainability (LOHAS). The experimental results show that the accuracy rate of our knowledge discovery method can reach up to 85%. Moreover, the results of the LOHAS index scale table present that the happiness of the elders is increasing while the elders are using our proposed method.     

Oscillating intensity display of soft tissue lesions in MRI

A new postprocessing method for improving visualization of soft tissue lesions in MR images is described. Abnormal tissues are detected by a computerized tissue characterization algorithm which is based on measurements of intensity in a spatially matched pair of T1- and T2-weighted images. Simultaneous display of information from this pair of static images is achieved by using a temporal parameter (amplitude or frequency of intensity oscillation) to encode abnormal pixels. Specifically, a movie is created in which pixel intensities of abnormal tissues are made to oscillate so that the amplitude (or frequency) of oscillation is proportional to an abnormality index which depends on the difference between intensities of normal and abnormal tissues in the original image pair. The visual effect is that of a churning motion within the lesion, while surrounding normal tissues are displayed as stable structures. This technique increases the conspicuity of the lesion by exploiting the eye's great sensitivity to motion.     

A computer-aided diagnosis system for digital mammograms based onfuzzy-neural and feature extraction techniques

An intelligent computer-aided diagnosis system can be very helpful for radiologist in detecting and diagnosing microcalcification patterns earlier and faster than typical screening programs. In this paper, we present a system based on fuzzy-neural and feature extraction techniques for detecting and diagnosing microcalcifications' patterns in digital mammograms. We have investigated and analyzed a number of feature extraction techniques and found that a combination of three features (such as entropy, standard deviation and number of pixels) is the best combination to distinguish a benign microcalcification pattern from one that is malignant. A fuzzy technique in conjunction with three features was used to detect a microcalcification pattern and a neural network was used to classify it into benign/malignant. The system was developed on a Microsoft Windows platform. It is an easy-to-use intelligent system that gives the user options to diagnose, detect, enlarge, zoom and measure distances of areas in digital mammograms     

Comparison of the multilayer perceptron with neuro-fuzzy techniquesin the estimation of cover class mixture in remotely sensed data

Mixed pixels are a major source of inconvenience in the classification of remotely sensed data. This paper compares MLP with so-called neuro-fuzzy algorithms in the estimation of pixel component cover classes. Two neuro-fuzzy networks are selected from the literature as representatives of soft classifiers featuring different combinations of fuzzy set-theoretic principles with neural network learning mechanisms. These networks are: 1) the fuzzy multilayer perceptron (FMLP) and 2) a two-stage hybrid (TSH) learning neural network whose unsupervised first stage consists of the fully self-organizing simplified adaptive resonance theory (FOSART) clustering model, FMLP, TSH, and MLP are compared on CLASSITEST, a standard set of synthetic images where per-pixel proportions of cover class mixtures are known a priori. Results are assessed by means of evaluation tools specifically developed for the comparison of soft classifiers. Experimental results show that classification accuracies of FMLP and TSH are comparable, whereas TSH is faster to train than FMLP. On the other hand, FMLP and TSW outperform MLP when little prior knowledge is available for training the network, i.e., when no fuzzy training sites, describing intermediate label assignments, are available