Recent Advances in Machine Learning Applied to Ultrasound Imaging

Machine learning (ML) methods are pervading an increasing number of fields of application because of their capacity to effectively solve a wide variety of challenging problems. The employment of ML techniques in ultrasound imaging applications started several years ago but the scientific interest in this issue has increased exponentially in the last few years. The present work reviews the most recent (2019 onwards) implementations of machine learning techniques for two of the most popular ultrasound imaging fields, medical diagnostics and non-destructive evaluation. The former, which covers the major part of the review, was analyzed by classifying studies according to the human organ investigated and the methodology (e.g., detection, segmentation, and/or classification) adopted, while for the latter, some solutions to the detection/classification of material defects or particular patterns are reported. Finally, the main merits of machine learning that emerged from the study analysis are summarized and discussed. © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland

A Novel Hybrid CNN Denoising Technique (HDCNN) for Image Denoising with Improved Performance

Photo denoising has been tackled by deep convolutional neural networks (CNNs) with powerful learning capabilities. Unfortunately, some CNNs perform badly on complex displays because they only train one deep network for their image blurring models. We recommend a hybrid CNN denoising technique (HDCNN) to address this problem. An HDCNN consists of a dilated interfere with, a RepVGG block, an attribute sharpening interferes with, as well as one inversion. To gather more context data, DB incorporates a stretched convolution, data sequential normalization (BN), shared convergence, and the activating function called the ReLU. Convolution, BN, and reLU are combined in parallel by RVB to obtain complimentary width characteristics. The RVB's refining characteristics are used to refine FB, which is then utilized to collect more precise data. To create a crisp image, a single convolution works in conjunction with a residual learning process. These crucial elements enable the HDCNN to carry out visual denoising efficiently. The suggested HDCNN has a good denoising performance in open data sets, according to experiments

An image processing decisional system for the Achilles tendon using ultrasound images

The Achilles Tendon (AT) is described as the largest and strongest tendon in the human body. As for any other organs in the human body, the AT is associated with some medical problems that include Achilles rupture and Achilles tendonitis. AT rupture affects about 1 in 5,000 people worldwide. Additionally, AT is seen in about 10 percent of the patients involved in sports activities. Today, ultrasound imaging plays a crucial role in medical imaging technologies. It is portable, non-invasive, free of radiation risks, relatively inexpensive and capable of taking real-time images. There is a lack of research that looks into the early detection and diagnosis of AT abnormalities from ultrasound images. This motivated the researcher to build a complete system which enables one to crop, denoise, enhance, extract the important features and classify AT ultrasound images. The proposed application focuses on developing an automated system platform. Generally, systems for analysing ultrasound images involve four stages, pre-processing, segmentation, feature extraction and classification. To produce the best results for classifying the AT, SRAD, CLAHE, GLCM, GLRLM, KPCA algorithms have been used. This was followed by the use of different standard and ensemble classifiers trained and tested using the dataset samples and reduced features to categorize the AT images into normal or abnormal. Various classifiers have been adopted in this research to improve the classification accuracy. To build an image decisional system, a 57 AT ultrasound images has been collected. These images were used in three different approaches where the Region of Interest (ROI) position and size are located differently. To avoid the imbalanced misleading metrics, different evaluation metrics have been adapted to compare different classifiers and evaluate the whole classification accuracy. The classification outcomes are evaluated using different metrics in order to estimate the decisional system performance. A high accuracy of 83% was achieved during the classification process. Most of the ensemble classifies worked better than the standard classifiers in all the three ROI approaches. The research aim was achieved and accomplished by building an image processing decisional system for the AT ultrasound images. This system can distinguish between normal and abnormal AT ultrasound images. In this decisional system, AT images were improved and enhanced to achieve a high accuracy of classification without any user intervention

Using Deep Learning to Analyze Materials in Medical Images

Modern deep learning architectures have become increasingly popular in medicine, especially for analyzing medical images. In some medical applications, deep learning image analysis models have been more accurate at predicting medical conditions than experts. Deep learning has also been effective for material analysis on photographs. We aim to leverage deep learning to perform material analysis on medical images. Because material datasets for medicine are scarce, we first introduce a texture dataset generation algorithm that automatically samples desired textures from annotated or unannotated medical images. Second, we use a novel Siamese neural network called D-CNN to predict patch similarity and build a distance metric between medical materials. Third, we apply and update a material analysis network from prior research, called MMAC-CNN, to predict materials in texture samples while also learning attributes that further separate the material space. In our experiments, we found that the MMAC-CNN is 89.5% accurate at predicting materials in texture patches, while also transferring knowledge of materials between image modalities