The new mathematical model based carotid intima-media thickness and mild cognitive impairment: comparison of manual and semi-automated measurement techniques

An alteration of the cognitive functions plays a crucial role in the quality of life in the elderly. New investigations notice that the thickness of carotid intima-media (CIMT) might help to identify patients with an increased risk of cognitive deterioration. Our aim of the study was to evaluate CIMT of the patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) with static (manually) and dynamic (RF-QIMT) ultrasonographic equipments. Our results show that the CIMT was thicker measuring by semi-automated method, than manually and the differences were statistically significant. Our results show no correlation between the CIMT and scores of psychiatric tests, therefore more research is needed for improvement of carotid wall thickening changes in MCI patients

A study on industrial communication networking: ethernet based implementation

Recent enhancement of the industrial communication and networking has made it possible to apply Ethernet networks at all levels of industrial automation, especially at controller level where the data exchange in real-time communication is mandatory. This report presents a study on the development of industrial communication network based on the Ethernet and thus implementation towards Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) system. The Ethernet module is installed onto supervisory OMRON PLC to integrate the various stations in the CIM-70A system which located at Robotic Laboratory in KUiTTHO. The workability of this communication technique was analyzed and compared with the conventional serial communication which widely used in automation networking systems. Through this approach, the communication and integration of CIM systems can be accessed easily and hence available to be upgraded to the management and enterprise levels of automation

Medida del grosor íntima-media de la arteria carótida mediante contornos activos formulados en el dominio de la frecuencia

La medición de las paredes de la arteria carótida se obtiene convencionalmente por trazado manual de las interfaces entre las capas de tejido, utilizando para ello imágenes de ultrasonidos. En este trabajo se presenta un novedoso método de segmentación de la pared distal de la arteria carótida común (CCA) aplicando contornos activos. Los contornos activos o snakes consisten en curvas paramétricas que se ajustan de forma adaptativa a los bordes de la imagen. La utilización de este método de segmentación permite la medición del grosor íntima-media (IMT), que es un indicador fiable de presencia de arteriosclerosis, una erifermedad cardiovascular que afecta al flujo sanguíneo debido al estrechamiento de las paredes arteriales. Resultados experimentales sobre imágenes de pacientes reales muestran que el método presentado permite obtener medidas similares a las de un especialista con interacción mínima por parte del usuarioCentro Universitario de la Defensa. Escuela de Turismo de Cartagena. Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingeniería Industrial UPCT. Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingeniería de Telecomunicación (ETSIT). Escuela de Ingeniería de Caminos y Minas (EICM). Escuela de Arquitectura e Ingeniería de Edificación (ARQ&IDE). Parque Tecnológico de Fuente Álamo. Navantia. Campus Mare Nostru

Ultrasound IMT measurement on a multi-ethnic and multi-institutional database: Our review and experience using four fully automated and one semi-automated methods

Automated and high performance carotid intima-media thickness (IMT) measurement is gaining increasing importance in clinical practice to assess the cardiovascular risk of patients. In this paper, we compare four fully automated IMT measurement techniques (CALEX, CAMES, CARES and CAUDLES) and one semi-automated technique (FOAM). We present our experience using these algorithms, whose lumen-intima and media-adventitia border estimation use different methods that can be: (a) edge-based; (b) training-based; (c) feature-based; or (d) directional Edge-Flow based. Our database (DB) consisted of 665 images that represented a multi-ethnic group and was acquired using four OEM scanners. The performance evaluation protocol adopted error measures, reproducibility measures, and Figure of Merit (FoM). FOAM showed the best performance, with an IMT bias equal to 0.025 ± 0.225 mm, and a FoM equal to 96.6%. Among the four automated methods, CARES showed the best results with a bias of 0.032 ± 0.279 mm, and a FoM to 95.6%, which was statistically comparable to that of FOAM performance in terms of accuracy and reproducibility. This is the first time that completely automated and user-driven techniques have been compared on a multi-ethnic dataset, acquired using multiple original equipment manufacturer (OEM) machines with different gain settings, representing normal and pathologic case

Automatic segmentation of the lumen of the carotid artery in ultrasound B-mode images

A new algorithm is proposed for the segmentation of the lumen and bifurcation boundaries of the carotid artery in B-mode ultrasound images. It uses the hipoechogenic characteristics of the lumen for the identification of the carotid boundaries and the echogenic characteristics for the identification of the bifurcation boundaries. The image to be segmented is processed with the application of an anisotropic diffusion filter for speckle removal and morphologic operators are employed in the detection of the artery. The obtained information is then used in the definition of two initial contours, one corresponding to the lumen and the other to the bifurcation boundaries, for the posterior application of the Chan-vese level set segmentation model. A set of longitudinal B-mode images of the common carotid artery (CCA) was acquired with a GE Healthcare Vivid-e ultrasound system (GE Healthcare, United Kingdom). All the acquired images include a part of the CCA and of the bifurcation that separates the CCA into the internal and external carotid arteries. In order to achieve the uppermost robustness in the imaging acquisition process, i.e., images with high contrast and low speckle noise, the scanner was adjusted differently for each acquisition and according to the medical exam. The obtained results prove that we were able to successfully apply a carotid segmentation technique based on cervical ultrasonography. The main advantage of the new segmentation method relies on the automatic identification of the carotid lumen, overcoming the limitations of the traditional methods

動脈硬化症の診断を目指した超音波による動脈壁の厚みと弾性特性計測の高精度化に関する研究

Tohoku University金井　浩課

Constrained snake vs. conventional snake for carotid ultrasound automated IMT measurements on multi-center data sets

Accurate intima-media thickness (IMT) measurement of the carotid artery from minimal plaque ultrasound images is a relevant clinical need, since IMT increase is related to the progression of atherosclerosis. In this paper, we describe a novel dual snake-based model for the high-performance carotid IMT measurement, called Carotid Measurement Using Dual Snakes (CMUDS). Snakes (which are deformable contours) adapt to the lumen-intima (LI) and media-adventitia (MA) interfaces, thus enabling the IMT computation as distance between the LI and MA snakes. However, traditional snakes might be unable to maintain a correct distance and in some spatial location along the artery, it might even collapse between them or diverge. The technical improvement of this work is the definition of a dual snake-based constrained system, which prevents the LI and MA snakes from collapsing or bleeding, thus optimizing the IMT estimation. The CMUDS system consists of two parametric models automatically initialized using the far adventitia border which we automatically traced by using a previously developed multi-resolution approach. The dual snakes evolve simultaneously and are constrained by the distances between them, ensuring the regularization of LI/MA topology. We benchmarked our automated CMUDS with the previous conventional semi-automated snake system called Carotid Measurement Using Single Snake (CMUSS). Two independent readers manually traced the LIMA boundaries of a multi-institutional, multi-ethnic, and multi-scanner database of 665 CCA longitudinal 2D images. We evaluated our system performance by comparing it with the gold standard as traced by clinical readers. CMUDS and CMUSS correctly processed 100% of the 665 images. Comparing the performance with respect to the two readers, our automatically measured IMT was on average very close to that of the two readers (IMT measurement biases for CMUSS was equal to −0.011 ± 0.329 mm and −0.045 ± 0.317 mm, respectively, while for CMUDS, it was 0.030 ± 0.284 mm and −0.004 ± 0.273 mm, respectively). The Figure-of-Merit of the system was 98.5% and 94.4% for CMUSS, while 96.0% and 99.6% for CMUDS, respectively. Results showed that the dual-snake system CMUDS reduced the IMT measurement error accuracy (Wilcoxon, p < 0.02) and the IMT error variability (Fisher, p < 3 × 10−2). We propose the CMUDS technique for use in large multi-centric studies, where the need for a standard, accurate, and automated IMT measurement technique is require

Segmentación de imágenes ecográficas mediante máquinas de aprendizaje para la medición del grosor de arterias

Una vez revisadas las técnicas más usadas en el campo de la segmentación de imagen, resulta interesante establecer los objetivos a perseguir antes de seleccionar una de ellas. En el caso de este proyecto se desea: 1.Poner en práctica los conocimientos adquiridos durante la carrera acerca de técnicas de reconocimiento de patrones. 2.Aplicar los conocimientos mencionados en el punto anterior sobre volúmenes de datos superiores a los trabajados a lo largo de la titulación. 3.Adquirir conocimiento acerca de la teoría y manejo de técnicas de procesado digital de la señal. 4.Crear un sistema capaz de: -Eliminar el ruido en aquellas imágenes que lo presenten. -Segmentar la línea de media tanto en la near wall como en la far wall. -Medir el diámetro de las arterias que se le pasen y validar los resultados.Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingeniería de TelecomunicaciónUniversidad Politécnica de Cartagen