Improving the Sharpness of Digital Images Using a Modified Laplacian Sharpening Technique

Many imaging systems produce images with deficient sharpness due to different real limitations. Hence, various image sharpening techniques have been used to improve the acutance of digital images. One of such is the well-known Laplacian sharpening technique. When implementing the basic Laplacian technique for image sharpening, two main drawbacks were detected. First, the amount of introduced sharpness cannot be increased or decreased. Second, in many situations, the resulted image suffers from a noticeable increase in brightness around the sharpened edges. In this article, an improved version of the basic Laplacian technique is proposed, wherein it contains two key modifications of weighting the Laplace operator to control the introduced sharpness and tweaking the second order derivatives to provide adequate brightness for recovered edges. To perform reliable experiments, only real-degraded images were used, and their accuracies were measured using a specialized no-reference image quality assessment metric. From the obtained experimental results, it is evident that the proposed technique outperformed the comparable techniques in terms of recorded accuracy and visual appearance

CONTRAST ENHANCEMENT OF SCANNING ELECTRON MICROSCOPY IMAGES USING A NONCOMPLEX MULTIPHASE ALGORITHM

Microscopic technology has recently flourished, allowing unparalleled viewing of microscopic elements invisible to the normal eye. Still, the existence of unavoidable constraints led on many occasions to have low contrast scanning electron microscopic (SEM) images. Thus, a noncomplex multiphase (NM) algorithm is proposed in this study to provide better contrast for various SEM images. The developed algorithm contains the following stages: first, the intensities of the degraded image are modified using a two-step regularization procedure. Next, a gamma-corrected cumulative distribution function of the logarithmic uniform distribution approach is applied for contrast enhancement. Finally, an automated histogram expansion technique is used to redistribute the pixels of the image properly. The NM algorithm is applied to natural-contrast distorted SEM images, as well as its results are compared with six algorithms with different processing notions. To assess the quality of images, three modern metrics are utilized, in that each metric measures the quality based on unique aspects. Extensive appraisals revealed the adequate processing abilities of the NM algorithm, as it can process many images suitably and its performances outperformed many available contrast enhancement algorithms in different aspects

An innovative technique for contrast enhancement of computed tomography images using normalized gamma-corrected contrast-limited adaptive histogram equalization

Image contrast is an essential visual feature that determines whether an image is of good quality. In computed tomography (CT), captured images tend to be low contrast, which is a prevalent artifact that reduces the image quality and hampers the process of extracting its useful information. A common tactic to process such artifact is by using histogram-based techniques. However, although these techniques may improve the contrast for different grayscale imaging applications, the results are mostly unacceptable for CT images due to the presentation of various faults, noise amplification, excess brightness, and imperfect contrast. Therefore, an ameliorated version of the contrast-limited adaptive histogram equalization (CLAHE) is introduced in this article to provide a good brightness with decent contrast for CT images. The novel modification to the aforesaid technique is done by adding an initial phase of a normalized gamma correction function that helps in adjusting the gamma of the processed image to avoid the common errors of the basic CLAHE of the excess brightness and imperfect contrast it produces. The newly developed technique is tested with synthetic and real-degraded low-contrast CT images, in which it highly contributed in producing better quality results. Moreover, a low intricacy technique for contrast enhancement is proposed, and its performance is also exhibited against various versions of histogram-based enhancement technique using three advanced image quality assessment metrics of Universal Image Quality Index (UIQI), Structural Similarity Index (SSIM), and Feature Similarity Index (FSIM). Finally, the proposed technique provided acceptable results with no visible artifacts and outperformed all the comparable techniques

Global economic burden of unmet surgical need for appendicitis

Background: There is a substantial gap in provision of adequate surgical care in many low-and middle-income countries. This study aimed to identify the economic burden of unmet surgical need for the common condition of appendicitis. Methods: Data on the incidence of appendicitis from 170 countries and two different approaches were used to estimate numbers of patients who do not receive surgery: as a fixed proportion of the total unmet surgical need per country (approach 1); and based on country income status (approach 2). Indirect costs with current levels of access and local quality, and those if quality were at the standards of high-income countries, were estimated. A human capital approach was applied, focusing on the economic burden resulting from premature death and absenteeism. Results: Excess mortality was 4185 per 100 000 cases of appendicitis using approach 1 and 3448 per 100 000 using approach 2. The economic burden of continuing current levels of access and local quality was US $92 492 million using approach 1 and$73 141 million using approach 2. The economic burden of not providing surgical care to the standards of high-income countries was $95 004 million using approach 1 and$75 666 million using approach 2. The largest share of these costs resulted from premature death (97.7 per cent) and lack of access (97.0 per cent) in contrast to lack of quality. Conclusion: For a comparatively non-complex emergency condition such as appendicitis, increasing access to care should be prioritized. Although improving quality of care should not be neglected, increasing provision of care at current standards could reduce societal costs substantially

Pooled analysis of WHO Surgical Safety Checklist use and mortality after emergency laparotomy

Background The World Health Organization (WHO) Surgical Safety Checklist has fostered safe practice for 10 years, yet its place in emergency surgery has not been assessed on a global scale. The aim of this study was to evaluate reported checklist use in emergency settings and examine the relationship with perioperative mortality in patients who had emergency laparotomy. Methods In two multinational cohort studies, adults undergoing emergency laparotomy were compared with those having elective gastrointestinal surgery. Relationships between reported checklist use and mortality were determined using multivariable logistic regression and bootstrapped simulation. Results Of 12 296 patients included from 76 countries, 4843 underwent emergency laparotomy. After adjusting for patient and disease factors, checklist use before emergency laparotomy was more common in countries with a high Human Development Index (HDI) (2455 of 2741, 89.6 per cent) compared with that in countries with a middle (753 of 1242, 60.6 per cent; odds ratio (OR) 0.17, 95 per cent c.i. 0.14 to 0.21, P <0001) or low (363 of 860, 422 per cent; OR 008, 007 to 010, P <0.001) HDI. Checklist use was less common in elective surgery than for emergency laparotomy in high-HDI countries (risk difference -94 (95 per cent c.i. -11.9 to -6.9) per cent; P <0001), but the relationship was reversed in low-HDI countries (+121 (+7.0 to +173) per cent; P <0001). In multivariable models, checklist use was associated with a lower 30-day perioperative mortality (OR 0.60, 0.50 to 073; P <0.001). The greatest absolute benefit was seen for emergency surgery in low- and middle-HDI countries. Conclusion Checklist use in emergency laparotomy was associated with a significantly lower perioperative mortality rate. Checklist use in low-HDI countries was half that in high-HDI countries.Peer reviewe

Global variation in anastomosis and end colostomy formation following left-sided colorectal resection

Background End colostomy rates following colorectal resection vary across institutions in high-income settings, being influenced by patient, disease, surgeon and system factors. This study aimed to assess global variation in end colostomy rates after left-sided colorectal resection. Methods This study comprised an analysis of GlobalSurg-1 and -2 international, prospective, observational cohort studies (2014, 2016), including consecutive adult patients undergoing elective or emergency left-sided colorectal resection within discrete 2-week windows. Countries were grouped into high-, middle- and low-income tertiles according to the United Nations Human Development Index (HDI). Factors associated with colostomy formation versus primary anastomosis were explored using a multilevel, multivariable logistic regression model. Results In total, 1635 patients from 242 hospitals in 57 countries undergoing left-sided colorectal resection were included: 113 (6·9 per cent) from low-HDI, 254 (15·5 per cent) from middle-HDI and 1268 (77·6 per cent) from high-HDI countries. There was a higher proportion of patients with perforated disease (57·5, 40·9 and 35·4 per cent; P < 0·001) and subsequent use of end colostomy (52·2, 24·8 and 18·9 per cent; P < 0·001) in low- compared with middle- and high-HDI settings. The association with colostomy use in low-HDI settings persisted (odds ratio (OR) 3·20, 95 per cent c.i. 1·35 to 7·57; P = 0·008) after risk adjustment for malignant disease (OR 2·34, 1·65 to 3·32; P < 0·001), emergency surgery (OR 4·08, 2·73 to 6·10; P < 0·001), time to operation at least 48 h (OR 1·99, 1·28 to 3·09; P = 0·002) and disease perforation (OR 4·00, 2·81 to 5·69; P < 0·001). Conclusion Global differences existed in the proportion of patients receiving end stomas after left-sided colorectal resection based on income, which went beyond case mix alone

Latest Methods of Image Enhancement and Restoration for Computed Tomography: A Concise Review

It is known that computed tomography (CT) images are corrupted by many degradations including: blurring, low contrast or noise due to different real-world limitations. Thus, it is necessary to filter these images before starting the diagnostic process. In recent years, extensive research has been carried out to reduce such undesirable degradations, in which substantial achievements have been attained from skillful researchers by providing various innovative methods. Such methods contributed significantly in improving the poor visual quality of CT images. In this article, a review about six contemporary methods for each of image enhancement, denoising and deblurring is provided due to the high-profile of CT images in the medical field. Hence, after the prevalent causes of the degradations are highlighted, adequate elucidations about the literature methods are delivered. Finally, an inclusive summary is provided

A novel Zohair filter for deblurring computed tomography medical images

Deblurring computed tomography (CT) images has been an active research topic in recent years because of the wide variety of challenges it offers. Hence, a novel filter is proposed in this article unveiling a simple, efficient, and fast deblurring process that involves few parameters, low calculations and does not utilize the undesirable iterative property or introduce the common deblurring problems. The newly proposed filter is validated on both real and synthetic blurred CT images to provide a sufficient understanding about its performance. Moreover, proper comparisons are made with high-profile deblurring methods, in which the results are evaluated using three reliable quality metrics of feature similarity index (FSIM), structural similarity (SSIM), and visual information fidelity in pixel domain (VIFP). The intensive experiments and performance evaluations exhibited the efficiency of the proposed filter, in that it outperformed all the comparative methods

Latest Methods of Image Enhancement and Restoration for Computed Tomography: A Concise Review

It is known that computed tomography (CT) images are corrupted by many degradations including: blurring, low contrast or noise due to different real-world limitations. Thus, it is necessary to filter these images before starting the diagnostic process. In recent years, extensive research has been carried out to reduce such undesirable degradations, in which substantial achievements have been attained from skillful researchers by providing various innovative methods. Such methods contributed significantly in improving the poor visual quality of CT images. In this article, a review about six contemporary methods for each of image enhancement, denoising and deblurring is provided due to the high-profile of CT images in the medical field. Hence, after the prevalent causes of the degradations are highlighted, adequate elucidations about the literature methods are delivered. Finally, an inclusive summary is provided