Computational techniques in medical image analysis application for white blood cells classification.

White blood cells play important rule in the human body immunity and any change in their count may cause serious diseases. In this study, a system is introduced for white blood cells localization and classification. The dataset used in this study is formed by two components, the first is the annotation dataset that will be used in the localization (364 images), and the second is labeled classes that will be used in the classification (12,444 images). For the localization, two approaches will be discussed, a classical approach and a deep learning based approach. For the classification, 5 different deep learning architectures will be discussed, 3 pretrained architectures and 2 customized architectures will be presented. After discussing this models and test them on the dataset, the best selected model will be evaluated describing the obtained results. The localization module achieved average Intersection over Union (IoU) of 71%, while the classification module achieved 92 % classification accuracy. In addition to reporting the model performance, the model robustness was also checked by adding three different types of noise, Gaussian noise, salt and pepper noise, and speckle noise. This system outperforms other studies in the literature, where the accuracy was either less than the obtained from the system or the dataset was much smaller the used data in this study

The emergence of continuum gravitational physics from group field theory models of quantum gravity

QG Theorien streben danach, die grundlegenden Theorien von GR und QFT in der theoretischen Physik mit einer kohärenten Weltbeschreibung in Verbindung zu bringen. Dieses dynamische Forschungsgebiet ist eine Kreuzung verschiedener physikalischer Disziplinen, die von der phänomenologischen bis hin zur abstrakten mathematischen Physik reichen. In dieser Arbeit widmen wir uns der Entstehung der Kontinuumsgravitationsphysik aus dem QG-Hintergrund unabhängigen Theorie der GFT. Insbesondere untersuchen wir seine Beziehung zu anderen QG-Modellen wie SF im Rahmen der Modellbildung für 4d Lorentzsche Quantengeometrien, die Berührung zwischen Quantenverschränkung (als Preview von Entstehung) und Quantengeometrie durch die Ausnutzung von Spin-Netzwerk-Zuständen, die Quantengeometrien charakterisieren, und schließlich die kulminierende Phase der Extraktion einer effektiven Beschreibung der kosmologischen Fassung der Theorie in der Sprache einer Feldtheorie, die sich auf einem gekrümmten Hintergrund ausbreitet. Diese Forschungsschwerpunkte dieser Dissertation lassen sich wie folgt präzise zusammenfassen: Zunächst stellen wir die Konstruktion eines neuen SF-Modells für 4d Lorentz’sche Quantengravitation vor, das auf der Beschreibung einer vereinfachten Quantengeometrie beruht, die sich auf edge vector-Variablen stützt. Auf der repräsentationstheoretischen Seite werden Quantenzustände der Geometrie aus irreduziblen Darstellungen der Translationsgruppe auf dem Minkowski-Raum oder Funktionen auf der Translationsgruppe selbst gebildet. Wir zeigen auch, wie das neue Modell mit dem Lorentzschen Barrett-Crane BC-Spinschaum-Modell für einen Sektor seiner Quantenkonfigurationen zusammenhängt. Das neue Modell besitzt offensichtlich alle relevanten Freiheitsgrade, um die vereinfachte Geometrie auf Quantenebene zu beschreiben, und stellt somit einen vielversprechenden Vorschlag für die Lorentzsche Quantengravitation dar. Es kann daher auch als Ergänzung (oder notwendiger Bezugspunkt) für bekannte Spin-Schaum-Modelle angesehen werden, die auf einer eingeschränkten BF-Quantisierung und einer Formulierung der Quantengeometrie in Form von Kantenvektoren basieren. Anschließend untersuchen wir die Verschränkung/geometrische Charakterisierung von generischen überlagerten Quantengeometrien. Der Vorschlag, dass die Raumzeit und ihre geometrischen Eigenschaften aus rein nicht-geometrischen Freiheitsgraden entstehen, die dann wiederum eng mit Verschränkungsmaßen verknüpft sind, hat im Bereich der Quanteninformation QIT viel Aufmerksamkeit erregt. Wir stellen eine unkomplizierte Umsetzung dieser Techniken in QG-Modellen vor, bei denen wir uns auf eine bestimmte Gruppe von QG-Zuständen konzentrieren. Konkret zeigen wir, wie die Untersuchung der Verschränkungseigenschaften einer Überlagerung von QG-Zuständen, genauer gesagt von Spin-Netzwerk-Graph-Zuständen mit unterschiedlichen kombinatorischen Strukturen, auf natürliche Weise zu einer Verallgemeinerung der üblichen von-Neumann-Entropie führt, die für Spin-Netzwerk-Zustände in LQG-Berechnungen erhalten wird. Dies wird in der Tat erreicht, wenn wir verschiedene entropische Begriffe und Maße aus der Quanteninformationstheorie entlehnen, wobei der untersuchte Fall der Überlagerung von Zuständen, die von-Neumann-Entropie verschränkter Regionen bereits auf der kinematischen Ebene der Theorie zur so genannten Interaktionsentropie in QIT führt. Darüber hinaus wird ein Vergleich zwischen dem zweiten Quantisierungsformalismus dieses Schemas, der auf der Überlagerung von Zuständen beruht, und dem der LQG-Ergebnisse vorgestellt. Schließlich besteht die verfügbare Technologie zur Erzeugung der Dynamik in der Verwendung des relationalen Rahmens, wenn kein Begriff des metrischen Hintergrunds oder alternativ dazu die Diffeomorphismusinvarianz in der Theorie vorhanden ist. Ein GFTModell, in dem dies umgesetzt wurde, ist verfügbar, und vor allem ist es gelungen, Kontinuumsphysik in einem kosmologischen Kontext zu extrahieren, der auf GFT-Kondensaten beruht, genauer gesagt in einem homogenen FLRW-Universum mit eingeschlossenen Störungen. Ausgehend von diesen Ergebnissen leiten wir die explizite Lösung der effektiven Dynamik von GFT-Kondensaten her, die auch skalare Störungen berücksichtigt. Dieser erste Schritt ermöglichte es uns, den Materiegehalt weiter zu untersuchen und seine Dynamik in Form einer Feldtheorie auf einem gekrümmten Hintergrund zu formulieren. Dies wiederum führte zu zusätzlichen emergenten Eigenschaften, die die Feldtheorie im Vergleich zur klassischen Theorie besitzt, was sich auch auf der Ebene der Störung widerspiegelt. Im letzteren Fall haben wir eine modifizierte Dispersionsrelation für das gestörte Skalarfeld erhalten.Quantum Gravity (QG) theories pursue the goal of reconciling the pillar theories of General Relativity (GR) and Quantum Field Theory (QFT) in theoretical physics and a coherent description of the physical world surrounding us. This prosperous field of research is a crossroad of various disciplines in physics, ranging from the phenomenological to the most abstract mathematical ones. In this thesis, we devote our focus to the emergence of continuum gravitational physics from the QG background independent approach of Group Field Theory (GFT). In particular, we explore its relation to other QG models such as Spin Foam (SF) in the context of model-building of 4d Lorentzian quantum geometries, the interface between quantum entanglement (considered as the preview of emergence) and quantum geometry through the exploitation of spin network states characterizing quantum geometries, and finally the culminating stage of extracting an effective description of the cosmological version of the theory in the language of a field theory propagating on a curved background. More precisely, the three research focal points of this thesis are summarized as follows: First, we present the construction of a new SF model for 4d Lorentzian quantum gravity based on the description of quantum simplicial geometry relying on edge vector variables. On the representation theoretic side, quantum states of geometry are built from irreducible representations of the translation group on Minkowski space or functions on the translation group itself. We also show how the new model connects to the Lorentzian Barrett-Crane Barrett-Crane (BC) spin foam model, for a sector of its quantum configurations. The new model manifestly possesses all the relevant degrees of freedom to describe simplicial geometry at the quantum level and thus constitutes a promising proposal for Lorentzian quantum gravity. Hence, it may be seen also as a completion (or a necessary reference point) for known spin foam models based on constrained BF quantization and a formulation of quantum geometry in terms of quantum edge vectors. We then move on to inspecting the entanglement/geometric characterization of generic superposed quantum geometries. The proposal that spacetime and its geometric properties are emergent entities from purely non-geometric degrees of freedom that are subsequently closely related to entanglement measures has attracted a lot of attention in the sector of quantum information Quantum Information Theory (QIT). We present a straightforward implementation of these techniques in QG models where we focus on a particular set of QG states. More concretely, we show how studying the entanglement properties of a superposition of QG states, precisely spin network graph states endowed with different combinatorial structures, naturally leads to a generalization of the usual von Neumann entropy obtained for spin network states in Loop Quantum Gravity (LQG) calculations. This is indeed achieved once we borrow different entropic notions and measures from quantum information theory, wherein the studied case of the superposition of states, the von Neumann entropy of entangled regions gives rise to the so-called interaction entropy in QIT already at the kinematical level of the theory. Lastly, in the absence of any notion of metric background or alternatively, in the presence of diffeomorphism invariance in the theory, the available technology to generate the dynamics is to employ the relational framework. A GFT model where this has been implemented is available and importantly it succeeded in extracting continuum physics in a cosmological context relying on GFT condensates, and more precisely that of a homogeneous Friedmann–Lemaître–Robertson–Walker (FLRW) universe with perturbations included. Starting from such results, we derive the explicit solution to the GFT condensate effective dynamics including the treatment of scalar perturbations. This first step allowed us to investigate further the matter content, and formulate its dynamics in the form of field theory on a curved background. This in turn produced additional emergent properties the field theory possesses in comparison with the classical one, which was further mirrored at the level of the perturbation. Where it the latter case, we attained a modified dispersion relation for the perturbed scalar field

PRESENTATION PATTERN AND FUNGAL AGENTS SPECTRUM CAUSING OTOMYCOSIS

Objective: This study was aimed to identify the pattern of presentation, influencing factors, and sort of the fungal species, distribution of sex of patients with otomycosis.Methods: Eighty-six patients attended to Ad-Diwaniyah teaching hospital, Iraq were screened for identification of fungi causing otomycosis from October 2014 to November 2015. 50 patients were females while 36 patients were males. 12 patients of the total number were with bilateral involvement. Diabetes mellitus, leukemia, chemotherapy, and chemoradiation were the associated systemic diseases which were recorded in patients with otomycosis and diabetes mellitus was detected in 53.84% of patients with systemic diseases.Results: The predominant complaints were pruritus and found in 76 patients (88.73%), discomfort and pain found in 62 patients (72.09%), aural fullness in 48 patients (55.81%), tinnitus in 34 patients (39.53%), hearing impairment in 50 cases (58.31%), ear discharge in 22 patients (25.58%), and most of the symptoms seen in 36 patients (68.14%). The results showed a total of eight fungal species belong to six different genera, namely, Aspergillus, Candida, Penicillium, Rhizopus, Alternaria, and Cephalosporium were isolated during this study. Among identified fungi, Aspergillus niger was found to be the most prevalent fungal species with 35.71% followed by Candida albicans (27.55%), Aspergillus flavus (10.20%), Aspergillus fumigatus (8.16), Penicillium digitatum (6.12%) and Cephalosporium species (4.08%), and Rhizopus species (5.1%), while Alternaria alternata had the lowest percentage (6.54%).Conclusion: Otomycosis/mycotic otitis externa is still a common problem and there is a rise in the occurrence of otomycosis in latest years, especially in tropical and subtropical humid climates

Modeling and verification of distributed control scheme for mobile robots

Journal ArticleIn this report we present a sensor-based distributed control scheme for mobile robots. This scheme combines centralized and decentralized control strategies. Each group of sensors is considered to be a process that performs sensing and carries out local control tasks as well. Besides these processes, there is a central controller that carries out global goals utilizing sensor readings on a need to know bases. In this scheme, the sensors communicate with the central controller, and also may communicate with each other. Communication protocols has been defined and an abstract model for the proposed control scheme was built. Formal verification techniques were used to verify the correctness of these protocols as well as some desired properties of the proposed scheme. The advantages of this scheme over the centralized scheme is that it increases system modularity and flexibility and provides graceful degradation in case of failure of some of the sensors. The results of verifying and simulating this model are presented with a brief discussion and conclusion on these results

A dynamic recursive structure for intelligent inspection

technical reportWe suggest a new approach for inspection and reverse engineering applications. In particular we investigate the use of discrete event dynamic systems DEDS to guide and control the active exploration and sensing of mechanical parts for industrial inspection and reverse engineering?? We introduce dynamic recursive nite state machines DRFSM as a new DEDS tool for utilizing the recursive nature of the mechanical parts under consideration?? The proposed framework uses DRFSM DEDS for constructing an observer for exploration and inspection purposes?? ?

UPE: Utah prototyping environment for robot manipulators

Journal ArticleDeveloping an environment that enables optimal and flexible design of robot manipulators using reconfigurable links, joints, actuators, and sensors is an essential step for efficient robot design and prototyping. Such an environment should have the right "mix" of software and hardware components for designing the physical parts and the controllers, and for the algorithmic control of the robot modules (kinematics, inverse kinematics, dynamics, trajectory planning, analog control and digital computer control). Specifying object-based communications and catalog mechanisms between the software modules, controllers, physical parts, CAD designs, and actuator and sensor components is a necessary step in the prototyping activities. In this paper, we propose a flexible prototyping environment for robot manipulators with the required subsystems and interfaces between the different components of this environment

Robotic prototyping environment (Progress report)

Journal ArticlePrototyping is an important activity in engineering. Prototype development is a good test for checking the viability of a proposed system. Prototypes can also help in determining system parameters, ranges, or in designing better systems. The interaction between several modules (e.g., S/W, VLSI, CAD, CAM, Robotics, and Control) illustrates an interdisciplinary prototyping environment that includes radically different types of information, combined in a coordinated way. Developing an environment that enables optimal and flexible design of robot manipulators using reconfigurable links, joints, actuators, and sensors is an essential step for efficient robot design and prototyping. Such an environment should have the right "mix" of software and hardware components for designing the physical parts and the controllers, and for the algorithmic control of the robot modules (kinematics, inverse kinematics, dynamics, trajectory planning, analog control and digital computer control). Specifying object-based communications and catalog mechanisms between the software modules, controllers, physical parts, CAD designs, and actuator and sensor components is a necessary step in the prototyping activities. We propose a flexible prototyping environment for robot manipulators with the required sub-systems and interfaces between the different components of this environment

A dynamic recursive structure for intelligent exploration

technical reportWe suggest a new approach for inspection and reverse engineering applications. In particular, we investigate the use of discrete event dynamic systems (DEDS) to guide and control the active exploration and sensing of mechanical parts for industrial inspection and reverse engineering. We introduce dynamic recursive finite state machines (DRFSM) as a new DEDS tool for utilizing the recursive nature of the mechanical parts under consideration. The proposed framework uses DRFSM DFJ)S. for constructing an observer for exploration and inspection purposes

Discrete event control for inspection and reverse engineering

Journal ArticleWe address the problem of intelligent sensing in this work. In particular, we use discrete event dynamic systems (DEDS) to guide the sensing of mechanical parts for industrial inspection and reverse engineering

Sensor-based distributed control scheme for mobile robots

Journal ArticleIn this paper we present a sensor-based distributed control scheme for mobile robots. This scheme combines centralized and decentralized control strategies. A server-client model is used to implement this scheme where the server is a process that caries out the commands to be executed, and each client is a process with a certain task. The clients are running in parallel issuing commands to the server which selects the command to be executed based on a predefined priority scheme. In this scheme, a collision avoidance client is running all the time with the highest priority. This improves the performance of the other clients since it removes the burden of avoiding obstacles and allows each client to concentrate on performing its task. The logical sensor approach is used to model the sensory system which provides different levels of data representation with tolerance measures and analysis. The simulation results of this model are presented with a brief discussion and conclusion on these results