DEVELOPMENT OF A NIGERIAN CULTURAL ATTIRE RECOGNITION SYSTEM

This paper presents the development of a system to automatically recognize Nigerian traditional attire worn by major ethnic groups. Samples of clothing images depicting the cultural groups were obtained from publicly available online sources and an architecture to classify the images classes was designed using the Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) model. Performance evaluation results from experiment show that the model can classify images accordingly, achieving a validation accuracy score of 86 %. A web application interface was also implemented to validate the model’s accuracy which shows good potential when integrated in commercial clothing applications

TEXTURE MODELING AND SIMULATION FOR SYNTHETIC PALM VEIN IMAGE GENERATION SYSTEM

Unavailability of large-scale palm vein databases due to their intrusiveness have posed challenges in exploring this technology for large-scale applications. Hence, this research modelled and generated synthetic palm vein images from only a couple of initial samples using statistical features. Variations were introduced to the three optimized statistical features (S5; the original images were employed as training images and the best variation in the first experiment  as training images, S4; the best variation in the first experiment  as training images while the original images were used as testing images, S3; mean vectors, covariance matrices and correlation coefficient, S2; mean vectors and covariance matrices, S1; mean vectors, Non-Synthetic; acquired image) which were used to generate synthetic palm vein images employing statistical and Genetic Algorithm (GA) approaches and were evaluated based on Equal Error Rate (EER), Average Recognition Accuracy (ARA) and Average Recognition Time (ART). The results obtained from the experiment showed that EERs were 0.22, 0.51, 0.58 and 4.36 for S3, S2, S1 and NS respectively. S3 had superior ARA (99.83%) compared with S2 (99.77 %), S1 (99.70 %) and NS (98.33 %). The ARTs obtained were 84.97s, 75.55s, 84.04s and 681.74s for S1, S2, S3 and NS respectively with S2 (75.55s) having significantly least value. Furthermore, EER, ARA and ART for S4 were 0.43, 99.00%, and 12.13s, respectively while the corresponding values for S5 were 1.43, 97.50%, and 680.13s, respectively. The research outcome justifies the extraction of mean vectors, covariance matrices and correlation coefficient

Superior Mesenteric Artery Syndrome: Clinical and Radiological Considerations

Background. Superior mesenteric artery (SMA) syndrome is a rare condition of duodenal obstruction, caused by the overlying SMA. Aim. To report on our experience with the management of SMA syndrome, drawing the attention to its existence. Material and Methods. We reviewed our records to identify cases diagnosed with SMA syndrome, in the period from October 1995 to January 2012. Results. Seven patients were identified, one male and six females. Their mean age was 17.1 years. Vomiting and abdominal pain were the presenting complaints in all patients and history of weight loss was present in six of them. In no patient was the diagnosis suspected initially on clinical grounds. Only after radiological investigations was the diagnosis declared. Radiology took the form of gastrografin/barium meal only in four patients and both gastrografin/barium meal and computerized tomography scan in the remaining three. Four patients responded to medical treatment and surgery was performed in the remaining three, with open duodenojejunostomy in two patients and laparoscopic dissection of the ligament of Treitz in the third. Long lasting improvement was sustained in all patients except one in the surgery group who, despite initial improvement, still has infrequent attacks of abdominal pain. Conclusion. Although the clinical manifestations of SMA syndrome are shared with many other disease entities, it has unique radiological as well as endoscopic features, which enables a confident diagnosis to be made. Once diagnosed, conservative treatment with nutritional support and positioning should be tried first. In case of unresponsiveness, surgery may give a lasting cure