Texture spectrum coupled with entropy and homogeneity image features for myocardium muscle characterization

People in middle/later age often suffer from heart muscle damage due to coronary artery disease associated to myocardial infarction. In young people, the genetic forms of cardiomyopathies (heart muscle disease) are the utmost protuberant cause of myocardial disease. Accurate early detected information regarding the myocardial tissue structure is a key answer for tracking the progress of several myocardial diseases. The present work proposes a new method for myocardium muscle texture classification based on entropy, homogeneity and on the texture unit-based texture spectrum approaches. Entropy and homogeneity are generated in moving windows of size 3x3 and 5x5 to enhance the texture features and to create the premise of differentiation of the myocardium structures. Texture is then statistically analyzed using the texture spectrum approach. Texture classification is achieved based on a fuzzy c–means descriptive classifier. The noise sensitivity of the fuzzy c–means classifier is overcome by using the image features. The proposed method is tested on a dataset of 80 echocardiographic ultrasound images in both short-axis and long-axis in apical two chamber view representations, for normal and infarct pathologies. The results established that the entropy-based features provided superior clustering results compared to homogeneity

Kinetics and mechanistic approach to the chromic acid oxidation of l-tryptophan with a spectral detection of chromium(III) product

The kinetics of chromic acid oxidation of l-tryptophan in H2SO4 medium at a constant ionic strength of 0.6 mol dm−3and at 25 °C have been investigated spectrophotometrically. The reaction exhibits a 3:2 stoichiometry (tryptophan:chromic acid). The reaction shows a first order dependence on [chromic acid], a fractional-first order dependence on [tryptophan] and fractional-second order dependence on [acid]. Increasing ionic strength and dielectric constant had no significant effect on the oxidation rate. The final oxidation products of tryptophan were identified as the corresponding aldehyde (indole-3-acetaldehyde), ammonium ion and carbon dioxide. A spectral evidence for the formation of chromium(III) product was obtained. The experimental results suggest formation of an intermediate complex between the protonated tryptophan and chromic acid which decomposes in the rate-determining step to yield the products. The mechanism of such reaction has been proposed. The thermodynamic parameters with respect to the first step of the suggested mechanism were evaluated and discussed

Effects of soil matric suction on retention and percolation of Bacillus subtilis in intact soil cores

Bacillus subtilis endospores (resistant to rifampicin) irrigated on the surface of intact soil cores (20 cm diameter x 8 cm length) which were equilibrated under selected suctions, i.e. 0, 0.5, 2, 5, 10 kPa, were then percolated by saturated water flow. The bacterial retention and percolation percentage were significantly correlated with the suctions. The higher retention with higher suction was explained by micropore storage, attachment to static air-water interface (AWI), and irreversible adsorption to soil particles. The bacterial percolation was mainly controlled by initial replacement of pore water storage, and following reversible detachment process. Another sensitivity experiment with four replicates using lincomycin-resistant B. subtilis at 0 and 0.5 kPa suctions revealed that small increase (0 to 0.5 kPa) in soil matric suction incurred a substantial higher level of bacterial retention. Based on our experimental results, soil matric suction was proposed as a comprehensive parameter to monitor bacterial transport and fate for animal waste disposal (irrigation) and subsurface bioremediation

Proposta de classificação hierarquizada dos modelos de solução para o problema de job shop scheduling A proposition of hierarchical classification for solution models in the job shop scheduling problem

Este artigo propõe uma classificação hierarquizada dos modelos utilizados na solução do problema de programação da produção intermitente do tipo job shop, incluindo tanto os que fornecem solução ótima, quanto os modelos heurísticos mais recentes baseados em métodos de busca estendida. Por meio dessa classificação obteve-se um painel amplo dos modelos existentes, evidenciando as diferentes abordagens do problema e suas soluções, com o objetivo de proporcionar uma orientação preliminar na escolha do modelo de job shop scheduling mais adequado.<br>This paper proposes a hierarchical model classification used in the job shop scheduling problem, including those that provide an optimal solution and the more recent ones based on heuristics, called extended search methods. A panel with the existing models is obtained by this classification, and solutions and approach differences are highlighted with the aim of a preliminary orientation on the choice of a more adequate job shop scheduling model