Automatic Classification of Bright Retinal Lesions via Deep Network Features

The diabetic retinopathy is timely diagonalized through color eye fundus images by experienced ophthalmologists, in order to recognize potential retinal features and identify early-blindness cases. In this paper, it is proposed to extract deep features from the last fully-connected layer of, four different, pre-trained convolutional neural networks. These features are then feeded into a non-linear classifier to discriminate three-class diabetic cases, i.e., normal, exudates, and drusen. Averaged across 1113 color retinal images collected from six publicly available annotated datasets, the deep features approach perform better than the classical bag-of-words approach. The proposed approaches have an average accuracy between 91.23% and 92.00% with more than 13% improvement over the traditional state of art methods.Comment: Preprint submitted to Journal of Medical Imaging | SPIE (Tue, Jul 28, 2017

Automatic Discrimination of Color Retinal Images using the Bag of Words Approach

International audienceDiabetic retinopathy (DR) and age related macular degeneration (ARMD) are among the major causes of visual impairment all over the world. DR is mainly characterized by small red spots, namely microaneurysms and bright lesions, specifically exudates. However, ARMD is mainly identified by tiny yellow or white deposits called drusen. Since exudates might be the only visible signs of the early diabetic retinopathy, there is an increase demand for automatic diagnosis of retinopathy. Exudates and drusen may share similar appearances; as a result discriminating between them plays a key role in improving screening performance. In this research, we investigative the role of bag of words approach in the automatic diagnosis of retinopathy diabetes. Initially, the color retinal images are preprocessed in order to reduce the intra and inter patient variability. Subsequently, SURF (Speeded up Robust Features), HOG (Histogram of Oriented Gradients), and LBP (Local Binary Patterns) descriptors are extracted. We proposed to use single-based and multiple-based methods to construct the visual dictionary by combining the histogram of word occurrences from each dictionary and building a single histogram. Finally, this histogram representation is fed into a support vector machine with linear kernel for classification. The introduced approach is evaluated for automatic diagnosis of normal and abnormal color retinal images with bright lesions such as drusen and exudates. This approach has been implemented on 430 color retinal images, including six publicly available datasets, in addition to one local dataset. The mean accuracies achieved are 97.2% and 99.77% for single-based and multiple-based dictionaries respectively

Detecting and avoiding frontal obstacles from monocular camera for micro unmanned aerial vehicles

In literature, several approaches are trying to make the UAVs fly autonomously i.e., by extracting perspective cues such as straight lines. However, it is only available in well-defined human made environments, in addition to many other cues which require enough texture information. Our main target is to detect and avoid frontal obstacles from a monocular camera using a quad rotor Ar.Drone 2 by exploiting optical flow as a motion parallax, the drone is permitted to fly at a speed of 1 m/s and an altitude ranging from 1 to 4 meters above the ground level. In general, detecting and avoiding frontal obstacle is a quite challenging problem because optical flow has some limitation which should be taken into account i.e. lighting conditions and aperture problem

ES-Rank: evolution strategy learning to rank approach

Learning to Rank (LTR) is one of the current problems in Information Retrieval (IR) that attracts the attention from researchers. The LTR problem is mainly about ranking the retrieved documents for users in search engines, question answering and product recommendation systems. There are a number of LTR approaches from the areas of machine learning and computational intelligence. Most approaches have the limitation of being too slow or not being very effective. This paper investigates the application of evolutionary computation, specifically a (1+1) Evolutionary Strategy called ES-Rank, to tackle the LTR problem. Experimental results from comparing the proposed method to fourteen other approaches from the literature, show that ESRank achieves the overall best performance. Three datasets (MQ2007, MQ2008 and MSLR-WEB10K) from the LETOR benchmark collection and two performance metrics, Mean Average Precision (MAP) and Normalized Discounted Cumulative Gain (NDCG) at top-10 query-document pairs retrieved, were used in the experiments. The contribution of this paper is an effective and efficient method for the LTR problem

Measuring the Impact of Service Quality Dimensions and Product Quality on Customer Satisfaction: The Case of Retail Market in Egypt

Customer satisfaction importance is increasing, as it is a key factor in any business success story. Retailers are very careful regarding the customer satisfaction factor, as it is a key determinant in customer’s decision whether to continue or discontinue their association with the retailer. In the recent years, the number and size of retailers in Egypt increased due to the swift growth in Egyptian population. Foreign hypermarkets such as Spinneys, Carrefour, Lulu, Makro, Panda,etc.have created a severe competition with the local modern hypermarkets and traditional markets. Retailers need for a reliable measure or model to test their service quality and product quality and their impact on customer satisfaction to ensure asustainable competitive advantage. Therefore, theaim of this researchisto measure the impact of service quality dimensions (physical aspects, reliability, personal interaction, policy, and problem solving) and product quality on customer satisfaction in the hypermarket sector in Alexandria, Egypt. In order to achievethis aim, a questionnaire has been created and distributed over a sample of 450 respondents to hypermarket buyers in Alexandria, Egypt. 390 questionnaires were collected with 86.7% response rate from the participants and were analysed by using the SPSS. The results of this research showed that there is a significant positive impact offive variables (physical aspects, personal interaction, policy, problem solving, and product quality) on customer satisfaction. Particularly, the hypermarket policy has the strongest impact on customer satisfaction in hypermarket sector followed by personal interaction, product quality, and physical aspects, where problem-solving factor has the least effect on customer satisfaction. Keywords: Service quality dimensions, product quality, retail market, hypermarket sector, customer satisfaction, Egyp

Optimal boundary control of dynamics responses of piezo actuating micro-beams

AbstractOptimal control theory is formulated and applied to damp out the vibrations of micro-beams where the control action is implemented using piezoceramic actuators. The use of piezoceramic actuators such as PZT in vibration control is preferable because of their large bandwidth, their mechanical simplicity and their mechanical power to produce controlling forces. The objective function is specified as a weighted quadratic functional of the dynamic responses of the micro-beam which is to be minimized at a specified terminal time using continuous piezoelectric actuators. The expenditure of the control forces is included in the objective function as a penalty term. The optimal control law for the micro-beam is derived using a maximum principle developed by Sloss et al. [J.M. Sloss, J.C. Bruch Jr., I.S. Sadek, S. Adali, Maximum principle for optimal boundary control of vibrating structures with applications to beams, Dynamics and Control: An International Journal 8 (1998) 355–375; J.M. Sloss, I.S. Sadek, J.C. Bruch Jr., S. Adali, Optimal control of structural dynamic systems in one space dimension using a maximum principle, Journal of Vibration and Control 11 (2005) 245–261] for one-dimensional structures where the control functions appear in the boundary conditions in the form of moments. The derived maximum principle involves a Hamiltonian expressed in terms of an adjoint variable as well as admissible control functions. The state and adjoint variables are linked by terminal conditions leading to a boundary-initial-terminal value problem. The explicit solution of the problem is developed for the micro-beam using eigenfunction expansions of the state and adjoint variables. The numerical results are given to assess the effectiveness and the capabilities of piezo actuation by means of moments to damp out the vibration of the micro-beam with a minimum level of voltage applied on the piezo actuators

Mechanisms for central cannabinoid receptor 1 evoked sympathoexcitation/pressor response in conscious rats

The main goal of the current study was to elucidate the molecular mechanisms implicated in central cannabinoid receptor 1 (CB1R)-evoked sympathoexcitation/pressor response. In pursuit of this goal, the candidate first characterized the centrally elicited hemodynamic effects of CB1R activation (WIN55,212-2) in a conscious rat model. The results showed that the pressor response elicited by central CB1R stimulation was associated with enhanced neuronal activity of presympathetic neurons in the rostral ventrolateral medulla (RVLM). The findings of multiple in vivo and in vitro studies have suggested a functional crosstalk between central CB1R and orexins. Therefore, the candidate hypothesized that orexin-A/orexin receptor 1 (OX1R) signaling in the RVLM is essential for the central CB1R-mediated pressor response. In support of this hypothesis, central CB1R activation elevated orexin-A level in the RVLM and inhibition of orexin-A/OX1R signaling abrogated the CB1R-evoked pressor effect. On the other hand, central orexin-A/OX1R-evoked pressor response was not affected by prior blockade of central CB1R. Colocalization studies have unraveled close proximity of orexin-A/OX1R to CB1R immuno-reactive neurons and punctate structures in the RVLM, which support the pharmacological findings. Furthermore, the present study delineated a novel role for PI3K/Akt/ERK1/2 signaling in RVLM and nucleus tractus solitarii (NTS) in the sympathoexcitation elicited by central CB1R activation in conscious rats. The latter findings inferred a causal role for a down-regulated PI3K/Akt signaling in the RVLM and NTS in the central CB1R-evoked pressor response. This conclusion is supported by the exacerbation of WIN55,212-2 evoked pressor response following PI3K/Akt inhibition (wortmannin). By contrast, ERK1/2 phosphorylation was enhanced in the same neuronal pools and the pharmacological and molecular studies suggest that this effect, which is mediated, at least partly, via the reduction in PI3K/Akt signaling, contributes to the central CB1R-evoked pressor response. Finally, the findings demonstrated that direct CB1R activation in the RVLM enhanced the activity of two distinct neuronal pools (catecholaminergic and nitroxidergic), which are essential for the central regulation of cardiovascular function. These latter neuronal responses may be linked to the modulation of brainstem GABAergic neurotransmission and subsequently to the central CB1R-evoked sympathoexcitatory and pressor response. The findings yield new insight into a functional crosstalk between CB1R and OX1R signaling in the RVLM, a neuronal pool that is heavily implicated in blood pressure control and in hypertension.  Ph.D

CEMENT BRICKS BASED ON SHREDDED AUTOMOBILE TIRES

The essential target of this is to make good, qualified bricks with economic background and to have several uses than ordinary brick that is utilized in construction of homes or any building. From these useful properties of those blocks are acoustic segregation and thermal insulation also with recovery of many wastes that don’t be benefit from them; create from them jobs to be reused and to make brick economically wise and to be applied for example the insulation. From those squandering, are the shredded used tires after being used and it can’t be used anymore. It was cleared that the ultimate percent that cement brick can withstand was 10%. After the test of acoustic and temperature measurements by EXTECH instrument, explored that automobile tire addition makes a decline in sound and temperature surrounding also decreased it. Which has a good effect on cement brick by enhancing the insulation of sound and thermal where sound insulation from 55 db to 42 db and make thermal insulation where temperature before is 37 oC and then after addition of 10 % which the best percent that cement brick can withstand; temperature becomes 26 oC which make an insulation of about 11 oC. In addition, that shredded used tires decreases cost of cement standard brick by 7.6 %

EFFECT OF ADDITION OF NANO SILICON DIOXIDE TO CEMENT BRICKS: PREPARATION AND CHARACTERICTICS

The aim of the research is to design and produce a durable, and high load, bearing build constructing bricks based on cement, sand, and aggregates with the addition of Nano silica, studying the effect of the added materials to get a background about the impact of the Nano silica on the ability of using such a product. The cement used is 52.5 grade which represent the strength of the cement, sand with particle size 300-600 micrometer, aggregates with diameter lays between 0.5-1 cm better to use smaller size, water, and finally Nano-silica with particle size 17 nm with purity higher than 99.9%. the final size of the produced brick is a cubic shape with 4*4*4 cm in dimension. The research results have been achieved and stated that as the percentage of the Nano silica increase the strength increase and the bricks withstood for more loads and nominated the 10% Nano-silica of the total weight or of the cement weight as the best percentage among the prepared samples percentages and gives a strength of 6.4 MPa