Infrared thermography as an imaging diagnostics tool for equine medicine

Summary Background: Medical imaging techniques can significantly aid correct diagnosis and have become essential to advanced veterinary care. Infrared thermography (IRT) is a novel and so far scarcely used tool in veterinary medicine in Hungary. IRT records the emitted heat of the body in a thermal map. Abnormalities in the thermal signature can indicate potential anomalies. Objectives: By highlighting the capabilities of IRT in equine medicine, the authors aim to popularise the method among practitioners. The advantages of IRT and its potentials as a supplementary diagnostic tool are reviewed. Limitations of the technique are also discussed, supplemented by guidance for how to overcome them. Five case studies are presented to illustrate the versatility of IRT and pro vide examples of body parts that can be efficiently examined. Materials and Methods: An ICI™ 7640 IR PAD 640P infrared camera was used to record the thermal signature in areas of veterinary interest in five horses. Thermo grams were then evaluated to detect and localise potential pathologies. Results and Discussion: IRT was successfully used to identify (1) an asym metrical thermal signature on the horse’s back due to an ill-fitted saddle; (2) increased temperature in the area of left splenius cervicis; (3) a fractured molar in the premaxilla-maxilla region; (4) a chip fracture in the proximal sesamoid bone of the right forelimb; and (5) inflammation of the hoof on the right forelimb. IRT can be used efficiently as a comparatively inexpensive and rapid pre-diagnostics tool to localise or establish a strong suspicion of certain abnormalities before directing the patient towards further imaging diagnostics (e.g. PET/CT, MRI). The authors advise to include thermography in veterinary education and advocate the establishment of a standardised framework for veterinary IRT concerning imaging methods, regulations, and environmental conditions

Cultural evolution of military camouflage

While one has evolved and the other been consciously created, animal and military camouflage are expected to show many similar design principles. Using a unique database of calibrated photographs of camouflage uniform patterns, processed using texture and colour analysis methods from computer vision, we show that the parallels with biology are deeper than design for effective concealment. Using two case studies we show that, like many animal colour patterns, military camouflage can serve multiple functions. Following the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, countries that became more Western-facing in political terms converged on NATO patterns in camouflage texture and colour. Following the break-up of the former Yugoslavia, the resulting states diverged in design, becoming more similar to neighbouring countries than the ancestral design. None of these insights would have been obtained using extant military approaches to camouflage design, which focus solely on concealment. Moreover, our computational techniques for quantifying pattern offer new tools for comparative biologists studying animal coloration

The biology of color

Coloration mediates the relationship between an organism and its environment in important ways, including social signaling, antipredator defenses, parasitic exploitation, thermoregulation, and protection from ultraviolet light, microbes, and abrasion. Methodological breakthroughs are accelerating knowledge of the processes underlying both the production of animal coloration and its perception, experiments are advancing understanding of mechanism and function, and measurements of color collected noninvasively and at a global scale are opening windows to evolutionary dynamics more generally. Here we provide a roadmap of these advances and identify hitherto unrecognized challenges for this multi- and interdisciplinary field

The biology of color

Coloration mediates the relationship between an organism and its environment in important ways, including social signaling, antipredator defenses, parasitic exploitation, thermoregulation, and protection from ultraviolet light, microbes, and abrasion. Methodological breakthroughs are accelerating knowledge of the processes underlying both the production of animal coloration and its perception, experiments are advancing understanding of mechanism and function, and measurements of color collected noninvasively and at a global scale are opening windows to evolutionary dynamics more generally. Here we provide a roadmap of these advances and identify hitherto unrecognized challenges for this multi- and interdisciplinary field

Data for texture, average colour and quantised colour for camouflage uniforms

.RData file contents: PatternNames - camouflage pattern identifier; SumMaxResponses - sum of maximum responses per pixels (across logical maps) for each Log-Gabor filter (described by spatial frequency and orientation); ColDistAvgColours - pairwise distances of average colours of patterns; ColDistQntColours - pairwise distances of quantised colours of pattern