Unsupervised tissue image segmentation through object-oriented texture

This paper presents a new algorithm for the unsupervised segmentation of tissue images. It relies on using the spatial information of cytological tissue components. As opposed to the previous study, it does not only use this information in defining its homogeneity measures, but it also uses it in its region growing process. This algorithm has been implemented and tested. Its visual and quantitative results are compared with the previous study. The results show that the proposed segmentation algorithm is more robust in giving better accuracies with less number of segmented regions. © 2010 IEEE

Tag suggestr: Automatic photo tag expansion using visual information for photo sharing websites

In this paper, we propose an automatic photo tag expansion system for the community photo collections, such as Flickr. Our aim is to suggest relevant tags for a target photograph uploaded to the system by a user, by incorporating the visual and textual cues from other related photographs. As the first step, the system requires the user to add only a few initial tags for each uploaded photo. These initial tags are used to retrieve related photos including the same tags in their tag lists. Then the set of candidate tags collected from a large pool of photos is weighted according to the similarity of the target photo to the retrieved photo including the tag. Finally, the tags in the highest rankings are used to automatically expand the tags of the target photo. The experimental results on Flickr photos show that, the use of visual similarity of semantically relevant photos to recommend tags improves the quality of suggested tags compared to only text-based systems. © 2008 Springer Berlin Heidelberg

Field Studies

One way to implement and evaluate the effectiveness of recommendation systems in software engineering is to conduct field studies. Field studies are important as they are the extension of laboratory experiments into real-life situations of organizations and/or society. They bring greater realism to the phenomena that are under study. However, field studies require following a rigorous research approach with many challenges attached, such as difficulties in implementing the research design, achieving sufficient control, replication, validity, and reliability. In practice, another challenge is to find organizations who are prepared to be studied. In this chapter, we provide a step-by-step process for the construction and deployment of recommendation systems in software engineering in the field. We also emphasize three main challenges (organizational, data, design) encountered during field studies, both in general and specifically with respect to software organizations

Body mass index and complications following major gastrointestinal surgery: A prospective, international cohort study and meta-analysis

Aim Previous studies reported conflicting evidence on the effects of obesity on outcomes after gastrointestinal surgery. The aims of this study were to explore the relationship of obesity with major postoperative complications in an international cohort and to present a metaanalysis of all available prospective data. Methods This prospective, multicentre study included adults undergoing both elective and emergency gastrointestinal resection, reversal of stoma or formation of stoma. The primary end-point was 30-day major complications (Clavien–Dindo Grades III–V). A systematic search was undertaken for studies assessing the relationship between obesity and major complications after gastrointestinal surgery. Individual patient meta-analysis was used to analyse pooled results. Results This study included 2519 patients across 127 centres, of whom 560 (22.2%) were obese. Unadjusted major complication rates were lower in obese vs normal weight patients (13.0% vs 16.2%, respectively), but this did not reach statistical significance (P = 0.863) on multivariate analysis for patients having surgery for either malignant or benign conditions. Individual patient meta-analysis demonstrated that obese patients undergoing surgery formalignancy were at increased risk of major complications (OR 2.10, 95% CI 1.49–2.96, P < 0.001), whereas obese patients undergoing surgery for benign indications were at decreased risk (OR 0.59, 95% CI 0.46–0.75, P < 0.001) compared to normal weight patients. Conclusions In our international data, obesity was not found to be associated with major complications following gastrointestinal surgery. Meta-analysis of available prospective data made a novel finding of obesity being associated with different outcomes depending on whether patients were undergoing surgery for benign or malignant disease