Effect of silver incorporation on the structural and morphological characteristics of RF sputtered indium oxide films.

Radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputtered silver incorporated indium oxide thin films were prepared and their structural and morphological properties were studied using micro- Raman spectroscopy, Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM), Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM) and Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS). Raman modes corresponding to the cubic bixbyite phase of indium oxide were obtained through micro-Raman spectroscopy. AFM images exhibited dense distribution of grains. Elemental analysis using EDS spectra confirmed the presence of indium, silver and oxygen in the prepared films

A New Approach for Model-Based Adaptive Region Growing in Medical Image Analysis

Interaction increases flexibility of segmentation but it leads to undesirable behaviour of an algorithm if knowledge being requested is inappropriate

Manual versus automatic bladder wall thickness measurements: a method comparison study

Purpose To compare repeatability and agreement of conventional ultrasound bladder wall thickness (BWT) measurements with automatically obtained BWT measurements by the BVM 6500 device. Methods Adult patients with lower urinary tract symptoms, urinary incontinence, or postvoid residual urine were urodynamically assessed. During two subsequent cystometry sessions the infusion pump was temporarily stopped at 150 and 250 ml bladder filling to measure BWT with conventional ultrasound and the BVM 6500 device. For each method and each bladder filling, repeatability and variation was assessed by the method of Bland and Altman. Results Fifty unselected patients (30 men, 20 women) aged 21–86 years (median 62.5 years) were prospectively evaluated. Invalid BWT measurements were encountered in 2.1–14% of patients when using the BVM 6500 versus 0% with conventional ultrasound (significant only during the second measurement at 150 ml bladder filling). Mean difference in BWT values between the measurements of one technique was -0.1 to +0.01 mm. Measurement variation between replicate measurements was smaller for conventional ultrasound and the smallest for 250 ml bladder filling. Mean difference between the two techniques was 0.11–0.23 mm and did not differ significantly. The BVM 6500 device was not able to correctly measure BWTs above 4 mm. Conclusions Both BWT measurements are repeatable and agree with each other. However, conventional ultrasound measurements have a smaller measurement variance, can measure BWT in all patients, and BWTs above 4 mm

Valmet: A new validation tool for assessing and improving 3D object segmentation

Extracting 3D structures from volumetric images like MRI or CT is becoming a routine process for diagnosis based on quantitation, for radiotherapy planning, for surgical planning and image-guided intervention, for studying neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative aspects of brain diseases, and for clinical drug trials. Key issues for segmenting anatomical objects from 3D medical images are validity and reliability. We have developed VALMET, a new tool for validation and comparison of object segmentation. New features not available in commercial and public-domain image processing packages ar e the choice between different metrics to describe differences between segmentations and the use of graphical overlay and 3D display for visual assessment of the locality and magnitude of segmentation variability. Input to the tool are an original 3D image (MRI, CT, ultrasound), and a series of segmentations either generated by several human raters and/or by automatic methods (machine..

An Accurate 3D Segmentation Method of the Spinal Canal Applied to CT Data

With the modern treatment planning techniques the accurate definition of the target volume as well as the organs at risk is a crucial step for the treatment outcome. One of the key organs that must be protected during the irradiation treatment is the spinal cord. Nowadays, high resolution computed tomography (CT) data are required to perform accurate treatment planning, and there is the demand for quick but accurate segmentation tools. In this work we present a very simple approach that can accurately extract the spinal canal in three dimensions (3D) from CT images. The user must define only the starting point for the algorithm and the rest of the process is performed automatically. The core of our method is a boundary-tracing algorithm combined with linear interpolation techniques in the longitudinal (z) direction