GLCM-based chi-square histogram distance for automatic detection of defects on patterned textures

Chi-square histogram distance is one of the distance measures that can be used to find dissimilarity between two histograms. Motivated by the fact that texture discrimination by human vision system is based on second-order statistics, we make use of histogram of gray-level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM) that is based on second-order statistics and propose a new machine vision algorithm for automatic defect detection on patterned textures. Input defective images are split into several periodic blocks and GLCMs are computed after quantizing the gray levels from 0-255 to 0-63 to keep the size of GLCM compact and to reduce computation time. Dissimilarity matrix derived from chi-square distances of the GLCMs is subjected to hierarchical clustering to automatically identify defective and defect-free blocks. Effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated through experiments on defective real-fabric images of 2 major wallpaper groups (pmm and p4m groups).Comment: IJCVR, Vol. 2, No. 4, 2011, pp. 302-31

Physiotherapy in Treatment of Oral Submucous Fibrosis Related Restricted Mouth Opening

BACKGROUND: Multiple treatment approaches including surgical and non surgical therapies have been tried to improve restricted mouth opening in Oral Submucous Fibrosis (OSMF).AIM: To evaluate the effectiveness of physiotherapy in improving mouth opening, tongue protrusion and cheek flexibility in patients with OSMF.MATERIALS AND METHODS: Forty eight OSMF patients were assigned into three groups by drawing chits. Group 1: patients receiving intralesional injections of dexamethasone and hyaluronidase; Group 2: patients receiving physiotherapy; Group 3: patients receiving both intralesional injections and physiotherapy. Mouth opening, tongue protrusion and cheek flexibility was assessed in all the patients before intervention and at different time intervals of 2 weeks, 4 weeks and 6 weeks after treatment.RESULTS: Intragroup: In Group 2, the mean values of mouth opening, tongue protrusion and cheek flexibility were increased in time but were statistically insignificant. The mean values of mouth opening, tongue protrusion and cheek flexibility were markedly increased over a period of time in Group 3 and cheek flexibility was found to be statistically significant (p = 0.05).Intergroup: The mean differences of mouth opening, cheek flexibility and tongue protrusion was found to be maximum in group 3 and it was statistically significant (p=0.03) for tongue protrusion.CONCLUSION: Concurrent treatment with physiotherapy and intralesional injections was found to improve the mean mouth opening, tongue protrusion and cheek flexibility. Hence, physiotherapy can be used as an adjuvant treatment for OSMF as it is non invasive, more patient compliant and doesn’t require any financial resources

Age-related responses of right ventricle in swim-trained rats: Changes in lactate and pyruvate contents and lactate dehydrogenase activity

Age related changes in carbohydrate substrates such as, glucose, glycogen, pyruvic acid and lactic acid and the activity of lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) and LDH isoenzyme profile were evaluated in the right ventricle (RV) of swim-trained rats of 6- (adult), 12- (middle-aged) and 18- (old) months-of-age. Moderate hypertrophy was seen in the heart and RV in response to training in all age groups with the 12 months exhibiting a significant increase. While resting levels of pyruvate and glucose in the RV showed small elevations in adult and middle-aged rats, lactic acid showed reductions in all ages. Glycogen supercompensation was seen in the RV of trained animals. These age-related alterations in RV were associated with decreases in blood lactic acid and glucose in the trained rats belonging to all ages. Total protein of the RV decreased with age and exercise increased the content. Total LDH and M4-LDH activities decreased with age. However, training increased their activities in all ages. These changes in the RV suggests that swimming activity produces adaptations (e.g. increased LDH and M4) in all age groups. Considering the degree of adaptations, it can be suggested that adult and middle-aged are suitable for initiating swim-training programs, but not in old age