Systematic segmentation method based on PCA of image hue features for white blood cell counting

Leukocyte (white blood cell, WBC) count is an essential factor that physicians use to diagnose infections and provide adequate treatment. Currently, WBC count is determined manually or semi-automatically, which often leads to miscounting. In this paper, we propose an automated method that uses a bioinspired segmentation mimicking the human perception of color. It is based on the claim that a person can locate WBCs in a blood smear image via the high chromatic contrast. First, by applying principal component analysis over RGB, HSV, and L*a*b* spaces, with specific combinations, pixels of leukocytes present high chromatic variance; this results in increased contrast with the average hue of the other blood smear elements. Second, chromaticity is processed as a feature, without separating hue components; this is different to most of the current automation that perform mathematical operations between hue components in an intuitive way. As a result of this systematic method, WBC recognition is computationally efficient, overlapping WBCs are separated, and the final count is more precise. In experiments with the ALL-IDB benchmark, the performance of the proposed segmentation was assessed by comparing the WBC from the processed images with the ground truth. Compared with previous methods, the proposed method achieved similar results in sensitivity and precision and approximately 0.2% higher specificity and 0.3% higher accuracy for pixel classification in the segmentation stage; as well, the counting results are similar to previous works

API de Google maps para un mapa de conocimiento de los asesores especializados de un centro de desarrollo empresarial

Existen sitios dedicados a asesorar a emprendedores y micro empresarios en temas de compras, producción, innovación, ventas, finanzas, etc. Tanto en México, como en otros países, existen los CDE (Centros de Desarrollo Empresarial) otros denominados Incubadoras de Empresas, donde se brinda apoyo a los emprendedores que inician una nueva empresa. En la Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México, se creó una red de Incubadoras de Empresas en los Centros Universitarios, Una de estas unidades se encuentra en el Centro Universitario UAEM Texcoco, donde se enfocó este proyecto. Una de las misiones de los CDE es ofrecer y llevar a cabo asesorías ante los problemas y retos de las empresas nacientes. Para lo anterior se creó una aplicación Web para administrar el conocimiento a través de un Mapa de Conocimiento. Los usuarios pueden consultar la existencia de conocimiento requerido; si existe, lo podrán visualizar en un mapa con ayuda de la API (Interfaz de Programación de Aplicaciones) de Google Maps. Para su uso, basta un dispositivo con conexión a internet. Esta aplicación busca apoyar a emprendedores y empresarios que tiene las preguntas: ¿El CDE Tiene el conocimiento qué requiero? ¿Quién tiene el conocimiento? ¿Dónde están los portadores del conocimiento? ¿Cómo y dónde los contacto? De existir el conocimiento en el mapa bastará contactar a algún portador y establecer una modalidad para la asesoría requerida. Se parte, de la búsqueda de conocimiento, su existencia, ubicación y forma de contactar al portador del conocimiento. Para lo anterior se logró una aplicación capaz de filtrar un tipo de conocimiento y el mapeo sobre la plataforma de la API de Google Maps

Fisher’s decision tree

Univariate decision trees are classifiers currently used in many data mining applications. This classifier discovers partitions in the input space via hyperplanes that are orthogonal to the axes of attributes, producing a model that can be understood by human experts. One disadvantage of univariate decision trees is that they produce complex and inaccurate models when decision boundaries are not orthogonal to axes. In this paper we introduce the Fisher’s Tree, it is a classifier that takes advantage of dimensionality reduction of Fisher’s linear discriminant and uses the decomposition strategy of decision trees, to come up with an oblique decision tree. Our proposal generates an artificial attribute that is used to split the data in a recursive way. The Fisher’s decision tree induces oblique trees whose accuracy, size, number of leaves and training time are competitive with respect to other decision trees reported in the literature. We use more than ten public available data sets to demonstrate the effectiveness of our method

Classification of mexican paper currency denomination by extracting their discriminative colors

In this paper we describe a machine vision approach to recognize the denomination classes of the Mexican paper currency by extracting their color features. A banknote’s color is characterized by summing all the color vectors of the image’s pixels to obtain a resultant vector, the banknote’s denomination is classified by knowing the orientation of the resulting vector within the RGB space. In order to obtain a more precise characterization of paper currency, the less discriminative colors of each denomination are eliminated from the images; the color selection is applied in the RGB and HSV spaces, separately. Experimental results with the current Mexican banknotes are presented.Proyecto PROMEP 103.5/13/653

Segmentation of images by color features: a survey

En este articulo se hace la revisión del estado del arte sobre la segmentación de imagenes de colorImage segmentation is an important stage for object recognition. Many methods have been proposed in the last few years for grayscale and color images. In this paper, we present a deep review of the state of the art on color image segmentation methods; through this paper, we explain the techniques based on edge detection, thresholding, histogram-thresholding, region, feature clustering and neural networks. Because color spaces play a key role in the methods reviewed, we also explain in detail the most commonly color spaces to represent and process colors. In addition, we present some important applications that use the methods of image segmentation reviewed. Finally, a set of metrics frequently used to evaluate quantitatively the segmented images is shown

Color characterization comparison for machine vision-based fruit recognition

In this paper we present a comparison between three color characterizations methods applied for fruit recognition, two of them are selected from two related works and the third is the authors’ proposal; in the three works, color is represented in the RGB space. The related works characterize the colors considering their intensity data; but employing the intensity data of colors in the RGB space may lead to obtain imprecise models of colors, because, in this space, despite two colors with the same chromaticity if they have different intensities then they represent different colors. Hence, we introduce a method to characterize the color of objects by extracting the chromaticity of colors; so, the intensity of colors does not influence significantly the color extraction. The color characterizations of these two methods and our proposal are implemented and tested to extract the color features of different fruit classes. The color features are concatenated with the shape characteristics, obtained using Fourier descriptors, Hu moments and four basic geometric features, to form a feature vector. A feed-forward neural network is employed as classifier; the performance of each method is evaluated using an image database with 12 fruit classes

Computing the number of groups for color image segmentation using competitive neural networks and fuzzy c-means

Se calcula la cantidad de grupos en que los vectores de color son agrupados usando fuzzy c-meansFuzzy C-means (FCM) is one of the most often techniques employed for color image segmentation; the drawback with this technique is the number of clusters the data, pixels’ colors, is grouped must be defined a priori. In this paper we present an approach to compute the number of clusters automatically. A competitive neural network (CNN) and a self-organizing map (SOM) are trained with chromaticity samples of different colors; the neural networks process each pixel of the image to segment, where the activation occurrences of each neuron are collected in a histogram. The number of clusters is set by computing the number of the most activated neurons. The number of clusters is adjusted by comparing the similitude of colors. We show successful segmentation results obtained using images of the Berkeley segmentation database by training only one time the CNN and SOM, using only chromaticity data

Color image segmentation using saturated RGB colors and decoupling the intensity from the hue

Although the RGB space is accepted to represent colors, it is not adequate for color processing. In related works the colors are usually mapped to other color spaces more suitable for color processing, but it may imply an important computational load because of the non-linear operations involved to map the colors between spaces; nevertheless, it is common to find in the state-of-the-art works using the RGB space. In this paper we introduce an approach for color image segmentation, using the RGB space to represent and process colors; where the chromaticity and the intensity are processed separately, mimicking the human perception of color, reducing the underlying sensitiveness to intensity of the RGB space. We show the hue of colors can be processed by training a self-organizing map with chromaticity samples of the most saturated colors, where the training set is small but very representative; once the neural network is trained it can be employed to process any given image without training it again. We create an intensity channel by extracting the magnitudes of the color vectors; by using the Otsu method, we compute the threshold values to divide the intensity range in three classes. We perform experiments with the Berkeley segmentation database; in order to show the benefits of our proposal, we perform experiments with a neural network trained with different colors by subsampling the RGB space, where the chromaticity and the intensity are processed jointly. We evaluate and compare quantitatively the segmented images obtained with both approaches. We claim to obtain competitive results with respect to related works

Contrast enhacenment of RGB color images by histogram equalization of color vectors' intensities

Mejora del contraste de imagenes de color RGBThe histogram equalization (HE) is a technique developed for image contrast enhancement of grayscale images. For RGB (Red, Green, Blue) color images, the HE is usually applied in the color channels separately; due to correlation between the color channels, the chromaticity of colors is modified. In order to overcome this problem, the colors of the image are mapped to different color spaces where the chromaticity and the intensity of colors are decoupled; then, the HE is applied in the intensity channel. Mapping colors between different color spaces may involve a huge computational load, because the mathematical operations are not linear. In this paper we present a proposal for contrast enhancement of RGB color images, without mapping the colors to different color spaces, where the HE is applied to the intensities of the color vectors. We show that the images obtained with our proposal are very similar to the images processed in the HSV (Hue, Saturation, Value) and L*a*b* color spaces

Data selection based on decision tree for SVM classification on large data sets

Support Vector Machine (SVM) has important properties such as a strong mathematical background and a better generalization capability with respect to other classification methods. On the other hand, the major drawback of SVM occurs in its training phase, which is computationally expensive and highly dependent on the size of input data set. In this study, a new algorithm to speed up the training time of SVM is presented; this method selects a small and representative amount of data from data sets to improve training time of SVM. The novel method uses an induction tree to reduce the training data set for SVM, producing a very fast and high-accuracy algorithm. According to the results, the proposed algorithm produces results with similar accuracy and in a faster way than the current SVM implementations.Proyecto UAEM 3771/2014/C