Automatic detection of larynx cancer from contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance images

Detection of larynx cancer from medical imaging is important for the quantification and for the definition of target volumes in radiotherapy treatment planning (RTP). Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is being increasingly used in RTP due to its high resolution and excellent soft tissue contrast. Manually detecting larynx cancer from sequential MRI is time consuming and subjective. The large diversity of cancer in terms of geometry, non-distinct boundaries combined with the presence of normal anatomical regions close to the cancer regions necessitates the development of automatic and robust algorithms for this task. A new automatic algorithm for the detection of larynx cancer from 2D gadoliniumenhanced T1-weighted (T1+Gd) MRI to assist clinicians in RTP is presented. The algorithm employs edge detection using spatial neighborhood information of pixels and incorporates this information in a fuzzy c-means clustering process to robustly separate different tissues types. Furthermore, it utilizes the information of the expected cancerous location for cancer regions labeling. Comparison of this automatic detection system with manual clinical detection on real T1+Gd axial MRI slices of 2 patients (24 MRI slices) with visible larynx cancer yields an average dice similarity coefficient of 0.78±0.04 and average root mean square error of 1.82±0.28 mm. Preliminary results show that this fully automatic system can assist clinicians in RTP by obtaining quantifiable and non-subjective repeatable detection results in a particular time-efficient and unbiased fashion

Modified fuzzy c-means clustering for automatic tongue base tumour extraction from MRI data

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a widely used imaging modality to extract tumour regions to assist in radiotherapy and surgery planning. Extraction of a tongue base tumour from MRI is challenging due to variability in its shape, size, intensities and fuzzy boundaries. This paper presents a new automatic algorithm that is shown to be able to extract tongue base tumour from gadolinium-enhanced T1-weighted (T1+Gd) MRI slices. In this algorithm, knowledge of tumour location is added to the objective function of standard fuzzy c-means (FCM) to extract the tumour region. Experimental results on 9 real MRI slices demonstrate that there is good agreement between manual and automatic extraction results with dice similarity coefficient (DSC) of 0.77±0.08

A novel decentralised system architecture for multi-camera target tracking

Target tracking in a multi-camera system is an active and challenging research that in many systems requires video synchronisation and knowledge of the camera set-up and layout. In this paper a highly flexible, modular and decentralised system architecture is presented for multi-camera target tracking with relaxed synchronisation constraints among camera views. Moreover, the system does not rely on positional information to handle camera hand-off events. As a practical application, the system itself can, at any time, automatically select the best target view available, to implicitly solve occlusion. Further, to validate the proposed architecture, an extension to a multi-camera environment of the colour-based IMS-SWAD tracker is used. The experimental results show that the tracker can successfully track a chosen target in multiple views, in both indoor and outdoor environments, with non-overlapping and overlapping camera views

Deep convolutional spiking neural network based hand gesture recognition

Novel technologies for EMG (Electromyogram) based hand gesture recognition have been investigated for many industrial applications. In this paper, a novel approach which is based on a specific designed spiking convolution neural network which is fed by a novel EMG signal energy density map is presented. The experimental results indicate that the new approach not only rapidly decreases the required processing time but also increases the average recognition accuracy to 98.76% based on the Strathclyde dataset and to 98.21% based on the CapgMyo open source dataset. A relative comparison of experimental results between the proposed novel EMG based hand gesture recognition methodology and other similar approaches indicates the superior effectiveness of the new design

Pulse Active Transform (PAT): A non-invertible transformation with application to ECG biometric authentication

This paper presents a new transformation technique called the Pulse Active transform (PAT). The PAT uses a series of harmonically related periodic triangular waveforms to decompose a signal into a finite set of pulse active features. These features incorporate the signal's information in the pulse active domain, and which are subsequently processed for some desired application. PAT is non-invertible thus ensuring complete security of the original signal source. In this paper PAT is demonstrated on an ECG signal and used for biometric authentication. The new transformation technique is tested on 112 PTB subjects. It is shown in this paper that the new transformation has a superior performance compared to the conventional characteristic based feature extraction methods with additional security to avoid recovery of the original ECG

Depth Image Layers Separation (DILS) algorithm of image view synthesis based on stereo vision

A new Depth Image Layers Separation (DILS) algorithm for synthesizing inter-view images based on disparity depth map layers representation is presented. The approach is to separate the depth map into several layers identified through histogram-based clustering. Each layer is extracted using inter-view interpolation to create objects based on location and depth. DILS is a new paradigm in selecting interesting image locations based on depth, but also in producing new image representations that allow objects or parts of an image to be described without the need of segmentation and identification. The image view synthesis can reduce the configuration complexity of multi-camera arrays in 3D imagery and free-viewpoint applications. The simulation results show that depth layer separation is able to create inter-view images that may be integrated with other techniques such as occlusion handling processes. The DILS algorithm can be implemented using both simple as well as sophisticated stereo matching methods to synthesize inter-view images

Modified Capsule Neural Network (Mod-CapsNet) for indoor home scene recognition

In this paper, a Modified Capsule Neural Network (Mod-CapsNet) with a pooling layer but without the squash function is used for recognition of indoor home scenes which are represented in grayscale. This Mod-CapsNet produced an accuracy of 70% compared to the 17.2% accuracy produced by a standard CapsNet. Since there is a lack of larger datasets related to indoor home scenes, to obtain better accuracy with smaller datasets is also one of the important aims in the paper. The number of images used for training and testing is 20,000 and 5000 respectively, all of dimension 128X128. The analysis proves that in the indoor home scene recognition task the combination of the capsule without a squash function and with max-pooling layers works better than by using capsules with convolutional layers. Indoor home scenes are specifically focused towards analysing capsules performance on datasets whose images have similarities but are, nonetheless, quite different. For example, tables may be present in living rooms and dining rooms even though these are quite different rooms

Assistive technology evolving as intelligent system

Different evolving technologies surround humans today. Among the various technologies, Assistive Technology has still not established itself firmly because there is an absence of proper integration of this technology with human life. However, in the future, it will become one of the most important and vital phenomena in everyone's life. Because humans want to make their life easier and longer and these are the reasons for the rapid growth in demand for Assistive Technology. Therefore, improvements in the technology and the way it is applied are essential and, for this reason, there is a requirement of a detailed study of the technology. This paper demonstrates the different milestones achieved in assistive technology by using different techniques to attempt to improve intelligence in assistive systems; and also, it describes the gaps that are still present even after such extensive works and, which are required to be either resolved or bridged. This study is done to understand where the assistive technology is today and in which direction it needs to get directed

Automatic misclassification rejection for LDA classifier using ROC curves

This paper presents a technique to improve the performance of an LDA classifier by determining if the predicted classification output is a misclassification and thereby rejecting it. This is achieved by automatically computing a class specific threshold with the help of ROC curves. If the posterior probability of a prediction is below the threshold, the classification result is discarded. This method of minimizing false positives is beneficial in the control of electromyography (EMG ) based upper-limb prosthetic devices. It is hypothesized that a unique EMG pattern is associated with a specific hand gesture. In reality, however, EMG signals are difficult to distinguish, particularly in the case of multiple finger motions, and hence classifiers are trained to recognize a set of individual gestures. However, it is imperative that misclassifications be avoided because they result in unwanted prosthetic arm motions which are detrimental to device controllability. This warrants the need for the proposed technique wherein a misclassified gesture prediction is rejected resulting in no motion of the prosthetic arm. The technique was tested using surface EMG data recorded from thirteen amputees performing seven hand gestures. Results show the number of misclassifications was effectively reduced, particularly in cases with low original classification accuracy

Indoor home scene recognition using capsule neural networks

This paper presents the use of a class of Deep Neural Networks for recognizing indoor home scenes so as to aid Intelligent Assistive Systems (IAS) in performing indoor services to assist elderly or infirm people. Identifying exact indoor location is important so that objects associated with particular tasks can be located speedily and efficiently irrespective of position or orientation. In this way, IAS developed for providing services may become more efficient in accomplishing designated tasks satisfactorily. There are many Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) which have been developed for outdoor scene classification and, also, for interior (not necessarily indoor home) scene classification. However, to date, there are no CNNs which are trained, validated and tested on indoor home scene datasets as there appears to be an absence of sufficiently large databases of home scenes. Nonetheless, it is important to train systems which are meant to operate within home environments with the correct relevant data. To counteract this problem, it is proposed that a different type of network is used, which is not very deep (i.e., a network which does not have too many layers) but which can attain sufficiently high classification accuracy using smaller training datasets. A type of neural network likely to help achieve this is a Capsule Neural Network (CapsNet). In this paper, 20,000 indoor home scenes were used for training the CapsNet, and 5000 images were used for testing it. The validation accuracy achieved is 71% and testing accuracy achieved is 70%