Tree Growth and Climate Relationship : dynamics of Scots Pine (Pinus Sylvestris L.) Growing in the Near-Source Region of the Combined Heat and Power Plant During the Development of the Pro-Ecological Strategy in Poland

Since the 1990s, the emission of pollutants was reduced in a majority of Polish and developing country factories whereas the level of energy production was similar to that prior to the 1990s. The conifer investigated in this study has grown for many years under the stress of industrial pollution. Despite this, the trees are preserved, to a large extent, sensitive to the natural climatic factors. We present a complex analysis of the climatic (sunshine, temperature, precipitation, humidity, and wind circulation) and anthropogenic factors influencing the radial increment dynamics of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) growing in the vicinity of the combined heat and power station in Łaziska (Poland). We analyzed the spatiotemporal distribution of growth reductions, the depth of reduction with respect to the distance from the emitter, the relationship between tree growth and climate during the industry development period and during proecological strategy application . Samples of carbon isotopic composition in pine needles from 2012 to 2013 were additionally determined. Pines series of 3 positions indicate that they have a similar sensitivity to most climatic elements of the previous and given year, but there is also a different rhythm between the studied populations of incremental growth of pines. The causes of diversity are due to the different types of habitat (site types) and industrial pollution. The variation in carbon stable isotopic composition in pine needles was connected with an increase of CO2

Automatic mobile warning system against people with elevated body temperature

The paper proposes a system that allows for the automatic detection of people with elevated body temperature and estimates distance from them using a smartphone-type device and a single mobile thermal camera. The algorithm automatically finds and selects humans with the highest temperature, and tracks changes in their position in an image sequence. On the basis of the change in the position of the human head in the image, in subsequent frames, the algorithm estimates the distance between camera and human. Owing to the use of fast machine-learning methods, the proposed system can immediately alert the user about the presence of a people with an elevated temperature at a distance of 1–3 m as soon as it appears in the field of view of the camera. The effectiveness of the algorithm was assessed as the ratio of correct distance classifications in the test image set to the total number of test images. Values ranging from 73% to 100% were obtained for over 4000 images of humans at different distances. The proposed method allows for the quick and completely automatic warning aboutt people with elevated temperature, and can be used in popular Android mobile devices

A new method for detecting the outer corneal contour in images from an ultra‑fast Scheimpflug camera

BACKGROUND: The Corvis® ST tonometer is an innovative device which, by combining a classic non-contact tonometer with an ultra-fast Scheimpflug camera, provides a number of parameters allowing for the assessment of corneal biomechanics. The acquired biomechanical parameters improve medical diagnosis of selected eye diseases. One of the key elements in biomechanical measurements is the correct corneal contour detection, which is the basis for further calculations. The presented study deals with the problem of outer corneal edge detection based on a series of images from the afore-mentioned device. Corneal contour detection is the first and extremely important stage in the acquisition and analysis of corneal dynamic parameters. RESULT: A total of 15,400 images from the Corvis® ST tonometer acquired from 110 patients undergoing routine ophthalmologic examinations were analysed. A method of outer corneal edge detection on the basis of a series of images from the Corvis® ST was proposed. The method was compared with known and commonly used edge detectors: Sobel, Roberts, and Canny operators, as well as others, known from the literature. The analysis was carried out in MATLAB® version 9.0.0.341360 (R2016a) with the Image Processing Toolbox (version 9.4) and the Neural Network Toolbox (version 9.0). The method presented in this paper provided the smallest values of the mean error (0.16%), stability (standard deviation 0.19%) and resistance to noise, characteristic for Corvis® ST tonometry tests, compared to the methods known from the literature. The errors were 5.78 ± 9.19%, 3.43 ± 6.21%, and 1.26 ± 3.11% for the Roberts, Sobel, and Canny methods, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The proposed new method for detecting the outer corneal contour increases the accuracy of intraocular pressure measurements. It can be used to analyse dynamic parameters of the cornea

Calibration and segmentation of skin areas in hyperspectral imaging for the needs of dermatology

Introduction: Among the currently known imaging methods, there exists hyperspectral imaging. This imaging fills the gap in visible light imaging with conventional, known devices that use classical CCDs. A major problem in the study of the skin is its segmentation and proper calibration of the results obtained. For this purpose, a dedicated automatic image analysis algorithm is proposed by the paper's authors. Material and method: The developed algorithm was tested on data acquired with the Specim camera. Images were related to different body areas of healthy patients. The resulting data were anonymized and stored in the output format, source dat (ENVI File) and raw. The frequency. of the data obtained ranged from 397 to 1030 nm. Each image was recorded every 0.79 nm, which in total gave 800 2D images for each subject. A total of 36' 000 2D images in dat format and the same number of images in the raw format were obtained for 45 full hyperspectral measurement sessions. As part of the paper, an image analysis algorithm using known analysis methods as well as new ones developed by the authors was proposed. Among others, filtration with a median filter, the Canny filter, conditional opening and closing operations and spectral analysis were used. The algorithm was implemented in Matlab and C and is used in practice. Results: The proposed method enables accurate segmentation for 36' 000 measured 2D images at the level of 7.8%. Segmentation is carried out fully automatically based on the reference ray spectrum. In addition, brightness calibration of individual 2D images is performed for the subsequent wavelengths. For a few segmented areas, the analysis time using Intel Core i5 CPU RAM [email protected] 4GB does not exceed 10 s. Conclusions: The obtained results confirm the usefulness of the applied method for image analysis and processing in dermatological practice. In particular, it is useful in the quantitative evaluation of skin lesions. Such analysis can be performed fully automatically without operator's intervention

Methods of measuring the iridocorneal angle in tomographic images of the anterior segment of the eye

Introduction: This paper presents the problem of automatic measurement of the iridocorneal angle in tomographic images of the anterior segment of the eye. It includes the results of the comparison of well-known methods for measuring the iridocorneal angle with new methods, proposed in this paper. All these methods concern tomographic image analysis and processing.Material and method: In total, approximately 100'000 tomographic images (from about 6'000 patients) were analysed. They were obtained using two devices: SOCT Copernicus (Optopol Tech. SA, Zawiercie, Poland) and Visante OCT (Carl Zeiss Meditec, Inc, Dublin, California, USA). The patients, aged 12 to 78 years with varying degrees of the iridocorneal angle pathology, were from the region of Silesia, Poland. The images were in DICOM or RAW formats and analysed in the software developed by the authors for the purposes of this study.Results: The results indicate that the measurement method proposed by the authors, which is based on the calculation of the minimum distance between the iris and the cornea in the adopted area, is the most accurate. For this method sensitivity was 0.88, specificity 0.89 and the area under the Receiver Operating Characteristic curve (AUC) was 0.88. The other known methods for measuring the iridocorneal angle gave worse results, that is, for example, for the measurement of the distance between the iris and the cornea AUC = 0.87, sensitivity = 0.86 and specificity = 0.71. For another well-known method of measuring the iridocorneal angle AUC = 0.77, sensitivity = 0.82 and specificity = 0.61.Conclusions: The study proved that the proposed method of measuring the minimum distance between the iris and the cornea within the adopted area is the most effective in the classification of the iridocorneal angle in patients with a high degree of pathology of all the compared measurement methods based on tomographic images. However, it requires fully automated measurement

Free radicals properties of gamma-irradiated penicillin-derived antibiotics : piperacillin, ampicillin, and crystalline penicillin

The aim of this work was to determine the concentrations and properties of free radicals in piperacillin, ampicillin, and crystalline penicillin after gamma irradiation. The radicals were studied by electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy using an X-band spectrometer (9.3 GHz). Gamma irradiation was performed at a dose of 25 kGy. One- and two-exponential functions were fitted to the experimental data, in order to assess the influence of the antibiotics’ storage time on the measured EPR lines. After gamma irradiation, complex EPR lines were recorded confirming the presence of a large number of free radicals formed during the irradiation. For all tested antibiotics, concentrations of free radicals and parameters of EPR spectra changed with storage time. The results obtained demonstrate that concentration of free radicals and other spectroscopic parameters can be used to select the optimal parameters of radiation sterilization of β-lactam antibiotics. The most important parameters are the constants τ (τ 1(A),(I) and τ 2(A),(I)) and K (K 0(A),(I), K 1(A),(I), K 2(A),(I)) of the exponential functions that describe free radicals decay during samples storage

The Electrical Activity of the Orbicularis Oris Muscle in Children with Down Syndrome—A Preliminary Study

The aim of this study was to assess the electrical activity of the superior (SOO) and inferior (IOO) orbicularis oris muscles in children with Down syndrome (DS) and in children without DS. After applying the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 30 subjects were eligible to participate in the later stages of the research—15 subjects with DS (mean age 10.1 1.1) and 15 healthy controls (mean age 9.8 1.0). The electrical potentials of the SOO and IOO muscles were recorded using a DAB-Bluetooth electromyography machine (Zebris Medical GmbH, Germany) during the following tasks: At clinical rest, saliva swallowing, lip protrusion, lip compression, and production of the syllable/pa/. The Mann–Whitney U test was conducted to compare the study results between the groups. An analysis of the electromyographical (EMG) recordings showed that the electrical activity of the orbicularis oris muscle in children with DS and lip incompetence was significantly higher compared to healthy children during saliva swallowing, lip compression, and when producing the syllable/pa/, and this may suggest greater muscular effort due to the need to seal the lips during these functional conditions

Mobile sailing robot for automatic estimation of fish density and monitoring water quality

Introduction: The paper presents the methodology and the algorithm developed to analyze sonar images focused on fish detection in small water bodies and measurement of their parameters: volume, depth and the GPS location. The final results are stored in a table and can be exported to any numerical environment for further analysis.Material and method: The measurement method for estimating the number of fish using the automatic robot is based on a sequential calculation of the number of occurrences of fish on the set trajectory. The data analysis from the sonar concerned automatic recognition of fish using the methods of image analysis and processing.Results: Image analysis algorithm, a mobile robot together with its control in the 2.4 GHz band and full cryptographic communication with the data archiving station was developed as part of this study. For the three model fish ponds where verification of fish catches was carried out (548, 171 and 226 individuals), the measurement error for the described method was not exceeded 8%.Summary: Created robot together with the developed software has features for remote work also in the variety of harsh weather and environmental conditions, is fully automated and can be remotely controlled using Internet. Designed system enables fish spatial location (GPS coordinates and the depth). The purpose of the robot is a non-invasive measurement of the number of fish in water reservoirs and a measurement of the quality of drinking water consumed by humans, especially in situations where local sources of pollution could have a significant impact on the quality of water collected for water treatment for people and when getting to these places is difficult. The systematically used robot equipped with the appropriate sensors, can be part of early warning system against the pollution of water used by humans (drinking water, natural swimming pools) which can be dangerous for their health

Diagnosis of Temporomandibular disorders using thermovision imagin

Temporomandibular joint dysfunction (TMD) is a chronic disease of various etiologies. Correct TMD diagnosis enables to apply effective treatment and significantly improves the quality of patients’ lives. One of the diagnostic methods subjected to evaluation in recent years is thermography, which enables safe, noninvasive, and quick imaging of the temperature distribution of temporomandibular joint-associated tissues. )is paper, based on Medline, Dentistry & Oral Sciences Source, Academic Search Ultimate, Medline Complete databases, presents basic information related to thermovision imaging and outlines the direction of research conducted in recent years which fight with difficulties in the interpretation of thermograms that require specialized, dedicated analysis and processing of the obtained images. )e problem concerns also no standardized protocol for measuring masticatory muscle temperature

Assessment of periodontium temperature changes under orthodontic force by using objective and automatic classifier

Background: Orthodontic elastics are used in orthodontic treatment with fixed braces. The effect of class I elastics on changing gingiva temperature as a periodontal component was investigated. Methods: To evaluate the temperature changes, objective and automatic classifiers were used to determine the sensitivity and specificity of the measurement. Results: Before putting on the elastics, the average gingival temperature of all 120 patients was 34.72 ± 0.7548 ◦ C. Putting on the elastics for 10 min slightly increased the temperature to 34.81 ± 0.5938 ◦ C; however, this is not a statistically significant change (p > 0.05). Conclusion: It is concluded that putting an elastic band on does not significantly affect the gingiva temperature change. The use of class I elastics in orthodontic treatment in patients with healthy periodontium does not significantly change the periodontal temperature, which indirectly proves the production of safe orthodontic forces that can be used in the clinic. The use of artificial intelligence in the assessment of the temperature of the gingiva makes it possible to exclude factors that may disturb the objective thermographic analysis