Plantar fascia segmentation and thickness estimation in ultrasound images

Ultrasound (US) imaging offers significant potential in diagnosis of plantar fascia (PF) injury and monitoring treatment. In particular US imaging has been shown to be reliable in foot and ankle assessment and offers a real-time effective imaging technique that is able to reliably confirm structural changes, such as thickening, and identify changes in the internal echo structure associated with diseased or damaged tissue. Despite the advantages of US imaging, images are difficult to interpret during medical assessment. This is partly due to the size and position of the PF in relation to the adjacent tissues. It is therefore a requirement to devise a system that allows better and easier interpretation of PF ultrasound images during diagnosis. This study proposes an automatic segmentation approach which for the first time extracts ultrasound data to estimate size across three sections of the PF (rearfoot, midfoot and forefoot). This segmentation method uses artificial neural network module (ANN) in order to classify small overlapping patches as belonging or not-belonging to the region of interest (ROI) of the PF tissue. Features ranking and selection techniques were performed as a post-processing step for features extraction to reduce the dimension and number of the extracted features. The trained ANN classifies the image overlapping patches into PF and non-PF tissue, and then it is used to segment the desired PF region. The PF thickness was calculated using two different methods: distance transformation and area-length calculation algorithms. This new approach is capable of accurately segmenting the PF region, differentiating it from surrounding tissues and estimating its thickness

Paul Graham

160 tr. ; 29 c

Art and Feminism

Authoritative publication focusing on the role of theory in the evolution of feminist art. Phelan's essay surveying American and British feminist art produced between 1960-2000 traces the "shifting geographies of feminism" by situating diverse formal strategies used by feminist artists within the contexts of abstract expressionim, minimalism, conceptual art, performance art and photographic performance. Her analysis of the ideological forces within representational systems is informed by postructuralism and psychoanalytic theories of sexual difference. Issues of identity, race, sexuality, class, gender and age are considered in relation to the marginalization of women, the objectification of the female body, and essentialism. Includes documentation of numerous artworks and texts by artists and authors working in disciplines of feminist philosophy, psychoanalysis, art history, film theory and literary criticism. Biographical notes. Index of names. Bibliography. Circa 675 bibl. ref