Dragan Ivetic

Medical Image on the Go

The idea for softcopy viewing of medical image outside the radiology reading room spread among the scientists in various fields for several years. An image could be read on workstation of all types, from desktop across movable to handheld. Benefits are numerous and continue to grow as physicians use them discovering new usage cases. Proposed solutions vary with PACS architecture invasion level, communication and storage image formats, and utilization. We employ JPEG2000 standard because of its high (lossy/lossless) compression ratio with minimal spatial distortion, retrieval-oriented storage, and streaming. It is embedded in PACS as the DICOM Private Data Element containing JPIP parameter string, so-called DICOM2000. The DICOM2000 message is transparent for standard DICOM devices at the slightest level of invasion. Thanks to sophisticated JPEG2000 streaming, medical image becomes suitable for any resolution and quality display and (wireless) networks. The solution is validated on the ACR/NEMA standard test set of PACS images.

Request redirection paradigm in medical image archive implementation

It is widely recognized that the JPEG2000 facilitates issues in medical imaging: storage, communication, sharing, remote access, interoperability, and presentation scalability. Therefore, JPEG2000 support was added to the DICOM standard Supplement 61. Two approaches to support JPEG2000 medical image are explicitly defined by the DICOM standard: replacing the DICOM image format with corresponding JPEG2000 codestream, or by the Pixel Data Provider service, DICOM supplement 106. The latest one supposes two-step retrieval of medical image: DICOM request and response from a DICOM server, and then JPIP request and response from a JPEG2000 server. We propose a novel strategy for transmission of scalable JPEG2000 images extracted from a single codestream over DICOM network using the DICOM Private Data Element without sacrificing system interoperability. It employs the request redirection paradigm: DICOM request and response from JPEG2000 server through DICOM server. The paper presents programming solution for implementation of request redirection paradigm in a DICOM transparent manner.

Augmented AVI video file for road surveying

This paper presents a novel video augmentation approach: a video recording of a real entity augmented by structured data. This augmented video is a self-contained entity integrating values of perceptible and non-perceptible attributes of the same real entity. It simplifies data search, storage and management. Streaming, sharing, collaboration and synchronization are also simplified by the fact that the structured data (so-called augmented data) are integrated in the video file and therefore only one file needs to be manipulated. Our approach was applied to address the issues which road engineers experience while using the ROad Measurement and Data Acquisition System (ROMDAS). The ROMDAS system collects and analyses the road-condition state through video recordings and the data corresponding acquired by specific measuring devices. Currently, however, road engineers have to search the videos manually in order to find details of interest provided by the analysis of the data measured due to the separation of the video from the data. The ROMDAS system manages a large collection of road-condition data. It does not offer history management of video recordings of the same road captured at different time. We present this hybrid video augmentation system: the Augmented Video stream Framework (AVF). It allows creation, search, history management and playback of such augmented video files for effective road surveying based on the discrete data recorded in parallel to the video recordings. The AVF provides road engineers with effective and more comfortable perceptible and non-perceptible data search, storage and history management to be used for (collaborative) road inspection and maintenance.

Quality evaluation of medical image compression: What to measure?

In this paper we present a continuation of our work on three dimensional quality evaluation space for medical image compression. Quality dimensions are: presentation-objective, presentation-subjective, and technical-objective. Each quality dimension is defined by a quality vector. We present which attributes of medical image compression should be included in quality vectors.

ANN Prediction of Metabolic Syndrome: a Complex Puzzle that will be Completed

The diagnosis of metabolic syndrome (MetS) has a leading role in the early prevention of chronic disease, such as cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, cancers and chronic kidney disease. It would be very greatful that MetS diagnosis can be predicted in everyday clinical practice. This paper presents artificial neural network (ANN) prediction of the diagnosis of MetS that includes solely non-invasive, low-cost and easily-obtained diagnostic methods. This solution can extract the risky persons and suggests complete tests only on them by saving money and time. ANN input vectors are very simple and contain solely non-invasive, low-cost and easily-obtained parameters: gender, age, body mass index, waist-to-height ratio, systolic and diastolic blood pressures. ANN output is MetS-coefficient in true/false form, obtained from MetS definition of International Diabetes Federation (IDF). ANN training, validation and testing are conducted on the large dataset that includes 2928 persons. Feed-forward ANNs with 1–100 hidden neurons were considered and an optimal architecture were determinated. Comparison with other authors leads to the conclusion that our solution achieves the highest positive predictive value PPV = 0.8579. Further, obtained negative predictive value NPV = 0.8319 is also high and close to PPV, which means that our ANN solution is suitable both for positive and negative MetS prediction.

DICOM/JPEG2000 CLIENT/SERVER ARCHITECTURE IMPLEMENTATION

The paper presents client/server architecture based on DICOM standard (Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine). Standard DICOM transfer syntax is extended to support JPEG2000 streaming. This grants DICOM clients ability to query and retrieve medical images in resolution and quality suitable to their display capabilities which is very useful when DICOM client runs on a device which has smaller display resolution, like palmtop computers or mobile phones. The benefits of this client/server architecture are analysed. The paper presents client/server prototype based on the extended DICOM transfer syntax from the end-user’s perspective. The applications based on these prototypes are meant for use in Hospital for Lung Diseases “Dr Vasa Savic Zrenjanin”.

Introducing an acceptability metric for image compression in PACS - A model

In this paper we introduce a model which describes the process of choosing individual metrics which are used to establish if a medical image compression is acceptable for a specific PACS or not. Image compression is an integral part of a PACS. There is no universal way for measuring acceptance of still image compression for a specific PACS. Many individual metrics have been proposed for measuring still image quality. They can be used individually or together. The proposed model should help the process of choosing individual metrics which are adequate for specific PACS. Results of individual metrics should improve the decision making regarding medical image compression during PACS development and implementation.

Tools for Ubiquitous PACS System

Ubiquitous computing in healthcare (ubiquitous healthcare) is a very appealing and beneficial goal. It is a mean to achieve patient-centric healthcare and a mean to improve healthcare in general. PACS system is important part of a modern day hospital. To achieve ubiquitous healthcare, it is necessary to build ubiquitous PACS system. Thus a traditionally closed system based on large and location-dependent workstations will be accessible to all users regardless of their location and devices they use. This is achievable only by improving PACS system functionality without sacrificing its interoperability.