Georgia Koutsouri

Detection of occlusal caries based on digital image processing

The aim of this work is to present an automated non supervised method for the detection of occlusal caries based on photographic color images. The proposed method consists of three steps: (a) detection of decalcification areas, (b) detection of occlusal caries areas, and (c) fusion of the results. The detection process includes pre-processing of the images, segmentation and post-processing, where objects not corresponding to areas of interest are eliminated through the utilization of rules expressing the medical knowledge. The preprocessing, segmentation and post-processing are differentiated depending on the areas that have to be detected (decalcification or occlusal areas). The method was evaluated using a set of 60 images where 286 areas of interest were manually segmented by an expert. The obtained sensitivity and precision is 92% and 80%, respectively.

A computer-aided automated methodology for the detection and classification of occlusal caries from photographic color images

The aim of this work is to present a computer-aided automated methodology for the assessment of carious lesions, according to the International Caries Detection and Assessment System (ICDAS II), which are located on the occlusal surfaces of posterior permanent teeth from photographic color tooth images. The proposed methodology consists of two stages: (a) the detection of regions of interest and (b) the classification of the detected regions according to ICDAS ΙΙ. In the first stage, pre-processing, segmentation and post-processing mechanisms were employed. For each pixel of the detected regions, a 15×15 neighborhood is used and a set of intensity-based and texture-based features were extracted. A correlation based technique was applied to select a subset of 36 features which were given as input into the classification stage, where five classifiers (J48, Random Tree, Random Forests, Support Vector Machines and Naïve Bayes) were compared to conclude to the best one, in our case, to Random Forests. The methodology was evaluated on a set of 103 digital color images where 425 regions of interest from occlusal surfaces of extracted permanent teeth were manually segmented and classified, based on visual assessments by two experts. The methodology correctly detected 337 out of 340 regions in the detection stage with accuracy of detection 80%. For the classification stage an overall accuracy 83% is achieved. The proposed methodology provides an objective and fully automated caries diagnostic system for occlusal carious lesions with similar or better performance of a trained dentist taking into consideration the available medical knowledge.

A hybrid plaque characterization method using intravascular ultrasound images

BACKGROUND Intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) is an invasive imaging modality that provides high resolution cross-sectional images permitting detailed evaluation of the lumen, outer vessel wall and plaque morphology and evaluation of its composition. Over the last years several methodologies have been proposed which allow automated processing of the IVUS data and reliable segmentation of the regions of interest or characterization of the type of the plaque. OBJECTIVE In this paper we present a novel methodology for the automated identification of different plaque components in grayscale IVUS images. METHODS The proposed method is based on a hybrid approach that incorporates both image processing techniques and classification algorithms and allows classification of the plaque into three different categories: Hard Calcified, Hard-Non Calcified and Soft plaque. Annotations by two experts on 8 IVUS examinations were used to train and test our method. RESULTS The combination of an automatic thresholding technique and active contours coupled with a Random Forest classifier provided reliable results with an overall classification accuracy of 86.14%. CONCLUSIONS The proposed method can accurately detect the plaque using grayscale IVUS images and can be used to assess plaque composition for both clinical and research purposes.

Smart adaptable system for older adults' Daily Life Activities Management - The ABLE platform.

In this paper we propose a system (ABLE) that will act as the main platform for a number of low-cost, mature technologies that will be integrated in order to create a dynamically adaptive Daily Life Activities Management environment in order to facilitate the everyday life of senior (but not exclusively) citizens at home. While the main target group of ABLEs users is the ageing population its use can be extended to all people that are vulnerable or atypical in body, intellect or emotions and are categorized by society as disabled. The classes of assistive products that are well defined in the international standard, ISO9999 such as assistive products for personal medical treatment, personal care and protection, communication, information and reaction and for personal mobility, will be easily incorporated in our proposed platform. Furthermore, our platform could integrate and implement the above classes under several service models that will be analyzed further.

Image contrast enhancement through regional application of partitioned iterated function systems

Abstract. A new technique is presented for enhancing the contrast in digital images, combining the theory of partitioned iterated function system (PIFS) and image segmentation. The image is first segmented through the region growing segmentation technique, and the PIFS enhancement algorithm is applied separately to each image segment. The defined PIFS of each section is modeled by a contractive transformation, which consists of an affine spatial transform, as well as the linear transform of the graylevels of image segment pixels. The transformation of the graylevels is determined by two parameters that adjust the brightness and contrast of the transformed image segment. After the PIFS algorithm is applied to each extracted image segment, a lowpass version of the original image is created. The contrast-enhanced image is obtained by suitably combining the original image with its lowpass version. The proposed regional PIFS approach was applied to numerous test images, ranging from medical data of various modalities to standard images. The obtained quantitative and qualitative results showed superior performance on behalf of the proposed method when compared with three other widely used contrast enhancement methods, namely, contrast stretching, unsharp masking, and contrast-limited adaptive histogram equalization.

Occlusal caries detection using random walker algorithm: A graph approach

The aim of this work is to present a modification of the Random Walker algorithm for the segmentation of occlusal caries from photographic color images. The modification improves the detection and time execution performance of the classical Random Walker algorithm and also deals with the limitations and difficulties that the specific type of images impose to the algorithm. The proposed modification consists of eight steps: 1) definition of the seed points, 2) conversion of the image to gray scale, 3) application of watershed transformation, 4) computation of the centroid of each region, 5) construction of the graph, 6) application of the Random Walker algorithm, 7) smoothing and extraction of the perimeter of the regions of interest and 8) overlay of the results. The algorithm was evaluated using a set of 96 images where 339 areas of interest were manually segmented by an expert. The obtained segmentation accuracy is 93%.