A new approach is presented for analysis of microplastics in environmental samples, based on selective fluorescent staining using Nile Red (NR), followed by density-based extraction and filtration. The dye adsorbs onto plastic surfaces and renders them fluorescent when irradiated with blue light. Fluorescence emission is detected using simple photography through an orange filter. Image-analysis allows fluorescent particles to be identified and counted. Magnified images can be recorded and tiled to cover the whole filter area, allowing particles down to a few micrometres to be detected. The solvatochromic nature of Nile Red also offers the possibility of plastic categorisation based on surface polarity characteristics of identified particles. This article details the development of this staining method and its initial cross-validation by comparison with infrared (IR) microscopy. Microplastics of different sizes could be detected and counted in marine sediment samples. The fluorescence staining identified the same particles as those found by scanning a filter area with IR-microscopy.
Cystoid macular edema (CME) is a common complication in various retinal disorders, often leading to significant central vision impairment. However, the underlying genetic causes and detailed clinical features in patients with fluctuating CME remain unclear. This retrospective, observational case series analyzed two patients from a single family with fluctuating CME, focusing on both clinical and genetic aspects. Data were collected and analyzed from September 2022 to January 2023 at a single center. Comprehensive ocular examinations, including best-corrected visual acuity tests, color fundus photography, fundus fluorescein angiography (FFA), optical coherence tomography (OCT), visual field tests, flash electroretinography, multifocal electroretinography, and electrooculography, were performed. Genetic analysis was conducted using whole exome sequencing, with confirmation through Sanger sequencing and co-segregation analysis. The results identified two compound heterozygous variants in the MYO7A gene: c.562C>G p.Q188E and c.5929C>T p.R1977W in both patients. Fundus fluorescein angiography revealed cystoid hyperfluorescence in a petaloid pattern in the foveal area and a honeycomb pattern parafoveally. OCT showed that macular cystoid changes were primarily located in the outer nuclear layer (ONL), and full-field electroretinography indicated rod-cone dysfunction. Over a 108-day follow-up period, CME in both patients exhibited fluctuating changes without any treatment. This case series suggests that the identified MYO7A variants are likely associated with fluctuating CME, expanding the phenotypic spectrum of MYO7A and providing new insights into the mechanisms underlying CME. Identifying these MYO7A variants bridges genetic research with clinical diagnostics, potentially offering more precise and personalized treatment strategies for retinal disorders.
Accurate segmentation of surgical instruments in endoscopic videos is crucial for robot-assisted surgery and intraoperative analysis. This paper presents a Segment-then-Classify framework that decouples mask generation from semantic classification to enhance spatial completeness and temporal stability. First, a Mask2Former-based segmentation backbone generates class-agnostic instance masks and region features. Then, a bounding box-guided instance-level spatiotemporal modeling module fuses geometric priors and temporal consistency through a lightweight transformer encoder. This design improves interpretability and robustness under occlusion and motion blur. Experiments on the EndoVis 2017 and 2018 datasets demonstrate that our framework achieves mIoU improvements of 3.06%, 2.99%, and 1.67% and mcIoU gains of 2.36%, 2.85%, and 6.06%, respectively, over previously state-of-the-art methods, while maintaining computational efficiency.
Photography, Computer applications to medicine. Medical informatics
The essay examines two breast cancer memoirs: Cancer in Two Voices by Sandra Butler and Barbara Rosenblum (1991), and The Use of Photography by Annie Ernaux and Marc Marie (2005). The comparative analysis of the two texts aims to identify and highlight their significant elements of originality with respect to breast cancer narratives. In particular, emphasis is placed on the dual perspective that characterises both works, shedding light on how the notion of kinship acts and is interpreted within them. Furthermore, the inquiry investigates the ethical implications of these collaborative literary projects, ascertaining the presence of different narrative authorities and determining what values and functions are associated with storytelling when a couple experiencing illness decides to write about it.
Public aspects of medicine, Social sciences (General)
AIM: To investigate the clinical characteristics, treatment methods and outcomes of rhegmatogenous retinal detachment (RRD) in highly myopic eyes with implantable collamer lens (ICL). METHODS: High myopia patients who received treatment for nontraumatic RRD after ICL implantation surgery at the Retinal Department of Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center from Jan 2018 to Dec 2022 were reviewed. Comprehensive ophthalmologic examinations including visual acuity measurement and digital fundus photography were performed in each patient. RESULTS: A total of nine RRD eyes from nine patients who received V4c-ICL implantation were included. The mean time from ICL implantation surgery to the diagnosis of RRD was 32.44±22.56mo (range, 1-60mo). At the initial visit for RRD, giant retinal tear (GRT), horseshoe tear, simple round hole, and horseshoe tear combined with round hole were detected in 3, 3, 2, and 1 eye(s), respectively, with macula-off in eyes. Eight patients received surgical treatment, and one patient was treated by retinal laser photocoagulation alone. The ICL was preserved in 7 eyes. At the last follow-up, the mean best corrected visual acuity (BCVA) improved significantly from 1.76±1.06 logMAR at presentation to 0.81±1.01 logMAR (P=0.035), and no case of recurrent retinal detachment was found. CONCLUSION: The morphological presentation of retinal breaks is diverse in this study. The ICL can be preserved in most cases during the course of retinal detachment repair surgery in our data, companied with acceptable visual and anatomical outcomes.
Abstract Background Dental caries is a global public health concern, and early detection is essential. Traditional methods, particularly visual examination, face access and cost challenges. Teledentistry, as an emerging technology, offers the possibility to overcome such barriers, and it must be given high priority for assessment to optimize the performance of oral healthcare systems. The aim of this study was to systematically review the literature evaluating the diagnostic accuracy of teledentistry using photographs taken by Digital Single Lens Reflex (DSLR) and smartphone cameras against visual clinical examination in either primary or permanent dentition. Methods The review followed PRISMA-DTA guidelines, and the PubMed, Scopus, and Embase databases were searched through December 2022. Original in-vivo studies comparing dental caries diagnosis via images taken by DSLR or smartphone cameras with clinical examination were included. The QUADAS-2 was used to assess the risk of bias and concerns regarding applicability. Meta-analysis was not performed due to heterogeneity among the studies. Therefore, the data were analyzed narratively by the research team. Results In the 19 studies included, the sensitivity and specificity ranged from 48 to 98.3% and from 83 to 100%, respectively. The variability in performance was attributed to factors such as study design and diagnostic criteria. Specific tooth surfaces and lesion stages must be considered when interpreting outcomes. Using smartphones for dental photography was common due to the convenience and accessibility of these devices. The employment of mid-level dental providers for remote screening yielded comparable results to those of dentists. Potential bias in patient selection was indicated, suggesting a need for improvements in study design. Conclusion The diagnostic accuracy of teledentistry for caries detection is comparable to that of traditional clinical examination. The findings establish teledentistry’s effectiveness, particularly in lower income settings or areas with access problems. While the results of this review is promising, conducting several more rigorous studies with well-designed methodologies can fully validate the diagnostic accuracy of teledentistry for dental caries to make oral health care provision more efficient and equitable. Registration This study was registered with PROSPERO (CRD42023417437).
Ricardo Vardasca, Joaquim Gabriel Mendes, Carolina Magalhaes
The increasing incidence of and resulting deaths associated with malignant skin tumors are a public health problem that can be minimized if detection strategies are improved. Currently, diagnosis is heavily based on physicians’ judgment and experience, which can occasionally lead to the worsening of the lesion or needless biopsies. Several non-invasive imaging modalities, e.g., confocal scanning laser microscopy or multiphoton laser scanning microscopy, have been explored for skin cancer assessment, which have been aligned with different artificial intelligence (AI) strategies to assist in the diagnostic task, based on several image features, thus making the process more reliable and faster. This systematic review concerns the implementation of AI methods for skin tumor classification with different imaging modalities, following the PRISMA guidelines. In total, 206 records were retrieved and qualitatively analyzed. Diagnostic potential was found for several techniques, particularly for dermoscopy images, with strategies yielding classification results close to perfection. Learning approaches based on support vector machines and artificial neural networks seem to be preferred, with a recent focus on convolutional neural networks. Still, detailed descriptions of training/testing conditions are lacking in some reports, hampering reproduction. The use of AI methods in skin cancer diagnosis is an expanding field, with future work aiming to construct optimal learning approaches and strategies. Ultimately, early detection could be optimized, improving patient outcomes, even in areas where healthcare is scarce.
Photography, Computer applications to medicine. Medical informatics
In the simulation data processing of maglev tracks, the filtering and extraction of maglev track point cloud data is an important link. Thus, practical applications should adopt an efficient filtering method according to the characteristics of the maglev data to be extracted. The point cloud data objects of the maglev track primarily include the image data of the maglev track, which is obtained by Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) oblique photography and formed into dense point cloud data after 3D reconstruction, and the laser point cloud data, which is obtained by handheld lidar scanning of the maglev track. Based on the data characteristics of these point clouds and considering the complex scenes around the maglev track, the two types of point clouds are mixed and filtered. First, the octree downsampling method is used for laser point cloud data, which effectively reduces the order of magnitude of the point cloud data and saves running time. The Cloth Simulation Filtering (CSF) method is then used on the laser point cloud and dense point cloud data to filter the ground plane point cloud and retain the non-ground point cloud data, respectively. A Statistical Outlier Removal (SOR) filtering method is used to screen a large number of outliers. Based on the characteristics of the maglev track, point clouds outside the coordinate range are filtered through straight-through filtering. On the premise of not changing the structure of the maglev track, the experimental results show that the filtering rates of the proposed method are 86.15% and 64.76% for the octree-downsampled laser point cloud data and the dense point cloud data without octree downsampling, respectively. These two point cloud datasets have similar structural ranges after hybrid filtering and a number of point clouds of the same order of magnitude, which can be effective for methods such as feature extraction of point clouds in maglev orbits.
O. V. Lunina, I. A. Denisenko, E. B. Ignatenko
et al.
Seismogenic deformations of Cape Shartlay represent a very young fault system on the northwestern coast of Lake Baikal. Their study is providing an important opportunity to measure earthquake magnitudes, to identify areas where earthquakes are more likely to occur, and to estimate the probability of earthquake occurrence as applied to seismically active Baikal region. In this connection, the present work was aimed at characterizing in detail the structure, displacements, and reconstruction of the rupture propagation model. The study is based on photogrammetric processing and interpretation of the unmanned aerial survey data, as well as on morphostructural analysis of the displacement profiles and georadiolocation (GPR) data. It has been found that seismogenic ruptures of Cape Shartlay formed under prevailing extension conditions during no less than two earthquakes with magnitudes Mw≥7.0, Ms≥7.2. Seismic rupture propagation was primarily northward. The main rupture with displacement amplitude of more than 2 m contributed 39 to 93 % to the total surface displacement depending on the amount of dislocations on the transverse profile. It is shown that the length of a certain rupture increased almost instantaneously, then displacements along some of the ruptures stopped. A significant elongation of ruptures is primarily due to their merging. The present-day seismogenic zone is highly permeable. According to the tectonophysical model of formation of inner structure of the fault zone, the development of the seismogenic rupture system of Cape Shartlay corresponds to the late disjunctive stage. This means that the rupturing process in this segment of the North Baikal fault may not have stopped yet, and the lack of large earthquakes in the instrumental record implies the accumulation of stress in its southern part. The obtained results provide an opportunity to reconstruct the development of large fault zones by studying the displacement profiles and, therefore, to localize more precisely the places where future earthquakes may occur.
Abstract An experimental study to investigate the flow of liquid jet issued from a high aspect ratio nozzle slit into an incoming airflow by changing the orientation angle from the incoming free-stream was performed. A two-dimensional liquid sheet emerged from the narrow slit into the subsonic air crossflow. Different orientation angles between 0 and 90 degrees were studied. High-speed photography and shadowgraphy techniques were utilized to visualize the flow physics. The influence of the slit orientation angle on the flow morphology and the flow regimes of liquid sheets was investigated. Some fluid flow parameters were obtained by analyzing the images. The changes in breakup height of different orientations were measured. A model was offered for the breakup height of the liquid sheet based on the liquid-to-gas momentum ratio, gas Weber number, and a new non-dimensional parameter as a representation of the angle of slit orientation. Also, the defined sheet trajectory for each orientation angle was obtained, and the variations were examined. Empirical correlations for the defined trajectory of the sheet in terms of liquid to gas momentum ratio and gas Weber number for each orientation angle were proposed.
IntroductionSelf-supervised learning (SSL) is a strategy for addressing the paucity of labelled data in medical imaging by learning representations from unlabelled images. Contrastive and non-contrastive SSL methods produce learned representations that are similar for pairs of related images. Such pairs are commonly constructed by randomly distorting the same image twice. The videographic nature of ultrasound offers flexibility for defining the similarity relationship between pairs of images.MethodsWe investigated the effect of utilizing proximal, distinct images from the same B-mode ultrasound video as pairs for SSL. Additionally, we introduced a sample weighting scheme that increases the weight of closer image pairs and demonstrated how it can be integrated into SSL objectives.ResultsNamed Intra-Video Positive Pairs (IVPP), the method surpassed previous ultrasound-specific contrastive learning methods' average test accuracy on COVID-19 classification with the POCUS dataset by ≥ 1.3%. Detailed investigations of IVPP's hyperparameters revealed that some combinations of IVPP hyperparameters can lead to improved or worsened performance, depending on the downstream task.DiscussionGuidelines for practitioners were synthesized based on the results, such as the merit of IVPP with task-specific hyperparameters, and the improved performance of contrastive methods for ultrasound compared to non-contrastive counterparts.
Tacita Dean’s art relies on the perception of liminalities, of moving in-between, of one medium unfolding into another through dispersed, “molecular” sensations, either subverting or augmenting impressions of art forms perceived on the level of larger, structural wholes. Arguing against the wide-angle perspective employed by media studies approaches and for a close-up analysis of an “affective intermediality” in Tacita Dean’s art, the author looks at the landmark exhibitions at the National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, and the Royal Academy in London organised in 2018. The article singles out some of the individual works in the context of the exhibition as a work of art, and focuses on questions like the cross-media phenomenon of the “cinematic”, the affective performativity of the various <i>dispositifs</i> employed in her installations of celluloid films, the affordances of Dean’s signature aperture-gate masking technique, as well as the relation between narrative cinema experienced in a theatrical space and film as the medium of a visual artist. The essay concludes with a brief analysis of her gallery film, <i>Antigone</i> (2018), unravelling an allegorical journey through cosmic time and atmospheric landscapes, viewed as an ode to the “blind vision” of photochemical film and as a synthesis of key features of her intermediality conceived as a strategy for the re-sensitization of mediums by approaching one art from the point of view of another.
Lamia Fatma Houbaba Chaouche Ramdane, Habib Mahi, Mostafa El Habib Daho
et al.
Abstract The Multiple Classifier System (or classifier ensemble) is the consensus of different clustering algorithms that can provide high accuracy for the best partition and thus overcome the constraints of conventional approaches based on single classifiers. The MCS is divided into two stages: Partition creation and partition combining. The potential benefits of this methodology in unsupervised land cover categorization utilizing synthetic, composite, and remotely sensed data are investigated in this paper. Four clustering algorithms are used for the MCS's first step, and according to the WB index, the best‐unsupervised classification is obtained. In the second stage, relabeling and, voting approaches are then applied. The MCS's experimental results outperform the individual clustering outcomes in terms of accuracy.
Vinoth Balasubramani, Małgorzata Kujawińska, Cédric Allier
et al.
Quantitative Phase Imaging (QPI) provides unique means for the imaging of biological or technical microstructures, merging beneficial features identified with microscopy, interferometry, holography, and numerical computations. This roadmap article reviews several digital holography-based QPI approaches developed by prominent research groups. It also briefly discusses the present and future perspectives of 2D and 3D QPI research based on digital holographic microscopy, holographic tomography, and their applications.
Photography, Computer applications to medicine. Medical informatics
Shallow depth-of-field (DoF), focusing on the region of interest by blurring out the rest of the image, is challenging in computer vision and computational photography. It can be achieved either by adjusting the parameters (e.g., aperture and focal length) of a single-lens reflex camera or computational techniques. In this paper, we investigate the latter one, i.e., explore a computational method to render shallow DoF. The previous methods either rely on portrait segmentation or stereo sensing, which can only be applied to portrait photos and require stereo inputs. To address these issues, we study the problem of rendering shallow DoF from an arbitrary image. In particular, we propose a method that consists of a salient object detection (SOD) module, a monocular depth prediction (MDP) module, and a DoF rendering module. The SOD module determines the focal plane, while the MDP module controls the blur degree. Specifically, we introduce a label-guided ranking loss for both salient object detection and depth prediction. For salient object detection, the label-guided ranking loss comprises two terms: (i) heterogeneous ranking loss that encourages the sampled salient pixels to be different from background pixels; (ii) homogeneous ranking loss penalizes the inconsistency of salient pixels or background pixels. For depth prediction, the label-guided ranking loss mainly relies on multilevel structural information, i.e., from low-level edge maps to high-level object instance masks. In addition, we introduce a SOD and depth-aware blur rendering method to generate shallow DoF images. Comprehensive experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed method.
One of the most commonly used geospatial mapping methods is photogrammetry (aerial mapping). Photogrammetry is a method of mapping objects on the surface of the earth by using aerial photography as a medium. The aerial mapping process is carried out through cameras installed on Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). From the aerial photography, object interpretation and geometry measurements will be carried out to produce line maps, digital maps and photo maps. In general, photogrammetry is a mapping technology by utilizing aerial photography to be processed into a geo-spatial information system. Batu Bersurat Village is one of the villages located in Subdistrict XIII Koto Kampar, Kampar Regency, which did not have a geospatial information map. Community service team from the Mechanical Engineering Department of the University of Riau had a plan to carry out community service activities in Batu Besurat Village in the form of making geospatial information maps through aerial mapping. This aerial mapping activity was carried out by utilizing UAV with the type of fixed wing. In its implementation, the community service activities were planned to involve Mechanical Engineering students, university students of the University of Riau, village officials and the local community. It is expected that with this community service program, the geospatial information system map made by Batu Bersurat Village can be used in village spatial planning for agricultural land, residential land and validation of village boundaries.