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To improve the feasibility of endoscopic inspection processes we developed a system that provides online information about position, orientation and viewing direction of endoscopes, to support the analysis of endoscopic images and to ease the operational handling of the equipment. The setup is based on an industrial endoscope consisting of a camera, various MEMS and multimodal data fusion. The software contains algorithms for feature and geometric structure recognition as well as Kalman filters. To track the distal end of the endoscope and to generate 3D point cloud data in real time the optical and photometrical characteristics of the system are registered and the movement of the endoscope is reconstructed by using image processing techniques.
The assessment of different sleep stages and their disorders in diseases is an important part of telematic medicine. With an electroencephalogram, the different stages of sleep can be monitored and classified with respect to brain activity. By means of modern data management such as the patient monitor ixTrend, for example, the data can be recorded for long sleep phases and evaluated by a computer using appropriate software, such as Dataplore. Here, a new mathematical model for the automated classification of sleep stages is introduced. The statistical method of autocorrelation, applied to six known sleep stages, was extended by one new class for unknown signals. Due to this new class, it is not necessary to sort all recorded EEG signals into one of the known classes, thereby, minimising the probability of errors. Further, the dependence of the error probability on the duration of the analysed EEG signal was assessed. A minimal error probability of pmin = 0.15 was detected. Exemplary data for one patient are reported.
Das Erkennen von Personen auf Fotos und in Videos geschieht in aktuellen Klassifizierungsverfahren durch die Zuordnung eines Köperteils zu jedem Pixel. Anschließend werden die gefundenen Körperteile zu Skeletten zusammengefasst. Im Falle mehrerer abgebildeter Personen ergibt sich das Problem der Zuordnung der Körperteile zu den verschiedenen Skeletten. Es wurde in dieser Arbeit ein auf dem Suurballe-Algorithmus basierendes graphentheoretisches Verfahren entwickelt, das diese Aufgabe löst. Aufbauend auf im Wesentlichen abstandsabhängigen Kantengewichten wird eine k-kürzeste-disjunkte-Wege-Suche durchgeführt. Unter Einbezug von möglicherweise fehlenden Körperteilen durch Unsichtbar-Knoten und automatisches Aussortieren zu viel gefundener Körperteile werden so die k-optimalen Skelette gefunden. Die Methode wurde an idealisierten computergenerierten Bildern mit einer Trefferquote von 100 % gefundener Personen getestet. Ein Test mit realen Bilddaten lieferte eine Trefferquote von 71,7 %.
The BERMUDA project started in January 2015 and was successfully completed after less than three years in August 2017. A technical set-up and an image processing and analysis software were developed to record and evaluate multi-perspective videos. Based on two cameras, positioned relatively far from one another with tilted axes, synchronized videos were recorded in the laboratory and in real life. The evaluation comprised the background elimination, the body part classification, the clustering, the assignment to persons and eventually the reconstruction of the skeletons. Based on the skeletons, machine learning techniques were developed to recognize the poses of the persons and next for the actions performed. It was, for example, possible to detect the action of a punch, which is relevant in security issues, with a precision of 51.3 % and a recall of 60.6 %.
Background and objective: Accurate and fast diagnosis of rheumatic diseases affecting the hands is essential for further treatment decisions. Fluorescence optical imaging (FOI) visualizes inflammation-induced impaired microcirculation by increasing signal intensity, resulting in different image features. This analysis aimed to find specific image features in FOI that might be important for accurately diagnosing different rheumatic diseases.
Patients and methods: FOI images of the hands of patients with different types of rheumatic diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA), osteoarthritis (OA), and connective tissue diseases (CTD), were assessed in a reading of 20 different image features in three phases of the contrast agent dynamics, yielding 60 different features for each patient. The readings were analyzed for mutual differential diagnosis of the three diseases (One-vs-One) and each disease in all data (One-vs-Rest). In the first step, statistical tools and machine-learning-based methods were applied to reveal the importance rankings of the features, that is, to find features that contribute most to the model-based classification. In the second step machine learning with a stepwise increasing number of features was applied, sequentially adding at each step the most crucial remaining feature to extract a minimized subset that yields the highest diagnostic accuracy.
Results: In total, n = 605 FOI of both hands were analyzed (n = 235 with RA, n = 229 with OA, and n = 141 with CTD). All classification problems showed maximum accuracy with a reduced set of image features. For RA-vs.-OA, five features were needed for high accuracy. For RA-vs.-CTD ten, OA-vs.-CTD sixteen, RA-vs.-Rest five, OA-vs.-Rest eleven, and CTD-vs-Rest fifteen, features were needed, respectively. For all problems, the final importance ranking of the features with respect to the contrast agent dynamics was determined.
Conclusions: With the presented investigations, the set of features in FOI examinations relevant to the differential diagnosis of the selected rheumatic diseases could be remarkably reduced, providing helpful information for the physician.
The assessment of dietary carotenoids via blood measurements has been widely used as a marker for fruit and vegetable consumption. In the present study, modern, non-invasive approaches to assess dietary carotenoids, such as skin measurements and an app-based short dietary record (ASDR), were compared with conventional methods such as plasma status and handwritten 3-day dietary records. In an 8-week observational study, 21 healthy participants aged 50–65 years recorded their daily consumption of carotenoid-rich fruits and vegetables via a specially developed ASDR. Anthropometry, blood samplings and assessment of skin carotenoids via Raman and reflection spectroscopy were performed at baseline, after four weeks and at the end of the study. App-based intake data showed good correlations with plasma α-carotene (r = 0.74, p < 0.0001), β-carotene (r = 0.71, p < 0.0001), and total plasma carotenoids (r = 0.65, p < 0.0001); weak correlations with plasma lutein/zeaxanthin and β-cryptoxanthin (both r = 0.34, p < 0.05); and no correlation with plasma lycopene. Skin measurements via reflection and Raman spectroscopy correlated well with total plasma carotenoids (r = 0.81 and 0.72, respectively; both p < 0.0001), α-carotene (r = 0.75–0.62, p < 0.0001), and β-carotene (r = 0.79–0.71, p < 0.0001); moderately with plasma lutein/zeaxanthin (both r = 0.51, p < 0.0001); weakly with plasma β-cryptoxanthin (r = 0.40–0.31, p < 0.05); and showed no correlation with plasma lycopene. Skin measurements could provide a more convenient and noninvasive approach of estimating a person’s fruit and vegetable consumption compared to traditional methods, especially in studies that do not intend blood sampling. ASDR records might function as a suitable, convenient tool for dietary assessment in nutritional intervention studies.
Rheumatologists in Europe and the USA increasingly rely on fluorescence optical imaging (FOI, Xiralite) for the diagnosis of inflammatory diseases. Those include rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, and osteoarthritis, among others. Indocyanine green (ICG)-based FOI allows visualization of impaired microcirculation caused by inflammation in both hands in one examination. Thousands of patients are now documented and most literature focuses on inflammatory arthritides, which affect synovial joints and their related structures, making it a powerful tool in the diagnostic process of early undifferentiated arthritis and rheumatoid arthritis. However, it has become gradually clear that this technique has the potential to go even further than that. FOI allows visualization of other types of tissues. This means that FOI can also support the diagnostic process of vasculopathies, myositis, collagenoses, and other connective tissue diseases. This work summarizes the most prominent imaging features found in FOI examinations of inflammatory diseases, outlines the underlying anatomical structures, and introduces a nomenclature for the features and, thus, supports the idea that this tool is a useful part of the imaging repertoire in rheumatology clinical practice, particularly where other imaging methods are not easily available.