A general software package for the handling of medical images.

PICS (portable imaging computer software), is a software system designed for handling and processing a variety of types of medical image. It has been designed to satisfy the following criteria: (a) the software should be portable between different items of hardware with minimal alteration; (b) there should be a simple operator interface to enable use by inexperienced users, while avoiding the need for experienced users to be directed through tedious menu trees; (c) the programming environment should enable simple integration of new data handling protocols. To meet these requirements the software was written in FORTRAN using structured subroutine organization. The software has basic image handling and processing facilities and contains a comprehensive set of nuclear medicine clinical protocols. Other facilities include alignment of images from different modalities with display of superimposed images and ability to handle, analyse and display three-dimensional data sets. Data transfer programs have been written to capture data from gamma camera, CT, MRI, ultrasound and radiographs by converting the images to a common data format. The system provides a hospital with a central digital image handling resource, enabling investigation of the value of digital image processing in potential clinical applications.     

Teaching problem handling in general practice: a computer assisted learning software package for medical students.

A computer assisted learning software package for medical students, EnMesh, designed to increase understanding of the problem-handling skills needed in general practice has been developed at the University of Liverpool. Users access the system anonymously and respond in sequence to problems in the form of clinical vignettes. Responses to each problem, in the form of up to six two-line text statements, are generated by the user with a simple word processing facility. Users compare their responses with those of established general practitioners, searching for similar or matching ideas. After completing not less than four problems users are provided with feedback on their performance in relation to the physical, psychological and social dimensions of the problems. The frequency with which the system is being used and the results of self scoring are monitored by a parallel teacher programme. The programmes are designed to run on a wide range of microcomputers. EnMesh was designed to provide an informal learning resource within an established clinical course. The challenge of valid problems, the option to respond anonymously, self scoring and feedback on performance are features designed to attract student participation in computer assisted learning. Although in EnMesh the expert data is categorized in three dimensions, in designing such software the number of categories is limited solely by the range of responses which feedback is required to reflect.     

A specialized plug-in software module for computer-aided quantitative measurement of medical images

This paper presents a specialized system for quantitative measurement of medical images. Using Visual C++, we developed a computer-aided software based on Image-Pro Plus (IPP), a software development platform. When transferred to the hard disk of a computer by an MVPCI-V3A frame grabber, medical images can be automatically processed by our own IPP plug-in for immunohistochemical analysis, cytomorphological measurement and blood vessel segmentation. In 34 clinical studies, the system has shown its high stability, reliability and ease of utility.     

Cost-effective handling of digital medical images in the telemedicine environment

BACKGROUND: This paper concentrates on strategies for less costly handling of medical images. Aspects of digitization using conventional digital cameras, lossy compression with good diagnostic quality, and visualization through less costly monitors are discussed. METHOD: For digitization of film-based media, subjective evaluation of the suitability of digital cameras as an alternative to the digitizer was undertaken. To save on storage, bandwidth and transmission time, the acceptable degree of compression with diagnostically no loss of important data was studied through randomized double-blind tests of the subjective image quality when compression noise was kept lower than the inherent noise. A diagnostic experiment was undertaken to evaluate normal low cost computer monitors as viable viewing displays for clinicians. RESULTS: The results show that conventional digital camera images of X-ray images were diagnostically similar to the expensive digitizer. Lossy compression, when used moderately with the imaging noise to compression noise ratio (ICR) greater than four, can bring about image improvement with better diagnostic quality than the original image. Statistical analysis shows that there is no diagnostic difference between expensive high quality monitors and conventional computer monitors. CONCLUSION: The results presented show good potential in implementing the proposed strategies to promote widespread cost-effective telemedicine and digital medical environments.     

A transportable interactive package for the statistical analysis and handling of sequence data

A real-time, machine-independent software for the analysis and manipulation of sequence data is described. The implemented system allows users to read in sequence data from existing data bases, and to edit, manipulate, analyse and align them. It is easy to use and is suitable for routine investigations and to modify sequences in order to create a user customized data base.     

A software package for the calculation and statistical analysis of 51Cr-release assays

A software package has been developed to calculate, store, and statistically analyze the results of 51Cr-release assays. It is written in Applesoft BASIC, is 'user friendly', and contains error trapping routines to catch most common mistakes. The greeting program contains a master menu from which one of the following programs may be called up: (1) 51Cr-release calculation, (2) statistical analysis, or (3) file manager. These programs give the user the capability to rapidly reduce cpm data to % specific release and statistically analyze the results using randomized design analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Turkey's honestly significant difference (HSD) test.     

Java-based graphical user interface for MRUI, a software package for quantitation of in vivo/medical magnetic resonance spectroscopy signals

This article describes a Java-based graphical user interface for the magnetic resonance user interface (MRUI) quantitation package. This package allows MR spectroscopists to easily perform time-domain analysis of in vivo/medical MR spectroscopy data. We have found that the Java programming language is very well suited for developing highly interactive graphical software applications such as the MRUI system. We also have established that MR quantitation algorithms, programmed in the past in other languages, can easily be embedded into the Java-based MRUI by using the Java native interface (JNI).     

A goal-oriented framework for specifying clinical guidelines and handling medical errors

Computer-interpretable guidelines (CIGs) aim to improve patient care and reduce medical errors. Although CIGs implement evidence-based recommendations they cannot prevent exceptional behavior from happening. To address this problem we developed a framework that can monitor, detect, and handle exceptions that occur during normal CIG execution and can potentially prevent them from developing into medical errors. Our framework enables specifying the goals of a guideline and linking them with recommended tasks that could satisfy the goals. Exceptions are linked with goals that manage them, which can be realized by tasks or plans. To achieve a link between the tasks, plans, goals, monitored effects, and exceptions, our definition of goals and exceptions is state-based. We demonstrate our approach using a generic plan for management of a chronic disease and a particular instantiation for hypertension management.     

A software tool to straighten curved chromosome images

A software tool for straightening curved chromosomes has been developed and integrated into the freely available image analysis application Image SXM (available via the Internet at http://reg.ssci.liv.ac.uk). This new tool straightens curvilinear objects in one simple step after minimal input from the user. The ends of a curvilinear chromosome are identified by the user using the mouse and a window is opened displaying the object as it would appear if it was straightened out. This image processing produces linear images of chromosomes with no loss of resolution or spatial calibration, making subsequent analysis significantly more straightforward.     

User-friendly image processing software tools: general purpose features and application to the correlation of PET-CT brain images

An interactive software package, performing some useful general purpose image processing operations and being used as a tool for the problem of the anatomical correlation of PET brain images, is under development. The software is developed as a comprehensive tool with a graphic user-interface allowing the display of the processed images through the use of a variety of colormaps. The implemented routines perform a lot of processing operations on the images: a) Local image processing, i.e. smoothing and sharpening, contours extraction, interactive expansion, shrinking and thresholding of the gray scale, histogram equalization. b) ROI handling, i.e., ROI drawing and computing, transformation of an image to a ROI, ROI editing. c) Additional operators include frequency space image processing such as FFT.     

虚拟数字脑软件平台的研究与开发

目的:为脑科学和类脑人工智能提供一个软件研究平台。方法:首先,基于预处理后的静息态功能磁共振数据和因果连接法构建因果连接网,利用最小均方误差算法获得节点神经活动预测模型中的回归系数。然后,基于因果连接网和预测模型构建虚拟数字脑。最后,在VC++12.0开发环境下,利用C/C++编程语言开发出能实现虚拟数字脑各项功能的软件包。结果:同欧洲的虚拟大脑软件平台相比,该软件包操作简单,可用于脑科学和类脑人工智能的研究。结论:初步的实践结果证明了该软件在脑科学研究中的有效性和实际应用价值。     

A framework for building cooperative software agents in medical applications.

Exploiting the information technology may have a great impact on improving cooperation and interoperability among the different professionals taking part to the process of delivering health care services. New paradigms are therefore being devised considering software systems as autonomous agents able to help professionals in accomplishing their duties. To this aim those systems should encapsulate the skills for solving a given set of tasks and possess the social ability to cooperate in order to fetch the required information and knowledge. This paper illustrates a methodology facilitating the development of interoperable intelligent software agents for medical applications and proposes a generic computational model for implementing them. That model may be specialized in order to support all the different information and knowledge related requirements of a Hospital Information System. The architecture is being tested for implementing a prototype system able to coordinate the joint efforts of the professionals involved in managing patients affected by Acute Myeloid Leukemia.     

Evaluation of a computerized assessment package for general practitioner trainees.

A computerized assessment package for general practitioner trainees has been developed in order to measure the impact of teaching during the trainee year and to help identify areas of possible weakness in the knowledge base of trainees. The programme consists of an electronic questionnaire asking for background educational details, confidence rating scales, 60 multiple choice questions divided into 11 educational areas and a patient management problem to add variety and interest and to test decision making skills. A printout is produced at the end of the test summarizing the trainee's results and comparing these with the previous cohort of trainees. The programme was designed to be interesting and stimulating to the trainee by using colour and graphics, ensuring it was easy to use and providing instant feedback of results in comparison with their peer group. It was also designed to require the minimum intervention by trainers. Three sets of 70 trainees undertook the test in consecutive years with each trainee completing the assessment twice, once at the beginning of the trainee year and again towards the end of the year. In addition, a group of trainees completed a manual questionnaire asking them to rate certain aspects of the test. The results of the assessments showed a significant increase in knowledge in nearly all topic areas between the first and second tests. In general, the trainees' response to the test was positive with 63% stating it was useful in pinpointing areas of possible knowledge deficiency. The computer package described has been shown to be an effective and acceptable method for some aspects of trainee assessment.     

Three-layer volume conductor model and software package for applications in surface electromyography

On comparing multichannel surface electromyographic measurements of the m. biceps brachii with simulations performed with a previously developed two-layer volume conduction model, we found substantial discrepancies. To incorporate an apparent distorting effect of the skin tissue, the model was extended to three layers. This new model describes the potential resulting from an eccentric bioelectric source in a finite, cylindrical, and anisotropic volume conductor consisting of three layers, representing muscle, subcutaneous fat, and skin tissue. This contribution presents the governing mathematical equations of the three-layer volume conductor model as well as our approach to their solution. A comparison of various models shows that the three-layer model best describes measured potential distributions. Furthermore, we present the ANVOLCON (analytical volume conductor) software package. This package has been developed to facilitate the use of the model for scientific and educational purposes and is freely available from http://www.mbfys.kun.nl/knf © 2002 Biomedical Engineering Society. PAC2002: 8719Nn, 8719Ff, 8710+e, 8780-y     

Dullrazor: A software approach to hair removal from images

Recently, there has been a growing number of studies applying image processing techniques to analyze melanocytic lesions for atypia and possible malignancy and for total-body mole mapping. However, such lesions can be partially obscured by body hairs. None of these studies has fully addressed the problem of human hairs occluding the imaged lesions. In our previous study we designed an automatic segmentation program to differentiate skin lesions from the normal healthy skin, and learned that the program performed well with most of the images, the exception being those with hairs, especially dark thick hairs, covering part of the lesions. These thick dark hairs confused the program, resulting in unsatisfactory segmentation results. In this paper, we present a method to remove hairs from an image using a pre-processing program we have called DullRazor^®. This pre-processing step enables the segmentation program to achieve satisfactory results. DullRazor^® can be downloaded as shareware from http://www.derm.ubc.ca.     

医学图像后处理研究进展

概要分析和评述了近年来医学图像后处理技术的发展,并主要从图像分割、配准、重建、PACS系统等方面进行了分类综述。     

医学图像三维重建的加速技术

利用二维切片数据重建三维结构,在医学领域有着重要的作用.在大数据量的情况下,等值面抽取的计算效率是富有挑战性的课题.本文介绍了八叉树加速算法,以及一个从轮廓线抽取三维模型的新加速算法,该算法着眼于减少对网格点的访问次数,对网格点访问一次就建立所有cube单元的索引值、所有cube棱边上的插值点等信息.最后针对相同的数据分别使用这两种加速算法和传统MC方法进行了比较.从实验结果看,这两种算法大大加速了传统的移动立方体(marching cubes)方法,特别是在大数据量时,加速效果非常明显.     

A new filtering algorithm for medical magnetic resonance and computer tomography images

Inner views of tubular structures based on computer tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance (MR) data sets may be created by virtual endoscopy. After a preliminary segmentation procedure for selecting the organ to be represented, the virtual endoscopy is a new postprocessing technique using surface or volume rendering of the data sets. In the case of surface rendering, the segmentation is based on a grey level thresholding technique. To avoid artifacts owing to the noise created in the imaging process, and to restore spurious resolution degradations, a robust Wiener filter was applied. This filter working in Fourier space approximates the noise spectrum by a simple function that is proportional to the square root of the signal amplitude. Thus, only points with tiny amplitudes consisting mostly of noise are suppressed. Further artifacts are avoided by the correct selection of the threshold range. Afterwards, the lumen and the inner walls of the tubular structures are well represented and allow one to distinguish between harmless fluctuations and medically significant structures.