Two-Staged Method for Ice Channel Identification Based on Image Segmentation and Corner Point Regression

Identification of the ice channel is the basic technology for developing intelligent ships in ice-covered waters,which is important to ensure the safety and economy of navigation.In the Arctic,merchant ships with low ice class often navigate in channels opened up by icebreakers.Navigation in the ice channel often depends on good maneuverability skills and abundant experience from the captain to a large extent.The ship may get stuck if steered into ice fields off the channel.Under this circumstance,it is very important to study how to identify the boundary lines of ice channels with a reliable method.In this paper,a two-staged ice channel identification method is developed based on image segmentation and corner point regression.The first stage employs the image segmentation method to extract channel regions.In the second stage,an intelligent corner regression network is proposed to extract the channel boundary lines from the channel region.A non-intelligent angle-based filtering and clustering method is proposed and compared with corner point regression network.The training and evaluation of the segmentation method and corner regression network are carried out on the synthetic and real ice channel dataset.The evaluation results show that the accuracy of the method using the corner point regression network in the second stage is achieved as high as 73.33%on the synthetic ice channel dataset and 70.66%on the real ice channel dataset,and the processing speed can reach up to 14.58frames per second.

DCFNet:An Effective Dual-Branch Cross-Attention Fusion Network for Medical Image Segmentation

Automatic segmentation of medical images provides a reliable scientific basis for disease diagnosis and analysis.Notably,most existing methods that combine the strengths of convolutional neural networks(CNNs)and Transformers have made significant progress.However,there are some limitations in the current integration of CNN and Transformer technology in two key aspects.Firstly,most methods either overlook or fail to fully incorporate the complementary nature between local and global features.Secondly,the significance of integrating the multiscale encoder features from the dual-branch network to enhance the decoding features is often disregarded in methods that combine CNN and Transformer.To address this issue,we present a groundbreaking dual-branch cross-attention fusion network(DCFNet),which efficiently combines the power of Swin Transformer and CNN to generate complementary global and local features.We then designed the Feature Cross-Fusion(FCF)module to efficiently fuse local and global features.In the FCF,the utilization of the Channel-wise Cross-fusion Transformer(CCT)serves the purpose of aggregatingmulti-scale features,and the Feature FusionModule(FFM)is employed to effectively aggregate dual-branch prominent feature regions from the spatial perspective.Furthermore,within the decoding phase of the dual-branch network,our proposed Channel Attention Block(CAB)aims to emphasize the significance of the channel features between the up-sampled features and the features generated by the FCFmodule to enhance the details of the decoding.Experimental results demonstrate that DCFNet exhibits enhanced accuracy in segmentation performance.Compared to other state-of-the-art(SOTA)methods,our segmentation framework exhibits a superior level of competitiveness.DCFNet’s accurate segmentation of medical images can greatly assist medical professionals in making crucial diagnoses of lesion areas in advance.

An Efficient Local Radial Basis Function Method for Image Segmentation Based on the Chan-Vese Model

In this paper,we consider the Chan–Vese(C-V)model for image segmentation and obtain its numerical solution accurately and efficiently.For this purpose,we present a local radial basis function method based on a Gaussian kernel(GA-LRBF)for spatial discretization.Compared to the standard radial basis functionmethod,this approach consumes less CPU time and maintains good stability because it uses only a small subset of points in the whole computational domain.Additionally,since the Gaussian function has the property of dimensional separation,the GA-LRBF method is suitable for dealing with isotropic images.Finally,a numerical scheme that couples GA-LRBF with the fourth-order Runge–Kutta method is applied to the C-V model,and a comparison of some numerical results demonstrates that this scheme achieves much more reliable image segmentation.

Transfer learning from T1-weighted to T2-weighted Magnetic resonance sequences for brain image segmentation

Magnetic resonance(MR)imaging is a widely employed medical imaging technique that produces detailed anatomical images of the human body.The segmentation of MR im-ages plays a crucial role in medical image analysis,as it enables accurate diagnosis,treatment planning,and monitoring of various diseases and conditions.Due to the lack of sufficient medical images,it is challenging to achieve an accurate segmentation,especially with the application of deep learning networks.The aim of this work is to study transfer learning from T1-weighted(T1-w)to T2-weighted(T2-w)MR sequences to enhance bone segmentation with minimal required computation resources.With the use of an excitation-based convolutional neural networks,four transfer learning mechanisms are proposed:transfer learning without fine tuning,open fine tuning,conservative fine tuning,and hybrid transfer learning.Moreover,a multi-parametric segmentation model is proposed using T2-w MR as an intensity-based augmentation technique.The novelty of this work emerges in the hybrid transfer learning approach that overcomes the overfitting issue and preserves the features of both modalities with minimal computation time and resources.The segmentation results are evaluated using 14 clinical 3D brain MR and CT images.The results reveal that hybrid transfer learning is superior for bone segmentation in terms of performance and computation time with DSCs of 0.5393±0.0007.Although T2-w-based augmentation has no significant impact on the performance of T1-w MR segmentation,it helps in improving T2-w MR segmentation and developing a multi-sequences segmentation model.

A review of medical ocular image segmentation

Deep learning has been extensively applied to medical image segmentation,resulting in significant advancements in the field of deep neural networks for medical image segmentation since the notable success of U Net in 2015.However,the application of deep learning models to ocular medical image segmentation poses unique challenges,especially compared to other body parts,due to the complexity,small size,and blurriness of such images,coupled with the scarcity of data.This article aims to provide a comprehensive review of medical image segmentation from two perspectives:the development of deep network structures and the application of segmentation in ocular imaging.Initially,the article introduces an overview of medical imaging,data processing,and performance evaluation metrics.Subsequently,it analyzes recent developments in U-Net-based network structures.Finally,for the segmentation of ocular medical images,the application of deep learning is reviewed and categorized by the type of ocular tissue.

ATFF: Advanced Transformer with Multiscale Contextual Fusion for Medical Image Segmentation

Deep convolutional neural network (CNN) greatly promotes the automatic segmentation of medical images. However, due to the inherent properties of convolution operations, CNN usually cannot establish long-distance interdependence, which limits the segmentation performance. Transformer has been successfully applied to various computer vision, using self-attention mechanism to simulate long-distance interaction, so as to capture global information. However, self-attention lacks spatial location and high-performance computing. In order to solve the above problems, we develop a new medical transformer, which has a multi-scale context fusion function and can be used for medical image segmentation. The proposed model combines convolution operation and attention mechanism to form a u-shaped framework, which can capture both local and global information. First, the traditional converter module is improved to an advanced converter module, which uses post-layer normalization to obtain mild activation values, and uses scaled cosine attention with a moving window to obtain accurate spatial information. Secondly, we also introduce a deep supervision strategy to guide the model to fuse multi-scale feature information. It further enables the proposed model to effectively propagate feature information across layers, Thanks to this, it can achieve better segmentation performance while being more robust and efficient. The proposed model is evaluated on multiple medical image segmentation datasets. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed model achieves better performance on a challenging dataset (ETIS) compared to existing methods that rely only on convolutional neural networks, transformers, or a combination of both. The mDice and mIou indicators increased by 2.74% and 3.3% respectively.

Convolutional neural network-based segmentation network applied to image recognition of angiodysplasias lesion under capsule endoscopy

BACKGROUND Small intestinal vascular malformations(angiodysplasias)are common causes of small intestinal bleeding.While capsule endoscopy has become the primary diagnostic method for angiodysplasia,manual reading of the entire gastrointestinal tract is time-consuming and requires a heavy workload,which affects the accuracy of diagnosis.AIM To evaluate whether artificial intelligence can assist the diagnosis and increase the detection rate of angiodysplasias in the small intestine,achieve automatic disease detection,and shorten the capsule endoscopy(CE)reading time.METHODS A convolutional neural network semantic segmentation model with a feature fusion method,which automatically recognizes the category of vascular dysplasia under CE and draws the lesion contour,thus improving the efficiency and accuracy of identifying small intestinal vascular malformation lesions,was proposed.Resnet-50 was used as the skeleton network to design the fusion mechanism,fuse the shallow and depth features,and classify the images at the pixel level to achieve the segmentation and recognition of vascular dysplasia.The training set and test set were constructed and compared with PSPNet,Deeplab3+,and UperNet.RESULTS The test set constructed in the study achieved satisfactory results,where pixel accuracy was 99%,mean intersection over union was 0.69,negative predictive value was 98.74%,and positive predictive value was 94.27%.The model parameter was 46.38 M,the float calculation was 467.2 G,and the time length to segment and recognize a picture was 0.6 s.CONCLUSION Constructing a segmentation network based on deep learning to segment and recognize angiodysplasias lesions is an effective and feasible method for diagnosing angiodysplasias lesions.

Deep Learning for Image Segmentation: A Focus on Medical Imaging

Image segmentation is crucial for various research areas. Manycomputer vision applications depend on segmenting images to understandthe scene, such as autonomous driving, surveillance systems, robotics, andmedical imaging. With the recent advances in deep learning (DL) and itsconfounding results in image segmentation, more attention has been drawnto its use in medical image segmentation. This article introduces a surveyof the state-of-the-art deep convolution neural network (CNN) models andmechanisms utilized in image segmentation. First, segmentation models arecategorized based on their model architecture and primary working principle.Then, CNN categories are described, and various models are discussed withineach category. Compared with other existing surveys, several applicationswith multiple architectural adaptations are discussed within each category.A comparative summary is included to give the reader insights into utilizedarchitectures in different applications and datasets. This study focuses onmedical image segmentation applications, where the most widely used architecturesare illustrated, and other promising models are suggested that haveproven their success in different domains. Finally, the present work discussescurrent limitations and solutions along with future trends in the field.

Application of U-Net and Optimized Clustering in Medical Image Segmentation:A Review

As a mainstream research direction in the field of image segmentation,medical image segmentation plays a key role in the quantification of lesions,three-dimensional reconstruction,region of interest extraction and so on.Compared with natural images,medical images have a variety of modes.Besides,the emphasis of information which is conveyed by images of different modes is quite different.Because it is time-consuming and inefficient to manually segment medical images only by professional and experienced doctors.Therefore,large quantities of automated medical image segmentation methods have been developed.However,until now,researchers have not developed a universal method for all types of medical image segmentation.This paper reviews the literature on segmentation techniques that have produced major breakthroughs in recent years.Among the large quantities of medical image segmentation methods,this paper mainly discusses two categories of medical image segmentation methods.One is the improved strategies based on traditional clustering method.The other is the research progress of the improved image segmentation network structure model based on U-Net.The power of technology proves that the performance of the deep learning-based method is significantly better than that of the traditional method.This paper discussed both advantages and disadvantages of different algorithms and detailed how these methods can be used for the segmentation of lesions or other organs and tissues,as well as possible technical trends for future work.

An image segmentation method of pulverized coal for particle size analysis

An important index to evaluate the process efficiency of coal preparation is the mineral liberation degree of pulverized coal,which is greatly influenced by the particle size and shape distribution acquired by image segmentation.However,the agglomeration effect of fine powders and the edge effect of granular images caused by scanning electron microscopy greatly affect the precision of particle image segmentation.In this study,we propose a novel image segmentation method derived from mask regional convolutional neural network based on deep learning for recognizing fine coal powders.Firstly,an atrous convolution is introduced into our network to learn the image feature of multi-sized powders,which can reduce the missing segmentation of small-sized agglomerated particles.Then,a new mask loss function combing focal loss and dice coefficient is used to overcome the false segmentation caused by the edge effect.The final comparative experimental results show that our method achieves the best results of 94.43%and 91.44%on AP50 and AP75 respectively among the comparison algorithms.In addition,in order to provide an effective method for particle size analysis of coal particles,we study the particle size distribution of coal powders based on the proposed image segmentation method and obtain a good curve relationship between cumulative mass fraction and particle size.

TC-Fuse: A Transformers Fusing CNNs Network for Medical Image Segmentation

In medical image segmentation task,convolutional neural networks(CNNs)are difficult to capture long-range dependencies,but transformers can model the long-range dependencies effectively.However,transformers have a flexible structure and seldom assume the structural bias of input data,so it is difficult for transformers to learn positional encoding of the medical images when using fewer images for training.To solve these problems,a dual branch structure is proposed.In one branch,Mix-Feed-Forward Network(Mix-FFN)and axial attention are adopted to capture long-range dependencies and keep the translation invariance of the model.Mix-FFN whose depth-wise convolutions can provide position information is better than ordinary positional encoding.In the other branch,traditional convolutional neural networks(CNNs)are used to extract different features of fewer medical images.In addition,the attention fusion module BiFusion is used to effectively integrate the information from the CNN branch and Transformer branch,and the fused features can effectively capture the global and local context of the current spatial resolution.On the public standard datasets Gland Segmentation(GlaS),Colorectal adenocarcinoma gland(CRAG)and COVID-19 CT Images Segmentation,the F1-score,Intersection over Union(IoU)and parameters of the proposed TC-Fuse are superior to those by Axial Attention U-Net,U-Net,Medical Transformer and other methods.And F1-score increased respectively by 2.99%,3.42%and 3.95%compared with Medical Transformer.

Nuclei Segmentation in Histopathology Images Using Structure-Preserving Color Normalization Based Ensemble Deep Learning Frameworks

This paper presents a novel computerized technique for the segmentation of nuclei in hematoxylin and eosin(H&E)stained histopathology images.The purpose of this study is to overcome the challenges faced in automated nuclei segmentation due to the diversity of nuclei structures that arise from differences in tissue types and staining protocols,as well as the segmentation of variable-sized and overlapping nuclei.To this extent,the approach proposed in this study uses an ensemble of the UNet architecture with various Convolutional Neural Networks(CNN)architectures as encoder backbones,along with stain normalization and test time augmentation,to improve segmentation accuracy.Additionally,this paper employs a Structure-Preserving Color Normalization(SPCN)technique as a preprocessing step for stain normalization.The proposed model was trained and tested on both single-organ and multi-organ datasets,yielding an F1 score of 84.11%,mean Intersection over Union(IoU)of 81.67%,dice score of 84.11%,accuracy of 92.58%and precision of 83.78%on the multi-organ dataset,and an F1 score of 87.04%,mean IoU of 86.66%,dice score of 87.04%,accuracy of 96.69%and precision of 87.57%on the single-organ dataset.These findings demonstrate that the proposed model ensemble coupled with the right pre-processing and post-processing techniques enhances nuclei segmentation capabilities.

An Improved Soft Subspace Clustering Algorithm for Brain MR Image Segmentation

In recent years,the soft subspace clustering algorithm has shown good results for high-dimensional data,which can assign different weights to each cluster class and use weights to measure the contribution of each dimension in various features.The enhanced soft subspace clustering algorithm combines interclass separation and intraclass tightness information,which has strong results for image segmentation,but the clustering algorithm is vulnerable to noisy data and dependence on the initialized clustering center.However,the clustering algorithmis susceptible to the influence of noisydata and reliance on initializedclustering centers andfalls into a local optimum;the clustering effect is poor for brain MR images with unclear boundaries and noise effects.To address these problems,a soft subspace clustering algorithm for brain MR images based on genetic algorithm optimization is proposed,which combines the generalized noise technique,relaxes the equational weight constraint in the objective function as the boundary constraint,and uses a genetic algorithm as a method to optimize the initialized clustering center.The genetic algorithm finds the best clustering center and reduces the algorithm’s dependence on the initial clustering center.The experiment verifies the robustness of the algorithm,as well as the noise immunity in various ways and shows good results on the common dataset and the brain MR images provided by the Changshu First People’s Hospital with specific high accuracy for clinical medicine.

Mobile-Deep Based PCB Image Segmentation Algorithm Research

Aiming at the problems of inaccurate edge segmentation,the hole phenomenon of segmenting large-scale targets,and the slow segmentation speed of printed circuit boards(PCB)in the image segmentation process,a PCB image segmentation model Mobile-Deep based on DeepLabv3+semantic segmentation framework is proposed.Firstly,the DeepLabv3+feature extraction network is replaced by the lightweight model MobileNetv2,which effectively reduces the number of model parameters;secondly,for the problem of positive and negative sample imbalance,a new loss function is composed of Focal Loss combined with Dice Loss to solve the category imbalance and improve the model discriminative ability;in addition,a more efficient atrous spatial pyramid pooling(E-ASPP)module is proposed.In addition,a more efficient E-ASPP module is proposed,and the Roberts crossover operator is chosen to sharpen the image edges to improve the model accuracy;finally,the network structure is redesigned to further improve the model accuracy by drawing on the multi-scale feature fusion approach.The experimental results show that the proposed segmentation algorithm achieves an average intersection ratio of 93.45%,a precision of 94.87%,a recall of 93.65%,and a balance score of 93.64%on the PCB test set,which is more accurate than the common segmentation algorithms Hrnetv2,UNet,PSPNet,and PCBSegClassNet,and the segmentation speed is faster.

Electrical Tree Image Segmentation Using Hybrid Multi Scale Line Tracking Algorithm

Electrical trees are an aging mechanismmost associated with partial discharge(PD)activities in crosslinked polyethylene(XLPE)insulation of high-voltage(HV)cables.Characterization of electrical tree structures gained considerable attention from researchers since a deep understanding of the tree morphology is required to develop new insulation material.Two-dimensional(2D)optical microscopy is primarily used to examine tree structures and propagation shapes with image segmentation methods.However,since electrical trees can emerge in different shapes such as bush-type or branch-type,treeing images are complicated to segment due to manifestation of convoluted tree branches,leading to a high misclassification rate during segmentation.Therefore,this study proposed a new method for segmenting 2D electrical tree images based on the multi-scale line tracking algorithm(MSLTA)by integrating batch processing method.The proposed method,h-MSLTA aims to provide accurate segmentation of electrical tree images obtained over a period of tree propagation observation under optical microscopy.The initial phase involves XLPE sample preparation and treeing image acquisition under real-time microscopy observation.The treeing images are then sampled and binarized in pre-processing.In the next phase,segmentation of tree structures is performed using the h-MSLTA by utilizing batch processing in multiple instances of treeing duration.Finally,the comparative investigation has been conducted using standard performance assessment metrics,including accuracy,sensitivity,specificity,Dice coefficient and Matthew’s correlation coefficient(MCC).Based on segmentation performance evaluation against several established segmentation methods,h-MSLTA achieved better results of 95.43%accuracy,97.28%specificity,69.43%sensitivity rate with 23.38%and 24.16%average improvement in Dice coefficient and MCC score respectively over the original algorithm.In addition,h-MSLTA produced accurate measurement results of global tree parameters of length and width in comparison with the ground truth image.These results indicated that the proposed method had a solid performance in terms of segmenting electrical tree branches in 2D treeing images compared to other established techniques.

Fast Segmentation Method of Sonar Images for Jacket Installation Environment

It has remained a hard nut for years to segment sonar images of jacket installation environment,most of which are noisy images with inevitable blur after noise reduction.For the purpose of solutions to this problem,a fast segmen-tation algorithm is proposed on the basis of the gray value characteristics of sonar images.This algorithm is endowed with the advantage in no need of segmentation thresholds.To realize this goal,we follow the undermentioned steps:first,calcu-late the gray matrix of the fuzzy image background.After adjusting the gray value,the image is divided into three regions:background region,buffer region and target regions.Afterfiltering,we reset the pixels with gray value lower than 255 to binarize images and eliminate most artifacts.Finally,the remaining noise is removed by morphological processing.The simulation results of several sonar images show that the algorithm can segment the fuzzy sonar images quickly and effectively.Thus,the stable and feasible method is testified.

Fuzzy Difference Equations in Diagnoses of Glaucoma from Retinal Images Using Deep Learning

The intuitive fuzzy set has found important application in decision-making and machine learning.To enrich and utilize the intuitive fuzzy set,this study designed and developed a deep neural network-based glaucoma eye detection using fuzzy difference equations in the domain where the retinal images converge.Retinal image detections are categorized as normal eye recognition,suspected glaucomatous eye recognition,and glaucomatous eye recognition.Fuzzy degrees associated with weighted values are calculated to determine the level of concentration between the fuzzy partition and the retinal images.The proposed model was used to diagnose glaucoma using retinal images and involved utilizing the Convolutional Neural Network(CNN)and deep learning to identify the fuzzy weighted regularization between images.This methodology was used to clarify the input images and make them adequate for the process of glaucoma detection.The objective of this study was to propose a novel approach to the early diagnosis of glaucoma using the Fuzzy Expert System(FES)and Fuzzy differential equation(FDE).The intensities of the different regions in the images and their respective peak levels were determined.Once the peak regions were identified,the recurrence relationships among those peaks were then measured.Image partitioning was done due to varying degrees of similar and dissimilar concentrations in the image.Similar and dissimilar concentration levels and spatial frequency generated a threshold image from the combined fuzzy matrix and FDE.This distinguished between a normal and abnormal eye condition,thus detecting patients with glaucomatous eyes.

An Intelligent Sensor Data Preprocessing Method for OCT Fundus Image Watermarking Using an RCNN

Watermarks can provide reliable and secure copyright protection for optical coherence tomography(OCT)fundus images.The effective image segmentation is helpful for promoting OCT image watermarking.However,OCT images have a large amount of low-quality data,which seriously affects the performance of segmentationmethods.Therefore,this paper proposes an effective segmentation method for OCT fundus image watermarking using a rough convolutional neural network(RCNN).First,the rough-set-based feature discretization module is designed to preprocess the input data.Second,a dual attention mechanism for feature channels and spatial regions in the CNN is added to enable the model to adaptively select important information for fusion.Finally,the refinement module for enhancing the extraction power of multi-scale information is added to improve the edge accuracy in segmentation.RCNN is compared with CE-Net and MultiResUNet on 83 gold standard 3D retinal OCT data samples.The average dice similarly coefficient(DSC)obtained by RCNN is 6%higher than that of CE-Net.The average 95 percent Hausdorff distance(95HD)and average symmetric surface distance(ASD)obtained by RCNN are 32.4%and 33.3%lower than those of MultiResUNet,respectively.We also evaluate the effect of feature discretization,as well as analyze the initial learning rate of RCNN and conduct ablation experiments with the four different models.The experimental results indicate that our method can improve the segmentation accuracy of OCT fundus images,providing strong support for its application in medical image watermarking.

Transformer-Based Cloud Detection Method for High-Resolution Remote Sensing Imagery

Cloud detection from satellite and drone imagery is crucial for applications such as weather forecasting and environmentalmonitoring.Addressing the limitations of conventional convolutional neural networks,we propose an innovative transformer-based method.This method leverages transformers,which are adept at processing data sequences,to enhance cloud detection accuracy.Additionally,we introduce a Cyclic Refinement Architecture that improves the resolution and quality of feature extraction,thereby aiding in the retention of critical details often lost during cloud detection.Our extensive experimental validation shows that our approach significantly outperforms established models,excelling in high-resolution feature extraction and precise cloud segmentation.By integrating Positional Visual Transformers(PVT)with this architecture,our method advances high-resolution feature delineation and segmentation accuracy.Ultimately,our research offers a novel perspective for surmounting traditional challenges in cloud detection and contributes to the advancement of precise and dependable image analysis across various domains.

Semantic segmentation via pixel-to-center similarity calculation

Since the fully convolutional network has achieved great success in semantic segmentation,lots of works have been proposed to extract discriminative pixel representations.However,the authors observe that existing methods still suffer from two typical challenges:(i)The intra-class feature variation between different scenes may be large,leading to the difficulty in maintaining the consistency between same-class pixels from different scenes;(ii)The inter-class feature distinction in the same scene could be small,resulting in the limited performance to distinguish different classes in each scene.The authors first rethink se-mantic segmentation from a perspective of similarity between pixels and class centers.Each weight vector of the segmentation head represents its corresponding semantic class in the whole dataset,which can be regarded as the embedding of the class center.Thus,the pixel-wise classification amounts to computing similarity in the final feature space between pixels and the class centers.Under this novel view,the authors propose a Class Center Similarity(CCS)layer to address the above-mentioned challenges by generating adaptive class centers conditioned on each scenes and supervising the similarities between class centers.The CCS layer utilises the Adaptive Class Center Module to generate class centers conditioned on each scene,which adapt the large intra-class variation between different scenes.Specially designed Class Distance Loss(CD Loss)is introduced to control both inter-class and intra-class distances based on the predicted center-to-center and pixel-to-center similarity.Finally,the CCS layer outputs the processed pixel-to-center similarity as the segmentation prediction.Extensive experiments demonstrate that our model performs favourably against the state-of-the-art methods.