Metallic Artifacts' Reduction in Microtomography Using the Bone- and Soft-Tissue Decomposition Method.

Artifacts in computed tomography and X-ray microtomography are image distortions caused by various factors. Some can be reduced before or during the examination, while others are removed algorithmically after image acquisition. The latter group includes metallic artifacts caused by metal objects in the sample.

Physiological response to pain in patients with temporomandibular joint disorders during physiotherapy.

Pain assessment in patients with temporomandibular joint (TMJ) disorders during physiotherapy is a challenging yet desired task. Our study addresses two issues. First, we compare the pain perception in patients with TMJ disorders and a control group.

An Experimental and Clinical Physiological Signal Dataset for Automated Pain Recognition.

Access to large amounts of data is essential for successful machine learning research. However, there is insufficient data for many applications, as data collection is often challenging and time-consuming. The same applies to automated pain recognition, where algorithms aim to learn associations between a level of pain and behavioural or physiological responses.

Continuous Short-Term Pain Assessment in Temporomandibular Joint Therapy Using LSTM Models Supported by Heat-Induced Pain Data Patterns.

This study aims to design a time-continuous pain level assessment system for temporomandibular joint therapy. Our objectives cover verifying literature suggestions on pain stimulus, protocols for collecting reference data, and continuous pain recognition models. We use two types of pain data acquired during 1) heat stimulation and 2) temporomandibular joint therapy.

Oligopeptide-based molecular labelling of (bio)degradable polyester biomaterials.

Nowadays, a very important motivation for the development of new functional materials for medical purposes is not only their performance but also whether they are environmentally friendly. In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the possibility of labelling (bio)degradable polymers, in particular those intended for specific applications, especially in the medical sector, and the potential of information storage in such polymers, making it possible, for example, to track the ultimate environmental fate of plastics. This article presents a straightforward green approach that combines both aspects using an oligopeptide, which is an integral part of polymer material, to store binary information in a physical mixture of polymer and oligopeptide.

High-frequency ultrasound in anti-aging skin therapy monitoring.

Over the last few decades, high-frequency ultrasound has found multiple applications in various diagnostic fields. The fast development of this imaging technique opens up new diagnostic paths in dermatology, allergology, cosmetology, and aesthetic medicine. In this paper, being the first in this area, we discuss the usability of HFUS in anti-aging skin therapy assessment.

Computer Aided Written Character Feature Extraction in Progressive Supranuclear Palsy and Parkinson's Disease.

Parkinson's disease (PD) and progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) are neurodegenerative movement disorders associated with cognitive dysfunction. The Luria's Alternating Series Test (LAST) is a clinical tool sensitive to both graphomotor problems and perseverative tendencies that may suggest the dysfunction of prefrontal and/or frontostriatal areas and may be used in PD and PSP assessment. It requires the participant to draw a series of alternating triangles and rectangles.

Multimodal Signal Analysis for Pain Recognition in Physiotherapy Using Wavelet Scattering Transform.

Fascial therapy is an effective, yet painful, procedure. Information about pain level is essential for the physiotherapist to adjust the therapy course and avoid potential tissue damage. We have developed a method for automatic pain-related reaction assessment in physiotherapy due to the subjectivity of a self-report.

Chronic wounds multimodal image database.

A multimodal wound image database was created to allow fast development of computer-aided approaches for wound healing monitoring. The developed system with parallel camera optical axes enables multimodal images: photo, thermal, stereo, and depth map of the wound area to be acquired. As a result of using this system a multimodal database of chronic wound images is introduced.

Hybrid System of Emotion Evaluation in Physiotherapeutic Procedures.

Nowadays, the dynamic development of technology allows for the design of systems based on various information sources and their integration into hybrid expert systems. One of the areas of research where such systems are especially helpful is emotion analysis. The sympathetic nervous system controls emotions, while its function is directly reflected by the electrodermal activity (EDA) signal.

Computer Aided Diagnosis of Atopic Dermatitis.

Skin diseases with an allergic background such as atopic dermatitis are commonly noticed in children. This requires an urgent need to develop an objective and non-invasive method to examine the skin condition before and during the therapy. The newest clinical research mention the benefit of using high frequency ultrasound to image inflammation of the skin.

Supporting diagnostics and therapy planning for percutaneous ablation of liver and abdominal tumors and pre-clinical evaluation.

Percutaneous ablation methods are used to treat primary and metastatic liver tumors. Image guided navigation support minimally invasive interventions of rigid anatomical structures. When working with the displacement and deformation of soft tissues during surgery, as in the abdomen, imaging navigation systems are in the preliminary implementation stage.

Biopsy needle tracking technique in US images.

Fast development of imaging techniques in last decades has offered the intra-operative visualization as the integral part of surgical tools. Therefore, on-going research activities still focus on efficient and robust analysis of ultrasound images. The paper meets these requirements targeting in detection of biopsy needle, estimation of the needle trajectory and tracking the needle tip motion inside the examined tissue.

Time-Of-Flight Camera, Optical Tracker and Computed Tomography in Pairwise Data Registration.

Purpose: A growing number of medical applications, including minimal invasive surgery, depends on multi-modal or multi-sensors data processing. Fast and accurate 3D scene analysis, comprising data registration, seems to be crucial for the development of computer aided diagnosis and therapy. The advancement of surface tracking system based on optical trackers already plays an important role in surgical procedures planning.

Patient Specific Phantom in bimodal image navigation system.

The paper presents the multistep methodology of bimodal Patient Specific Phantom (PSP) development. First, CT based abdominal digital model is designed. It serves as a source for designing organ moulds manufactured by means of a 3D-printer.

Automatic brain tumour detection and neovasculature assessment with multiseries MRI analysis.

In this paper a novel multi-stage automatic method for brain tumour detection and neovasculature assessment is presented. First, the brain symmetry is exploited to register the magnetic resonance (MR) series analysed. Then, the intracranial structures are found and the region of interest (ROI) is constrained within them to tumour and peritumoural areas using the Fluid Light Attenuation Inversion Recovery (FLAIR) series.

Granular computing in model based abdominal organs detection.

Detection of region specific voxel is a true challenge in many segmentation procedures. In this study a concept of implementing granular computing in the detection of anatomical structures in abdominal computed tomography (CT) scans is introduced. After proving the usefulness of the information granules to identify voxels that mark certain organs, an automatic model-based approach has been developed.

Mathematical model in left ventricle segmentation.

In this paper a parametric model of the left ventricle is presented. Its task is to estimate the myocardium shape on those slices, on which the segmentation algorithm has outlined the structure incorrectly. The aim of using the model on improperly segmented slices is to improve the accuracy of computing cardiac hemodynamic parameters and the heart mass.

Acceleration trajectory analysis in remote gait monitoring.

The study demonstrates part of an ambient assisted living system developed for the remote care of the elderly. Described methods and experiments involve acceleration-based trajectories analysis that yields a feature vector to be subjected to an expert system able to create an individual patient's model by learning high-level features of her/his motion. At this stage we have implemented a footstep detector that permits each foot movement to be analyzed separately and described in terms of predefined features.

A new parametric model-based technique in bone tumour analysis.

The study presents a new statistical model based segmentation technique dedicated to inhomogeneous bone tumours structure analysis. The presented 3-D segmentation procedure applies a statistic description of the structure based on Gaussian mixture model and an adaptive model-based relative fuzzy connectedness technique. It has been tested on 94 different MR series of 38 young patients.