Ex vivo multiscale quantitation of skin biomechanics in wild-type and genetically-modified mice using multiphoton microscopy.

Soft connective tissues such as skin, tendon or cornea are made of about 90% of extracellular matrix proteins, fibrillar collagens being the major components. Decreased or aberrant collagen synthesis generally results in defective tissue mechanical properties as the classic form of Elhers-Danlos syndrome (cEDS). This connective tissue disorder is caused by mutations in collagen V genes and is mainly characterized by skin hyperextensibility.

Determination of collagen fiber orientation in histological slides using Mueller microscopy and validation by second harmonic generation imaging.

We studied the azimuthal orientations of collagen fibers in histological slides of uterine cervical tissue by two different microscopy techniques, namely Mueller polarimetry (MP) and Second Harmonic Generation (SHG). SHG provides direct visualization of the fibers with high specificity, which orientations is then obtained by suitable image processing. MP provides images of retardation (among other polarimetric parameters) due to the optical anisotropy of the fibers, which is enhanced by Picrosirius Red staining.

Parsimonious path openings and closings.

Path openings and closings are morphological tools used to preserve long, thin, and tortuous structures in gray level images. They explore all paths from a defined class, and filter them with a length criterion. However, most paths are redundant, making the process generally slow.

Automatic 3D segmentation of multiphoton images: a key step for the quantification of human skin.

Background/purpose: Multiphoton microscopy has emerged in the past decade as a useful noninvasive imaging technique for in vivo human skin characterization. However, it has not been used until now in evaluation clinical trials, mainly because of the lack of specific image processing tools that would allow the investigator to extract pertinent quantitative three-dimensional (3D) information from the different skin components.

Methods: We propose a 3D automatic segmentation method of multiphoton images which is a key step for epidermis and dermis quantification.

Binary morphology with spatially variant structuring elements: algorithm and architecture.

Mathematical morphology with spatially variant structuring elements outperforms translation-invariant structuring elements in various applications and has been studied in the literature over the years. However, supporting a variable structuring element shape imposes an overwhelming computational complexity, dramatically increasing with the size of the structuring element. Limiting the supported class of structuring elements to rectangles has allowed for a fast algorithm to be developed, which is efficient in terms of number of operations per pixel, has a low memory requirement, and a low latency.

Prevention of hypoglycemia using risk assessment with a continuous glucose monitoring system.

Due to the lag between sugar intake and the beginning of recovery from hypoglycemia, it is necessary to intervene in an anticipatory way if one wants to prevent, not only detect, hypoglycemia. This article presents the principle of a hypoglycemia prevention system based on risk assessment. The risk situation can be defined as the moment when the system estimates that the glucose concentration is expected to reach a hypoglycemia threshold in less than a given time (e.