Objective Evaluation Index Research Articles

Space target image fusion method based on image clarity criterion

Optical and infrared imaging is often used in ground-based optical space target observation. The fusion of the two types of images for a more detailed observation is the key problem to be solved. A space target multimodal image fusion scheme based on the joint sparsity model, which takes the correlations among the native sparse characteristics of the image, clarity features of the image, and multisource images into consideration, is proposed. First, using an overcomplete dictionary, the source images are represented as a combination of a shared sparse component and exclusive sparse components. Second, a method for image clarity feature extraction is proposed to design the fusion rules of exclusive sparse components to obtain the fused exclusive sparse components. Finally, the fused image is reconstructed with the fused sparse components and overcompleted dictionary. The proposed method was tested on the space target image and nature scene image data sets. Compared with traditional methods such as the multiscale transform-based methods, sparse representation-based methods, and joint sparsity representation-based methods, the final experimental results demonstrated that our method outperforms the existing state-of-the-art methods on the human visual effect and the objective evaluation indexes. In particular, for the evaluation indexes Q A B / F and Q E , the scores increase to nearly 10% more than those for traditional methods, which indicates that the fused image of our method has better edge clarity.

Background Suppression for Infrared Dim and Small Target Detection Using Local Gradient Weighted Filtering

In this paper, a temporal local gradient weighted filtering based infrared dim small target background suppression method has been proposed. The highlight of the proposed method is that it utilizes the local gradient weighted filtering to deal with the temporal profile, which separates the small target from strong background clutter according to the difference of profile among small target, stable background and the edge of cloud. In this paper, two real low signal-to-clutter ratio (SCR) infrared imagery sequences containing moving dim small target are applied to verify the efficiency of the proposed method. Compared with several classical methods, the experimental results show that the performance of proposed method is superior to several other methods both in aspects of subjective visual and objective evaluation index.

Study on Evaluation of Team Resource Management Training Performance in ATC Based on Kirkpatrick Model

TRM training can reduce incidents related to team coordination and improve work efficiency, but training effects need to establish an objective and scientific evaluation index system. Training performance is an important part of the training process, and is important way to measure the training effects. The Kirkpatrick model is the most representative in the whole world. This paper tries to use Kirkpatrick model to evaluate the performance of TRM training in ATM. The performance evaluation of TRM training is proposed, which is based on the four levels of reaction, learning, behavior and results. The basic ideas and methods of the model are worth to be used for reference in the theoretical research and practical work in TRM training performance evaluation.

The feasibility of dual-source CT virtual scan replace conventional scan in the peritoneography

Objective To explore the feasibility of dual-source CT virtual scan replace conventional scan in the CT peritoneography. Methods Prospective enrolled 29 cases who accepted peritoneal dialysis (PD) treatment and were highly suspected with PD-related complications. The patients were firstly underwent CT conventional in the fasting state by applied the dual-source CT (single energy pattern), and then 2 L dialysate which mixed with contrast medium was infused into peritoneal cavity, and the CT scan was performed again after 30 min (dual-energy pattern). Scaning data were processed by virtual post-processing software to obtain virtual CT scan imaging. Subjective evaluation (including lesions and image quality score) and objective evaluation (including the CT value, noise and signal to noise ratio) were performed on the conventional scan and virtual scan, and recorded the radiation dose. Wilcoxon test was used to analyse the differences of lesions revealing and image quality score of conventional scan imaging and virtual scan imaging, and paired t test was applied to compare the differences of radiation dose and the other quality objective evaluation index. Results There was no significant difference between conventional CT scan and virtual CT scan in the cyst, calcification, calculus, hematoma and catheterization (P>0.05). The image quality score of conventional CT scan and virtual CT scan was 5.0±0.0 and 4.9±0.4, and there was no significant difference (Z= -1.6,P=0.10). There was no statistically significant difference in CT value of muscle, kidney, subcutaneous fat, urine in bladder and intraperitoneal fluid between the two groups (P> 0.05), and the CT value of liver in the virtual CT scan was higher than that in the conventional CT scan (P< 0.05), but the value of bone in the virtual CT scan was lower than that in the conventional CT (P<0.05). The noise of conventional CT was significant higher than that of invirtual CT, but the SNR was significant lower than virtual CT scan (P<0.05). The effective radiation dose in the conventional CT scan and virtual CT scan were (9.6±1.4) and (15.9±4.9) mSv, and showed significant difference. Furthermore, the effective radiation dose decreased by 39.6% (6.3/15.9). Conclusion Dual-energy CT scan can replace conventional CT scan in the CT peritoneography, which can guarantee the accuracy of diagnosis and reduce radiation dose. Key words: Tomography,X-ray computed; Peritoneal dialysis; Radiation dosage; Comparative study

Development of risk factors evaluation index system for peri-operative hypothermia

Objective To develop a scientific and objective risk factors evaluation index system for peri-operative hypothermia. Methods Based on literature review, the risk factors evaluation index system for peri-operative hypothermia was screened and identified by Delphi method, and the weight was identified through Hierarchy analysis. Results In two rounds of surveys, the rates of questionnaire retrieval were 94.4% and 100.0%, respectively. The authoritative coefficients were 0.83 and 0.84, the coordination coefficients were 0.586 and 0.601, respectively. The index system consisted of 2 first-level indexes and 21 second-level indexes. Conclusions A reliable and scientific risk factors evaluation index system for peri-operative hypothermia was developed. It can be utilized to provide theoretical foundation for the prevention of peri-operative hypothermia. Key words: Perioperative nursing; Hypothermia; Risk factors; Delphi technique

Transcutaneous partial pressure of oxygen monitoring in patients with shock

The essence of shock is hypoxia caused by inadequate tissue perfusion, with high mortality in intensive care unit.Improving the recognition of early shock and strengthening the monitoring in the high-risk patients are important measures to reduce the mortality of septic shock.The transcutaneous partial pressure of oxygen(PtcO2)can be effectively applied in monitoring the tissue hypoxia, which provides an objective evaluation index for the tissue hypoxia during shock.This review summarizes the application of PtcO2 monitoring in early warning, prognosis evaluation and treatment guidance of shock and its correlation with other clinical monitoring indexes, which will provide a new way for the diagnosis and treatment of shock. Key words: Transcutaneous partial pressure of oxygen; Shock; Tissue perfusion; Oxygen metabolism

Smartphone-Based Cardiac Rehabilitation Program: Feasibility Study.

We introduce a cardiac rehabilitation program (CRP) that utilizes only a smartphone, with no external devices. As an efficient guide for cardiac rehabilitation exercise, we developed an application to automatically indicate the exercise intensity by comparing the estimated heart rate (HR) with the target heart rate zone (THZ). The HR is estimated using video images of a fingertip taken by the smartphone’s built-in camera. The introduced CRP app includes pre-exercise, exercise with intensity guidance, and post-exercise. In the pre-exercise period, information such as THZ, exercise type, exercise stage order, and duration of each stage are set up. In the exercise with intensity guidance, the app estimates HR from the pulse obtained using the smartphone’s built-in camera and compares the estimated HR with the THZ. Based on this comparison, the app adjusts the exercise intensity to shift the patient’s HR to the THZ during exercise. In the post-exercise period, the app manages the ratio of the estimated HR to the THZ and provides a questionnaire on factors such as chest pain, shortness of breath, and leg pain during exercise, as objective and subjective evaluation indicators. As a key issue, HR estimation upon signal corruption due to motion artifacts is also considered. Through the smartphone-based CRP, we estimated the HR accuracy as mean absolute error and root mean squared error of 6.16 and 4.30bpm, respectively, with signal corruption due to motion artifacts being detected by combining the turning point ratio and kurtosis.

Second-order TGV model for Poisson noise image restoration.

Restoring Poissonian noise images have drawn a lot of attention in recent years. There are many regularization methods to solve this problem and one of the most famous methods is the total variation model. In this paper, by adding a quadratic regularization on TGV regularization part, a new image restoration model is proposed based on second-order total generalized variation regularization. Then the split Bregman iteration algorithm was used to solve this new model. The experimental results show that the proposed model and algorithm can deal with Poisson image restoration problem well. What’s more, the restoration model performance is significantly improved both in visual effect and objective evaluation indexes.

Intellectual productivity under task ambient lighting

An experiment was conducted to evaluate intellectual productivity in three lighting conditions: (a) conventional ambient lighting, (b) task ambient lighting with normal colour temperature (5000 K) and (c) task ambient lighting with high colour temperature (6200 K). In the experiment, cognitive tasks were given to 24 participants. The concentration time ratio, which is a quantitative and objective evaluation index of the degree of concentration, was measured. The results showed that the average concentration time ratio under the task ambient lighting with high colour temperature was 72.5%, which was 5.0% points higher than that under the conventional ambient lighting. It is believed that intellectual work can be performed better when the concentration time ratio is high.

Application of side-oblique image-motion blur correction to Kuaizhou-1 agile optical images.

Given the recent development of agile optical satellites for rapid-response land observation, side-oblique image-motion (SOIM) detection and blur correction have become increasingly essential for improving the radiometric quality of side-oblique images. The Chinese small-scale agile mapping satellite Kuaizhou-1 (KZ-1) was developed by the Harbin Institute of Technology and launched for multiple emergency applications. Like other agile satellites, KZ-1 suffers from SOIM blur, particularly in captured images with large side-oblique angles. SOIM detection and blur correction are critical for improving the image radiometric accuracy. This study proposes a SOIM restoration method based on segmental point spread function detection. The segment region width is determined by satellite parameters such as speed, height, integration time, and side-oblique angle. The corresponding algorithms and a matrix form are proposed for SOIM blur correction. Radiometric objective evaluation indices are used to assess the restoration quality. Beijing regional images from KZ-1 are used as experimental data. The radiometric quality is found to increase greatly after SOIM correction. Thus, the proposed method effectively corrects image motion for KZ-1 agile optical satellites.

Orthodontic treatment need in school-age children in the Leningrad region

Epidemiology of dentoalveolar anomalies is undoubtedly important, but in terms of the organization of orthodontic care, greater interest are data on the needs in this type of treatment. In a situation of limited manpower and resources for the provision of orthodontic care information about needs in orthodontic treatment allows you to define a group of patients with the primary need for orthodontic treatment, and to identify priorities to optimize the organization of orthodontic care in the region. Such data can be obtained by using the Dental Aesthetics Index (DAI) and Index of Orthodontic Treatment Need (IOTN). The aim of the study was to analyze the epidemiology of various forms of dentoalveolar anomalies school-age children of Kirishi district of Leningrad region, as well as their needs in orthodontic treatment in accordance with objective evaluation indices. The study involved 734 pupils of Kirishi lyceum №1 of Leningrad region. Analysis of the prevalence of dentoalveolar anomalies, as well as needs in the orthodontic treatment was conducted in three age groups: I mixed dentition period (6-9 years), II mixed dentition period (10-13 years), and permanent dentition (14-17). To determine the needs in the orthodontic treatment were used two most common international index (DAI and IOTN). In Kirishi district of Leningrad region dentoalveolar anomalies were found in 88.8% of children of school age, which is in accordance with the indices and IOTN DAI needs in orthodontic treatment is 38.8% and 54.5%, respectively. In order to reduce unnecessarily high load volume medical institutions orthodontic profile, optimize utilization of financial resources, as well as reducing social tension it is recommended to introduce the practice of doctors-orthodontists methodology for determining the needs in orthodontic treatment by objective indices.

Multispectral and panchromatic image fusion using a joint spatial domain and transform domain for improved DFRNT

The use of traditional spatial domain fusion methods such as intensity-hue-saturation (IHS) and principal component analysis (PCA) achieve good spatial quality but often lead to spectral distortion. Use of discrete fractional random transform (DFRNT) fusion, which is a transform domain method proposed by the authors before, can maintain the high spectral information. Hence, in this paper we propose using the respective advantages of DFRNT and IHS or PCA, via combined IHS-DFRNT and PCA-DFRNT approaches to obtain good spectral quality and high spatial quality, which is also for improved DFRNT method. At the same time, instead of fusion in the spatial domain or the transform domain, respectively, as in the conventional methods, the proposed IHS-DFRNT and PCA-DFRNT approaches are fused in a kind of joint spatial domain and transform domain. Moreover, different random distributions of DFRNT produce different fusion results which can meet different application demands. The fused images are found to preserve both the spectral information of the multispectral image and the high spatial information of the panchromatic image. Especially, the proposed combined methods are much faster and keep better comprehensive information than DFRNT. Objective quantitative evaluation indexes are also used to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed methods.

Finite element simulation on clothing pressure and body deformation of the top part of men’s socks using curve fitting equations

Purpose – Objective appraisal of pressure comfort is the basement of optimal design of clothing. The purpose of this paper is to study a new method to appraise pressure comfort through displacement distribution, and then explored the multiple relationship between pressure and displacement on the lower leg cross-section using finite element method (FEM) and curve fitting. Design/methodology/approach – This paper presented a 2D simulation model of the lower leg cross-section consisting of three layer different mechanical properties, namely skin, soft tissue, and bone. Analyzed the relationship and variation tendency between contact pressure and strain, calculated the multiple relationship between pressure and displacement on the lower leg cross-section where located at the top part of men’s socks in detail, and then obtained the quadratic functional equation between angle and pressure/displacement ratio through segmented curve fitting using Origin 7.5 software. Findings – In this research work, the mathematical equation is obtained which describe the relationship between angle and pressure/displacement of the top part of men’s socks. On the premise of the known contact pressure values on the lower leg cross-section, the corresponding displacement values on the human body surface can be obtained by the functional equation under stress, and this displacement could be used as an objective evaluation index for pressure comfort. Based on these conclusions, the authors could provide theoretical reference for pressure prediction and optimizing the design of clothing. Research limitations/implications – This paper is unconcerned with the simulating of pressure, strain, and displacement distribution when dressing during the course of walking and running. Originality/value – The paper analyzed the relationship and variation tendency between contact pressure and strain using FEM, and then obtained the quadratic functional equation between angle and pressure/displacement ratio of the top part of socks. It can supply a new method to appraise pressure comfort.

Intelligent optimum tube voltage technology at dual-source CT coronary artery angiography

Objective To explore the value of intelligent optimum tube voltage technology at dual-source CT coronary angiography. Methods One hundred and fifty patients with normal body mass index ( 2 mm and no severe calcification). They were assessed by subjective evaluation (image quality score) and objective evaluation (including vascular CT value, signal-to-noise ratio and contrast to noise ratio). Analyses of the differences between groups were compared with image quality, objective evaluation index and radiation dose by single factor variance. Results The image quality scores in patients scanned with five groups were (3.42 ± 0.63), (3.41 ± 0.54), (3.49 ± 0.33), (3.45 ± 0.43) and (3.48 ± 0.81), there was no statistical difference between the five groups (F=0.634, P=0.105). Each image quality was good,all could clearly show thewhole range of vessels. The CT values of the coronary artery with above groups respectively were (486±82), (554±71), (742±90), (506±81), (561±81) HU. The image noises were (25±12), (32±12), (46± 14), (28±11), (34±12) HU (F=3.430 and 4.332, P 0.05).The effective radiation dose of five groups are (9.3±1.3), (6.3±1.4), (2.8± 1.5), (5.7 ± 1.2), (3.9 ± 1.3) mSv, which the difference was statistically significant (F=2.332, P<0.05). Conclusions Intelligent optimum tube voltage technology (Ref. 100 kV, 400 mAs) at dual-source CT coronary angiography may be feasible in patients with normal BMI. To ensure the quality of the image at the same time, it can effectively reduce the radiation dose. Key words: Tomography, X-ray computed; Coronary angiography; Radiation dosage

Correlation between nurse job burnout and salivary lysozyme activity

To investigate the correlation between nurse job burnout and salivary lysozyme activity. The saliva samples of 131 subjects were collected at four time points for two consecutive days with saliva collection tubes. The acquisition time points were 8:00 (baseline concentration), 10:00 (morning), 15:30 (afternoon), and 17:30 (recovery period). At the same time every subjects completed the job burnout questionnaire to investigate their general demographic characteristics and job burnout level. The salivary lysozyme concentration was measured with ELISA. The data were analyzed by partial correlation analysis and multiple stepwise regression analysis. There were significant differences in the salivary lysozyme activity between subjects with different ages, working years, and education levels. The work period vitality and the average energy of ≤ 30 age group were higher than other two groups and the recovery energy was higher than >35 age group. Working period vitality, the average energy of group >15 years were less than ≤ 10 years group. The work period energy and the average energy of university (college) and above group were lower than high school (secondary) and the following group. Job burnout and its three dimensions had a significant negative correlation with salivary lysozyme concentration (P < 0.01). Depersonalization and emotional exhaustion were the negative impact factors for salivary lysozyme activity at baseline. Emotional exhaustion and personal fulfillment were the negative impact factors for salivary lysozyme activity during the working period. Personal fulfillment was the negative factor for salivary lysozyme activity during the recovery period and the average salivary lysozyme activity. Salivary lysozyme activity is sensitive for nurse job burnout, so it can be used as an objective evaluation index of job burnout.

Application of attitude jitter detection based on short-time asynchronous images and compensation methods for Chinese mapping satellite-1.

Given the recent development in high-resolution (HR) optical satellites, the study of both attitude jitter (AJ) detection and compensation has become increasingly essential to improving the radiometric and geometric quality of HR images. A group of HR optical stereo mapping satellites in China, mapping satellite-1 (MS-1) has launched two satellites and will launch one satellite to build a satellite network. The geometric accuracy of the launched MS-1 satellites is greater than 80 m because of the AJ caused by the instability of the platform. AJ detection and compensation are critical issues that must be addressed to improve the accuracy of geo-positioning and mapping before launching a new satellite. The present study employs a method of jitter detection based on short-time asynchronous images to detect MS-1 jitter. The adjacent overlapping areas of an original panchromatic image are used as detection images instead of the traditional multispectral images, and a differential recursion optimal estimation filter is proposed for the optimal estimation and elimination of the gross errors of the registration data procedure, thereby increasing the detection accuracy. The space variant blurring model and viewing angles correction method are employed for the radiometric and geometric jitter compensation of images, respectively. The methods of radiometric objective evaluation indices and geometric checkpoint are then utilised to evaluate the quality of jitter compensation. Finally, the DeZhou regional image (ShanDong province, China) from MS-1 is used as the experimental data. Results for the AJ of MS-1 are analysed and reported for the first time. The assessment results obtained show that both radiometric and geometric qualities greatly increase after the jitter compensation procedure. Thus, the work of this study for jitter detection and compensation effectively addresses the jitter of MS-1 HR optical satellites.

Research on Evaluation Index System and Fuzzy Clustering Iterative Model for Local Water Conservancy Development

According to the current water construction features and requirements, 11 indexes on three aspects which involve in water environment protection, the flood management and disaster mitigation and effective utilization of water resources are selected to establish a set of objective and scientific evaluation index system of local water conservancy development. Based on its hierarchy characteristics, a fuzzy clustering iterative model is established to determine the index weights. Finally, the model is used to evaluate water conservancy development situation in 14 cities of Liaoning province. The rank scoring of water development of each city in Liaoning province is analyzed, and the key factor is found.

Compressed Sensing MRI Reconstruction from Highly Undersampledk-Space Data Using Nonsubsampled Shearlet Transform Sparsity Prior

Compressed sensing has shown great potential in speeding up MR imaging by undersamplingk-space data. Generally sparsity is used as a priori knowledge to improve the quality of reconstructed image. Compressed sensing MR image (CS-MRI) reconstruction methods have employed widely used sparsifying transforms such as wavelet or total variation, which are not preeminent in dealing with MR images containing distributed discontinuities and cannot provide a sufficient sparse representation and the decomposition at any direction. In this paper, we propose a novel CS-MRI reconstruction method from highly undersampledk-space data using nonsubsampled shearlet transform (NSST) sparsity prior. In particular, we have implemented a flexible decomposition with an arbitrary even number of directional subbands at each level using NSST for MR images. The highly directional sensitivity of NSST and its optimal approximation properties lead to improvement in CS-MRI reconstruction applications. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method results in the high quality reconstruction, which is highly effective at preserving the intrinsic anisotropic features of MRI meanwhile suppressing the artifacts and added noise. The objective evaluation indices outperform all compared CS-MRI methods. In summary, NSST with even number directional decomposition is very competitive in CS-MRI applications as sparsity prior in terms of performance and computational efficiency.

Patch Similarity Modulus and Difference Curvature Based Fourth-Order Partial Differential Equation for Image Denoising

The traditional fourth-order nonlinear diffusion denoising model suffers the isolated speckles and the loss of fine details in the processed image. For this reason, a new fourth-order partial differential equation based on the patch similarity modulus and the difference curvature is proposed for image denoising. First, based on the intensity similarity of neighbor pixels, this paper presents a new edge indicator called patch similarity modulus, which is strongly robust to noise. Furthermore, the difference curvature which can effectively distinguish between edges and noise is incorporated into the denoising algorithm to determine the diffusion process by adaptively adjusting the size of the diffusion coefficient. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm can not only preserve edges and texture details, but also avoid isolated speckles and staircase effect while filtering out noise. And the proposed algorithm has a better performance for the images with abundant details. Additionally, the subjective visual quality and objective evaluation index of the denoised image obtained by the proposed algorithm are higher than the ones from the related methods.

Influence of selective photon shield combined with sinogram affirmed iterative reconstruction on image quality and radiation dose of dual-energy CT angiography for the diagnosis of intracranial aneurysms

Objective To investigate the influence of selective photon shield combined with sinogram affirmed iterative reconstruction(SAFIRE) on image quality and radiation dose of dual-energy CTA for the diagnosis of intracranial aneurysms. Methods The study retrospectively analyzed 80 patients with spontaneous subarachnoid hemorrhage, who were diangosed having intracranial aneurysms by three-dimensional DSA and surgery and underwent cerebral CTA examination. According to CTA scanning method, the patients were divided into conventional group and experimental group (n=40 for each). All patients underwent head CTA in dual energy mode with selective photon shield (SPS) technology. The scanning protocols of conventional group were tube voltages 80 kV and sn 140 kV, tube currents 300 mAs and 150 mAs, filtered back projection (FBP) reconstruction. The scanning protocols of experimental group were tube voltages 80 kV, sn 140 kV, tube currents 200 mAs, 100 mAs, SAFIRE reconstruction. Objective image quality evaluation indexes included the average CT value of all parts (occipital lobe, the anterior cerebral artery, middle cerebral artery and posterior cerebral artery), the background noise, the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and contrast to noise ratio (CNR), and subjective image quality was also assessed. Radiation dose was recorded. With 3D DSA or operation findings as gold standard, coincidence rate of intracranial aneurysm detection was calculated both in experimental group and conventional group. Objective image quality evaluation index and radiation dose both in conventional group and experimental group were compared with two independent two-sample t test, subjective image scores with non parameter test of independent samples. Results The noise of occipital lobe, the anterior cerebral artery, middle cerebral artery and posterior cerebral artery were (5.34±1.22), (39.94±15.96), (39.94±15.96) and (23.17± 5.51) HU in conventional group, (4.44 ± 1.08), (24.91 ± 9.36), (35.03 ± 13.65) and (20.61 ± 5.08) in experimental group (the value of t test were 2.508,3.742,2.788 and 2.563, P 0.05). Image quality scores of the conventional group and experimental group were (4.86± 0.07) and (4.67±0.21) without statistical difference (Z=- 0.443,P=0.621). CTDIvol and ED were (20.61 ± 1.07) mGy and (0.79 ± 0.04) mSv in conventional group and (13.59 ± 1.27) mGy and (0.54 ± 0.06) mSv in experimental group (the value of t test were 24.039 and 15.813, P<0.01). With 3D DSA or operation findings as gold standard, intracranial aneurysm diagnosis coincidence of experimental group was 100.0% (29/29), while coincidence rate of conventional group was 96.0% (25/26). Conclusion SPS combined with SAFIRE techniques applied in dual energy CTA for the diagnosis of intracranial aneurysms could improve the quality of CT image and reduce the radiation dosage and have a high diagnosis accuracy. Key words: Intracranial aneurysm; Tomography, X-ray computed; Radiation dosage; Image quality