OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to develop a new method for automated mass detection in digital mammographic images using templates. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Masses were detected using a two steps process. First, the pixels in the mammogram images were scanned in 8 directions, and regions of interest (ROI) were identified using various thresholds. Then, a mass template was used to categorize the ROI as true masses or non-masses based on their morphologies. Each pixel of a ROI was scanned with a mass template to determine whether there was a shape (part of a ROI) similar to the mass in the template. The similarity was controlled using two thresholds. If a shape was detected, then the coordinates of the shape were recorded as part of a true mass. To test the system's efficiency, we applied this process to 52 mammogram images from the Mammographic Image Analysis Society (MIAS) database. RESULTS: Three hundred and thirty-two ROI were identified using the ROI specification methods. These ROI were classified using three templates whose diameters were 10, 20 and 30 pixels. The results of this experiment showed that using the templates with these diameters achieved sensitivities of 93%, 90% and 81% with 1.3, 0.7 and 0.33 false positives per image respectively. CONCLUSION: These results indicate that the detection performance of this template based algorithm is satisfactory, and may improve the performance of computer-aided analysis of mammographic images and early diagnosis of mammographic masses.
Sensitivity and Specificity ; Radiographic Image Enhancement ; Mammography/*methods ; Humans ; False Positive Reactions ; Automation ; Algorithms

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to develop a new method for automated lung nodule detection in serial section CT images with using the characteristics of the 3D appearance of the nodules that distinguish themselves from the vessels. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Lung nodules were detected in four steps. First, to reduce the number of region of interests (ROIs) and the computation time, the lung regions of the CTs were segmented using Genetic Cellular Neural Networks (G-CNN). Then, for each lung region, ROIs were specified with using the 8 directional search; +1 or -1 values were assigned to each voxel. The 3D ROI image was obtained by combining all the 2-Dimensional (2D) ROI images. A 3D template was created to find the nodule-like structures on the 3D ROI image. Convolution of the 3D ROI image with the proposed template strengthens the shapes that are similar to those of the template and it weakens the other ones. Finally, fuzzy rule based thresholding was applied and the ROI's were found. To test the system's efficiency, we used 16 cases with a total of 425 slices, which were taken from the Lung Image Database Consortium (LIDC) dataset. RESULTS: The computer aided diagnosis (CAD) system achieved 100% sensitivity with 13.375 FPs per case when the nodule thickness was greater than or equal to 5.625 mm. CONCLUSION: Our results indicate that the detection performance of our algorithm is satisfactory, and this may well improve the performance of computer-aided detection of lung nodules.
Algorithms ; Automation ; *Diagnosis, Computer-Assisted ; False Positive Reactions ; Fuzzy Logic ; Humans ; Imaging, Three-Dimensional ; Lung Neoplasms/*radiography ; *Neural Networks (Computer) ; Radiographic Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted ; Sensitivity and Specificity ; *Tomography, X-Ray Computed

OBJECTIVE: The combination of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), a non-pharmacological form of therapy for treating major depressive disorder (MDD), and electroencephalogram (EEG) is a valuable tool for investigating the functional connectivity in the brain. This study aims to explore whether pre-treating frontal quantitative EEG (QEEG) cordance is associated with response to rTMS treatment among MDD patients by using an artificial intelligence approach, artificial neural network (ANN). METHODS: The artificial neural network using pre-treatment cordance of frontal QEEG classification was carried out to identify responder or non-responder to rTMS treatment among 55 MDD subjects. The classification performance was evaluated using k-fold cross-validation. RESULTS: The ANN classification identified responders to rTMS treatment with a sensitivity of 93.33%, and its overall accuracy reached to 89.09%. Area under Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve (AUC) value for responder detection using 6, 8 and 10 fold cross validation were 0.917, 0.823 and 0.894 respectively. CONCLUSION: Potential utility of ANN approach method can be used as a clinical tool in administering rTMS therapy to a targeted group of subjects suffering from MDD. This methodology is more potentially useful to the clinician as prediction is possible using EEG data collected before this treatment process is initiated. It is worth using feature selection algorithms to raise the sensitivity and accuracy values.
Artificial Intelligence ; Brain ; Classification ; Depressive Disorder, Major* ; Electroencephalography ; Humans ; ROC Curve ; Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation

OBJECTIVE: Many applications such as biomedical signals require selecting a subset of the input features in order to represent the whole set of features. A feature selection algorithm has recently been proposed as a new approach for feature subset selection. METHODS: Feature selection process using ant colony optimization (ACO) for 6 channel pre-treatment electroencephalogram (EEG) data from theta and delta frequency bands is combined with back propagation neural network (BPNN) classification method for 147 major depressive disorder (MDD) subjects. RESULTS: BPNN classified R subjects with 91.83% overall accuracy and 95.55% subjects detection sensitivity. Area under ROC curve (AUC) value after feature selection increased from 0.8531 to 0.911. The features selected by the optimization algorithm were Fp1, Fp2, F7, F8, F3 for theta frequency band and eliminated 7 features from 12 to 5 feature subset. CONCLUSION: ACO feature selection algorithm improves the classification accuracy of BPNN. Using other feature selection algorithms or classifiers to compare the performance for each approach is important to underline the validity and versatility of the designed combination.
Ants* ; Classification* ; Depressive Disorder, Major ; Electroencephalography ; ROC Curve