Automated diabetic macular edema (DME) grading system using DWT, DCT Features and maculopathy index.

The cause of diabetic macular edema (DME) is due to prolonged and uncontrolled diabetes mellitus (DM) which affects the vision of diabetic subjects. DME is graded based on the exudate location from the macula. It is clinically diagnosed using fundus images which is tedious and time-consuming. Regular eye screening and subsequent treatment may prevent the vision loss. Hence, in this work, a hybrid system based on Radon transform (RT), discrete wavelet transform (DWT) and discrete cosine transform (DCT) are proposed for an automated detection of DME. The fundus images are subjected to RT to obtain sinograms and DWT is applied on these sinograms to extract wavelet coefficients (approximate, horizontal, vertical and diagonal). DCT is applied on approximate coefficients to obtain 2D-DCT coefficients. Further, these coefficients are converted into 1D vector by arranging the coefficients in zig-zag manner. This 1D signal is subjected to locality sensitive discriminant analysis (LSDA). Finally, various supervised classifiers are used to classify the three classes using significant features. Our proposed technique yielded a classification accuracy of 100% and 97.01% using two and seven significant features for private and public (MESSIDOR) databases respectively. Also, a maculopathy index is formulated with two significant parameters to discriminate the three groups distinctly using a single integer. Hence, our obtained results suggest that this system can be used as an eye screening tool for diabetic subjects for DME.

Diagnosis of retinal health in digital fundus images using continuous wavelet transform (CWT) and entropies.

Vision is paramount to humans to lead an active personal and professional life. The prevalence of ocular diseases is rising, and diseases such as glaucoma, Diabetic Retinopathy (DR) and Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD) are the leading causes of blindness in developed countries. Identifying these diseases in mass screening programmes is time-consuming, labor-intensive and the diagnosis can be subjective. The use of an automated computer aided diagnosis system will reduce the time taken for analysis and will also reduce the inter-observer subjective variabilities in image interpretation. In this work, we propose one such system for the automatic classification of normal from abnormal (DR, AMD, glaucoma) images. We had a total of 404 normal and 1082 abnormal fundus images in our database. As the first step, 2D-Continuous Wavelet Transform (CWT) decomposition on the fundus images of two classes was performed. Subsequently, energy features and various entropies namely Yager, Renyi, Kapoor, Shannon, and Fuzzy were extracted from the decomposed images. Then, adaptive synthetic sampling approach was applied to balance the normal and abnormal datasets. Next, the extracted features were ranked according to the significances using Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO). Thereupon, the ranked and selected features were used to train the random forest classifier using stratified 10-fold cross validation. Overall, the proposed system presented a performance rate of 92.48%, and a sensitivity and specificity of 89.37% and 95.58% respectively using 15 features. This novel system shows promise in detecting abnormal fundus images, and hence, could be a valuable adjunct eye health screening tool that could be employed in polyclinics, and thereby reduce the workload of specialists at hospitals.

Automated screening system for retinal health using bi-dimensional empirical mode decomposition and integrated index.

Posterior Segment Eye Diseases (PSED) namely Diabetic Retinopathy (DR), glaucoma and Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD) are the prime causes of vision loss globally. Vision loss can be prevented, if these diseases are detected at an early stage. Structural abnormalities such as changes in cup-to-disc ratio, Hard Exudates (HE), drusen, Microaneurysms (MA), Cotton Wool Spots (CWS), Haemorrhages (HA), Geographic Atrophy (GA) and Choroidal Neovascularization (CNV) in PSED can be identified by manual examination of fundus images by clinicians. However, manual screening is labour-intensive, tiresome and time consuming. Hence, there is a need to automate the eye screening. In this work Bi-dimensional Empirical Mode Decomposition (BEMD) technique is used to decompose fundus images into 2D Intrinsic Mode Functions (IMFs) to capture variations in the pixels due to morphological changes. Further, various entropy namely Renyi, Fuzzy, Shannon, Vajda, Kapur and Yager and energy features are extracted from IMFs. These extracted features are ranked using Chernoff Bound and Bhattacharyya Distance (CBBD), Kullback-Leibler Divergence (KLD), Fuzzy-minimum Redundancy Maximum Relevance (FmRMR), Wilcoxon, Receiver Operating Characteristics Curve (ROC) and t-test methods. Further, these ranked features are fed to Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifier to classify normal and abnormal (DR, AMD and glaucoma) classes. The performance of the proposed eye screening system is evaluated using 800 (Normal=400 and Abnormal=400) digital fundus images and 10-fold cross validation method. Our proposed system automatically identifies normal and abnormal classes with an average accuracy of 88.63%, sensitivity of 86.25% and specificity of 91% using 17 optimal features ranked using CBBD and SVM-Radial Basis Function (RBF) classifier. Moreover, a novel Retinal Risk Index (RRI) is developed using two significant features to distinguish two classes using single number. Such a system helps to reduce eye screening time in polyclinics or community-based mass screening. They will refer the patients to main hospitals only if the diagnosis belong to the abnormal class. Hence, the main hospitals will not be unnecessarily crowded and doctors can devote their time for other urgent cases.

Novel risk index for the identification of age-related macular degeneration using radon transform and DWT features.

Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD) affects the central vision of aged people. It can be diagnosed due to the presence of drusen, Geographic Atrophy (GA) and Choroidal Neovascularization (CNV) in the fundus images. It is labor intensive and time-consuming for the ophthalmologists to screen these images. An automated digital fundus photography based screening system can overcome these drawbacks. Such a safe, non-contact and cost-effective platform can be used as a screening system for dry AMD. In this paper, we are proposing a novel algorithm using Radon Transform (RT), Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) coupled with Locality Sensitive Discriminant Analysis (LSDA) for automated diagnosis of AMD. First the image is subjected to RT followed by DWT. The extracted features are subjected to dimension reduction using LSDA and ranked using t-test. The performance of various supervised classifiers namely Decision Tree (DT), Support Vector Machine (SVM), Probabilistic Neural Network (PNN) and k-Nearest Neighbor (k-NN) are compared to automatically discriminate to normal and AMD classes using ranked LSDA components. The proposed approach is evaluated using private and public datasets such as ARIA and STARE. The highest classification accuracy of 99.49%, 96.89% and 100% are reported for private, ARIA and STARE datasets. Also, AMD index is devised using two LSDA components to distinguish two classes accurately. Hence, this proposed system can be extended for mass AMD screening.

Learning approaches and learning difficulties: a comparison of Indian and Nepali dental science students.

This study explored the difference in learning approaches and difficulties of Nepali and Indian undergraduate students of dental science. A locally developed inventory was used to measure learning approach and learning difficulties. Data collected from 166 Indians and 69 Nepalis were compared. The scores on various scales of the inventory indicate that Nepalis are more fearful and less confident regarding examination and course completion and have significantly less positive perception about academic capability. Indian students scored significantly higher on motivation, interest, and deep processing. The language problem was significantly greater for Nepali students. Higher percentages of Nepalis experienced various academic and nonacademic problems. The study highlights the need to consider difference in learning approach among the students of health science courses that admit students from different academic, nonacademic, and cultural backgrounds.