Bioimpedance analysis for the characterization of breast cancer cells in suspension.

The bioimpedance spectroscopy (BIS) technique is potentially a useful tool to differentiate malignancy based on the variation of electrical properties presented by different tissues and cells. The different tissues and cells present variant electrical resistance and reactance when excited at different frequencies. The main purpose of this area of research is to use impedance measurements over a low-frequency bandwidth ranging from 1 kHz to 3 MHz to 1) differentiate the pathological stages of cancer cells under laboratory conditions and 2) permit the extraction of electrical parameters related to cellular information for further analysis. This provides evidence to form the basis of bioimpedance measurement at the cellular level and aids the potential future development of rapid diagnostics from biopsy materials. Three cell lines, representing normal breast epithelia and different pathological stages of breast cancer, have been measured using a standard impedance analyzer driving a four-electrode chamber filled with different cell suspensions. We identify the specific BIS profile for each cell type and determine whether these can be differentiated. In addition, the electrical parameters, e.g., the intracellular conductivity, membrane capacitance/capacity, characteristic frequency, are extracted by the use of equivalent circuit models and physical models to provide details of the cell electric signatures for further analysis of cancer cell pathology.

Hepatic entropy and uniformity: additional parameters that can potentially increase the effectiveness of contrast enhancement during abdominal CT.

AIM: To determine how hepatic entropy and uniformity of computed tomography (CT) images of the liver change after the administration of contrast material and to assess whether these additional parameters are more sensitive to tumour-related changes in the liver than measurements of hepatic attenuation or perfusion. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Hepatic attenuation, entropy, uniformity, and perfusion were measured using multi-phase CT following resection of colorectal cancer. Based on conventional CT and fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography, 12 patients were classified as having no evidence of malignancy, eight with extra-hepatic tumours only, and eight with metastatic liver disease. RESULTS: Hepatic attenuation and entropy increased after CM administration whereas uniformity decreased. Unlike hepatic attenuation, entropy and uniformity changed maximally in the arterial phase. No significant differences in hepatic perfusion or attenuation were found between patient groups, whereas arterial-phase entropy was lower (p=0.034) and arterial-phase uniformity was higher (p=0.034) in apparently disease-free areas of liver in patients with hepatic metastases compared with those with no metastases. CONCLUSION: Temporal changes in hepatic entropy and uniformity differ from those for hepatic attenuation. By reflecting the distribution of hepatic enhancement, these additional parameters are more sensitive to tumour-related changes in the liver than measurements of hepatic attenuation or perfusion.

Experimental systems implementation of a hybrid optical-digital correlator.

A high-speed hybrid optical-digital correlator system was designed, constructed, modeled, and demonstrated experimentally. This correlator is capable of operation at approximately 3000 correlations/s. The input scene is digitized at a resolution of 512 x 512 pixels and the phase information of the two-dimensional fast Fourier transform calculated and displayed in the correlator filter plane at normal video frame rates. High-fidelity reference template images are stored in a phase-conjugating optical memory placed at the nominal input plane of the correlator and reconstructed with a high-speed acousto-optic scanner; this allows for cross correlation of the entire reference data set with the input scene within one frame period. A high-speed CCD camera is used to capture the correlation-plane image, and rapid correlation-plane processing is achieved with a parallel processing architecture.

Synthetic discriminant function filter employing nonlinear space-domain preprocessing on bandpass-filtered images.

Previously [Appl. Opt. 36, p. 9212 (1997)] we examined the performance of the linear and nonlinear preprocessed difference-of-Gaussians filter, and it was shown that this operation results in greater tolerance to in-class variations while maintaining excellent discrimination ability. The introduction of nonlinearity was shown to provide greater robustness to the filter's response to noise and background clutter in the input scene. We incorporate this new operation into the synthesis of a modified synthetic discriminant function filter. The filter is shown to produce sharp peaks, excellent discrimination without the need to include out-of-class objects, and good invariance to out-of-plane rotation over a distortion range of up to 90 degrees . Additionally, the introduction of nonlinearity is shown to provide greater robustness of the filter response to background clutter in the input scene.

Application of nonlinearity to wavelet-transformed images to improve correlation filter performance.

A useful filter for pattern recognition must strike a compromise between the conflicting requirements of in-class distortion tolerance and out-of-class discrimination. Such a filter will be bandpass in nature, the high-frequency response being attenuated to provide less sensitivity to in-class variations, while the low frequencies must be removed, since they compromise the discrimination ability of the filter. A convenient bandpass is the difference of Gaussian (DOG) function, which provides a close approximation to the Laplacian of Gaussian. We describe the effect of a preprocessing operation applied to a DOG filtered image. This operation is shown to result in greater tolerance to in-class variation while maintaining an excellent discrimination ability. Additionally, the introduction of nonlinearity is shown to provide greater robustness in the filter response to noise and background clutter in the input scene.

Inactivation of bacteria and yeasts on agar surfaces with high power Nd:YAG laser light.

Near infrared light from a high-powered, 1064 nm, Neodymium:Yttrium Aluminium Garnet (Nd:YAG) laser killed a variety of Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria and two yeasts, lawned on nutrient agar plates. A beam (cross-sectional area, 1.65 cm2) of laser light was delivered in 10 J, 8 ms pulses at 10 Hz, in a series of exposure times. For each microbial species, a dose/response curve was obtained of area of inactivation vs energy density (J cm-2). The energy density that gave an inactivation area (IA) equal to 50% of the beam area was designated the IA50-value and was plotted together with its 95% confidence limits. Average IA50-values were all within a threefold range and varied from 1768 J cm-2 for Serratia marcescens to 4489 J cm-2 for vegetative cells of Bacillus stearothermophilus. There were no systematic differences in sensitivity attributable to cell shape, size, pigmentation or Gram reaction. At the lowest energy densities where inactivation was achieved for the majority of organisms (around 2000 J cm-2), no effect was observed on the nutrient agar surface, but as the energy density was increased, a depression in the agar surface was formed, followed by localized melting of the agar.

Modified fringe-adjusted joint transform correlation to accommodate noise in the input scene.

A modified fringe-adjusted joint transform correlator is proposed that is able to accommodate noise in the input scene. The effect of noise in the input scene on the performance of the joint transform correlator is analyzed and quantified. When the target is embeddedin aseverely noise-corrupted input scene, it is shown that the proposed modified fringe-adjusted filter joint transform correlator delivers a better correlation performance and the capacity to accommodate this noise than does the fringe-adjusted filter-based correlator. When the power spectra of the input image and the reference image are subtracted from the power spectrum of the joint-input image, it is found that the noise effect on the output plane is independent of the objects in the input scene and originates from the convolution of the reference image and noise in the input scene.

High-speed, acousto-optically addressed optical memory.

A page-oriented, angle-multiplexed volume holographic optical-memory recording system has been constructed. This memory is addressed by the use of an acousto-optic deflector with a random-access time of 16 µs per page. This enables data transfer rates of 5.28 Gbits/s when pages of binary data are being stored. The reconstruction quality of images stored as memory pages is assessed with the quality achieved with the acousto-optic device compared with that achieved with the original recording optics.

Interaction of multiple distortions in spatial light modulators.

Spatial light modulators are the key components in real-time optical image-processing systems. The phase and the intensity of their outputs will often depart from ideal behavior. An experimental method is described that permits the effects of multiple distortions, present simultaneously, to be modeled. A computer simulation of a bismuth silicon oxide-based correlator is presented, with spatial light modulators subject to three types of distortion, including phase and amplitude. The experimental method permits both the main effects of the distortions and their interactions to be predicted. Combining all the distortions simultaneously gives a more accurate assessment of the suitability of a spatial light modulator for a given optical processing task. Images of 256 × 256 pixels were used, and the simulation took 15 min. with a Sun SPARCstation 2.

Multilevel phase- and amplitude-encoded modified-filter synthetic-discriminant-function filters.

The performance of the modified-filter synthetic-discriminant-function (MfSDF) filter with multilevel phase and amplitude (MLAP) constraints is investigated with various in-plane rotated images from an in-class Bradley armored personnel carrier vehicle and an out-of-class Abram MI tank; this is of interest because of the commercial availability of liquid-crystal televisions, which are able to encode the gray-level amplitude and/or the discrete multilevel phase information. The evaluation is performed to explain better the image-distortion range that can be covered effectively by MLAP/MfSDF filters. The results show that the MLAP/MfSDF filter offers much-improved correlator system performance with a greater allowable image-distortion range while maintaining 100% discrimination between in-class and out-ofclass images; furthermore, it shows an improved ability to accommodate the input image noise when compared with the MfSDF filter with a binary phase-only constraint. Thus the MLAP/MfSDF can be implemented effectively by a hybrid optical/digital correlator system to track a vehicle or a tank dynamically as it moves along a random trajectory across the input field.

Modified filter synthetic discriminant functions for improved optical correlator performance.

By the filter modulation operator N, the modified filter synthetic discriminant function permits advantageous preprocessing of individual training-set images that are used in a linear combination to construct the filter synthetic discriminant function, which applies a modulation operator M to the synthetic discriminant function. A relaxation algorithm is used to satisfy the equal correlation peaks rule in the correlator output plane. As the filter modulation operators M and N can be given any functional form, the modified filter synthetic discriminant function design proposed is sufficiently general to be described as a unified filter modulation synthetic discriminant function design.