Automatic detection of microcalcifications using mathematical morphology and a support vector machine

Microcalcification (MC) clusters in mammograms can be important early signs of breast cancer in women. Accurate detection of MC clusters is an important but challenging problem. In this paper, we propose the use of a recently developed machine learning technique -- relevance vector machine (RVM) -- for automatic detection of MCs in digitized mammograms. RVM is based on Bayesian estimation theory, and as a feature it can yield a decision function that depends on only a very small number of so-called <i>relevance vectors</i>. We formulate MC detection as a supervised-learning problem, and use RVM to classify if an MC object is present or not at each location in a mammogram image. MC clusters are then identified by grouping the detected MC objects. The proposed method is tested using a database of 141 clinical mammograms, and compared with a support vector machine (SVM) classifier which we developed previously. The detection performance is evaluated using the free-response receiver operating characteristic (FROC) curves. It is demonstrated that the RVM classifier matches closely with the SVM classifier in detection performance, and does so with a much sparser kernel representation than the SVM classifier. Consequently, the RVM classifier greatly reduces the computational complexity, making it more suitable for real-time processing of MC clusters in mammograms.

The problem with development of the support vector machine (SVM) classifiers using modified particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm and their ensembles has been considered. Solving this problem would allow fulfilling the high-precision data classification, especially Big Data classification, with the acceptable time expenditures. The modified PSO algorithm conducts a simultaneous search of the type of kernel functions, the parameters of the kernel function and the value of the regularization parameter for the SVM classifier. The idea of particles' «regeneration» served as the basis for the modified PSO algorithm. In the implementation of this algorithm, some particles change the type of their kernel function to the one which corresponds to the particle with the best value of the classification accuracy. The offered PSO algorithm allows reducing the time expenditures for the developed SVM classifiers, which is very important for Big Data classification problem. In most cases such SVM classifier provides the high quality of data classification. In exceptional cases the SVM ensembles based on the decorrelation maximization algorithm for the different strategies of the decision-making on the data classification and the majority vote rule can be used. Also, the two-level SVM classifier has been offered. This classifier works as the group of the SVM classifiers at the first level and as the SVM classifier on the base of the modified PSO algorithm at the second level. The results of experimental studies confirm the efficiency of the offered approaches for Big Data classification.

To establish a practical CAD (Computer-Aided Diagnosis) system to facilitate the diagnosis of microcalcifications, we propose a filter-based technique to detect microcalcifications. Via examination of an existing optimal filter-based technique, it is found that its performance on highlighting the energy of mammograms is seriously affected by artefacts and the background of breast. As a result, four methods in pre and post-processing are described in this paper to improve the optimal filtering, leading to an adaptive selection of thresholds for input mammograms. These methods have been tested by using 30 mammograms (with 25 microcalcifications) from the MIAS database and 23 mammograms from DDSM database. Comparing with the original optimal filter-based technique, our technique reduces the false detections (FD), eliminates the influence of the background in mammograms and is able to adaptively select the threshold for the detection of microcalcifications.

Architecture distortion (AD) is an important and early sign of breast cancer, but due to its subtlety, it is often missed on the screening mammograms. The objective of this study is to create a quantitative approach for texture classification of AD based on various texture models, using support vector machine (SVM) classifier. The texture analysis has been done on the region of interest (ROI) selected from the original mammogram. A comprehensive analysis has been done on samples from three databases; out of which, two data sets are from the public domain, and the third data set is for clinical evaluation. The public domain databases are IRMA version of digital database for screening mammogram (DDSM) and Mammographic Image Analysis Society (MIAS). For clinical evaluation, the actual patient's database has been obtained from ACE Healthways, Diagnostic Centre Ludhiana, India. The significant finding of proposed study lies in appropriate selection of the size of ROIs. The experiments have been done on fixed size of ROIs as well as on the ground truth (variable size) ROIs. Best results pertain to an accuracy of 92.94% obtained in case of DDSM database for fixed-size ROIs. In case of MIAS database, an accuracy of 95.34% is achieved in AD versus non-AD (normal) cases for ground truth ROIs. Clinically, an accuracy of 88% was achieved for ACE dataset. The results obtained in the present study are encouraging, as optimal result has been achieved for the proposed study in comparison with other related work in the same area.

Automatic detection of clustered microcalcifications in digital mammograms using mathematical morphology and neural networks

In order to improve the performance of Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifier for imbalanced data, this paper proposes dynamic cost-sensitive SVM classifier based on chaos particle swarm optimization (CPDC_SVM). Firstly, this paper introduces dynamic cost-sensitive thought to SVM classifier, and gives the method for structuring dynamic cost and cost-sensitive SVM model. Secondly, we propose the evaluation methodology performance for classifier, and adopts decimal base to code the particles. At last, chaos thought is introduced in particle swarm optimization algorithm, and the Algorithm of the dynamic cost-sensitive SVM classifier is given, which improves convergent speed and accuracy of particle swarm optimization, and can optimize dynamic cost-sensitive SVM well, so CPDC_SVM adds effectively the convergence speed and accuracy for the particle swarm optimization algorithm. Experimental results show CPDC_SVM has higher precision than traditional SVM classifier, and dynamic cost and chaos particle swarm optimization can improve the performance for classifier.

Cancer is a leading cause of death among men and women nowadays all over the world. Breast cancer is a most common form of cancer originated from breast tissue among women. Most frequent type of breast cancer is ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) and most frequent symptoms of DCIS recognized by mammography are clusters of Microcalcifications (MCCs). Automatic detection of Microcalcifications is an important task to prevent and treat the disease. In this paper, an effective approach for automatic detection of Microcalcifications in digitized mammograms is proposed. The proposed approach is based on fuzzy 2-partition entropy and mathematical morphology. In the proposed approach, first phase uses fuzzy Gaussian membership function for mammogram fuzzification. In this phase, fuzzy 2-partition entropy approach is used to find bandwidth of the Gaussian function. After this, mathematical morphological enhancement approach is used to enhance the contrast of Microcalcifications in mammograms. Finally, Microcalcifications are located using Otsu threshold selection method. Experiments have been conducted on images of mini-MIAS database (Mammogram Image Analysis Society database (UK)). In order to validate the results, several different kinds of standard test images (fatty, fatty-glandular and denseglandular) of mini-MIAS database are considered. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed approach has an ability to detect Microcalcifications even in dense mammograms. The results of proposed approach are quite promising. The proposed approach can be a part of developing a computer aided decision (CAD) system for early detection of breast cancer.

We perceive the digital watermark detection as classification problem in image processing. We classify watermarked images as positive class whilst unwatermarked images as negative class. Support Vector Machine (SVM) is used as classifier of the watermarked and unwatermarked digital images. Two watermarking schemes i.e. Cox's spread spectrum (SS) and Single Value Decomposition (SVD) are used to embed watermark into digital images. These algorithms are selected based on their different level of robustness to Stirmark attacks. The payload of the watermark used for both algorithms is consistent at certain number of bits. SVM is trained with both the watermarked and unwatermarked images. Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC) graphs are plotted to assess the statistical detection behavior of both the correlation detector and SVM classifier. We found that straight forward application of SVM leads to generalization problem. We suggest remedies to preprocess the training data in order to achieve substantially better performance from SVM classifier than those resulting from the straightforward application of SVM. Both watermarked and unwatermarked images are attacked under Stirmark and are then tested with the correlation detectors and SVM classifier. A comparison of the ROC of the correlation detectors and SVM classifier is performed to assess the accuracy of SVM classifier relative to correlation detectors. We found that SVM classifier has higher robustness to Stirmark attacks.

BackgroundThis study aimed to screen the feature modules and characteristic genes related to ulcerative colitis (UC) and construct a support vector machine (SVM) classifier to distinguish UC patients.MethodsFour datasets that contained UC and control samples were obtained from the Gene Expression Omnibus database. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) with consistency were screened via the MetaDE method. The weighted gene coexpression network (WGCNA) was used to distinguish significant modules based on the four datasets. The protein–protein interaction network was established based on intersection genes. Enrichment analysis of Gene Ontology (GO) biological processes (BPs) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway enrichment were established based on DAVID. An SVM combined with recursive feature elimination was also applied to construct a disease classifier for the disease diagnosis of UC patients. The efficacy of the SVM classifier was evaluated through receiver operating characteristic curves.ResultsTwelve highly preserved modules were obtained using the WGCNA, and 2009 DEGs with significant consistency were selected using the MetaDE method. Sixteen significantly related GO BPs and 12 KEGG pathways were obtained, such as cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction, cell adhesion molecules, and leukocyte transendothelial migration. Subsequently, 41 genes were used to construct an SVM classifier, such as CXCL1, CCR2, IL1B, and IL1A. The area under the curve (AUC) was 0.999 in the training dataset, whereas the AUC was 0.886, 0.790, and 0.819 in the validation set (GSE65114, GSE37283, and GSE36807, respectively).ConclusionsAn SVM classifier based on feature genes might correctly identify healthy people or UC patients.

This study investigated the effect of a new approach, the support vector machine, as a classifier tool to identify the weeds in corn fields at early growth stage. Image segmentation was done by transforming original color images to gray level images according to the statistical values of red, green, blue components. The Gray Level Co-occurrence Matrix (GLCM) and statistical properties of the histogram from the gray level images were further used to obtain the texture features of the weeds and corn seedlings. These texture features were used in the classification procedure. Principle component analysis was used to select the texture features according to their better contributions to reduce space dimensions. A Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifier was employed to recognize the weeds and the corn seedlings. The results indicated that the SVM classifiers with different feature selections could identify successfully weed-corn with a higher accuracy ranged from 92.31 to 100%. A comparison study of the recognition capabilities of SVM and back-propagation (BP) neural-network classifier using the same data set was conducted. It was found that the SVM classifier provided the best recognition performance with an accuracy of 100%, which exceeded the accuracy of 80% given by the BP classifier. Key words: Corn seedling, weeds, texture, support vector machine, recognize.

An improved SVM classifier based on double chains quantum genetic algorithm and its application in analogue circuit diagnosis

e14528 Background: Treatment monitoring in patients with High-Grade Glioma (HGG) and identification of disease progression, remains a major challenge in clinical neurooncology. We aimed to develop a support vector machine (SVM) classifier utilising combined longitudinal conventional and Dynamic Susceptibility Contrast (DSC) perfusion MRI to classify between Stable Disease (SD), Pseudoprogression (PsP) and Progressive Disease (PD) in glioma patients under surveillance. Methods: Conventional (269) and perfusion (62) MRI studies of HGG patients acquired between 2012 and 2018 were prospectively analysed. Study participants were separated into two groups: Group I with a single DSC time point (64 participants) and Group II with multiple DSC time points (19 participants). The SVM classifier was trained using all available MRI for each group. Classification accuracy was assessed for the use of features extracted from different feature dataset and time point combinations and compared to the experienced radiologists’ predictions. Results: The study included 64 participants (mean age: 48.5 ± 12.8 yrs [standard deviation], 24 female). SVM classification based on combined perfusion and structural features outperformed standalone datasets across all groups. For the clinically relevant classification step (SD/PSP vs PD), both feature combination as well as the addition of multiple DSC time points, improved classification performance (lowest median error rate: 0.016). The SVM algorithm outperformed radiologists in predicting lesion destiny in both groups. Optimal performance was observed in Group II, in which SVM sensitivity/specificity/accuracy was 100/91.67/94.7% for analysis based on the first time point and 85.71/100/ 94.7% based on multiple time points compared to 60/78/68% and 70/90/84.2% for the respective radiologist classifications. In Group I, the SVM also exceeded radiologist predictions, albeit by a smaller margin and resulted in sensitivity/specificity of 86.49/75.00/81.53% (SVM) compared to 75.7/68.9/73.84% (radiologists). Conclusions: Our results indicate that the addition of multiple longitudinal perfusion time points as well as the combination of structural and perfusion features significantly enhance classification outcome in treatment monitoring of HGGs and machine-learning-assisted diagnosis has potentially superior accuracy than the radiologist's visual evaluation and expertise.

A boosted SVM classifier trained by incremental learning and decremental unlearning approach

In computer-aided detection of microcalcifications (MCs), the detection accuracy is often compromised by frequent occurrence of false positives (FPs), which can be attributed to a number of factors, including imaging noise, inhomogeneity in tissue background, linear structures, and artifacts in mammograms. In this study, the authors investigated a unified classification approach for combating the adverse effects of these heterogeneous factors for accurate MC detection. To accommodate FPs caused by different factors in a mammogram image, the authors developed a classification model to which the input features were adapted according to the image context at a detection location. For this purpose, the input features were defined in two groups, of which one group was derived from the image intensity pattern in a local neighborhood of a detection location, and the other group was used to characterize how a MC is different from its structural background. Owing to the distinctive effect of linear structures in the detector response, the authors introduced a dummy variable into the unified classifier model, which allowed the input features to be adapted according to the image context at a detection location (i.e., presence or absence of linear structures). To suppress the effect of inhomogeneity in tissue background, the input features were extracted from different domains aimed for enhancing MCs in a mammogram image. To demonstrate the flexibility of the proposed approach, the authors implemented the unified classifier model by two widely used machine learning algorithms, namely, a support vector machine (SVM) classifier and an Adaboost classifier. In the experiment, the proposed approach was tested for two representative MC detectors in the literature [difference-of-Gaussians (DoG) detector and SVM detector]. The detection performance was assessed using free-response receiver operating characteristic (FROC) analysis on a set of 141 screen-film mammogram (SFM) images (66 cases) and a set of 188 full-field digital mammogram (FFDM) images (95 cases). The FROC analysis results show that the proposed unified classification approach can significantly improve the detection accuracy of two MC detectors on both SFM and FFDM images. Despite the difference in performance between the two detectors, the unified classifiers can reduce their FP rate to a similar level in the output of the two detectors. In particular, with true-positive rate at 85%, the FP rate on SFM images for the DoG detector was reduced from 1.16 to 0.33 clusters/image (unified SVM) and 0.36 clusters/image (unified Adaboost), respectively; similarly, for the SVM detector, the FP rate was reduced from 0.45 clusters/image to 0.30 clusters/image (unified SVM) and 0.25 clusters/image (unified Adaboost), respectively. Similar FP reduction results were also achieved on FFDM images for the two MC detectors. The proposed unified classification approach can be effective for discriminating MCs from FPs caused by different factors (such as MC-like noise patterns and linear structures) in MC detection. The framework is general and can be applicable for further improving the detection accuracy of existing MC detectors.

Performance analysis of SAR filtering techniques using SVM and Wishart Classifier