Clinical keratoconus (KCN) detection is a challenging and time-consuming task. In the diagnosis process, ophthalmologists must revise demographic and clinical ophthalmic examinations. The latter include slit-lamb, corneal topographic maps, and Pentacam indices (PI). We propose an Ensemble of Deep Transfer Learning (EDTL) based on corneal topographic maps. We consider four pretrained networks, SqueezeNet (SqN), AlexNet (AN), ShuffleNet (SfN), and MobileNet-v2 (MN), and fine-tune them on a dataset of KCN and normal cases, each including four topographic maps. We also consider a PI classifier. Then, our EDTL method combines the output probabilities of each of the five classifiers to obtain a decision based on the fusion of probabilities. Individually, the classifier based on PI achieved 93.1% accuracy, whereas the deep classifiers reached classification accuracies over 90% only in isolated cases. Overall, the average accuracy of the deep networks over the four corneal maps ranged from 86% (SfN) to 89.9% (AN). The classifier ensemble increased the accuracy of the deep classifiers based on corneal maps to values ranging (92.2% to 93.1%) for SqN and (93.1% to 94.8%) for AN. Including in the ensemble-specific combinations of corneal maps’ classifiers and PI increased the accuracy to 98.3%. Moreover, visualization of first learner filters in the networks and Grad-CAMs confirmed that the networks had learned relevant clinical features. This study shows the potential of creating ensembles of deep classifiers fine-tuned with a transfer learning strategy as it resulted in an improved accuracy while showing learnable filters and Grad-CAMs that agree with clinical knowledge. This is a step further towards the potential clinical deployment of an improved computer-assisted diagnosis system for KCN detection to help ophthalmologists to confirm the clinical decision and to perform fast and accurate KCN treatment.
This study was aimed to measure marketing efficiency and study important factors affecting , using TOBIT qualitative response model for wheat crop in Salahalddin province. Results revealed that independent factors such as (marketing type, crops duration in the field, average marketing cost, distance between farm and marketing center, and average productivity) had an impact on wheat marketing efficiency. This impact varied in size and direction due to value of parameters. Values of marketing efficiency fluctuated within cities and towns in the province. The average value on the province level was 76.75%. This study was recommended developing marketing infrastructures which is essential to efficiency increases. In addition, it is impo
... Show MoreThis work focuses on the use of biologically produced activated carbon for improving the physi-co-chemical properties of water samples obtained from the Tigris River. An eco-friendly and low-cost activated carbon was prepared from the Alhagi plant using potassium hydroxide (KOH) as an impregnation agent. The prepared activated carbon was characterised using Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy to determine the functional groups that exist on the raw material (Alhagi plant) and Alhagi activated carbon (AAC). Scanning electron microscope–energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscope was also used to investigate the surface shape and the elements that compose the powder. Brunauer–Emmett–Teller surface area analysis was used to evaluate the spe
... Show MoreIn this paper, we introduce a DCT based steganographic method for gray scale images. The embedding approach is designed to reach efficient tradeoff among the three conflicting goals; maximizing the amount of hidden message, minimizing distortion between the cover image and stego-image,and maximizing the robustness of embedding. The main idea of the method is to create a safe embedding area in the middle and high frequency region of the DCT domain using a magnitude modulation technique. The magnitude modulation is applied using uniform quantization with magnitude Adder/Subtractor modules. The conducted test results indicated that the proposed method satisfy high capacity, high preservation of perceptual and statistical properties of the steg
... Show MoreAnal fistula is an anorectal condition with over 90% of cases being
cryptoglandular in origin and occurring after anorectal abscesses. The traditional method of
treatment of an anal fistula is by excision or de roofing the tract awaiting complete healing.. Aim:
The aim of this study is to assess the efficacy of diode laser 980 nm in the treatment of low fistula in
ano. Methods: The study was performed between June 2019 to end of September 2019, at the
institute of laser for postgraduate study in Baghdad university. A cohort of ten male patients with a
provisional diagnosis of low type anal fistula were selected for this study and treated by interstitial
photothermal therapy of fistula epithelium by diode laser 980nm
Computer systems and networks are being used in almost every aspect of our daily life; as a result the security threats to computers and networks have also increased significantly. Traditionally, password-based user authentication is widely used to authenticate legitimate user in the current system0T but0T this method has many loop holes such as password sharing, shoulder surfing, brute force attack, dictionary attack, guessing, phishing and many more. The aim of this paper is to enhance the password authentication method by presenting a keystroke dynamics with back propagation neural network as a transparent layer of user authentication. Keystroke Dynamics is one of the famous and inexpensive behavioral biometric technologies, which identi
... Show MoreIn this paper, we will present proposed enhance process of image compression by using RLE algorithm. This proposed yield to decrease the size of compressing image, but the original method used primarily for compressing a binary images [1].Which will yield increasing the size of an original image mostly when used for color images. The test of an enhanced algorithm is performed on sample consists of ten BMP 24-bit true color images, building an application by using visual basic 6.0 to show the size after and before compression process and computing the compression ratio for RLE and for the enhanced RLE algorithm.
In this paper, the generation of a chaotic carrier by Lorenz model
is theoretically studied. The encoding techniques has been used is
chaos masking of sinusoidal signal (massage), an optical chaotic
communications system for different receiver configurations is
evaluated. It is proved that chaotic carriers allow the successful
encoding and decoding of messages. Focusing on the effect of
changing the initial conditions of the states of our dynamical system
e.i changing the values (x, y, z, x1, y1, and z1).
In this study, dynamic encryption techniques are explored as an image cipher method to generate S-boxes similar to AES S-boxes with the help of a private key belonging to the user and enable images to be encrypted or decrypted using S-boxes. This study consists of two stages: the dynamic generation of the S-box method and the encryption-decryption method. S-boxes should have a non-linear structure, and for this reason, K/DSA (Knutt Durstenfeld Shuffle Algorithm), which is one of the pseudo-random techniques, is used to generate S-boxes dynamically. The biggest advantage of this approach is the production of the inverted S-box with the S-box. Compared to the methods in the literature, the need to store the S-box is eliminated. Also, the fabr
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