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• The insula, a brain region known for its role in pain perception, was the focus of our investigation. • Long-term migraine patients exhibit significant volume changes in parietal, central operculum regions, and entire insular cortex. • We report a novel finding: insular regions are implicated in various clinical presentations that were not previously reported. • This study provides insight into the role of the insula in migraine and offers possibilities for managing migraine processes. This study aimed to assess abnormalities in the insular cortex of individuals suffering from migraines and examine their associations with pain duration, medication usage, and clinical symptoms. We analyzed radiological data from 38 migraine patients who had undergone 3D iso T1-weighted brain MRI at our university hospital between 2019 and 2023. Structured questionnaires were used to collect information on participants' age, migraine type, disease duration, clinical symptoms, and medication use. Volumetric analysis was performed on the insular regions using Volbrain and 3DSlicer. The results were statistically analyzed. Comparing groups with chronic pain to normal groups revealed significant differences in several insular regions, including the posterior insula (p = 0.034), parietal operculum (p = 0.04), and the entire insular cortex (p = 0.023). Further group comparisons (Group 1, 2, and 3) showed significant differences in specific insular regions. For instance, the anterior insula (p = 0.032) was associated with taste changes, the posterior insula (p = 0.010) with smell-related changes, and the central operculum (p = 0.046) with sensations of nausea. Additionally, significant changes were observed in the parietal operculum concerning nausea, photophobia, phonophobia, and changes in smell. To the best of our knowledge, there have been no studies investigating the relationship between clinical manifestations and volumetric correlation. This study provides insights into abnormalities in the insular cortex among migraine patients and their potential relevance to pain duration, severity, and migraine type. The results suggest that understanding alterations in insular regions possibly linked to pain could contribute to the development of innovative approaches to managing chronic pain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to investigate whether the postoperative change in patients after orthognathic surgery, whose facial aesthetics was affected, led to detectable differences using Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services Rekognition, and Face++, which were commercially available face recognition systems. Photographs of 35 patients after orthognathic surgery were analyzed using 3 well-known cloud computing–based facial recognition application programming interfaces to compute similarity scores between preoperative and postoperative photographs. The preoperative, relaxed, smiling, profile, and semiprofile photographs of the patients were compared separately to validate the relevant application programming interfaces. Patient characteristics and type of surgery were recorded for statistical analysis. Kruskal-Wallis rank sum tests were performed to analyze the relationship between patient characteristics and similarity scores. Multiple-comparison Wilcoxon rank sum tests were performed on the statistically significant characteristics. The similarity scores in the Face++ program were lower than those in the Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services Rekognition. In addition, the similarity scores were higher in smiling photographs. A statistically significant difference was found in similarity scores between relaxed and smiling photographs according to different programs (P <0.05). For all 3 facial recognition programs, comparable similarity scores were found in all photographs taken before and after surgery across sex, type of surgery, and type of surgical approach. The type of surgery and surgical approach, sex, and amount of surgical movement did not significantly affect similarity scores in any facial recognition programs (P >0.05). The similarity scores between the photographs before and after orthognathic surgery were high, suggesting that the software algorithms might value measurements on the basis of upper-face landmarks more than lower-face measurements. • Face similarity scores of patients who underwent orthognathic surgery were evaluated. • Three different cloud computing–based facial recognition APIs were used. • Facial similarity scores for the 3 APIs were 91%-99%. • The type of surgery and surgical approach did not significantly affect face similarity scores. • Face similarity scores were impacted by pose variations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, it has become important to ensure data privacy, both when communicating and storing data. Data hiding studies used to provide this privacy have become popular in recent years, and many methods have been proposed. Especially, because of its high capacity, digital color images are more widely used in data hiding. Generally, data hiding is applied to the whole image only by a standard or hybrid method. This article proposes hiding data using different techniques for each pixel of the digital color images. The determination of data hiding techniques depends on the initial pixel value of the cover image and the number of techniques. By adopting this approach, the proposed method ensures confidentiality, privacy, undetectability, and imperceptibility of the hidden data within the cover image. Furthermore, the article introduces a solution to address the fall of boundary problem (FOBP) within the proposed method. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed approach exhibits flexibility, adaptability, and resistance to attacks. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a new hybrid stereovision-based distance-estimation approach is proposed for indoor mobile robot platforms. To calculate the distances between the robot and object, triangulation method is used first. However, this technique is insufficient for objects located on the left or right side of the robot or the case of the stereo camera pair fixed to the robot with an angle down to the floor. Therefore, a new approach is proposed by adding a look-up table and curve-fitting methods to the triangulation technique. In this approach, the stereo camera pair is located on the robot with an angle down to the floor. In the experimental studies, an average accuracy rate of 97.69% is obtained. The Manhattan and Euclidean distances of objects that are not in the same line as the robot are also calculated. Average accuracy rates of 98.24% for Manhattan and 98.03% for Euclidean distances are achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the importance of information security has increased due to the growth in digital communication and steganography has come to the fore for secure communication. Steganography ensures that the secret data to be sent in a multimedia file such as text, picture or video embedded in a way that cannot be understood by third parties. Although image steganography has become popular recently, video steganography has also been widely used and preferred recently, due to its high data hiding capacity and robustness. This paper proposes a new data hiding algorithm in video steganography for effective frame selection, high embedding capacity and good visual quality. The proposed algorithm has two phases: frame selection and data hiding. In the first phase, the frame selection offers a rapid and impressive new method based on enhanced Vigenere. The most significant advantage of this algorithm is to achieve the same level of security without using complex operations such as chaotic systems used in existing methods. In the second phase, we have used adaptive LSB332 for data hiding, which embeds video files with high capacity, high PSNR and SSIM. When the experimental results evaluated, it was observed that the proposed method is over 65 dB PSNR value and 0.99 SSIM value at 20 kbits data capacity. It was also achieved approximately 55 dB and 50 dB PSNR value at 200 kbits and 500 kbits data capacities, respectively, where is no appreciable loss in the SSIM value. Compared to LSB332 based methods, the capacity increased by approximately 12% at same visual qualities. Furthermore, the visual quality of the proposed method is much better than other video data hiding methods, while the capacity increases by 19%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]