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An improved analysis of Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) images of the retina is of essential importance for the correct diagnosis of retinal abnormalities. Unfortunately, OCT images suffer from noise arising from different sources. In particular, speckle noise caused by the scattering of light waves strongly degrades the quality of OCT image acquisitions. In this paper, we employ a Modified Morphological Component Analysis (MMCA) to provide a new method that separates the image into components that contain different features as texture, piecewise smooth parts, and singularities along curves. Each image component is computed as a sparse representation in a suitable dictionary. To create these dictionaries, we use non-data-adaptive multi-scale ( X -let) transforms which have been shown to be well suitable to extract the special OCT image features. In this way, we reach two goals at once. On the one hand, we achieve strongly improved denoising results by applying adaptive local thresholding techniques separately to each image component. The denoising performance outperforms other state-of-the-art denoising algorithms regarding the PSNR as well as no-reference image quality assessments. On the other hand, we obtain a decomposition of the OCT images in well-interpretable image components that can be exploited for further image processing tasks, such as classification.

Artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms, encompassing machine learning and deep learning, can assist ophthalmologists in early detection of various ocular abnormalities through the analysis of retinal optical coherence tomography (OCT) images. Despite considerable progress in these algorithms, several limitations persist in medical imaging fields, where a lack of data is a common issue. Accordingly, specific image processing techniques, such as time-frequency transforms, can be employed in conjunction with AI algorithms to enhance diagnostic accuracy. This research investigates the influence of non-data-adaptive time-frequency transforms, specifically X-lets, on the classification of OCT B-scans. For this purpose, each B-scan was transformed using every considered X-let individually, and all the sub-bands were utilized as the input for a designed 2D Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) to extract optimal features, which were subsequently fed to the classifiers. Evaluating per-class accuracy shows that the use of the 2D Discrete Wavelet Transform (2D-DWT) yields superior outcomes for normal cases, whereas the circlet transform outperforms other X-lets for abnormal cases characterized by circles in their retinal structure (due to the accumulation of fluid). As a result, we propose a novel transform named CircWave by concatenating all sub-bands from the 2D-DWT and the circlet transform. The objective is to enhance the per-class accuracy of both normal and abnormal cases simultaneously. Our findings show that classification results based on the CircWave transform outperform those derived from original images or any individual transform. Furthermore, Grad-CAM class activation visualization for B-scans reconstructed from CircWave sub-bands highlights a greater emphasis on circular formations in abnormal cases and straight lines in normal cases, in contrast to the focus on irrelevant regions in original B-scans. To assess the generalizability of our method, we applied it to another dataset obtained from a different imaging system. We achieved promising accuracies of 94.5% and 90% for the first and second datasets, respectively, which are comparable with results from previous studies. The proposed CNN based on CircWave sub-bands (i.e. CircWaveNet) not only produces superior outcomes but also offers more interpretable results with a heightened focus on features crucial for ophthalmologists., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

To assist ophthalmologists in diagnosing retinal abnormalities, Computer Aided Diagnosis has played a significant role. In this paper, a particular Convolutional Neural Network based on Wavelet Scattering Transform (WST) is used to detect one to four retinal abnormalities from Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) images. Predefined wavelet filters in this network decrease the computation complexity and processing time compared to deep learning methods. We use two layers of the WST network to obtain a direct and efficient model. WST generates a sparse representation of the images which is translation-invariant and stable concerning local deformations. Next, a Principal Component Analysis classifies the extracted features. We evaluate the model using four publicly available datasets to have a comprehensive comparison with the literature. The accuracies of classifying the OCT images of the OCTID dataset into two and five classes were [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text], respectively. We achieved an accuracy of [Formula: see text] in detecting Diabetic Macular Edema from Normal ones using the TOPCON device-based dataset. Heidelberg and Duke datasets contain DME, Age-related Macular Degeneration, and Normal classes, in which we achieved accuracy of [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text], respectively. A comparison of our results with the state-of-the-art models shows that our model outperforms these models for some assessments or achieves nearly the best results reported so far while having a much smaller computational complexity., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is an emerging imaging technique for ophthalmic disease diagnosis. Two major problems in OCT image analysis are image enhancement and image segmentation. Deep learning methods have achieved excellent performance in image analysis. However, most of the deep learning-based image analysis models are supervised learning-based approaches and need a high volume of training data (e.g., reference clean images for image enhancement and accurate annotated images for segmentation). Moreover, acquiring reference clean images for OCT image enhancement and accurate annotation of the high volume of OCT images for segmentation is hard. So, it is difficult to extend these deep learning methods to the OCT image analysis. We propose an unsupervised learning-based approach for OCT image enhancement and abnormality segmentation, where the model can be trained without reference images. The image is reconstructed by Restricted Boltzmann Machine (RBM) by defining a target function and minimizing it. For OCT image enhancement, each image is independently learned by the RBM network and is eventually reconstructed. In the reconstruction phase, we use the ReLu function instead of the Sigmoid function. Reconstruction of images given by the RBM network leads to improved image contrast in comparison to other competitive methods in terms of contrast to noise ratio (CNR). For anomaly detection, hyper-reflective foci (HF) as one of the first signs in retinal OCTs of patients with diabetic macular edema (DME) are identified based on image reconstruction by RBM and post-processing by removing the HFs candidates outside the area between the first and the last retinal layers. Our anomaly detection method achieves a high ability to detect abnormalities., Competing Interests: The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest related to this article., (© 2022 Optica Publishing Group under the terms of the Optica Open Access Publishing Agreement.)

Diagnosis retinal abnormalities in Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) images assist ophthalmologist in the early detection and treatment of patients. To do this, different Computer Aided Diagnosis (CAD) methods based on machine learning and deep learning algorithms have been proposed. In this paper, wavelet scattering network is used to identify normal retina and four pathologies namely, Central Serous Retinopathy (CSR), Macular Hole (MH), Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD) and Diabetic Retinopathy (DR). Wavelet scattering network is a particular convolutional network which is formed from cascading wavelet transform with nonlinear modulus and averaging operators. This transform generates sparse, translation invariant and deformation stable representations of signals. Filters in the layers of this network are predefined wavelets and not need to be learned which causes decreasing the processing time and complexity. The extracted features are fed to a Principal Component Analysis (PCA) classifier. The results of this research show the accuracy of 97.4% and 100% in diagnosis abnormal retina and DR from normal ones, respectively. We also achieved the accuracy of 84.2% in classifying OCT images to five classes of normal, CSR, MH, AMD and DR which outperforms other state of the art methods with high computational complexity. Clinical Relevance- Clinically, the manually checking of each OCT B-scan by ophthalmologists is tedious and time consuming and may lead to an erroneous decision specially for multiclass problems. In this study, a low complexity CAD system for retinal OCT image classification based on wavelet scattering network is introduced which can be learned by a small number of data.

Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) is a non-invasive imaging technology that is widely applied for the diagnosis of retinal pathologies. In general, the structural information of retinal layers plays an important role in the diagnosis of various eye diseases by ophthalmologists. In this paper, by focusing on this information, we first introduce a new layer called the edge convolutional layer (ECL) to accurately extract the retinal boundaries in different sizes and angles with a much smaller number of parameters than the conventional convolutional layer. Then, using this layer, we propose the ECL-guided convolutional neural network (ECL-CNN) method for the automatic classification of the OCT images. For the assessment of the proposed method, we utilize a publicly available data comprising 45 OCT volumes with 15 age-related macular degeneration (AMD), 15 diabetic macular edema (DME), and 15 normal volumes, captured by using the Heidelberg OCT imaging device. Experimental results demonstrate that the suggested ECL-CNN approach has an outstanding performance in OCT image classification, which achieves an average precision of 99.43% as a three-class classification work. Clinical Relevance - The objective of this research is to introduce a new approach based on CNN for the automated classification of retinal OCT images. Clinically, the ophthalmologists should manually check each cross-sectional B-scan and classify retinal pathologies from B-scan images. This manual process is tedious and time-consuming in general. Hence, an automatic computer-assisted technique for retinal OCT image classification is demanded.

This paper presents a new approach for reconstruction of disconnected digital lines (DDLs) based on a constrained regularization model which ensures connectivity of the digital lines (DLs) in the discrete image plane. The first step in this approach is to determine the order of given pixels of the DDL. To determine connectivity of pixels, we use the usual 8-neighbor connectivity in discrete images. For any neighboring pixels of the DDL that are not connected, we determine a number of new pixel values that need to be reconstructed between these pixels. Next, the integer-valued x - and y -coordinates of the location of the pixels of the DDLs are segregated into two 1D signal vectors. Then the x - and y -coordinates of the missing pixels of the DDLs are estimated using a new constrained regularization. While the solution of this constrained minimization problem provides real values for the x - and y -coordinates of pixels positions, the imposed constraint ensures connectivity of the resulting DLs in the image plane after transforming the computed values from [Formula: see text] to [Formula: see text]. The proposed regularization approach forces connected lines with small curvature. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed technique improves DL intersection detection, as well. Moreover, this technique has a high potential to be used as a fast approach in binary image inpainting particularly overcoming the shortcomings of conventional methods which cause destruction of thin objects and blurring in the recovered regions.

In this paper, a novel statistical model is proposed for retinal optical coherence tomography (OCT) images. According to the layered structure of the retina, a mixture of six Weibull distributions is proposed to describe the main statistical features of OCT images. We apply Weibull distribution to establish a more comprehensive model but with fewer parameters that has better goodness of fit (GoF) than previous models. Our new model also takes care of features such as asymmetry and heavy-tailed nature of the intensity distribution of retinal OCT data. In order to test the effectiveness of this new model, we apply it to improve the low quality of the OCT images. For this purpose, the spatially constrained Gaussian mixture model (SCGMM) is implemented. Since SCGMM is designed for data with Gaussian distribution, we convert our Weibull mixture model to a Gaussian mixture model using histogram matching before applying SCGMM. The denoising results illustrate the remarkable performance in terms of the contrast to noise ratio (CNR) and texture preservation (TP) compared to other peer methods. In another test to evaluate the efficiency of our proposed model, the parameters and GoF criteria are considered as a feature vector for support vector machine (SVM) to classify the healthy retinal OCT images from pigment epithelial detachment (PED) disease. The confusion matrix demonstrates the impact of the proposed model in our preliminary study on the OCT classification problem., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflicts of interest related to this article., (© 2021 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement.)

Denoising is always a challenging problem in natural imaging and geophysical data processing. In this paper, we consider the denoising of texture images using a nonlinear reaction-diffusion equation and directional wavelet frames. In our model, a curvelet shrinkage is used for regularization of the diffusion process to preserve important features in the diffusion smoothing and a wave atom shrinkage is used as the reaction in order to preserve and enhance interesting oriented textures. We derive a digital reaction-diffusion filter that lives on graphs and show convergence of the corresponding iteration process. Experimental results and comparisons show very good performance of the proposed model for texture-preserving denoising.

In this paper, a diffusion-based curvelet shrinkage is proposed for discontinuity-preserving denoising using a combination of a new tight frame of curvelets with a nonlinear diffusion scheme. In order to suppress the pseudo-Gibbs and curvelet-like artifacts, the conventional shrinkage results are further processed by a projected total variation diffusion, in which only the insignificant curvelet coefficients or high-frequency part of the signal are changed by use of a constrained projection. Numerical experiments from piecewise-smooth to textured images show good performances of the proposed method to recover the shape of edges and important detailed components, in comparison to some existing methods.

Falirytmin (1) was metabolized in rats almost completely. Besides small amounts of 1 in urine and feces 18 metabolites could be separated. The proposed structures of 14 compounds demonstrate aromatic hydroxylation, N- and O-dealkylation, side-chain oxidation, alcohol dehydrogenation and N-acetylation. The main route of excretion of 1 and metabolites was with the feces. After p.o. or i.v. administration of 14C-O-ethyl-1 the average excretion of radioactivity in urine, feces and expired air was about 75% in 96 h. The residual activity in organs was about 2-2.5%. Whole-body autoradiography confirms these results. Only slight 14C-activity was seen in muscle, fat, liver, bone marrow and gut.

Explants from trigeminal ganglia and skin of chick embryos and hippocampus from fetal rats were cultivated in Maximow assembly in the presence of Solcoseryl (Solco AG, Basel), a blood extract of calf. Solcoseryl in vitro did not influence the regeneration of nerve fibers from CNS explants. A stimulatory effect of Solcoseryl in vitro by 1% concentration on the outgrowth of new processes in explants of PNS was demonstrated. It is discussed: under optimal concentration Solcoseryl may be important for the influence of the composition of the medium in which explants of the nerve system and skin are cultivated.