Nos últimos anos o mundo tem vivenciado uma avalanche de novas tecnologias para auxílio ao diagnóstico médico. Esses esforços buscam um diagnóstico rápido e preciso através de exames e informações sobre a condição física do paciente. Através do uso de imagens médicas, a radiologia busca a visualização de órgãos ou estruturas internas do corpo humano para encontrar respostas às suspeitas de problemas físicos expressos por sinais e sintomas relatados pelo paciente. Nessa área, os Sistemas de Comunicação e Armazenamento de Imagens (PACS) têm ajudado no armazenamento e organização do crescente número de imagens geradas pelos exames realizados nos hospitais. Trabalhos de pesquisa médica têm evidenciado o potencial de uso dessas imagens como auxílio à prática da Medicina Baseada em Casos Similares (MBCS). Por esse motivo, há na literatura um esforço contínuo em desenvolver técnicas computacionais para recuperação de imagens baseada em conteúdos similares (CBIR) em grandes conjuntos de dados. As consultas por similaridade são essenciais para apoiar a prática da MBCS e a descoberta de comportamentos de lesões causadas por diversas doenças. A evolução e intensificação das pesquisas em CBIR têm encontrado vários desafios. Um desses é a divergência entre os resultados obtidos automaticamente e aqueles esperados pelos radiologistas (descontinuidade semântica). Outro desafio é a falta de estudos sobre a viabilidade clínica dessas ferramentas como forma de auxílio ao diagnóstico. Esses obstáculos são dois dos principais responsáveis pela não efetivação dessa tecnologia no ambiente médico-hospitalar. Mediante o exposto acima, este trabalho de pesquisa propõe um mecanismo para contornar essa descontinuidade semântica e ao mesmo tempo aproximar o CBIR do ambiente real de aplicação. A contribuição principal deste trabalho foi o desenvolvimento de uma metodologia baseada em parâmetros perceptuais que aproximam o sistema ao nível de percepção do usuário médico. Em seguida, foi realizado um estudo sobre a viabilidade clínica do sistema CBIR no Hospital das Clínicas de Ribeirão Preto. A metodologia proposta foi aplicada e os resultados comprovaram a aplicabilidade de Sistemas CBIR como ferramenta de auxílio ao diagnóstico em um ambiente clínico real / In recent years the world has experienced an avalanche of new technologies to aid medical diagnosis. These efforts seek a quick and accurate diagnosis through exams and information about the patient\'s physical condition. The radiology studies the visualization of the organs or structures through the use of images. In this area, the Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (PACS) have helped in the storage and organization of the growing number of images generated by exams performed in hospitals. Medical research papers have shown the potential use of these images as an aid to the Similar Case-Based Reasoning (SCBR) practice in Medicine. For this reason, there is an ongoing effort in the literature to develop computational techniques for Content-Based Image Retrieval (CBIR) in large data sets. Similarity queries are essential to support the practice of SCBR. The evolution and intensification of research in CBIR have encountered several challenges. One of these is the discrepancy between the results obtained automatically and those expected by radiologists (semantic gap). Another challenge is the lack of studies on the clinical viability of these tools as a way to assist in diagnosis. These obstacles are the two main responsible for reservation in using this technology in the medical hospital environment. Considering this scenario, this research proposes a mechanism to overcome this semantic gap and bring the real environment to the CBIR application. The main contribution for this research was the development of a methodology based on Perceptual Parameters to approximate the system to the level of user perception. Then we conducted a study on the clinical viability of a CBIR system at the Clinical Hospital of the University of São Paulo at Ribeirão Preto. The proposed methodology was applied and the results showed the applicability of CBIR systems as a computer aided diagnosis tool in a real clinical environment

Este trabalho foi desenvolvido com o intuito de se estabelecer uma metodologia para a classificação das cores de imagens digitais em cores perceptuais para se gerar um vetor de características que permita recuperar imagens através de seu conteúdo em uma base de dados. Em trabalhos e estudos correlatos analisados, as metodologias de agrupamento das diversas cores possíveis de uma imagem não permitem uma associação entre a cor digitalizada e a cor percebida por seres humanos. Estudos mostram que a maioria das culturas humanas associam às cores apenas onze termos: vermelho, amarelo, violeta, azul, verde, rosa, marrom, preto, branco, laranja e cinza. Este trabalho propõe, portanto, uma metodologia baseada em regras da lógica fuzzy, que permite associar a todas as possíveis cores de imagens digitais uma das onze cores culturais definidas, criando assim um histograma perceptual de cores. Isso permitiu a geração de um vetor de características para a recuperação de imagens baseada em conteúdo em uma base de dados. / This work aims at establishing a digital image classification methodology based on perceptual colors, by generating a feature vector that allows retrieving images from a database by their content. In related works the methodologies of grouping the diverse possible colors of an image do not allow associate digitized colors and those colors perceived by human beings. Studies show that the majority of human being culture associates only eleven terms to all the possible colors: red, yellow, blue, green, pink, brown, black, white, purple, orange and gray. This work purpose a methodology based on fuzzy logic that allows to associate the eleven cultural color terms with all of digitized colors by a perceptual color histogram. The image color quantization generates a feature vector used for content-based image retrieval. The results show that it is possible to use the perceptual color histogram for CBIR and in the semantic gap reduction.

Úlceras de pele são causadas devido à deficiência na circulação sanguínea. O diagnóstico é feito pela análise visual das regiões afetadas. A quantificação da distribuição de cores da lesão, por meio de técnicas de processamento de imagens pode auxiliar na caracterização e análise da dinâmica do processo patológico e resposta ao tratamento. O processamento de imagens de úlceras dermatológicas envolve etapas relacionadas a segmentação, caracterização e indexação. Esta análise é importante para classificação, recuperação de imagens similares e acompanhamento da evolução de uma lesão. Este trabalho apresenta um estudo sobre técnicas de segmentação e caracterização de imagens coloridas de úlceras de pele, baseadas nos modelos de cores RGB, HSV, L*a*b* e L*u*v*, utilizando suas componentes na extração de informações de textura e cor. Foram utilizadas técnicas de Aprendizado de Máquina e algoritmos matemáticos para a segmentação e extração de atributos, utilizando uma base de dados com 172 imagens. Nos testes de recuperação, foram utilizadas diferentes métricas de distância para avaliação do desempenho e técnicas de seleção de atributos. Os resultados obtidos evidenciam bom potencial para apoio ao diagnóstico e acompanhamento da evolução do tratamento com valores de até 75% de precisão para as técnicas de recuperação, 0,9 de área embaixo da curva receiver-operating-characteristic na classificação e 0,04 de erro médio quadrático entre a composição de cores da imagem segmentada automaticamente e a segmentada manualmente. Nos testes utilizando seleção de atributos, foi observado uma redução nos valores de precisão de recuperação (60%) e valores similares nos tetes de classificação (0,85). / Skin ulcers are caused due to deficiency in the bloodstream. The diagnosis is made by a visual analysis of the affected area. Quantification of color distribution of the lesion by image processing techniques can aid in the characterization and response to treatment. The image processing steps involves skin ulcers related to segmentation, characterization and indexing. This analysis is important for classification, image retrieval and similar tracking the evolution of an injury. This project presents a study of segmentation techniques and characterization of color images of dermatological skin ulcers, based on the color models RGB, HSV, L*a*b* and L*u*v*, using their components in the extraction of texture and color information. Were used Machine Learning techniques, mathematical algorithms for segmentation and extraction of attributes, using a database containing 172 images in two versions. In recovery tests were used different distance metrics for performance evaluation and techniques of features selection. The results show good potential to support the diagnosis and monitoring of treatment progress with values up to 75% precision in recovery techniques, 0.9 area under the curve receiver-operating-characteristic) in classification, and 0.04 mean square error between the color composition of the automatically segmented image and the manually segmented image. In tests utilizing feature selection was observed a decrease in precision values of image retrieval (60%) and similar values in the classification\'s tests (0.85).

A recuperação de imagens baseada em conteúdo (Content-based Image Retrieval - CBIR) embasa-se sobre dois aspectos primordiais, um extrator de características o qual deve prover as características intrínsecas mais significativas dos dados e uma função de distância a qual quantifica a similaridade entre tais dados. O grande desafio é justamente como alcançar a melhor integração entre estes dois aspectos chaves com intuito de obter maior precisão nas consultas por similaridade. Apesar de inúmeros esforços serem continuamente despendidos para o desenvolvimento de novas técnicas de extração de características, muito pouca atenção tem sido direcionada à importância de uma adequada associação entre a função de distância e os extratores de características. A presente Dissertação de Mestrado foi concebida com o intuito de preencher esta lacuna. Para tal, foi realizada a análise do comportamento de diferentes funções de distância com relação a tipos distintos de vetores de características. Os três principais tipos de características intrínsecas às imagens foram analisados, com respeito a distribuição de cores, textura e forma. Além disso, foram propostas duas novas técnicas para realização de seleção de características com o desígnio de obter melhorias em relação à precisão das consultas por similaridade. A primeira técnica emprega regras de associação estatísticas e alcançou um ganho de até 38% na precisão, enquanto que a segunda técnica utilizando a entropia de Shannon alcançou um ganho de aproximadamente 71% ao mesmo tempo em que reduz significantemente a dimensionalidade dos vetores de características. O presente trabalho também demonstra que uma adequada utilização das funções de distância melhora efetivamente os resultados das consultas por similaridade. Conseqüentemente, desdobra novos caminhos para realçar a concepção de sistemas CBIR / The retrieval of images by visual content relies on a feature extractor to provide the most meaningful intrinsic characteristics (features) from the data, and a distance function to quantify the similarity between them. A challenge in this field supporting content-based image retrieval (CBIR) to answer similarity queries is how to best integrate these two key aspects. There are plenty of researching on algorithms for feature extraction of images. However, little attention have been paid to the importance of the use of a well-suited distance function associated to a feature extractor. This Master Dissertation was conceived to fill in this gap. Therefore, herein it was investigated the behavior of different distance functions regarding distinct feature vector types. The three main types of image features were evaluated, regarding color distribution, texture and shape. It was also proposed two new techniques to perform feature selection over the feature vectors, in order to improve the precision when answering similarity queries. The first technique employed statistical association rules and achieve up to 38% gain in precision, while the second one employing the Shannon entropy achieved 71%, while siginificantly reducing the size of the feature vector. This work also showed that the proper use of a distance function effectively improves the similarity query results. Therefore, it opens new ways to enhance the acceptance of CBIR systems

La recherche d'images basée sur le contenu visuel est un domaine très actif de la vision par ordinateur, car le nombre de bases d'images disponibles ne cesse d'augmenter.L’objectif de ce type d’approche est de retourner les images les plus proches d'une requête donnée en terme de contenu visuel.Notre travail s'inscrit dans un contexte applicatif spécifique qui consiste à indexer des petites bases d'images expertes sur lesquelles nous n'avons aucune connaissance a priori.L’une de nos contributions pour palier ce problème consiste à choisir un ensemble de descripteurs visuels et de les placer en compétition directe. Nous utilisons deux stratégies pour combiner ces caractéristiques : la première, est pyschovisuelle, et la seconde, est statistique.Dans ce contexte, nous proposons une approche adaptative non supervisée, basée sur les sacs de mots et phrases visuels, dont le principe est de sélectionner les caractéristiques pertinentes pour chaque point d'intérêt dans le but de renforcer la représentation de l'image.Les tests effectués montrent l'intérêt d'utiliser ce type de méthodes malgré la domination des méthodes basées réseaux de neurones convolutifs dans la littérature.Nous proposons également une étude, ainsi que les résultats de nos premiers tests concernant le renforcement de la recherche en utilisant des méthodes semi-interactives basées sur l’expertise de l'utilisateur. / Image Retrieval is still a very active field of image processing as the number of available image datasets continuously increases.One of the principal objectives of Content-Based Image Retrieval (CBIR) is to return the most similar images to a given query with respect to their visual content.Our work fits in a very specific application context: indexing small expert image datasets, with no prior knowledge on the images. Because of the image complexity, one of our contributions is the choice of effective descriptors from literature placed in direct competition.Two strategies are used to combine features: a psycho-visual one and a statistical one.In this context, we propose an unsupervised and adaptive framework based on the well-known bags of visual words and phrases models that select relevant visual descriptors for each keypoint to construct a more discriminative image representation.Experiments show the interest of using this this type of methodologies during a time when convolutional neural networks are ubiquitous.We also propose a study about semi interactive retrieval to improve the accuracy of CBIR systems by using the knowledge of the expert users.

In Winter semester of 2005 the English Language Center (ELC) began plans to implement a content-based program for students at its highest proficiency level in order to provide them with more effective preparation for academic studies in English. Since that time, the program has undergone various changes to provide a more stable, cohesive, and responsive curriculum. There is a need, however, for greater teacher support and training. This paper outlines the process I underwent to create a handbook that would provide needed guidance and training for teachers in this program. This project involved an in-depth needs analysis of teachers and students in the program. Results from this analysis led to the selection of three basic principles that were used in the design and development of this project: (1) practicality, (2) instructiveness, and (3) sustainability. The resulting project is a binder organized into four tabs: (1) Program Overview, (2) The Basics of Content-based Instruction at the ELC, (3) Challenges and Strategies in CBI, and (4) Additional Resources. This resource was developed using Microsoft Word 2007 and includes a variety of graphics, text boxes and layouts to provide a professional and user-friendly product. An evaluation of the project based on the responses of three teachers who used the handbook during Winter semester 2009 revealed that it was a useful and needed resource for teaching content-based classes at the ELC. Further piloting is needed to verify these findings. It is recommended that in the future this resource be maintained by the ELC Coordinator assigned to oversee the content courses. As the ELC continues to refine the content curriculum, evaluation and revisions of this handbook should be carried out at regular intervals to ensure its continued relevance and accuracy over time.

Image segmentation is one of the most difficult tasks in image processing. Segmentation algorithms are generally based on searching a region where pixels share similar gray level intensity and satisfy a set of defined criteria. However, the segmented region cannot be used directly for partial image retrieval. In this dissertation, a Contour Based Image Structure (CBIS) model is introduced. In this model, images are divided into several objects defined by their bounding contours. The bounding contour structure allows individual object extraction, and partial object matching and retrieval from a standard CBIS image structure. The CBIS model allows the representation of 3D objects by their bounding contours which is suitable for parallel implementation particularly when extracting contour features and matching them for 3D images require heavy computations. This computational burden becomes worse for images with high resolution and large contour density. In this essence we designed two parallel algorithms; Contour Parallelization Algorithm (CPA) and Partial Retrieval Parallelization Algorithm (PRPA). Both algorithms have considerably improved the performance of CBIS for both contour shape matching as well as partial image retrieval. To improve the effectiveness of CBIS in segmenting images with inhomogeneous backgrounds we used the phase congruency invariant features of Fourier transform components to highlight boundaries of objects prior to extracting their contours. The contour matching process has also been improved by constructing a fuzzy contour matching system that allows unbiased matching decisions. Further improvements have been achieved through the use of a contour tailored Fourier descriptor to make translation and rotation invariance. It is proved to be suitable for general contour shape matching where translation, rotation, and scaling invariance are required. For those images which are hard to be classified by object contours such as bacterial images, we define a multi-level cosine transform to extract their texture features for image classification. The low frequency Discrete Cosine Transform coefficients and Zenike moments derived from images are trained by Support Vector Machine (SVM) to generate multiple classifiers.

The purpose of this study was to determine perceptions of students, teachers and parents concerning English-medium instruction and their perceptions of English as a foreign language. The research design of the study comprised a nation-wide questionnaire survey and individual interviews. The sample for the survey consisted of 982 students, 383 teachers and 988 parents in 42 Anatolian high schools across 32 provinces in Turkey selected using statified and criterion sampling. The participants of the interviews were six students, four teachers and four parents. Two distinct instruments were used for data collection / a survey questionnaire containing five-point Likert scales and open-ended questions / and a semi-structured interview schedule. To analyze quantitative data, descriptive statistics, one-way ANOVA and bivariate correlations were conducted. The qualitative data of the interviews and open-ended questions were analyzed via content analysis. Results indicated that students, teachers and parents do not favor English-medium instruction at secondary education. Regardless of their position on English-medium instruction, participants underscored problems of implementation of English-medium instruction at Anatolian high schools. A positive correleation was found between perceptions of English and perceptions of English-medium instruction for each group. Results also showed that all groups perceive English positively as a foreign language, and support the teaching and learning of English. According to students&amp / #8217 / and teachers&amp / #8217 / perceptions, English-medium instruction influences the instructional process in math and science in Anatolian high schools, and poses problems particularly in the learning of the subject matter.

Distributed event processing systems suffer from poor scalability and inefficient resource usage caused by load distributions typical in real-world applications. The results of these shortcomings are availability issues, poor system performance, and high operating costs. This thesis proposes three remedies to solve these limitations in content-based publish/subscribe, which is a practical realization of an event processing system. First, we present a load balancing algorithm that relocates subscribers to distribute load and avoid overloads. Second, we propose publisher relocation algorithms that reduces both the load imposed onto brokers and delivery delay experienced by subscribers. Third, we present ``green" resource allocation algorithms that allocate as few brokers as possible while maximizing their resource usage efficiency by reconfiguring the publishers, subscribers, and the broker topology. We implemented and evaluated all of our approaches on an open source content-based publish/subscribe system called PADRES and evaluated them on SciNet, PlanetLab, a cluster testbed, and in simulations to prove the effectiveness of our solutions. Our evaluation findings are summarized as follows. One, the proposed load balancing algorithm is effective in distributing and balancing load originating from a single server to all available servers in the network. Two, our publisher relocation algorithm reduces the average input load of the system by up to 68%, average broker message rate by up to 85%, and average delivery delay by up to 68%. Three, our resource allocation algorithm reduces the average broker message rate even further by up to 92% and the number of allocated brokers by up to 91%.

Distributed event processing systems suffer from poor scalability and inefficient resource usage caused by load distributions typical in real-world applications. The results of these shortcomings are availability issues, poor system performance, and high operating costs. This thesis proposes three remedies to solve these limitations in content-based publish/subscribe, which is a practical realization of an event processing system. First, we present a load balancing algorithm that relocates subscribers to distribute load and avoid overloads. Second, we propose publisher relocation algorithms that reduces both the load imposed onto brokers and delivery delay experienced by subscribers. Third, we present ``green" resource allocation algorithms that allocate as few brokers as possible while maximizing their resource usage efficiency by reconfiguring the publishers, subscribers, and the broker topology. We implemented and evaluated all of our approaches on an open source content-based publish/subscribe system called PADRES and evaluated them on SciNet, PlanetLab, a cluster testbed, and in simulations to prove the effectiveness of our solutions. Our evaluation findings are summarized as follows. One, the proposed load balancing algorithm is effective in distributing and balancing load originating from a single server to all available servers in the network. Two, our publisher relocation algorithm reduces the average input load of the system by up to 68%, average broker message rate by up to 85%, and average delivery delay by up to 68%. Three, our resource allocation algorithm reduces the average broker message rate even further by up to 92% and the number of allocated brokers by up to 91%.