Internal adaptation of cast titanium crowns

As the adaptation of titanium crowns obtained by Rematitan Plus investment, specific for titanium, is not recognized to be suitable, this study evaluated the effect of the concentration of the specific liquid and the temperature of the mold of investments on the internal misfit of crowns cast on commercially pure titanium. Individual dies of epoxy resin were obtained, representing teeth prepared for full-crown restoration with a 6-degree axial surface convergence angle and shoulder (1.0 mm). For the waxing of each crown, a ring-shaped stainless steel matrix (8.0mm internal diameter; 7.5 mm height) was adapted above the individual dies of epoxy resin. The Rematian Plus investment was mixed according to the manufacturer's instructions using two different concentrations of the specific liquid: 100%, 75%. Casting was performed in a Discovery Plasma Ar-arc vacuum-pressure casting machine with molds at temperatures of 430°C, 515°C and 600°C. The crowns were cleaned individually in a solution (1% HF + 13% HNO3) for 10 min using a ultrasonic cleaner, with no internal adaptations, and luted with zinc phosphate cement under a 5 kg static load. The crown and die assemblies were embedded in resin and sectioned longitudinally. The area occupied by cement was observed using stereoscopic lens (10X) and measured by the Leica Qwin image analysis system (mm2). The data for each experimental condition (n=8) were analyzed by Kruskal-Wallis non-parametric test (á=0.05). The results showed that liquid dilution and the increase in mold temperature did not significantly influence the levels of internal fit of the cast titanium crowns. The lowest means (±SD) of internal misfit were obtained for the 430°C/100%: (7.25 mm2 ±1.59) and 600°C/100% (8.8 mm2 ±2.25) groups, which presented statistically similar levels of internal misfit.

Construction and test of low cost X-ray tomography scanner for physical-chemical analysis and nondestructive inspections

X-ray computed tomography (CT) refers to the cross-sectional imaging of an object measuring the transmitted radiation at different directions. In this work, we describe the development of a low cost micro-CT X-ray scanner that is being developed for nondestructive testing. This tomograph operates using a microfocus X-ray source and contains a silicon photodiode as detectors. The performance of the system, by its spatial resolution, has been estimated through its Modulation Transfer Function - MTF and the obtained value at 10% of MTF is 661 μm. It was built as a general purpose nondestructive testing device. © 2009 American Institute of Physics.

Is it possible to make pixel-based radar image classification user-friendly?

In this paper we would like to shed light the problem of efficiency and effectiveness of image classification in large datasets. As the amount of data to be processed and further classified has increased in the last years, there is a need for faster and more precise pattern recognition algorithms in order to perform online and offline training and classification procedures. We deal here with the problem of moist area classification in radar image in a fast manner. Experimental results using Optimum-Path Forest and its training set pruning algorithm also provided and discussed. © 2011 IEEE.

Image categorization through optimum path forest and visual words

Different from the first attempts to solve the image categorization problem (often based on global features), recently, several researchers have been tackling this research branch through a new vantage point - using features around locally invariant interest points and visual dictionaries. Although several advances have been done in the visual dictionaries literature in the past few years, a problem we still need to cope with is calculation of the number of representative words in the dictionary. Therefore, in this paper we introduce a new solution for automatically finding the number of visual words in an N-Way image categorization problem by means of supervised pattern classification based on optimum-path forest. © 2011 IEEE.

Preliminary assessment of the quantitative relationships between testicular tissue composition and ultrasonographic image attributes in the ram

This study examined the relationships between gross chemical composition and ultrasonographic characteristics of the ram testes. Ten testes from sexually mature Karakul rams were scanned ex situ with an 8-MHz linear-array transducer, in a transverse and longitudinal plane. All ultrasonograms were saved as digital images and subjected to computerized analyses. Crude protein content was determined by the Kjeldahl method, moisture was determined with an oven-drying method, and fat was measured by the Soxhlet extraction of dried samples. Mean pixel values (r = -0.64, P = 0.04), pixel heterogeneity (standard deviation of pixel values; r = -0.64, P = 0.04) and maximum pixel intensity (r = -0.76, P = 0.01) were all negatively correlated with parenchymal protein content. Pixel heterogeneity correlated directly with extractable lipids (r = 0.66, P = 0.02). The quantitative correlations between echotextural and biochemical parameters found in the present experiment confirm the utility of ultrasonographic imaging combined with computer-assisted image analysis for determining changes in testicular histophysiology. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Avaliação de um biorreator rotativo para fermentação em estado sólido

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Estudo morfológico e cinético da corrosão por pites em liga de alumínio 1050

Pós-graduação em Engenharia Mecânica - FEG

Desenvolvimento de um sistema de análise de imagem para quantificação do tamanho e distribuição de partículas de desgaste

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Análise de formas planas em imagens digitais: uma nova abordagem baseada na Transformada de Hough

Pós-graduação em Ciência da Computação - IBILCE

Desenvolvimento e validação de uma técnica quantitativa de análise de imagem para avaliação do teste do cometa corado pela prata

The comet assay is a method of DNA damage analysis widely used to quantify oxidative damage, crosslinks of DNA, apoptosis and genotoxicity of chemicals substances as chemical, pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals products, among others. This technique is suitable to detect DNA strand breaks, alkali-labile sites and incomplete excision repair sites and is based on the migration of DNA fragments by microeletroforesis, DNA migrates for the anode forming a “tail”, and the formed image has the appearance of a comet. The slides can be stained with fluorescence or silver, having differences in the microscopy type used for the analysis and the possibility of storage of the slides, moreover, the first one is a stained-method with more difficulties of accomplishment. The image analysis can be performed by a visual way, however, there is a disadvantage as the subjectivity on the results, that can be minimized by an automated method of digital analysis. This process was studied in this report with the aim to perceive the validation of the digital analysis turning it a quantitative method with larger reproductibility, minimizing the variability and imprecision due to the subjective analysis. For this validation we selected 50 comets photographed in a standardized way and printed, afterwards, pictures were submitted to three experienced appraisers, who quantified them manually. Later, the images were processed by free software ImageJ 1.38x, printed and quantified manually by the same appraisers. The intraclass correlation was higher to comet measures after image processing. Following, an algorithm of automated digital analysis from the measures of the comet was developed; the values obtained were compared with those 12 estimated manually after the processing resulting high correlation among the measures. The use of image analysis systems increases ...(Complete abstract click electronic access below)

Deriving vegetation indices for phenology analysis using genetic programming

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Image segmentation through combined methods: watershed transform, unsupervised distance learning and normalized cut

Research on image processing has shown that combining segmentation methods may lead to a solid approach to extract semantic information from different sort of images. Within this context, the Normalized Cut (NCut) is usually used as a final partitioning tool for graphs modeled in some chosen method. This work explores the Watershed Transform as a modeling tool, using different criteria of the hierarchical Watershed to convert an image into an adjacency graph. The Watershed is combined with an unsupervised distance learning step that redistributes the graph weights and redefines the Similarity matrix, before the final segmentation step using NCut. Adopting the Berkeley Segmentation Data Set and Benchmark as a background, our goal is to compare the results obtained for this method with previous work to validate its performance.

Análise de formas planas em imagens digitais

Given the widespread use of computers, the visual pattern recognition task has been automated in order to address the huge amount of available digital images. Many applications use image processing techniques as well as feature extraction and visual pattern recognition algorithms in order to identify people, to make the disease diagnosis process easier, to classify objects, etc. based on digital images. Among the features that can be extracted and analyzed from images is the shape of objects or regions. In some cases, shape is the unique feature that can be extracted with a relatively high accuracy from the image. In this work we present some of most important shape analysis methods and compare their performance when applied on three well-known shape image databases. Finally, we propose the development of a new shape descriptor based on the Hough Transform.

Swarm-based descriptor combination and its application for image classification

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Análise histométrica do desenvolvimento testicular de cutias (Dasyprocta aguti) criadas em cativeiros

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)