Browsing by Author "Campos, Ana"
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- A low resource skeleton maturation estimation system for automatic hand X-Ray assessment in pediatric applicationsPublication . Campos, Ana; Silva, Maria; Azeredo, Ricardo; Coelho, Luis; Reis, Sara; Abreu, SílviaThe assessment of differences between skeletal age and chronological age in childhood is often based on the comparison of the patient's left hand x-ray with a reference atlas, performed by a experienced professional. This procedure involves a manual image analysis, that can be subject to inter rater variability posing several problems for clinical applications. In this paper a new methodology for skeleton maturation estimation based on automatic hand X-ray assessment for pediatric applications on a low resource devices (e.g. mobile device) is proposed. The pipeline covers hand-area estimation and bone-area estimation to achieve maturation scores which are then indexed with references images, separately for male and female. The proposed approach is based on simple image processing functions always bearing in mind the application on a mobile context. The involved steps are thoroughly presented and all the used functions are explained. The performance of the system was then evaluated using the complete pipeline. The obtained results pointed to an average error rate of 15,38±3,31%, which is subject to improvements. In particular, contrast enhancement in some lower quality images still offers some challenges.
- Optimisation of a molecular methodology for the detection of virulence factors of enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli for the diagnosis of swine colibacillosisPublication . Campos, Ana; Oliveira, Ricardo; Almeida, Carina; Vieira, Filipa Quintela; Silva, Regina AugustaThe most common bacterial pathogen causing enteric infections in pigs is enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC). Since pigs represent the largest livestock category in the European Union, ETEC-associated diseases, better known as swine colibacillosis leading to acute diarrhea and eventual death of the animal, result in significant costs to the pig industry. These diseases are traditionally prevented or treated with antibiotics, and this has had a huge impact on the emergence of resistant bacteria, correlating with the emergence of resistant infections in humans. Recognition of this problem has led the authorities to set ambitious goals for the reduction of this type of drug in animal husbandry, leading to the creation of a national project, APTAcoli, which aims to select aptamers (consisting of small single-stranded oligonucleotides capable of binding to target molecules with great affinity and specificity, due to the specific secondary and/ or tertiary structures they can acquire) as an alternative in the treatment of colibacillosis. The present experimental study, which is on the APTAcoli agenda, focused on the optimization of a molecular methodology - Multiplex PCR - for the detection of the main virulence factors of ETEC to be used in an epidemiological study to characterize fecal samples from pigs in Portuguese farms. After using different optimization techniques, the results were two multiplex PCR amplification sets, one for amplification of the main toxigenic factors of ETEC (STa, STb, LT and STx2e) and another for amplification of the main adhesion factors (F4, F5, F6, F18 and F41).