Biomedical subjects

N A Borghese

Publications and source records attributed to N A Borghese.

16 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Enhancing digital cephalic radiography with mixture models and local gamma correction.

We present a new algorithm, called the soft-tissue filter, that can make both soft and bone tissue clearly visible in digital cephalic radiographies under a wide range of exposures. It uses a mixture model made up of two Gaussian distributions and one inverted lognormal distribution to analyze the image histogram. The image is clustered in three parts: background, soft tissue, and bone using this model. Improvement in the visibility of both structures is achieved through a local transformation based on gamma correction, stretching, and saturation, which is applied using different parameters for bone and soft-tissue pixels. A processing time of 1 s for 5 Mpixel images allows the filter to operate in real time. Although the default value of the filter parameters is adequate for most images, real-time operation allows adjustment to recover under- and overexposed images or to obtain the best quality subjectively. The filter was extensively clinically tested: quantitative and qualitative results are reported here.

Algorithms↗

PubMed2006

A new real time filter for local exposure correction in panoramic radiographs.

A new real time filter for local exposure correction in panoramic radiographs is presented here. The filter, called PaRSEC, allows eliminating the exposure artifacts, mainly introduced by Automatic Exposure Control (AEC) systems. These artifacts reduce the image readability and its diagnostic utility. The PaRSEC filter operates a local exposure equalization, based on a reliable estimate of the column mean gray level. Qualitative and quantitative results are reported for typical panoramic radiographs. They show a complete removal of the artifacts. The method compares favorably with other classical methods targeted to exposure correction.

Algorithms↗

PubMed2003

A functional-anatomical model for lipreading.

Regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) PET scans were used to study the physiological bases of lipreading, a natural skill of extracting language from mouth movements, which contributes to speech perception in everyday life. Viewing connected mouth movements that could not be lexically identified and that evoke perception of isolated speech sounds (nonlexical lipreading) was associated with bilateral activation of the auditory association cortex around Wernicke's area, of left dorsal premotor cortex, and left opercular-premotor division of the left inferior frontal gyrus (Broca's area). The supplementary motor area was active as well. These areas have all been implicated in phonological processing, speech and mouth motor planning, and execution. In addition, nonlexical lipreading also differentially activated visual motion areas. Lexical access through lipreading was associated with a similar pattern of activation and with additional foci in ventral- and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex bilaterally and in left inferior parietal cortex. Linear regression analysis of cerebral blood flow and proficiency for lexical lipreading further clarified the role of these areas in gaining access to language through lipreading. The results suggest cortical activation circuits for lipreading from action representations that may differentiate lexical access from nonlexical processes.

Adult↗

PubMed2002

Distortion correction for x-ray image intensifiers: local unwarping polynomials and RBF neural networks.

In this paper we present two novel techniques, namely a local unwarping polynomial (LUP) and a hierarchical radial basis function (HRBF) network, to correct geometric distortions in XRII images. The two techniques have been implemented and compared, in terms of residual error measured at control and intermediate points, with local and global methods reported in the previous literature. In particular, LUP rests on a locally optimized 3rd degree polynomial applied within each quadrilateral cell on the rectilinear calibration grid of points. HRBF, based on a feed-forward neural network paradigm, is constituted by a set of hierarchical layers at increasing cut-off frequency, each characterized by a set of Gaussian functions. Extensive experiments have been performed both on simulated and real data. In simulation, we tested the effect of pincushion, sigmoidal and local distortions, along with the number of calibration points. Provided that a sufficient number of cells of the calibration grid is available, the obtained accuracy for both LUP and HRBF is comparable to or better than that of global polynomial technique. Tests on real data, carried out by using two different (12 in. and 16 in.) XRIIs, showed that the global polynomial accuracy (0.16+/-0.08 pixels) is slightly worse than that of LUP (0.07+/-0.05 pixels) and HRBF (0.08+/-0.04 pixels). The effects of the discontinuity at the border of the local areas and the decreased accuracy at intermediate points, typical of local techniques, have been proved to be smoothed for both LUP and HRBF.

Algorithms↗

PubMed2001

Different brain correlates for watching real and virtual hand actions.

We investigated whether observation of actions reproduced in three-dimensional virtual reality would engage perceptual and visuomotor brain processes different from those induced by the observation of real hand actions. Participants were asked to passively observe grasping actions of geometrical objects made by a real hand or by hand reconstructions of different quality in 3D virtual reality as well as on a 2D TV screen. We found that only real actions in natural environment activated a visuospatial network including the right posterior parietal cortex. Observation of virtual-reality hand actions engaged prevalent visual perceptual processes within lateral and mesial occipital regions. Thus, only perception of actions in reality maps onto existing action representations, whereas virtual-reality conditions do not access the full motor knowledge available to the central nervous system.

Adult↗

PubMed2001

A fast method for calibrating video-based motion analysers using only a rigid bar.

Video-camera systems are widely used in biomechanics and clinical fields to measure the 3D kinematic measurements of human motion. To be used, they need to be calibrated, that is the parameters which geometrically define the cameras have to be determined. It is shown here how this can be achieved by surveying a rigid bar in motion inside the working volume, and in a very short time: less than 15 s on a Pentium III. The exterior parameters are estimated through the coplanarity constraint, the camera focal lengths through the properties of epipolar geometry and the principal points with a fast evolutionary optimisation which guarantees convergence when the initial principal points cannot be adequately estimated. The method has been widely tested on simulated and real data. Results show that its accuracy is comparable with that obtained using methods based on points of known 3D coordinates (DLT): 0.37 mm RMS error over a volume with a diagonal approximately 1.5 m. A preferential absolute reference system is obtained from the same bar motion data and is used to guide an intelligent decimation of the data. Finally, the role that the principal points play in achieving a high accuracy, which is questioned in the computer vision domain, is assessed through simulations.

Biomechanical Phenomena↗

PubMed1998

Complete calibration of a stereo photogrammetric system through control points of unknown coordinates.

This paper presents a new method for calibrating a video 3D stereo-photogrammetric system. The external parameters and the focal lengths of the cameras are determined from the epipolar constraint and the principal points are computed through the minimisation of a cost function carried out through an evolutionary optimisation. The method has been made more robust with a deterministic annealing procedure of the search region amplitude. Calibration is carried out by moving a rigid bar, carrying two markers on its extremities, inside the working volume. The distance between the two markers is the only measure required. Tests on real data are reported which show that the obtained accuracy is comparable to the one achieved calibrating with control points of known 3D coordinates.

Calibration↗

PubMed1997

Statistical comparison of DLT versus ILSSC in the calibration of a photogrammetric stereo-system.

This paper compares the DLT and ILSSC approaches in the geometrical calibration of a photogrammetric stereo-system in terms of accuracy and speed. To come up with an unbiased quantitative evaluation of the accuracy of the algorithms, the concept of reliable estimate has been introduced: the statistical distribution of the accuracy is assessed over different calibration experiments performed with the same data but with different noise distribution and different test sets. Results show that in the simulations where the only error on the two-dimensional points was Gaussian, zero mean, and on real data which were corrected for distortions through polynomial or linear interpolation, the accuracy of the two methods was quite similar. DLT showed more accurate than ILSSC on simulated data with residual distortion errors and on real data which were not corrected for distortions. As far as speed is concerned, a fast triangulation algorithm is associated with ILSSC while the simultaneous solution of two pairs of DLT equations is associated to DLT. The first algorithm is much faster, requiring 113 flops per point versus 259 of DLT; the fast triangulation with DLT parameters does not achieve the same accuracy on the reconstructed three-dimensional position. Taken all together the results suggest that ILSSC can be theoretically considered the best approach to three-dimensional reconstruction, provided that distortions are corrected in advance. The statistical evaluation of the accuracy allows a fair judgement of the performances of the algorithms to be obtained, unbiased by particular distributions of measurement errors and test points.

Algorithms↗

PubMed1997

Automatic integrated analysis of jaw and lip movement in speech production.

A noninvasive methodology for studying the kinematics of speech production is presented. It is based on the tracking of very small and light passive markers attached to the subjects' face. Using a pair of TV cameras, the 3-D markers' positions are computed in real time, at a subpixel accuracy, by a dedicated hardware. From these data, the time course of a set of parameters which describe lip and jaw movement is computed; in addition, a semiautomatic procedure that identifies the exact onset and offset of the investigated sequences has been developed. To compare the results over different productions, a time normalization procedure based on a continuous inverse Fourier transform has been implemented.

Humans↗

PubMed1997

Posture and movement: coordination and control.

Studies are reviewed that address the problem of the variables controlled in the maintenance of body posture and generation of limb movement. Vestibulospinal and neck reflexes cancel each other in response to roll, but not in response to pitch of the animal. In pitch trunk orientation is not effectively stabilized in space. Instead, limb length and orientation relative to the vertical are accurately controlled in normal cats pitched statically and dynamically by variable angles. Control of limb geometry may even take precedence over the control of the projected centre of mass. Coordinate transformation results in a constraint of planar covariation of the elevation angles at all limb segments in cat posture. Because the same constraint applies also to human locomotion, we suggest that sharing the same laws of intersegmental coordination for the control of posture and locomotion helps to assure the maintenance of dynamic equilibrium during movement. Moreover, because several neural sites encode posture and movement in gravity-based reference frames, alignment in register of spatial information derived from multiple sensors and directed to multiple effectors is made possible.

Animals↗

PubMed1997

A callosal disconnection syndrome of vascular origin.

OBJECTIVE: To study the after-effects of a selective lesion of the corpus callosum on the capacity in transferring spatial information on arm posture derived from kinesthesia and vision. DESIGN: Neuropsychological and psychophysical evaluations of a patient with callosal damage. SETTING: Institute of Neurology, University of "Tor Vergata", Rome, Italy and Research Centre, IRCCS "S. Lucia", Rome, Italy. PATIENT: P.V., a 59 years old man suffering from a vascular lesion of the left half of corpus callosum and left callosal radiations. MEASURES: Sensori-motor and cognitive tasks. Exo- and egocentric pointing abilities tasks. RESULTS: Impairments due to a disconnection between the two cerebral hemispheres were pointed out. About pointing abilities, errors were greater when each hand pointed to the remembered location of the other hand. Errors decreased dramatically with eyes open for right hand pointing to remembered location of left and right hand, and left hand pointing to remembered location of left hand. Open eyes left hand pointing to remembered location of right hand remained as poor as with eyes closed. CONCLUSIONS: The results appear compatible with the following network: visual information from striate and extrastriate cortex is passed forward to parietal cortex bilaterally (even in PV due to the splenium sparing). Kinesthetic information from parietal cortex of left and right hemisphere converge on a single visuokinesthetic center, lateralized to the left hemisphere. Information about limb position in three-dimensional space is then encoded in body-centered coordinates and passed forward to motor and premotor cortex in the frontal lobe. These frontal regions are those disconnected in PV.

Brain Ischemia↗

PubMed1996

Kinematic determinants of human locomotion.

1. The aim of this study was to find kinematic patterns that are invariant across the normal range of locomotion speeds. Subjects walked at different, freely chosen speeds ranging from 0.9 to 2.1 m s-1, while motion and ground reaction forces on the right side of the body were recorded in three-dimensional space. 2. The time course of the anatomical angles of flexion-extension at the hip and ankle was variable not only across subjects, but even from trial to trial in the same subject. By contrast, the time course of the changes in the angles of elevation of each limb segment (pelvis, thigh, shank and foot) relative to the vertical was stereotyped across subjects. 3. To compare the waveforms across speeds, data were scaled in time relative to gait cycle duration. The pattern of ground reaction forces was highly speed dependent. Several distinct families of curves could be recognized in the flexion-extension angles at the hip and ankle. Instead, the waveforms of global length and elevation of the limb, elevation angles of all limb segments and flexion-extension at the knee were invariant with speed. 4. When gait trajectories at all speeds are plotted in the position space defined by the elevation angles of the limb segments, they describe regular loops on a plane. The statistical characteristics of these angular covariations were quantified by means of principal component analysis. The first two principal components accounted together for > 99% of the total experimental variance, and were quantitatively comparable in all subjects. 5. This constraint of planar covariation of the elevation angles is closely reminiscent of that previously described for the control of posture. The existence of laws of intersegmental co-ordination, common to the control of posture and locomotion, presumably assures the maintenance of dynamic equilibrium during forward progression, and the anticipatory adaptation to potentially destabilizing factors by means of co-ordinated kinematic synergies of the whole body.

Adult↗

PubMed1993

Time-varying mechanical behavior of multijointed arm in man.

1. The aim of this study was to describe the time-varying changes in the mechanical parameters of a multijointed limb. The parameters we considered are the coefficients of stiffness, viscosity, and inertia. Continuous pseudorandom perturbations were applied at the elbow joint during a catching task. A modified version of an ensemble technique was used for the identification of time-varying parameters. Torques at the elbow and wrist joints were then modeled with a linear combination of the changes in angular position and velocity weighted by the matrix of angular stiffness and the matrix of angular viscosity, respectively. Control experiments were also performed that involved the stationary maintenance of a given limb posture by resisting actively the applied perturbations. Different limb postures were examined in each such experiment to investigate the dependence of the mechanical parameters on limb geometry. 2. The technique for the identification of limb mechanical parameters proved adequate. The input perturbations applied at the elbow joint elicited angular oscillations at the wrist essentially uncorrelated with those produced at the elbow. The frequency of oscillation is much higher at the wrist than at the elbow, mainly because of the smaller inertia. The variance accounted for by the model was approximately 80% under both stationary and time-varying conditions; in the latter case the value did not vary significantly throughout the task. In addition, the model predicted values of the inertial parameters that were close to the anthropometric measures, and it reproduced the stepwise increase in limb inertia that occurs at the time the ball is held in the hand. 3. The values of angular stiffness and viscosity estimated under stationary conditions did not vary significantly with joint angle, in agreement with previous results obtained under quasi-static postural conditions. The matrix of the coefficients of angular stiffness was not symmetrical, indicating a prominent role for nonautogenic reflex feedbacks with unequal gains for elbow and wrist muscles. 4. A complex temporal modulation of angular stiffness and viscosity was observed during the catching task. The changes in the direct coefficients of angular stiffness tended to covary with those in the coupling coefficients from trial start up to approximately 30 ms before impact time. Around impact time, however, there was a complete dissociation: the direct terms peaked, whereas the coupling terms dropped. The direct terms of angular viscosity also increased before impact, whereas the viscosity coupling terms remained close to zero throughout.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

Adult↗

PubMed1992

Internal models of limb geometry in the control of hand compliance.

The aim of this article is to describe the role of some neural mechanisms in the adaptive control of limb compliance during preplanned mechanical interaction with objects. We studied the EMG responses and the kinematic responses evoked by pseudorandom perturbations continuously applied by means of a torque motor before and during a catching task. The temporal changes of these responses were studied by means of an identification technique for time-varying systems. We found a transient reversal of EMG stretch reflex responses centered on the time of ball impact on the hand; this reversal results in a transient coactivation of antagonist muscles at both the elbow and the wrist. The kinematic responses describe the relation between torque input and position output. Thus, they provide a global measure of limb compliance. The changes in limb compliance during catching were quantified by computing error criteria either in the Cartesian coordinates of the hand or in the angular coordinates of the elbow and wrist joints. We found that only the hand compliance in Cartesian coordinates is consistently minimized around impact, in coincidence with the transient reversal of the stretch reflex responses. By contrast, the error criteria expressed in the angular coordinates of the joints have a variable time course and are not minimized around impact. It is known that hand compliance depends on both the pattern of muscle activities and the geometrical configuration of the limb. Therefore, the lack of consistent correlation between the changes in hand compliance and the changes in the geometrical configuration of the limb during catching indicates that the gating of the stretch reflex responses around impact time is based on an internal model of limb geometry.

Brain↗

PubMed1991

Transient reversal of the stretch reflex in human arm muscles.

1. Load perturbation responses can violate the law of reciprocal innervation between antagonist muscles under particular conditions. Thus flexor and extensor muscles of wrist and elbow joints are reflexly coactivated by the impact of a ball on the hand during a catching task. The aim of this study was to determine whether reflex coactivation can be preset within the central nervous system (CNS) or whether it is entirely due to the peripheral stimulus. To this end, we studied the behavior of stretch reflex responses of arm muscles evoked by torque motor perturbations applied before and during the catching task. 2. Subjects were instructed to catch a ball dropped from 1.6 m. A torque motor delivered perturbations to the elbow joint, resulting in angular motion at both elbow and wrist joints because of their dynamic mechanical coupling. Two series of experiments were performed that differed in the perturbation waveform. In the first series, a single torque pulse could be randomly applied at different times during the task. The corresponding responses were recovered by subtracting the average of the unperturbed trials from the averages of perturbed trials. In the second series of experiments, a train of pseudorandom pulses was applied continuously during each trial. The time-varying impulse responses were computed at 20-ms intervals by cross-correlation methods. 3. The pattern of the short-latency electromyographic responses evoked by either single pulses or pseudorandom perturbations obeyed the law of reciprocal innervation of antagonist muscles under basal conditions. However, the pattern of the responses evoked by the same perturbations around the time of ball impact on the hand consisted of a substantial coactivation of both stretched and shortening muscles. Reflex coactivation resulted from response patterns that differed at different joints. At the elbow, reflex coactivation resulted from a transient reversal of the direction of the short-latency responses of flexor muscles, with little changes of the responses of extensor muscles. At the wrist, instead, reflex coactivation resulted from simultaneous changes in the response waveform of both flexor and extensor muscles. 4. The peripheral conditions associated with the applied perturbations were constant before the time of ball impact. Thus, because the changes of the stretch reflex responses began before that time, they must have been generated within the CNS. It is here hypothesized that the reversal of the reflex responses is centrally gated by switching from the pathways of reciprocal inhibition to those of coactivation of antagonist alpha-motoneurons.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

Arm↗

PubMed1990

An algorithm for 3-D automatic movement detection by means of standard TV cameras.

An algorithm for the computation of 3-D coordinates (space intersection) of marked points on a moving subject surveyed by a couple of TV cameras is presented herein. It has been designed in order to meet the requirements of routinary analysis in biomechanic laboratories. 3-D geometrical arrangement of the TV cameras (space resection) is obtained by means of a method which is based on an iterative least-squares estimation and requires little time for calibration operations; 3-D coordinates are computed by means of a fast geometrical intersection algorithm. The whole algorithm has been extensively used in different laboratories and results on its reliability and accuracy are reported.

Algorithms↗