Blood Vessel Segmentation of Fundus Retinal Images Based on Improved Frangi and Mathematical Morphology

An improved blood vessel segmentation algorithm on the basis of traditional Frangi filtering and the mathematical morphological method was proposed to solve the low accuracy of automatic blood vessel segmentation of fundus retinal images and high complexity of algorithms. First, a global enhanced image was generated by using the contrast-limited adaptive histogram equalization algorithm of the retinal image. An improved Frangi Hessian model was constructed by introducing the scale equivalence factor and eigenvector direction angle of the Hessian matrix into the traditional Frangi filtering algorithm to enhance blood vessels of the global enhanced image. Next, noise interferences surrounding small blood vessels were eliminated through the improved mathematical morphological method. Then, blood vessels were segmented using the Otsu threshold method. The improved algorithm was tested by the public DRIVE and STARE data sets. According to the test results, the average segmentation accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity of retinal images in DRIVE and STARE are 95.54%, 69.42%, and 98.02% and 94.92%, 70.19%, and 97.71%, respectively. The improved algorithm achieved high average segmentation accuracy and low complexity while promising segmentation sensitivity. This improved algorithm can segment retinal vessels more accurately than other algorithms.

Suffixe der ukrainischen Familiennamen

Summary The following paper provides a review of research in historical and modern Ukrainian onomastics. The article analyzes the peculiarities of the formation of Ukrainian surnames; in particular it describes the origin, the function, the geographical distribution and the productivity of the suffixes in the formation of the names. The main ways of creating Ukrainian surnames were morphological and semantic methods. The semantic method of creating surnames consists in the transition of personal names, nicknames and appellative personal names into hereditary names without any structural transformations, namely, only as a result of changes in the function. The morphological way of creating hereditary names was to create new anthroponyms with the help of special surname formants. A characteristic feature of the names of the morphological method is that they were formed only from personal names with the help of suffixes. Ukrainian anthroponymy did not have special formants for the creation of surnames, but used the possibilities of its language and adapted them to the onomastic system. By their origin the name suffixes are not the same type but multifunctional. Some of them from the moment of occurrence are used only for the creation of names from parents’ names, while others only eventually began to express kinship. Some suffixes today are actively creating both appellatives and anthroponyms.

DNA metabarcoding and morphological methods show complementary patterns in the metacommunity organization of lentic epiphytic diatoms

Diatoms are important organisms in freshwater ecosystems due to their position as primary producers and therefore, analyzing their communities provides relevant information on ecosystem functioning. Diatoms have historically been identified based on morphological traits, which is time-consuming and requires well-trained specialists. Nevertheless, DNA barcoding offers an alternative approach to overcome some limitations of the morphological method. Here, we assess if both approaches are comparable methods to study patterns and mechanisms (including environmental filtering and dispersal limitation) of epiphytic diatom metacommunities using a comprehensive dataset from 22 Mediterranean ponds at different taxonomic resolutions. We used a fragment of rbcL barcode gene combined with High-Throughput Sequencing to infer diatom community composition. The overall degree of correspondence between both approaches was assessed by Procrustean rotation analysis and Procrustean randomization tests, whereas the role of local environmental variables and geographical distances was studied using a comprehensive combination of BIOENV, Mantel tests and distance-based redundancy analysis. Our results showed a relatively poor correspondence in the compositional variation of diatom metacommunity between both approaches. We speculate that the incompleteness of the reference database and the bioinformatics processing are the biases most likely affecting the molecular approach, whereas the limited counting effort and the presence of cryptic species are presumably the major biases related with the morphological method. On the other hand, variation in diatom community composition detected with both approaches was strongly related to the environmental template, which may be related with the narrow ecological niche and the strong preferences for particular substrata of some diatom species. Nevertheless, we found no significant relationship between compositional variation and geographical distances at regional extent. Overall, our work highlights the importance of DNA metabarcoding to address empirical research questions of community ecology in freshwaters, especially once the reference databases include most genotypes of occurring taxa and bioinformatics biases are overcome.

Translation of economic terms and abbreviations for websites (from project-syndicate to inosmi.ru)

The relevance of studying the methods and problems of translating terms, the equivalence of terms and abbreviations of economic orientation is a necessary condition for cross-language communication. Linguists are interested in studying the development of financial, economic, and managerial terminology of a peculiar language, plus studying the problems of their translation. A translation analyses is made to find peculiarities in terms interpretation on the internet. In English, as well as in Russian, the vocabulary is characterized by a variety of multicomponent terms. Most often, economic terms of the English language are derived phrases formed according to the morphological method, which present difficulties in translation and require various transformations.

The Fern Genus Arachniodes (Dryopteridaceae): A New Record for the Flora of Vietnam

This paper presents a new record of the fern genus Arachniodes Blume from Vietnam, Arachniodes simplicior. The paper provides a detailed description of the new species based on the traditional morphological method, of which micro morphological characters of spores were firstly described based on the specimens collected from Quang Binh (Minh Hoa district), Vietnam. In addition, type materials of A. simplicior were analyzed and a specimen from MAK (MAK012702) was designated as a lectotype.