Assessing the quality of pearls involves the use of various tools and methods, which are mainly visual and often quite subjective. Pearls are normally classified by origin and are then graded by luster, nacre thickness, surface quality, size, color and shape. The aim of this study was to investigate the capacity of Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) to classify and estimate the quality of 27 dif...

Visualizations of flood maps from simulation models are widely used for assessing the likelihood of flood hazards in spatial planning. The choice of a suitable type of visualization as well as efficient color maps is critical to avoid errors or bias when interpreting the data. Based on a review of previous flood uncertainty visualization techniques, this paper identifies areas of improvements a...

OBJECTIVES We have recently demonstrated that classical Hodgkin lymphoma (CHL) can be immunophenotyped by flow cytometry (FC), thus obviating the need for immunohistochemistry in many cases. The previously described nine-color assay, however, cannot be used by laboratories that do not have access to a nine- or ten-color flow cytometer. Therefore, a six-color FC tube was designed employing the f...

BACKGROUND The clinical utility of ankle-brachial index (ABI) is not clear in subjects with less severe or calcified vessel. Therefore, we investigated the usefulness of color Doppler ultrasonography for diagnosing peripheral artery disease (PAD) in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) subjects. METHODS We analyzed 324 T2DM patients who concurrently underwent ABI and carotid intima-media thickness...

We evaluated the color vision of 24 subjects (41.6 +/- 6.5 years; 6 females) who worked in fluorescent lamp industries. They had been occupationally exposed to mercury vapor (10.6 +/- 5.2 years) and had been away from the source of exposure for 6.4 +/- 4.04 years. Mean urinary concentration of mercury was 40.6 +/- 36.4 microg/g creatinine during or up to 1 year after exposure and 2.71 +/- 1.19 ...

Model calculations are used to find an optimal color vision system for the coding of natural objects. The criteria to assess the quality of color vision are (a) discriminability between all colors of a given set; (b) discriminability between nearest neighbors (only the most similar colors of a set); and (c) detectability (color difference between target and background). The colored objects inve...

PURPOSE This study evaluated the color stability of four stains of a light-cured porcelain stain system between the light-cured and fired stages. MATERIALS AND METHODS Thirty-six ceramometal discs 20 mm in diameter and 2 mm in thickness were cast to provide the substrate on which Ceramco II porcelain was applied. The porcelain was polished to a uniform thickness of 2 mm, and the samples were ...

PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to determine the testability of the "Co or Vision Testing Made Easy" color vision test, marketed as a screening test for young children, in a population of individuals with mental retardation. The test uses simple geometric figures that are easily identified. Previously, the test has demonstrated validity as a measure of color deficiency. METHODS The test...

BACKGROUND Respiratory infections with sputum production are a major reason for physician visits, diagnostic testing, and antibiotic prescription in the United States. We sought to determine whether the simple characteristic of sputum color provides information that impacts resource utilization such as laboratory testing and prescription of antibiotics. METHODS Out-patient sputum samples subm...

In digital color imaging, it is of interest to transform the color scene of an image to the other. Some attempts have been done in this case using, for example, lαβ color space, principal component analysis and recently histogram rescaling method. In this research, a novel method is proposed based on the Resenfeld and Kak histogram matching algorithm. It is suggested that to transform the color...