title: Content-based histopathology image retrieval using CometCloud.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The development of digital imaging technology is creating extraordinary levels of accuracy that provide support for improved reliability in different aspects of the image analysis, such as content-based image retrieval, image segmentation, and classification. This has dramatically increased the volume and rate at which data are generated. Together these facts make querying and sharing non-trivial and render centralized solutions unfeasible. Moreover, in many cases this data is often distributed and must be shared across multiple institutions requiring decentralized solutions. In this context, a new generation of data/information driven applications must be developed to take advantage of the national advanced cyber-infrastructure (ACI) which enable investigators to seamlessly and securely interact with information/data which is distributed across geographically disparate resources. This paper presents the development and evaluation of a novel content-based image retrieval (CBIR) framework. The methods were tested extensively using both peripheral blood smears and renal glomeruli specimens. The datasets and performance were evaluated by two pathologists to determine the concordance.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The CBIR algorithms that were developed can reliably retrieve the candidate image patches exhibiting intensity and morphological characteristics that are most similar to a given query image. The methods described in this paper are able to reliably discriminate among subtle staining differences and spatial pattern distributions. By integrating a newly developed dual-similarity relevance feedback module into the CBIR framework, the CBIR results were improved substantially. By aggregating the computational power of high performance computing (HPC) and cloud resources, we demonstrated that the method can be successfully executed in minutes on the Cloud compared to weeks using standard computers.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  In this paper, we present a set of newly developed CBIR algorithms and validate them using two different pathology applications, which are regularly evaluated in the practice of pathology. Comparative experimental results demonstrate excellent performance throughout the course of a set of systematic studies. Additionally, we present and evaluate a framework to enable the execution of these algorithms across distributed resources. We show how parallel searching of content-wise similar images in the dataset significantly reduces the overall computational time to ensure the practical utility of the proposed CBIR algorithms.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Rutger Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, 675 Hoes Lane, Piscataway, NJ, USA. qixi@rutgers.edu.
authors.forename: Xin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Qi
authors.forename: Daihou
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Ivan
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Rodero
authors.forename: Javier
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Diaz-Montes
authors.forename: Rebekah H
authors.initials: RH
authors.lastname: Gensure
authors.forename: Fuyong
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Xing
authors.forename: Hua
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhong
authors.forename: Lauri
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Goodell
authors.forename: Manish
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Parashar
authors.forename: David J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Foran
authors.forename: Lin
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Yang
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D003952:Diagnostic Imaging; D005246:Feedback; D016247:Information Storage and Retrieval / Q000379:methods*; D010336:Pathology; D010363:Pattern Recognition, Automated; D015203:Reproducibility of Results