Automatic and Comprehensive Classification of the Morphological Forms of C. Albicans

C. Sai Spandana, Rijul S. Soans, Peralam Y. Prakash, Ramesh R. Galigekere

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

Symptoms of fungal diseases can be similar to those of COVID-19, and lab tests are necessary to determine the precise infections a person is suffering from. Candida albicans (C. albicans) is an opportunistic pathogenic yeast that causes nosocomial infections, and patients exposed to hospital environments are vulnerable. The presence and number of its morphological forms (morphotypes/phenotypes) i.e., ellipsoidal/ovoid cells, budding cells, and hyphae - are useful for detecting the pathogenic propensity of C. albicans. However, there are certain challenges: fatigue and human errors associated with manual screening. In this paper, we propose a novel, automatic method of detecting and counting all of the morphological phenotypes of C. albicans from simple microscope-images of stained smears. The method involves color-segmentation in the HSV space using RUS-Boosted Decision Trees, and classification based on features such as area, width, the presence of constriction, and aspect ratio. The method was tested on 11 images with the training set formed from 43 images. The method showed a specificity of 79.3, 98.1, 100 & 98.6, sensitivity of 92.8, 82.2, 100 & 88.4, and accuracy of 87.1, 94.7, 100 & 96, on ellipsoidal yeast cells, budding yeast cells, hyphae and cluster of cells, respectively.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publication6th International Conference on Inventive Computation Technologies, ICICT 2023 - Proceedings
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages676-680
Number of pages5
ISBN (Electronic)9798350398496
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2023
Event6th International Conference on Inventive Computation Technologies, ICICT 2023 - Lalitpur, Nepal
Duration: 26-04-202328-04-2023

Publication series

Name6th International Conference on Inventive Computation Technologies, ICICT 2023 - Proceedings

Conference

Conference6th International Conference on Inventive Computation Technologies, ICICT 2023
Country/TerritoryNepal
CityLalitpur
Period26-04-2328-04-23

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Computer Science Applications
  • Information Systems and Management
  • Statistics, Probability and Uncertainty
  • Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality
  • Media Technology
  • Control and Optimization
  • Health Informatics
  • Artificial Intelligence

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