Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-4rdrl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-18T14:46:19.606Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Digital image analysis and identification of eggs from bovine parasitic nematodes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2009

C. Sommer
Affiliation:
Danish Veterinary Laboratory, Bülowsvej 27, DK-1790 Copenhagen V, Denmark

Abstract

Computer-assisted microscopy and multivariate statistics were used to establish and evaluate a procedure for identification of bovine strongylid eggs. Ostertagia ostertagi, Cooperia oncophora, Haemonchus placei, Trichostrongylus axei, and Oesophagostomum radiatum eggs were obtained from faeces voided by monospecifically infected calves. Images of single eggs (400× magnification) were recorded by a CCD camera fitted onto a microscope and digitizied on a PC. After separation of eggs from the image background, the pixel (picture element) positions of the egg outline were analysed by algorithms to describe size and shape. A stepwise discriminant analysis was subsequently used to select and rank descriptive features of 4207 eggs according to discriminatory power. Classification criteria were developed by linear discrimination analysis on the basis of selected features, and the criteria evaluated by cross-validation. A maximum average percentage of correct classification of 85.8% resulted when nineteen features were employed in a linear classification criterion. The percentages correct classification for each species were: O. ostertagi 76.3%, C. oncophora 90.8%, O. radiatum 87.8%, H. placei 90.1%, and T. axei 83.8%. Classification based on the five most important features gave an overall correct classification of 81.5%. Images of ‘unknown’ eggs could be identified automatically by the classification criteria after procedural steps performed by PC were linked in a batch program.

Type
Research Papers
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Berrie, D.A., East, I.J., Bourne, A.S. & Bremner, K.C. (1988) Differential recoveries from faecal cultures of larvae of some gastro-intestinal nematodes of cattle. Journal of Helminthology 62, 110114.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Borisenko, V.I., Zlatopol'skii, A.A. & Muchnik, I.B. (1987) Image segmentation (state-of-the-art-survey). Automation and Remote Control 48, 837879.Google Scholar
Christie, M. & Jackson, F. (1982) Specific identification of strongyle eggs in small samples of sheep faeces. Research in Veterinary Science 32, 113117.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Coop, R.L., Sykes, A.R. & Angus, K.W. (1979) The pathogenicity of daily intakes of Cooperia oncophora larvae in growing calves. Veterinary Parasitology 5, 261269.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Corticelli, B. & Lai, M. (1964) Diagnosis of the infestation type in gastrointestinal strongylosis of cattle in Sardinia by differentiation of the infective larvae. Veterinaria Italiana. 15, 214235.Google Scholar
Coyne, M.J., Smith, G. & Johnstone, C. (1991) Fecundity of gastrointestinal trichostrongylid nematodes of sheep in the field. American Journal of Veterinary Research 52, 11821188.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cunliffe, G. & Crofton, H.D. (1953) Egg sizes and differential egg counts in relation to sheep nematodes. Parasitology 43, 275286.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dobson, R.J., Barnes, E.H., Birclijin, S.D. & Gill, J.H. (1992) The survival of Ostertagia circumcincta and Trichostrongylus colubriformis in faecal cultures as a source of bias in apportioning egg counts to worm species. International Journal for Parasitology 22, 10051008.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dubois, S.R. & Glanz, F.H. (1986). An autoregressive model approach to two-dimensional shape classification. IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence PAMI-8, 5566.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dunn, A.M. (1978) Veterinary helminthology. 2nd edn323 pp. London, William Heinemann.Google Scholar
Georgi, J.R. & McCulloch, C.E. (1989) Diagnostic morphometry: identification of helminth eggs by discriminant analysis of morphometric data. Proceedings of the Helminthological Society of Washington 56, 4457.Google Scholar
Henriksen, S. A. (1972) Undersøgelser-vedrørende løbe-tarm strongylider hos kvæg. Nordisk Veterinær-Medicin 24, 4955.Google Scholar
Henriksen, S.A. & Korsholm, H. (1983) A method for culture and recovery of gastrointestinal strongyle larvae. Nordisk Veterinær-Medicin 35, 429430.Google ScholarPubMed
Kashyap, R.L. & Chellappa, R. (1981) Stochastical models for closed boundary analysis: representation and reconstruction. IEEE Transactions on Information Theory IT-27, 627637.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keith, R.K. (1953) The differentiation of the infective larvae of some common nematode parasites of cattle. Australian Journal of Zoology 1, 223235.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Larsen, A.B. & Henriksen, S.A. (1990) Bunostomum phlebotomum-Hageorm hos kvæg. Dansk Veterinær Tidsskrift 73, 580585.Google Scholar
Ma, J, Wu, C.-K. & Lu, X.-R (1986) A fast shape descriptor. Computer Vision, Graphics, and Image Processing 34,282291.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Petersen, P.E.H. (1991) Shape analysis of weed seeds using the Fourier transform. Proceeding of the 7th Scandinavian Conference on Image Analysis, Ålborg, Denmark, August 13–16 Vol I, 5663.Google Scholar
Petersen, P.E.H. (1992) Weed seed identification by shape and texture analysis of microscope images. 96 pp. PhD dissertation. Tidsskrift for Planteavls Specialserie Beretning nr.S2198.Google Scholar
Reitboeck, H., & Brody, T.P. (1969) A transformation with invariance under cyclic permutation for applications in pattern recognition. Information and Control 15, 130154.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roberts, F.H.S. & O'sullivan, P.J. (1949) Methods for egg counts and larval cultures for strongyles infesting the gastro-intestinal tract of cattle. Australian Journal of Agricultural Research 1, 99103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shorb, D.A. (1939) Differentiation of eggs of various genera of nematodes parasitic in domestic ruminants in the United States. United States Department of Agriculture. Technical Bulletin No. 694, 110.Google Scholar
Steffan, P., Henriksen, S.A., & Nansen, P. (1989) A comparison of two methods and two additives for faecal cultivation of bovine trichostrongyle larvae. Veterinary Parasitology 31, 269273.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sze, T.W. & Yang, Y.H. (1981) A simple contour matching algorithm. IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence PAMI-3, 676678.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tetley, J.H. (1941) Haemonchus contortus eggs: comparison of those in utero with those recovered from feces, and a statistical method for identifying H. contortus eggs in mixed infections. Journal of Parasitology 27, 453463.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Urquhart, G.M., Armour, J., Duncan, J.L., Dunn, A.M. & Jennings, F.W. (1987) Veterinary parasitology. 286 pp. Essex, Longman Scientific & Technical.Google Scholar
Wallace, T.P. & Wintz, P.A. (1980) An efficient three-dimensional aircraft recognition algorithm using normalized Fourier descriptors. Computer Graphics and Image Processing 13, 99126.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whitlock, H.V., Kelly, J.D., Porter, C.J., Griffin, D.L. & Martin, I.C.A. (1980) In vitro field screening for anthelmintic resistance in strongyles of sheep and horses. Veterinary Parasitology 7, 215232.CrossRefGoogle Scholar