TOD-CNN: An effective convolutional neural network for tiny object detection in sperm videos.

Journal: Computers in biology and medicine
Published Date:

Abstract

The detection of tiny objects in microscopic videos is a problematic point, especially in large-scale experiments. For tiny objects (such as sperms) in microscopic videos, current detection methods face challenges in fuzzy, irregular, and precise positioning of objects. In contrast, we present a convolutional neural network for tiny object detection (TOD-CNN) with an underlying data set of high-quality sperm microscopic videos (111 videos, > 278,000 annotated objects), and a graphical user interface (GUI) is designed to employ and test the proposed model effectively. TOD-CNN is highly accurate, achieving 85.60% AP in the task of real-time sperm detection in microscopic videos. To demonstrate the importance of sperm detection technology in sperm quality analysis, we carry out relevant sperm quality evaluation metrics and compare them with the diagnosis results from medical doctors.

Authors

  • Shuojia Zou
    Microscopic Image and Medical Image Analysis Group, College of Medicine and Biological Information Engineering, Northeastern University, Shenyang, China.
  • Chen Li
    School of Computer Science and Technology, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, Shaanxi, China.
  • Hongzan Sun
    Shengjing Hospital, China Medical University, Shenyang, 110001, China.
  • Peng Xu
    Department of Urology, Zhujiang Hospital, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China.
  • Jiawei Zhang
    a Department of Pharmacy , Special Drugs R&D Center of People's Armed Police Forces , Logistics University of Chinese People's Armed Police Forces , Tianjin , China.
  • Pingli Ma
    Microscopic Image and Medical Image Analysis Group, College of Medicine and Biological Information Engineering, Northeastern University, Shenyang, China.
  • Yudong Yao
    Sino-Dutch Biomedical and Information Engineering School, Northeastern University, Shenyang, China.
  • Xinyu Huang
    Institute of Medical Informatics, University of Lübeck, Ratzeburger Allee 160, Lübeck 23538, Germany. Electronic address: huang@imi.uni-luebeck.de.
  • Marcin Grzegorzek
    Institute for Vision and Graphics, University of Siegen, Hoerlindstr. 3, 57076 Siegen, Germany.