Abstract: The method described herein relate generally the identification of bioagents on the basis of base composition signatures for bioagent-identifying amplicons. Specifically, methods of the present invention are directed to the application of pattern recognition models, particularly probability pattern classifiers, to the identification of both known and previously unrecognized bioagents. In certain embodiments, the pattern classifiers relate to probability cloud patterns, such as mutational probability patterns. In other embodiments the pattern classifiers relate to polytope pattern models.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for directly identifying and characterizing input data derived from regions of interest in ultrasound images of organs in the presence of attenuation from interposed contrast agent, for the purpose of diagnosing abnormalities. The input data is classified into one of a number of classes depending upon the characteristics of that data, in order to distinguish normal conditions from abnormal conditions. The invention is based on the recognition that significant information relating to the health of tissue exists in regions of interest in ultrasound images in the presence of attenuation from interposed contrast agent. This information is in the form of backscatter speckle patterns that have "texture" characteristics that are distinguishable in healthy versus diseased tissue. The invention classifies such patterns as probably normal or abnormal by means of an analysis system that may include a neural network system.

Abstract: The present invention is a novel method for producing real-time colorized, contrast enhanced images from a sequence of grey-scale video images obtained during diagnostic ultrasound. The particular colorizing scheme varies according to which information parameter is desired to be displayed in real-time. The information parameters used to colorize a segment of video images include: time-to-arrival, duration of brightening, and absolute brightening. Time-to-arrival colorization depicts the time that a given pixel achieves a given intensity threshold. Duration of brightening depicts the time that a given pixel's intensity stays above a given threshold. Absolute brightening depicts various threshold values obtained by the region's pixels.