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The Classiﬁcation and Recognition of Plasmodium Parasite in Prediction of

Malaria Infected Blood Smears Using Artiﬁcial Intelligence Technique
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Volume 5, Issue 7, July 2015 ISSN: 2277 128X
International Journal of Advanced Research in
Computer Science and Software Engineering
Research Paper
Available online at: www.ijarcsse.com
The Classification and Recognition of Plasmodium Parasite in Prediction of
Malaria Infected Blood Smears Using Artificial Intelligence Technique
1
S. Raviraja*, 2S. D. Geethanjali, 3C. Chethana, 4B. M. Kanthesh.
1
Principal Investigator, Royal Research Foundation, Mysore, India
2
M.Tech Student, Department of CS & E PES College of Engineering, Mandya, India
3
Assistant Professor, Department of CS & E PES College of Engineering, Mandya, India
4
Assistant Professor, Division of Molecular Biology, Faculty of Life Sciences, JSS University, Mysore, India
Abstract— Over the years, the advancement in computing technology, the reliability of computers, coupled with the
development of easy-to-use but never-the-less sophisticated software has led to significant changes in the way that
data are collected and analyzed. Several new methods of malaria diagnosis have recently been developed, however, all
of these are dependent on clinical notion and, consequently on explicit clinical request. Although some methods lend
themselves to automation, no technique can yet be used for routine clinical automated screening. Detection of
birefringent haemozoin has been used to diagnose malaria since the turn of the 20th century. New generations of full
blood count analyzers, used widely in clinical laboratories, have the potential to detect haemozion in white blood cells
and probably erythrocytes. This research introduces a blood image processing for detecting malarial parasites in
images of Giemsa stained blood slides, in order to evaluate the parasitaemia of the blood. Generally blood images are
made up of three different kinds of cells, red, white and blood platelets. Their dimension, shape and their colour
distinguish these. In malarial blood cell, the red corpuscles of vertebrates are infected by malarial parasites. The aim
of this research is to detect the red blood cells that are infected by malarial parasites using digital image processing
and Artificial Neural Network implementation. Further evaluation of the size and shape of the nuclei of the parasite
is also considered. In this research work, a total of 95 patient’s clinical data plasmodium parasite infected blood
smears have been diagnosed by new hybridized model. We found that, the model were able to predict the parasite
infected malaria disease with an accuracy of 60-96% based on selected dependent variables, validated using ROC
characteristics. Diagnostic models were developed to predict the parasite infected digital images. This could be useful
in determining potential treatment methods and monitoring the progress of treatment for infected patients.
Keywords— Malaria Parasite, Plasmodium, RBC, Microscopic Image, Feature Extraction, Neural Network.
I. INTRODUCTION
Malaria is an infectious disease caused by a parasite. It is spread by the bite of an infected mosquito. People catch
malaria when the parasite enters the blood. The parasite causes a deadly infection which kills many people each year.
The parasite that causes malaria is a protozoan called Plasmodium. Protozoa are organisms with only one cell, but they
are not bacteria. Bacteria are smaller and simpler than protozoa.
People usually get malaria from the Anopheles or Culex mosquitoes: they are the vectors of the disease.
The Plasmodium gets into people by the bites of mosquitoes. The Plasmodium is in the mosquito's special saliva. The
mosquito's saliva injects an anticoagulant into the person to prevent their blood from clotting. The person is then infected
with Plasmodium as a by-product. This makes the person have the disease so called malaria.
Only the female mosquito gives people malaria, because of only the female mosquito consumes blood. The male
mosquito lives on the nectar of flowers. The female uses blood as a source of protein for its eggs. Some people do not get
malaria from mosquitoes. A baby can get it while inside its mother. This is called maternal foetal transmission. People
can also get malaria from a blood transfusion. This is when someone gives blood to another person. Another way people
can catch malaria is by using a needle that someone with the disease used before them.
Malaria are protozoan parasites belonging to the subclass coccidian and this disease transmitted by the female
Anopheles mosquito, caused by parasitic protozoa of the genus Plasmodium spp, which infect human usually in the cells
of the liver and then in the red cells, by inserting into the hosts to populate. It is a serious disease caused by a blood
parasite and most malaria cases appeared in the developing countries. Estimated 500 million cases or more each year
between 1 and 3 million deaths per year, where Africa loses US 12 billion every year due to malaria (1% of GDP) [33].
Pregnant woman, elderly people and young children are the most vulnerable victims. Malaria is the leading cause of
death worldwide together with HIV-AIDS and TB [33].
A. Malaria Infected Areas:

Every year, 300 to 700 million people get malaria. It kills 1 million to 2 million people every year. 90% of the deaths
occur in Africa. Most of the people who die from malaria are children. Even if children do not die, many
have brain damage.
© 2015, IJARCSSE All Rights Reserved Page | 863

Raviraja et al., International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Science and Software Engineering 5(7),
July- 2015, pp. 863-886
Many of these deaths might be stopped with medicine or mosquito control. However many of the places malaria may
be found are in poor or under developing countries. These countries do not have enough resources to stop the mosquitoes,
or to give people medicine. Money, however, is not the only problem. A country must have an organized medical system
to provide services. Many countries in central Africa have been disrupted by warfare and conflict between groups, and
general unrest. Also, easy solutions to kill the parasites do not exist as they did 50 years ago. This is because the insects
are resistant to many insecticides, and the Plasmodium parasite is highly resistant to quinine and most other common
drugs. This is a normal evolutionary process: the chemicals weed out the non-resistant organisms, and the offspring of
the few resistant organisms multiply. Fig 1 – Fig 3 below shows malaria endemic places; Africa, Asia (mostly in India,
the Middle East, and Southeast Asia), Central and South America, Hispaniola, Eastern Europe and South Pacific (the part
of the Pacific Ocean south of the equator)
Fig 1: Malaria Endemic Areas Fig 2: Malaria Endemic Areas
Fig 3 Malaria zones in India
B. Laboratory Investigation:
The Microscopical Identification of parasites in blood is the most certain of confirming infection with parasites
currently serological techniques are mainly of value in epidemiological work. Microscopical laboratory techniques for
investigation include the examination of stained thick blood films to detect the parasites and to examine white cells for
the malaria pigment. The following flow chart assists in the preliminary identification of parasites in thick films. The
command diagnosis method for malaria infection is carried out by searching for parasites in blood sample slides through
a microscope manually.
C. Clinical diagnosis:
A clinical diagnosis is based on the signs and symptoms of a disease, it is a diagnosis made without medical testing. In
the case of malaria one of the main symptoms which may lead to a clinical diagnosis of malaria is a fever. Any clinical
diagnosis of malaria should be confirmed by a trained professional based upon laboratory results as soon as it is possible.
D. Malaria rapid diagnostic test:

A Malaria rapid diagnostic test is a blood test which can confirm a diagnosis of malaria in about twenty minutes.
RDTs are not full proof and have a number of drawbacks, as such a negative rapid diagnostic test should not be accepted
at face value and follow-up with malaria microscopy is necessary.

July- 2015, pp. 863-886
Fig 6: Malaria microscopy Fig 7: Stained slide
E. Malaria microscopy:
To diagnose, if patients have malaria, doctors may do a blood test. This test is called a Giemsa blood smear. Blood is
put on a slide which is a thin piece of glass. The Giemsa stain is put on the slide. This stain helps doctors see the malaria.
Then they look at the slide under a microscope. The Plasmodium is seen in the red blood cells.
F. Malaria Transmission cycle:

Plasmodium spp, the protozoan parasite that causes malaria, exists in a variety of different forms which managed to
adapt to different cellular environments, in both the vertebrate host and the mosquito vector. In blood effected by malaria
parasite, we have to look for cells, red both mature and young reticulocytes and white, and for parasites, in different
stages of life, immature and mature trophozoites, schizonts and gametocytes.
Fig 8: Malaria Transmission Cycle
Generally in blood analysis, doctors or medical practitioners seek out for three different kinds of cells, which are red
cell, white cell and platelets or artefacts. Their dimensions and colours distinguish these. In peripheral blood sample
visual detection and recognition of Plasmodium spp is possible and efficient via a chemical process called (Giemsa)
staining. This staining process slightly colourises the red blood cells but highlights the rest of other cells such as
Plasmodium spp parasites, white blood cells, and platelets or artefacts. The command diagnosis method for malaria
infection is carried out by searching for parasites in blood sample slides through a microscope manually. However, this
method is a time consuming operation because the operator has to inspect 500 - 2000 cells and requires labour intensive.
Hence, it is essential to produce a standard automated tool which is able to perform diagnosis on this type of disease
anywhere [33].
Malaria are protozoan parasites belonging to the subclass coccidian and this disease transmitted by the Anopheles
mosquito, caused by minute parasitic protozoa of the genus Plasmodium, which infect human first in the cells of the liver
and then in the red cells, and insect hosts alternatively. It probably originated in Africa and accompanied human
migration to the Mediterranean shores, India and South East Asia. In the past it used to be common in the marshy areas
around Rome and the name is derived from the Italian, (mal-aria) or "bad air"; it was also known as Roman fever. The
detection techniques, today includes manual laboratory diagnosis of blood analysis and several new methods.
Generally in laboratory analysis for a blood sample, lab technicians or medical practitioners/ pathologist look for three
different kinds of cells, red, white and blood platelets. Their dimensions and their colour distinguish them. In malarial
blood the red corpuscles of vertebrates are infected by malaria parasites. Plasmodium, the protozoan parasite that causes
malaria, exists in a variety of different forms, which have successfully adapted to different cellular environments, in both
the vertebrate host and the mosquito vector. The parasite develops in a highly regulated manner through distinct cycles
in the vertebrate host. In malarial blood we have to look for cells, red both mature and young or reticulocytes and white,
and for parasites, in different stages of life, immature and mature trophozoites, schizonts and gametocytes.

July- 2015, pp. 863-886
The aim of this research is to present a new technique to detect the parasites using a digital image or colour
photograph of stained malarial blood from a microscope in order to evaluate the existence of parasitaemia in the RBC.
Manual analyses of slides are tiring and time-consuming, hence this research work aim to automate the faster and
accurate analysis of the microscopic images obtained from the blood sample slides. In this research, we propose a
method to separate automatically the parasites (trophozoites, schizonts and gametocytes) from the rest of an infected
blood image. Using the information of colour, shape and size, then compare the image with infected images after
transformation of image by scaling, shaping to reconstruct the image. The images returned are statistically analysed and
compared to generate a mathematical base. The objective of this research work is to develop an automated malaria
parasite detection system with the application of AI techniques.
Significance of Research Work: Malaria disease is one of the very interesting topics in medical and computer science
research. With the use of digital image processing concepts and Artificial Neural network which is one of the AI
technique(s), to automatically detect the malaria disease just from the blood slides images obtain from microscope can
tremendously increase the speed to recognize the parasites by saving the time and labour cost.
Using several algorithms and libraries, to present a system that performs a robust, real time and automated detection of
malaria parasites more efficiently. Proposed system helps researchers to achieve approach step in order to obtain
advances knowledge in this malaria disease research. Operating System Multiplatform (Linux, Mac, and Windows) and
Software Tools as MatLab 7.14 are used develop the proposed model.
II. LITERATURE REVIEW

Number of studies on the possibility of detecting plasmodium parasites using images of thin blood smear has been
carried out in the past. In this section numbers of these studies are critically reviewed. In this study the literatures are:
Review the commonly used types of methods and the Digital Image Processing techniques, and highlight some of key
related research efforts and techniques that are relevant to this research
Ross et al.,[25] proposed a technique for automating malaria diagnosis using light microscopy. Here, a light
microscope fitted with a digital camera was used to capture image of Giemsa stained blood slides. After images were
captured they were loaded to a Personal Computer (PC) for processing. Image processing techniques and neural network
classifiers were used. Infected erythrocytes were positively identified with a sensitivity of 81% while the accuracy for
species determination was 73%. Morphological image processing techniques used for erythrocyte segmentation could not
produce satisfactory results for erythrocytes which are heavily clustered [7]. The sizes of erythrocytes were determined
using granulometry with circular structuring element (SE). The assumption was erythrocyte shapes are circular. This is
not always the case. Sometimes erythrocytes shapes are de- formed especially if they are infected with diseases such as
sickle cell or if they appear in clusters [7].
Nicholas E. Ross et al[25] research paper mentioned about automated image processing method for the diagnosis and
classification of malaria on thin blood smears, similar process in [13] are carried out for acquiring the image from the
light microscope. The researchers explained about morphological and novel threshold selection techniques which are
used to recognise erythrocytes (RBCs) and possible parasites present on microscopic slides. Image features based on
colour, texture and the geometry of the cells and parasites are generated, as well as features that make use of a priori
knowledge of the classification problem and mimic features used by human technicians [28]. A two-stage tree classifier
using backpropogation feedforward neural networks distinguishes between true and false positives, and then diagnoses
the species (Plasmodium Falciparum, Plasmodium Vivax, Plasmodium Ovale or Plasmodium Malariae) of the infection
[28]. Malaria samples slides which are obtained are used for training and testing of the system. Infected erythrocytes are
positively identified with a sensitivity of 85% and a positive predictive value (PPV) of 81%, which makes the method
highly sensitive at diagnosing a complete sample provided many views are analysed. Species were correctly determined
for 11 out of 15 samples.
Diaz et al., [8] developed a technique for detection, quantification of parasitemia and parasite life stages. Pixels colour
features were extracted and used to train classifiers for detection and determination of parasite life stages. Clustered
erythrocytes were resolved by use of template matching before parasitemia was estimated. The study reported a
sensitivity of 94% for detection of infected erythrocytes and 79% for stages identification. The technique was not fully
automatic as it called for human intervention during training of the classifier every time diagnosis had to be made.
Further, the authors proposal evaluates a color segmentation techniques for Seed Detection by Multi scale LoG Infected
by Malaria Yes Infected by Malaria separation of pixels into three different classes: parasites, red blood cell and
background, based on standard supervised classification techniques. In this system four different supervised classification
algorithms– KNN, Naive Bayes, SVM and Neural network are evaluated on different color spaces RGB, normalized
RGB, HSV and YCbCr. Also Gloria Diaz et al.,[8] proposed visual quantification of parasitemia in stained thin blood
films infected with Plasmodium Falciparum. Images captured with proper adjustment of microscope with 1000
magnification. Luminance correction process applied to RGB image using YCbCr transform Low Pass Filter and then
smoothening of matrix done. Using color space, K-NN, and normalized RGB pixels are classified as erythrocyte or
background. Using color histogram, Saturation Histogram, Grayscale, Tamura Texture, and Sobel Histogram used for
feature extraction. Only infected cells are forwarded for infection stage classification using trained SVM classifier.
Automatic identification of infected erythrocytes showed a specificity of 99.7% and a sensitivity of 94%. The infection
stage was determined with an average sensitivity of 78.8% and average specificity of 91.2%.
Di Ruberto et al., [2] proposed a technique of automatically detecting and quantifying malaria parasites infection in
blood images of patients. The method employed a modified watershed algorithm to segment erythrocytes. There were

July- 2015, pp. 863-886
two alternatives proposed for classifying parasite stages. One was the use of morphological thinning, where skeletons of
parasites images were used to categorize parasites into their respective stages of infection. The second option was use of
colour histograms similarity. The efficiency of the segmentation algorithm proposed reduces with the degree of
clustering of erythrocytes. Similarly the accuracy of colour histogram similarity for classification of parasites would
depend on the imaging parameters and illumination conditions under which the image being probed is taken. The
detection accuracy of parasitemia reported was relatively low, 50%.
Most of the techniques proposed in the previous works did not address the distinction of plasmodium parasites from
the rest of stained objects (artefacts) in the blood sample [7]. In this work, these limitations of the previous works have
been addressed. A novel method of segmenting erythrocytes and plasmodium parasites using artificial neural networks
(ANN) has been developed. This technique has solved the problem of distinguishing between the plasmodium parasites
and other stained objects (artefacts) in images of thin blood smears. Identification of erythrocytes is performed by ANN.
The classifier is trained to recognize erythrocytes with varied features. This makes the technique more robust than
granulometry which has been used extensively in previous studies in erythrocyte recognition [17][18][31].
Minh-Tam Le et. al. [7], proposed a comparison-based analysis, which differentiates solid components in blood
smears. The semiautomatic method uses statistical measures and cross referencing validations yields a reliable detection
scheme. The nucleated components are identified using adaptable spectral information. Cells and parasites are isolated
from the background, by comparing the input image with an image of an empty field of view. The range of erythrocyte
sizes is determined by input of isolated RBC.
Yashasvi purwar et. al. In [12] introduces an Automated and unsupervised detection of malarial parasites, microscopic
images. The focus of this study is to develop a robust, unsupervised and sensitive Malarial screening Technique with low
material cost. Chan-vese segmentation method. The image based method is tested over more than 500 images from two
independent laboratories. The aim is to distinguish between positive and negative cases of malaria using thin smear blood
slide images. Due to the unsupervised nature of method it requires minimal human intervention thus speeding up the
whole process of diagnosis. Overall system performance measures sensitivity to capture cases of malaria is 100% and
specificity ranges from 50-88% for all species of malaria parasites.
K M Khatri et. al. [14], introduces fast and accurate method based on image processing for malaria parasite
identification. The database was used to generate by taking the microscopic images of blood of 30 malarial patients.
Based on morphological operations total number of cells were counted. Infected cells are analyzed based on intensity
profiles within the cells. The result is validated by comparing with manual analysis. The author claims that the proposed
model can be used in rural areas where less experts are available and the delayed diagnosis may lead to complications in
patients health. Results are validated against manual observations and error reported is very less. This proposed work
can further be extended by increasing database by collecting images from various sources so as to make algorithm robust.
A portable stand alone system can be developed by using this algorithm as a software base.
In [15], Sriram R et. al. Presents a research work on Computer aided malarial diagnosis for JSB stained white light
images using neural network. The research work focuses on sensitive malarial detection system for images of (JSB)
stained thick blood slides acquired from conventional light microscopes. The proposed system describes the
computerized method of image analysis involving 3 phases; Pre-processing, Histogram and Feature extraction. The
process of Image data collection, and image processing techniques are implemented, further feature extraction-histogram
features, shape measurement features, considered for recognition system and classification using ANN has been
successfully carried out. The performance of the generated network was measured through confusion matrix. The
proposed method has sensitivity of 91% which indicates the ability to detect parasites correctly.
Jesus Angulo et. al. [18], presents a technique to automatically detect the working area of peripheral blood smears
stained with Giemsa. The approach consists of two stages. First, an image analysis procedure using mathematical
morphology is applied for extracting the erythrocytes, the centers of erythrocytes and the erythrocytes with center.
Second, the number of connected components from the three kinds of particles is counted.
D. Ruberto et. al. [17] follow morphological method for detection of parasites in Giemsa stained blood slides.
Different objects in blood are identified using their dimensions and color. The parasites are detected by means of an
automatic thresholding based on morphological approach, using Granulometrices to evaluate size of RBCs and nuclei of
parasite. A segmentation method using morphological operators combined with the watershed algorithm.
A technique was proposed Silvia Halim et al., [24] for estimating parasitemia from blood smear images by extracting
healthy and parasite infected red blood cells. Illumination correction is performed by taking a background image using a
blank slide or portion of a slide. Based on pattern matching with parameter optimization and cross-validation against the
expected biological characteristics, red blood cells are determined. Using unsupervised and color co-occurrence based
technique red blood cells are classified. Red blood cells detection resulted in precision and recall rates of 80-88% and 92-
98%, respectively. Proposed a technique for estimating parasitemia, template matching is used for detection of RBCs.
Parasites are detected using variance-based technique from grayscale images and second approach is based on color co-
occurrence matrix. Support Vector Machine (SVM) as the classifier which exploits the texture, geometry and statistical
features of the image.
Di Ruberto et. al. [17], presents a system, where objects have been detected by means of an automatic thresholding on
single components of the RGB and HSV histogram based on a morphological approach. The research work describes
morphological methods for both cell image segmentation and parasites detect Image Acquisition & RGB to Gray
Conversion Automatic Initial Binarization by Poisson distribution thresholding Refinement by Morphological SE
Opening using circular structuring element No Not Feature Extraction using Gabor Filtering Compare the parameters

July- 2015, pp. 863-886
with data check Malaria parasite. The planned method uses Granulometries to evaluate the size of the red cells and the
nuclei of parasites and regional maxima to detect the nuclei of parasites. Morphological techniques, like thinning,
gradient, reconstruction by dilation, and morphological filters are also utilized for pre or post processing of the images.
A method was proposed Minh-Tam Le et al.,[7] for estimation of malaria parasitemia in thin blood image using
comparison based analysis. Acquired image smoothed by energy normalized averaging filter, Skewness and moment
used for nuclei segmentation. Image is decomposed by segmentation using bimodal histogram and Otsu algorithm.
Erythrocytes are detected using granulometry and prior knowledge of size. Locating local maxima of Euclidean
transform of individual erythrocyte in cluster its potential position is determined. In literature, different approaches are
reported for the microscopic medical image analysis from disease detection point of view. Here, in this section, we are
summarizing few of the approaches related to the medical image analysis. In general the images are the microscopic
images.
Makkapati and Rao [28] explored the segmentation for HSV color space. A scheme presented in, is based on HSV
color space that segments Red Blood Cells and parasites by detecting dominant hue range and by calculating optimal
saturation thresholds. Methods those are less computation-intensive than existing approaches are presented to remove
artifacts. The scheme is evaluated using images taken from Leishman-stained blood smears. Sensitivity of the scheme
was found to be 83%. The method operates in HSV space and is dynamic in the sense that relevant thresholds are
determined from the statistics of the given image rather than keeping them fixed for all images. Schemes determine
optimal saturation thresholds to segment RBCs and chromatin dots that are robust with respect to the color variability
encountered.
The work in [21] illustrates the use of color image processing techniques. S. Raviraja et al. [27] introduces a blood
image processing for detecting and classifying malarial parasites in images of Giemsa stained blood slides, in order to
evaluate the parasitamia of the blood. To detect the red blood cells that are infected by malarial parasites, statistical based
approach is used. To separate automatically the parasites (trophozoites, schizonts, and gametocytes) from the rest of an
infected blood image, color, shape and size information are used and later the image is compared with infected images
after transformation of image by scaling, shaping to reconstruct the image. The images are statistically analysed and
compared to generate a mathematical base. Also the evaluation of the size and shape of the nuclei of the parasite is also
considered and overlapping binary mask of cells and parasites infected cells are identified for parasitemia. Further, S.
Raviraja and Gaurav Bajpai in [6] introduces blood image processing technique for detecting and classifying malarial
parasites in images of Giemsa stained blood slides, in order to evaluate parasitaemia in blood cells. As the dimension,
shape and color distinguish RBC, WBC and platelets. In malarial blood, the red corpuscles of vertebrates are infected by
malarial parasites. Author presents a model to detect the blood cells, which are infected by malarial parasites, by
evaluation of size of the nuclei of the red blood cell, its structure, and shape. The image of the contaminated blood cells
is compared with original blood cells by image processing and malaria is detected. In order to achieve higher success rate
in lower time an algorithmic technique is proposed that also identifies the stability of the image processing reducing the
time of diagnosis.
Stanislaw Osowski et al.,[29] the application of a Genetic Algorithm (GA) and a Support Vector Machine (SVM) are
presented to the recognition of blood cells on the image of the bone marrow aspirate. GA is used for the selection of the
features for the recognition of the neighboring blood cells belonging to the same development line. SVM is used for final
recognition and classification of cells. schizonts and gametocytes) from the rest of an infected blood image, color, shape
and size information are used and later the image is compared with infected images after transformation of image by
scaling, shaping to reconstruct the image. The images returned are statistically analysed and compare to generate a
mathematical base. Also the evaluation of the size and shape of the nuclei of the parasite is also considered.
Ruberto et al. [17][18] introduces morphological approach to cell image segmentation more accurate than the normal
watershed based algorithm. The used non-flat disk-shape structuring element enhanced the roundness and compactness to
improving the accuracy of normal watershed based algorithm whereas flat disk-shape structuring element to separate
overlapping cells. These methods make use of knowledge of the RBC structure that is not used in existing watershed
based algorithm.
Sadeghian et al. [9] demonstrated a framework for segmenting white blood cells using digital image processing. This
grey level image processing scheme has divided into two parts, first, nucleus segmentation based on morphological
analysis, and then cytoplasm segmentation is based on pixel-intensity thresholding (Zack thresholding).
In [11] J. Somasekar, proposed a scheme based on RGB color space that segments Red Blood Cells and parasites by
detecting dominant hue range and by calculating optimal saturation thresholds is presented. Methods that are less
computation intensive than existing approaches are proposed to remove artefacts. The scheme is evaluated using images
taken from Leishman-stained blood smears. Sensitivity of the scheme is found to be 83%.
Automated image analysis-based model Malaria Count for parasitemia determination, which is for quantitative
evaluation of the level of parasites in the blood, has been described in the research paper S. Raviraja et. al.,[26], the
researchers explained the usage of image processing and statistical based approach to automatically identify and detect
the number of malarial parasites per number of red blood cells and managed to do it by using colour, shape and size
information. The presented system is based on the detection of edges representing cell and parasite boundaries. The
described technique includes a pre-processing step, edge detection step, edge linking, clump splitting, and parasite
detection. Further in [26] authors introduces a blood image processing for detecting and classifying malarial parasites in
images of Giemsa stained blood slides, in order to evaluate the parasitamia of the blood. To detect the red blood cells that
are infected by malarial parasites, statistical based approach to separate automatically the parasites (trophozoites,

July- 2015, pp. 863-886
schizonts and gametocytes) from the rest of an infected blood image, color, shape and size information are used and later
the image is compared with infected images after transformation of image by scaling, shaping to reconstruct the image.
The image obtained after the process of shaping and scaling, the image are then statistically analysed and compared to
generate a mathematical base. The invariants moments is used to detect the nuclei of the parasites, according to a
connectivity of a disk shaped structuring element where the radius is the greatest size of the red blood cells. Also the
evaluation of the size and shape of the nuclei of the parasite is also considered.
S. P. Premaratnea at el.,[19] used digital images of oil immersion views from microscopic slides captured though a
capture card. They were pre-processed by segmentation and greyscale conversion to reduce their dimensionality and later
fed into a feed forward back propagation neural network (NN) for training it. Digital images were segmented to 64 pixels
X 64 pixels images to be used as a training data set. The other reason for the segmentation was to make sure that the
ANN.s was kept to the smallest possible size in order to achieve technology suggests that a flow cytometry device could
be adapted using THG emission for automated stain-free diagnosis based on parasitamia counts, which would also lower
the minimum parasitamia levels that are detectable.
A method by Chen Pan et al. [4] is based on image retrieval to classify cell image from high similarity image
databases. RGB color histogram of cell and two intensity histograms corresponding to those local regions compose
feature vector represents the cell image. Kernel principal component analysis (KPCA) is utilized to extract effective
features from the feature vector. The weight coefficients of features are estimated automatically using relevance feedback
strategy by linear Support Vector Machine (SVM).
Classification depends on the decision distance obtained by SVM and the nearest centre criterion. 90.5% classification
accuracy of the method when combined with standardized sample preparation and image acquisition. This help to enable
consulting physicians and experts engage in interactive diagnosis easily and to automatically search pathology image
records to support reliable decision in detecting and discriminating. Also most of the researchers worked on mammogram
images for the detection of MCCs. Some of them are discuss here. A research conducted by Lee et. al. [1] presented other
automatic detection and classification of MCCs.
A block region growing and k-means clustering-based thresholding is employed to extract the breast region. Then, a
blanket method finds and locates the suspicious areas of possible MCCs clusters. The MCCs detection module is
developed to automatically extract the MCCs from the ROIs. Among the image processing techniques that are involved
in this module are gradient enhancement, contrast enhancement and Gaussian filters.
The segmentation of MCCs from the background is done using entropy-based thresholding. Shape cognition which is
based on neural network-like shape recognition systems is introduced as a classification technique of MCCs. The system
in [4] achieved as high as 95% classification rate with 93% detection rate.
Development of algorithm for detecting the severity of the disease in computer aided medical diagnosis, Fuzzy logic
and two soft computing tools can be used to identify the type and development stages of malarial parasites using thin
blood smear image. Fuzzy C-mean clustering in order can be used to classify the image into few image clusters.
Histogram is used to know the information about the image directly. Then image segmentation is done using Threshold
method. The second pixel found is compared to the first one using Euclidean distance. The Euclidean value calculated
will determine whether the second pixel will be grouped with the first pixel or it will be classified as a member of another
cluster. Finally the number of malarial parasites was found by screening of patients with various degrees of infection.
Shape analysis of erythrocytes related to degree of parasitamia. Shape analysis before radical therapy. Shape analysis
during the course of the radical therapy, shape analysis after radical therapy.
Cecilia Di Ruberto et. al. [16], the researchers came out with a system to detect the parasites by means of an automatic
thresholding based on a morphological approach. The researchers have introduced a morphological approach to cell
image segmentation which is more precise than the classical watershed-based algorithm. The researchers also applied
grey scale granulometries based on opening with disk-shaped elements, flat and hemispherical in the system. The
purpose they used a hemispherical disk-shaped structuring element, is to enhance the roundness and the compactness of
the red cells by improving the accuracy of the classical watershed algorithm, while the researchers have used a disk-
shaped flat structuring element to separate overlapping cells. These methods make use of knowledge of the red blood cell
structure that is, not used in existing watershed-based algorithms [2]. The final step of the system is to classify the
parasites. There are two different classification methods, one based on morphological operators and another one based on
colour histogram similarity.
F. Boray Tek et al [10], the author mentioned about the usage of an AI technique, where Bayesian pixel classifier and
K-nearest classifier along with digital image processing concept are mentioned in this paper. This paper investigates the
possibility of computerized diagnosis of malaria and describes a method to detect malaria parasites (Plasmodium spp) in
images acquired from Giemsa-stained peripheral blood samples using conventional light microscopes [25]. Due to
processing purpose, the images are transformed to match a reference image colour characteristics. The parasite detector
utilises a Bayesian pixel classifier to mark stained pixels. The class conditional probability density functions of the
stained and the non-stained classes are estimated using the non-parametric histogram method [10]. The stained pixels are
further processed to extract features through (histogram, Hu moments, relative shape measurements, colour auto-
correlogram) for a parasite/non-parasite classifier. A distance weighted K-nearest neighbor classifier is trained with the
extracted features and a detailed performance comparison is presented. Define what the drawbacks of these techniques
were?
In another research paper written by Sobath Pradeepa Premaratne et al [20], their objective was to design and develop
an automated tool for the recognition of intracellular malaria parasites in stained blood films using Artificial Neural

July- 2015, pp. 863-886
Network(ANN). They used digital images of oil immersion views from microscopic slides captured though a capture
card. The images were preprocessed by segmentation and grayscale conversion to reduce their dimensionality and later
fed into a feed forward backpropagation neural network (NN) for training it. They even managed to develop a user
interface incorporating with trained NN. In the final product, the tool allows the user to view the slide in a graphical user
interface. When the user gives a command to analyze, a still image is captured and sent to the NN for recognition after
preprocessing [11]. Preliminary results show that the NN can identify carefully selected test data. Define what the
drawbacks of these techniques were? Or what can be improved?
Selena W.S. Sio et. al. [5] research paper describes, the researchers discussed about an automated image analysis-
based program for accurately determine the parasites rapidly. It is accomplished by applying following 5 steps which are
preprocessing, edge detection and linking, morphological operation, clump splitting and parasite identification. In
preprocessing, a camera is used to capture digital images from the light microscope and store the image for further
processing and involves the enhancement of the image contrast through adaptive histogram equalization. The edge
detection and linking steps, focuses on the images after preprocessing, where then identifies the boundary edges of RBCs
with the aid of the following edge correlation coefficient:
……..Eq 1.1
In the above Eq1.1, where i denotes the image pixels, g is the edge detector, ii is the average luminance of the n × n
local neighbourhood vector bi (in column-wise format) centered at i, γ is a regularization parameter estimated using the
measure of median absolute deviation [13]. In the edge linking, resultant edge contours need to be linked together at their
terminal points to form closed boundaries around the RBCs [13]. The terminal points are recognised using 20 different 3
× 3 masks shown in Fig 1. Image pixels whose local neighborhoods are matched with any one of these masks are
identified as terminal points. Neighboring boundary edge contours are linked together if their terminal points are in close
proximity and the curvature at the linkage is similar to those of RBCs [13]. Whereas in clump splitting step, the RBCs
are clumped together adversely affects the accuracy of the parasitemia. Therefore, the researchers introduce a clump
splitting method, which is implemented in order to separate the clumps of two or more RBCs into constituent cells of
interest. At first, the deepest boundary pixels, i.e., the concavity pixels in a clump are detected using a fast and accurate
scheme [13]. Next, concavity based rules are applied to generate the candidate split lines that join pairs of concavity
pixels [13]. The figure to be compared is then used to identify the best split line from the set of candidate lines. This
process is repeated on the split clumps until no more split lines can be found. Finally in morphological and parametric
detection method, the parasites are characterised by regions within the RBCs (excluding the RBC boundaries) referring
to large edge response magnitude. The identification of the regions within RBCs via the use of a binary mask as follows.
First, a binary filling operation is performed on the closed boundary contour of the RBCs to yield some results. Next,
erosion s used on filled regions by applying a disk shaped structural element of radius two, in order to obtain the inner
regions of the RBCs where the parasites are located. Hence the comparison between an automated Malaria counting with
manual Malaria counting is approximately 0.2 percent precision.
Stanislaw Osowski et. al. [29], presents the application of a genetic algorithm (GA) and a support vector machine
(SVM) to the recognition of blood cells on the image of the bone marrow aspirate.GA is used for the selection of the
features for the recognition of the neighboring blood cells belonging to the same Ross et. al [25], in his work proposed an
image processing technique is described that is used to identify erythrocytes and possible parasites present on
microscopic slides. The algorithm consists of pre-processing of the image, image analysis, segmentation, features
generation and classification of erythrocytes as infected with malaria or not.
Gamini Wajyarathna et. al.[30] investigates the possibility of rapid & accurate automated diagnosis of red blood cell
disorders and describes a method to detect malaria parasites thalasseemia in blood sample images acquired from light
microscopes by hybridizing the techniques using Image processing, trainning of neural networks, SVM classifier.
Classification accuracy of 86.54% with 3 layers ANN was achieved in this study. SVM classifier is used to find better
accuracy.
Snehal Suryawanshi et. al [32] proposed improved technique for detection of malaria parasites within the blood cell
images, though there is considerable progress still there is need to improve accuracy, speed, automation level,
adaptability towards new applications. This paper proposes a new technique of image segmentation by Poisson
distribution using minimum error thresholding. The methods used in the proposed system are RGB to Gray conversion,
foreground extraction, Poisson distribution thresholding, Gabor filtering, Euclidean distance classifier. The system is
found to be robust, accurate and easy to implement.
In the above section the detection of malaria using image processing concepts and many other techniques are being
reviewed. The discussion is based on shape, colour and size features. Many algorithms are used like watershed are used.
Classifications are carried out by using ANN techniques. The drawbacks and disadvantages in previous research work
are discussed. The blood slides like giemsa stained and leisman slides are used for previous research work. This research
work uses giemsa stained slides. In previous research works the SVM is used as classifier to extract texture and geometry
features of image. The whole discussion leads to research in detection of malaria parasitic infected blood smears using
artificial intelligence technique to achieve better result compared to previous research work. This research work presents
a model for detection of malaria to assist or support doctors and lab technicians.

July- 2015, pp. 863-886
III. DATA ANALYSIS
Generally in blood analysis, doctors seek three different kinds of cells, red, white and blood platelets. Their
dimensions and their color distinguish these. In malarial blood the red corpuscles of vertebrates are infected by malaria
parasites. Plasmodium, the protozoan parasite that causes malaria, exists in a variety of different forms, which have
successfully adapted to different cellular environments, in both the vertebrate host and the mosquito vector. The parasite
develops in a highly regulated manner through distinct cycles in the vertebrate host. In malarial blood technicians have
to look for cells, red both mature and young or reticulocytes and white, and for parasites, in different stages of life,
immature and mature trophozoites, schizonts and gametocytes. The identification of the markers can be done through the
discussions with the professional dentists and doctors and also through the literature studies. After the markers have been
identified, various experiment techniques and methods need to be used to measure the gene expression and to diagnose
the infected cells.
Features of malaria parasites: Malaria parasites are protozoan parasites belonging to the subclass coccidian. The
general characteristics of protozoa are: simple, single celled micro-organisms consisting of a nucleus and cytoplasm and
Cytoplasm contain food vacuoles and chromatin granules.
The protozoans of medical importance belong to the following groups;
Sarcodina : Entamoeba histolytica
Masticophora :Giardia lamblia trichoonas vaginalis trypanosome species Leishmania species.
Ciliophora : Blantidium coli
Coccidian : Isospora belli Cryptospridium species Toxoplasma gondii plasmodium species.
TABLE 1: CLASSIFICATION OF MALARIA PARASITES

Class Sporozoa
Subclass Coccidian
Family Plasmodiidea
Widespread Plasmodium Faciparum,
species Plasmodium Vivax
Less widespread Plasmodium Malariae,
species Plasmodium Ovale
Features of parasites asexual cycle in humans: In their human host, malaria parasites have an asexual intracellular
cycle of development called schizogony. The parasites live and multiply, first in the cells of the liver and then in the red
cells. The forms of the parasite, which rupture from the red cells, infect new red cells. Several of these, instead of
repeating red cell schizogony, develop into gametocytes, which are the sexual forms of the parasite by which it is
transmitted to the mosquito to continue its life cycle.
Features of parasites sexual cycle in mosquito: In the mosquito, a sexual extra cellular cycle of development occurs,
called sporogony. In this male and female gametes are formed, fertilization occurs, and poroaoites are produced which
are infective to human. Transmission occurs when an infected female Anopheles mosquito takes a blood meal.
Plasmodium Vivax and Plasmodium Falciparum cause the most malaria in people. Falciparum malaria is the worst
kind, and kills the most people.
When Plasmodium enters the blood, they are then called sporozoites. Sporozoites go to the liver, where they make
many more sporozoites. Then they change into a different form of Plasmodium. This form is the merozoite. The
merozoites go into the red blood cells, and then they make many more merozoites. The merozoites break out of the red
blood cells again and again. When they do this, the person gets very sick, and shows symptoms of malaria. This happens
every few days, and is called a paroxysm.
Plasmodium vivax and Plasmodium ovale can live in the liver for a long time. A person can look well, but still have
the Plasmodium in the liver. This is called a dormant phase. Weeks or months later, the Plasmodium can leave the liver
to the blood, and the person will get sick again.
Plasmodium Falciparum is the most dangerous type of malaria. It makes people sicker than those with other types of
malaria, because there are more of them in the blood. Also, with Falciparum malaria, the red blood cells are sticky. This
makes the red blood cells block blood vessels. If blood vessels are blocked, this can hurt what the blood vessel brings
blood to, and can hurt people's organs
There are several species (kinds) of Plasmodium that cause malaria in humans:
Serious disease:
Plasmodium falciparum
Milder disease:
Plasmodium malariae
Plasmodium ovale
Plasmodium semiovale
Plasmodium vivax
Species which normally infect other primates:
Plasmodium knowesli

July- 2015, pp. 863-886
Fig 9: Malarial Parasites of Man: Differential Characters of Erythrocytic Phases.
Species of Malaria Parasites: There are four species of the genus plasmodium responsible for the malarial parasite
infections that commonly infect man, Plasmodium Falciparum, Plasmodium Vivax, Plasmodium Malariae and
Plasmodium Ovale. The most important of these is Plasmodium Falciparum because it can be rapidly fatal and is
responsible for the majority of malaria related deaths.
A. Plasmodium Falciparum
Malaria causes by Plasmodium Falciparum is referred to as Falciparum malaria shown in Fig 10, formerly known as
sbertain (ST) or malignant tertian (MT) malaria. It is the most serious form of the disease and the most widespread.
Plasmodium Falciparum is found mainly in the hotter and more humid regions of the world, it is the main species found
in the tropical and sub tropical African countries and part of Central America and South America.
Diagnostic Points or the characteristics of Plasmodium Falciparum
Red Cells are not enlarged; Rings appear fine and delicate and there may be several in one cell; Some rings may have
two chromatin dots; and Presence of marginal or appliqué forms. It is unusual to see developing forms in peripheral
blood films. Gametocytes have a characteristic crescent shape appearance. However, they do not usually appear in the
blood for the first four weeks of infection. Maurer's dots may be present.
B. Plasmodium Vivax
Malaria caused by Plasmodium Vivax is referred to as Vivax malaria shown in Fig 11. It has a wide distribution in
temperate and subtropical regions.
Diagnostic Points the characteristics of Plasmodium Vivax
Red cells containing parasites are usually enlarged; Schuffner's dots are frequently present in the red cells as shown
above; The mature ring forms tend to be large and coarse; and developing forms are frequently present.
C. Plasmodium Malariae
It has a much lower prevalence than Plasmodium Falciparum or Plasmodium Vivax in Fig 12 and it is able to
prevalence in humans for many years. It is found in tropical and subtropical regions in Africa, it accounts for up to 25%
of plasmodium infections.
Diagnostic Points the characteristics of P. Malariae
Ring forms may have a squarish appearance; Band forms are a characteristic of this species; Mature schizonts may
have a typical daisy head appearance with up to ten merozoites; Red cells are not enlarged and Chromatin dot may be on
the inner surface of the ring.
D. Plasmodium Ovale
Malaria caused by Plasmodium Ovale is referred to as Ovale malaria in Fig 13. Formally known as Ovale tertian
malaria it is a relapsing species and has a restricted distribution and low prevalence. It is found in West Africa where it
accounts for up to 10% of malaria infection.
Diagnostic Points the characteristics of Plasmodium Ovale
Red cells enlarged; Comet forms common (top right); Rings large and coarse; Schuffner's dots, when present, may be
prominent and Mature schizonts similar to those of Plasmodium Malariae but larger and coarser.
July- 2015, pp. 863-886
Fig 10 Fig 11 Fig 12 Fig 13

Plasmodium Falciparum Plasmodium Vivax Plasmodium Malariae Plasmodium Ovale
Laboratory investigation: Malaria occurs in most tropical regions of the world with Plasmodium Falciparum
predominating in Africa, New Guinea and Haiti. Plasmodium Vivax is more common on the Indian sub-continent and
Central America with the prevalence of these two infections roughly equal in Asia, Oceania and South
America. Plasmodium Malariae is found in most endemic areas especially sub-Saharan Africa but much less
frequently. Plasmodium Ovale is relatively unusual outside Africa although some cases are now being identified in other
regions (eg. Southern States of India). It is also important to recognize that with the relative ease and speed of modern
travel and migration, "imported" cases of malaria may present in any country. Additionally so called "airport malaria"
(see History section) has now been identified in a number of countries including the USA, UK, Belgium, and
Switzerland. Airport malaria is particularly dangerous since Clinicians may have little reason to suspect it, if the patient
has had no recent travel to areas where malaria is endemic. This may result in a delay before the correct diagnosis is
made and which may lead to death before appropriate treatment can be initiated. Small outbreaks of malaria may occur
in countries considered free of the disease, such outbreaks are most likely the result of an infected person entering the
country asymptomatic and where suitable mosquito vectors are present [32].
Examination of a thick blood film should be the first step since this has the advantage of concentrating the parasites
by 20 fold in comparison to a thin film, although the parasites may appear distorted making species identification
difficult. If parasites are seen then the species should be confirmed by the examination of a thin film. Ideally blood
should be collected when the patient's temperature is rising.
Examination of blood for malaria parasites, with the spread of drug resistance, is becoming increasingly important to
confirm microscopic diagnosis of malaria. The Microscopical identification of parasites in blood is the most certain of
confirming infection with parasites currently serological techniques are mainly of value in epidemiological work as
shown Fig 14.
Fig 14: Laboratory investigation
Microscopical laboratory techniques for investigation includes

Examination of stained thick blood films to detect the parasites and to examine white cells for the malaria pigment.
Chart in Fig 15 assist in the preliminary identification of parasites in the thick films
Examination of stained thin blood films to identify some of the changes which take place in red cells parasitized by the
different species of plasmodium.
Fig 15: Preliminary identification of parasites in the thick films

July- 2015, pp. 863-886
IV. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This section discusses about the methodology of this research. The discussion starts with the problem identification,
the nature data for this research, the data preparation which divided into two categories: data as microscopic image
processing and experimental model design, and then followed by the discussion on the development of neural network
model for recognition and classification. Explanations on the proposed model, algorithms and implementation are given
in the end of this section.
Fundamental Digital image: An image may be defined as a 2D function, where x and y are spatial coordinates, and the
amplitude of at any pair of coordinates is called the intensity or gray level of the image at that point. When x, y and the
amplitude values are all finite discrete quantities, we call the image a digital image. The field of digital image processing
(DIP) refers to processing digital images by means of a digital computer/ devices. Note that a digital image is composed
of a finite number of elements, each of which has a particular location and value. These elements are referred to as
picture elements, image elements, and pixels. Pixel is the term most widely used to denote the elements of a digital
image.
Digital image processing: There are three types of computerized processes low, mid and high level. Low level
processes involve primitive operations such as image preprocessing to reduce noise, contrast enhancement, and image
sharpening. A low level process is characterized by the fact that both its inputs and outputs are images.
Mid level processes on images involve tasks such as segmentation that is, partitioning an image into regions or objects,
description of those objects to reduce them to a form suitable for computer processing, and classification/ recognition of
individual objects. A mid level process is characterized by the fact that its inputs generally are images, but its outputs are
attributes extracted from those images e.g., edges, contours, and the identity of individual objects. High level processing
involves "making sense" of an ensemble of recognized objects as in image analysis, and at far end of the continuum,
performing the cognitive functions normally associated with human vision. A digital image a[m,n] described in a 2D
discrete space is derived from an analog image a(x,y) in a 2D continuous space through a sampling process that is
frequently referred to as digitization shown in Fig 16.
Fig 16: Digitization of a continuous image
The 2D continuous image a(x,y) is divided into N rows and M columns. The intersection of a row and a column is
termed as a pixel. The value assigned to the integer coordinates [m,n] with {m=0,1,2,….,M-1} and {n=0,1,2,…..,N-1} is
a[m,n]. In fact, in most cases a(x,y) which we might consider to be the physical signal that impinges on the face of a 2D
sensor is actually a function of many variable including depth (z), color (  ), and time (t). Unless otherwise stated, we
will consider the case of 2D, monochromatic, static images in this research.
Stained Image Processing: An image from stained sample is prone to differ widely in the foreground or the
background color due to several conditions. This may be due to difference in the light source or filters, cameras, slide
preparation. In order to have an analysis towards constant color characteristics, the images are normalized. In this work,
the gray level normalization is incorporated through which a constant gray value of the image is maintained which does
not change to different conditions. In a diagonal model, an image of unknown illumination Iu can be simply transformed
to the known illuminant space Ik by multiplying pixel values with a diagonal matrix ( Ik r g b(x)= MIu RGB(x) ). Where
μI RGB are the mean for channels RGB. The constant grey values for each channels was assumed to be 255 (the
maximum possible value) which is similar to colorless transparent pixel color. Further the normalized image is
transformed to LAB color space. This color space is chosen because the L layer of the image has the image intensity as
one of its component which ensures the contrast enhancement and equalization in more efficient way compared to other
color spaces. The processed LAB color space image is converted back to RGB color space. The corrected RGB image is
segmented using histogram based thresholding operation. This step ensures the removal of noise and artifacts to major
extent without missing the infected cells. Since the protocol is dominant towards other color components, the threshold is
applied on the green component of the RGB image. The regional maxima and minima were used as markers and
thresholded images were reconstructed in order to avoid objects that are artefacts. The objects in the above process of
object detection are called for both the normalized image and the original input RGB image. The detection using
normalized image outputs a binary image which ensures the reconstruction of cells that are of interest and with very
minimal artefacts which tends to be appearing as cells or due to intensity factors. This image is used as marker and the
object detection using original input RGB is used as the mask image. A general reconstruction is performed between the
mask and the morphologically (disk of constant radius) eroded marker image. The reconstructed image is added with the
marker image in order to retain the original structure of the cells.
July- 2015, pp. 863-886
Image Pre-Processing: The goal of this step is to make the acquired images more suitable for subsequent processes
mainly image segmentation and feature extraction. Basically, there are three main objectives for image pre-processing.
One is to re- size the image for the purposes of either magnifying the image through digital zooming, or reducing the
image size in order to speed up processing. The second objective of image pre-processing is to reduce or eliminate noise
from the acquired image. Third is to enhance the image contrast for visual evaluation.
In this case, digital zooming and contrast enhancement is not necessary since the task of image classification and
recognition is to be performed by a computer and not a human operator. However image size normalization is essential in
order to standardize the spatial resolution for images from different sources. Image filtering is also necessary in order to
reduce or eliminate noise in images which could have been acquired during the process of sample preparation or image
acquisition
Feature Extraction: A total of 60 samples were used for training. Each samples had number of normal and infected
cells along with artefacts. The objects extracted from these samples are Parasites, RBC and artefacts. In order to classify
the detected objects, twenty three image features were extracted from the detected objects for training the system. The
feature includes intensity based Histogram features and shape measurement features. These features are extracted for
different channel of color spaces namely gray, hue, saturation and luminosity (standard deviation).
First Order Statistical Features / Histogram Features: The histogram counts and the bin locations are pixel counts and
bin (256) respectively. The first order features are defined by the following equations, reconstructed image are labeled.
Shape Measurement Features: Since these features are independent of color spaces, the following equations were
directly applied to the binary mask image. Shape measurements can detect the changes in the size. The advantage of
shape measurements is straightforward interpretation of the calculated feature values.
This stage is about choosing suitable parameters which adequately describes the information of the image. These
parameters are grouped together in vector form and are referred to as feature vectors. Features can be obtained directly
from images e.g., raw image pixel values or they could be derived quantities such as average image intensity, image
histogram moments, shape signature and object area.
HSV Color Space Transformation: HSL, HSV, HSI, or related models are often used in computer vision and image
analysis for feature detection or image segmentation. The applications of such tools include object detection, for instance
in robot vision; object recognition, for instance of faces, text, or license plates; content-based image retrieval;
and analysis of medical images.
For the most part, computer vision algorithms used on color images are straightforward extensions to algorithms
designed for grayscale images, for instance k-means or fuzzy clustering of pixel colors, or canny edge detection. At the
simplest, each color component is separately passed through the same algorithm. It is important, therefore, that the
features of interest can be distinguished in the color dimensions used. Because the R, G, and B components of an object’s
color in a digital image are all correlated with the amount of light hitting the object, and therefore with each other, image
descriptions in terms of those components make object discrimination difficult. Descriptions in terms of
hue/lightness/chroma or hue/lightness/saturation are often more relevant.
Starting in the late 1970s, transformations like HSV or HSI were used as a compromise between effectiveness for
segmentation and computational complexity. They can be thought of as similar in approach and intent to the neural
processing used by human color vision, without agreeing in particulars: if the goal is object detection, roughly separating
hue, lightness, and chroma or saturation is effective, but there is no particular reason to strictly mimic human color
response.
The function of color map cmap = rgb2hsv(M) converts an RGB colormap M to an HSV colormap cmap. Both
colormaps are m-by-3 matrices. The elements of both colormaps are in the range 0 to 1.
The columns of the input matrix M represent intensities of red, green, and blue, respectively. The columns of the
output matrix cmap represent hue, saturation, and value, respectively.
The function hsv_image = rgb2hsv(rgb_image) converts the RGB image to the equivalent HSV image. RGB is an m-
by-n-by-3 image array whose three planes contain the red, green, and blue components for the image. HSV is returned as
an m-by-n-by-3 image array whose three planes contain the hue, saturation, and value components for the image.
Binarisation and Region Detection Using ROI and BW Region: A binary image is a digital image that has only two
possible values for each pixel. Typically the two colors used for a binary image are black and white though any two
colors can be used. The color used for the object(s) in the image is the foreground color while the rest of the image is the
background color.[1] In the document-scanning industry this is often referred to as "bi-tonal".
Binary images are also called bi-level or two-level. This means that each pixel is stored as a single bit that is., a 0 or 1.
The names black-and-white, B&W, monochrome or monochromatic are often used for this concept, but may also
designate any images that have only one sample per pixel, such as grayscale images. In Photoshop parlance, a binary
image is the same as an image in "Bitmap" mode.
Binary images often arise in digital image processing as masks or as the result of certain operations such
as segmentation, thresholding, and dithering. Some input/output devices, such as laser printers, fax machines, and
bilevel computer displays, can only handle bilevel images.
A binary image can be stored in memory as a bitmap, a packed array of bits. A 640×480 image requires 37.5 KiB of
storage. Because of the small size of the image files, fax machine and document management solutions usually use this
format. Most binary images also compress well with simple run-length compression schemes.
Binary images can be interpreted as subsets of the two-dimensional integer lattice Z2; the field of morphological
image processing was largely inspired by this view.

July- 2015, pp. 863-886
Gaussian Filter: Since all edge detection results are easily affected by image noise, it is essential to filter out the noise
to prevent false detection caused by noise. To smooth the image, a Gaussian filter is applied to convolve with the image.
This step will slightly smooth the image to reduce the effects of obvious noise on the edge detector. The equation for a
Gaussian filter kernel with the size of 2k+1*2k+1 is shown as follows:
Here is an example of a 5x5 Gaussian filter, used to create the image to the right, with = 1.4. (The asterisk denotes
a convolution operation.)
It is important to understand that the selection of the size of the Gaussian kernel will affect the performance of the
detector. The larger the size is, the lower the detector’s sensitivity to noise. Additionally, the localization error to detect
the edge will slightly increase with the increase of the Gaussian filter kernel size. A 5*5 is a good size for most cases, but
this will also vary depending on specific situations as in Fig 17.
Fig 17: The image after a 5x5 Gaussian mask has been passed across each pixel.
Finding the Intensity Gradient of the Image: An edge in an image may point in a variety of directions, so the Canny
algorithm uses four filters to detect horizontal, vertical and diagonal edges in the blurred image. The edge detection
operator (Roberts, Prewitt, Sobel for example) returns a value for the first derivative in the horizontal direction (Gx) and
the vertical direction (Gy). From this the edge gradient and direction can be determined:
,
Where G can be computed using the hypot function and atan2 is the arctangent function with two arguments. The edge
direction angle is rounded to one of four angles representing vertical, horizontal and the two diagonals (0, 45, 90 and 135
degrees for example). An edge direction falling in each color region will be set to a specific angle values, for example
alpha lying in yellow region (0 to 22.5 degrees and 157.5 degrees to 180 degrees) will be set to 0 degree.
Non-maximum suppression is an edge thinning technique. Non-Maximum suppression is applied to "thin" the edge.
After applying gradient calculation, the edge extracted from the gradient value is still quite blurred. With respect to
criteria 3, there should only be one accurate response to the edge. Thus non-maximum suppression can help to suppress
all the gradient values to 0 except the local maximal, which indicates location with the sharpest change of intensity value.
The algorithm for each pixel in the gradient image is:
Compare the edge strength of the current pixel with the edge strength of the pixel in the positive and negative gradient
directions.
If the edge strength of the current pixel is the largest compared to the other pixels in the mask with the same direction
(i.e, the pixel that is pointing in the y direction, it will be compared to the pixel above and below it in the vertical axis),
the value will be preserved. Otherwise, the value will be suppressed.
In some implementations, the algorithm categorizes the continuous gradient directions into a small set of discrete
directions, and then moves a 3x3 filter over the output of the previous step (that is, the edge strength and gradient
directions). At every pixel, it suppresses the edge strength of the center pixel (by setting its value to 0) if its magnitude is
not greater than the magnitude of the two neighbors in the gradient direction. For example,
If the rounded gradient angle is zero degrees (i.e. the edge is in the north–south direction) the point will be considered
to be on the edge if its gradient magnitude is greater than the magnitudes at pixels in the east and west directions,
If the rounded gradient angle is 90 degrees (i.e. the edge is in the east–west direction) the point will be considered to
be on the edge if its gradient magnitude is greater than the magnitudes at pixels in the north and south directions,
If the rounded gradient angle is 135 degrees (i.e. the edge is in the northeast–southwest direction) the point will be
considered to be on the edge if its gradient magnitude is greater than the magnitudes at pixels in the north west and south
east directions, If the rounded gradient angle is 45 degrees (i.e. the edge is in the north west–south east direction) the
point will be considered to be on the edge if its gradient magnitude is greater than the magnitudes at pixels in the north
east and south west directions.
July- 2015, pp. 863-886
In more accurate implementations, linear interpolation is used between the two neighboring pixels that straddle the
gradient direction. For example, if the gradient angle is between 45 degrees and 90 degrees, interpolation between
gradients at the north and north east pixels will give one interpolated value, and interpolation between the south
and south west pixels will give the other (using the conventions of last paragraph). The gradient magnitude at the central
pixel must be greater than both of these for it to be marked as an edge. Note that the sign of the direction is irrelevant,
that is north–south is the same as south–north and so on.
After application of non-maximum suppression, the edge pixels are quite accurate to present the real edge. However,
there are still some edge pixels at this point caused by noise and color variation. In order to get rid of the spurious
responses from these bothering factors, it is essential to filter out the edge pixel with the weak gradient value and
preserve the edge with the high gradient value. Thus two threshold values are set to clarify the different types of edge
pixels, one is called high threshold value and the other is called the low threshold value. If the edge pixel’s gradient value
is higher than the high threshold value, they are marked as strong edge pixels. If the edge pixel’s gradient value is smaller
than the high threshold value and larger than the low threshold value, they are marked as weak edge pixels. If the pixel
value is smaller than the low threshold value, they will be suppressed. The two threshold values are empirically
determined values, which will need to be defined when applying to different images.
The Histogram of Oriented Gradients and wavelet method for feature extraction: The histogram of oriented
gradients (HOG) is a feature descriptor used in computer vision and image processing for the purpose of object detection.
The technique counts occurrences of gradient orientation in localized portions of an image. This method is similar to that
of edge orientation histograms, scale-invariant feature transform descriptors, and shape contexts, but differs in that it is
computed on a dense grid of uniformly spaced cells and uses overlapping local contrast normalization for improved
accuracy.
The essential thought behind the histogram of oriented gradients descriptor is that local object appearance and shape
within an image can be described by the distribution of intensity gradients or edge directions. The image is divided into
small connected regions called cells, and for the pixels within each cell, a histogram of gradient directions is compiled.
The descriptor is then the concatenation of these histograms. For improved accuracy, the local histograms can be
contrast-normalized by calculating a measure of the intensity across a larger region of the image, called a block, and then
using this value to normalize all cells within the block. This normalization results in better invariance to changes in
illumination and shadowing.
The HOG descriptor has a few key advantages over other descriptors. Since it operates on local cells, it is invariant to
geometric and photometric transformations, except for object orientation. Such changes would only appear in larger
spatial regions. Moreover, as Dalal and Triggs discovered, coarse spatial sampling, fine orientation sampling, and strong
local photometric normalization permits the individual body movement of pedestrians to be ignored so long as they
maintain a roughly upright position. The HOG descriptor is thus particularly suited for human detection in images.
The first step of calculation in many feature detectors in image pre-processing is to ensure normalized color and
gamma values. As Dalal and Triggs point out, however, this step can be omitted in HOG descriptor computation, as the
ensuing descriptor normalization essentially achieves the same result. Image pre-processing thus provides little impact on
performance. Instead, the first step of calculation is the computation of the gradient values. The most common method is
to apply the 1-D centered, point discrete derivative maskin one or both of the horizontal and vertical directions.
Specifically, this method requires filtering the color or intensity data of the image with the following filter kernels:
Dalal and Triggs tested other, more complex masks, such as the 3x3 Sobel mask or diagonal masks, but these masks
generally performed poorer in detecting humans in images. They also experimented with Gaussian smoothing before
applying the derivative mask, but similarly found that omission of any smoothing performed better in practice.
Orientation binning: The second step of calculation is creating the cell histograms. Each pixel within the cell casts a
weighted vote for an orientation-based histogram channel based on the values found in the gradient computation. The
cells themselves can either be rectangular or radial in shape, and the histogram channels are evenly spread over 0 to 180
degrees or 0 to 360 degrees, depending on whether the gradient is “unsigned” or “signed”. Dalal and Triggs found that
unsigned gradients used in conjunction with 9 histogram channels performed best in their human detection experiments.
As for the vote weight, pixel contribution can either be the gradient magnitude itself, or some function of the magnitude.
In tests, the gradient magnitude itself generally produces the best results. Other options for the vote weight could include
the square root or square of the gradient magnitude, or some clipped version of the magnitude.
Descriptor blocks: To account for changes in illumination and contrast, the gradient strengths must be locally
normalized, which requires grouping the cells together into larger, spatially connected blocks. The HOG descriptor is
then the concatenated vector of the components of the normalized cell histograms from all of the block regions. These
blocks typically overlap, meaning that each cell contributes more than once to the final descriptor. Two main block
geometries exist: rectangular R-HOG blocks and circular C-HOG blocks. R-HOG blocks are generally square grids,
represented by three parameters: the number of cells per block, the number of pixels per cell, and the number of channels
per cell histogram. In the Dalal and Triggs human detection experiment, the optimal parameters were found to be 3x3
cell blocks of 6x6 pixel cells with 9 histogram channels. Moreover, they found that some minor improvement in
performance could be gained by applying a Gaussian spatial window within each block before tabulating histogram votes
in order to weight pixels around the edge of the blocks less. The R-HOG blocks appear quite similar to the scale-
invariant feature transform (SIFT) descriptors; however, despite their similar formation, R-HOG blocks are computed in
dense grids at some single scale without orientation alignment, whereas SIFT descriptors are usually computed at sparse,

July- 2015, pp. 863-886
scale-invariant key image points and are rotated to align orientation. In addition, the R-HOG blocks are used in
conjunction to encode spatial form information, while SIFT descriptors are used singly.
Circular HOG blocks (C-HOG) can be found in two variants: those with a single, central cell and those with an
angularly divided central cell. In addition, these C-HOG blocks can be described with four parameters: the number of
angular and radial bins, the radius of the center bin, and the expansion factor for the radius of additional radial bins. Dalal
and Triggs found that the two main variants provided equal performance, and that two radial bins with four angular bins,
a center radius of 4 pixels, and an expansion factor of 2 provided the best performance in their experimentation. Also,
Gaussian weighting provided no benefit when used in conjunction with the C-HOG blocks. C-HOG blocks appear
similar to shape context descriptors, but differ strongly in that C-HOG blocks contain cells with several orientation
channels, while shape contexts only make use of a single edge presence count in their formulation.
Block normalization: Dalal and Triggs explored four different methods for block normalization. Let be the non-
normalized vector containing all histograms in a given block, be its k-norm for and be some small
constant (the exact value, hopefully, is unimportant). Then the normalization factor can be one of the following:
L2-norm:
L2-hys: L2-norm followed by clipping (limiting the maximum values of v to 0.2) and renormalizing
L1-norm:
L1-sqrt:
In addition, the scheme L2-hys can be computed by first taking the L2-norm, clipping the result, and then
renormalizing. In their experiments, Dalal and Triggs found the L2-hys, L2-norm, and L1-sqrt schemes provide similar
performance, while the L1-norm provides slightly less reliable performance; however, all four methods showed very
significant improvement over the non-normalized data.
Histogram of oriented gradients (HOG) is a feature descriptor used to detect objects in computer vision and image
processing. The HOG descriptor technique counts occurrences of gradient orientation in localized portions of an image -
detection window, or region of interest (ROI).
Implementation of the HOG descriptor algorithm is as follows:
Step 1: Divide the image into small connected regions called cells, and for each cell compute a histogram of gradient
directions or edge orientations for the pixels within the cell.
Step 2: Discretize each cell into angular bins according to the gradient orientation.
Step 3: Each cell's pixel contributes weighted gradient to its corresponding angular bin.
Step 4: Groups of adjacent cells are considered as spatial regions called blocks. The grouping of cells into a block is
the basis for grouping and normalization of histograms.
Step 5: Normalized group of histograms represents the block histogram. The set of these block histograms represents
the descriptor.
The following Fig 18 demonstrates the algorithm implementation scheme:
Fig 18: HOG descriptor algorithm
Computation of the HOG descriptor requires the following basic configuration parameters:
Masks to compute derivatives and gradients

Geometry of splitting an image into cells and grouping cells into a block
Block overlapping
Normalization parameters
July- 2015, pp. 863-886
According to Dalal the recommended values for the HOG parameters are:
1D centered derivative mask [-1, 0, +1]
Detection window size is 64x128
Cell size is 8x8
Block size is 16x16 (2x2 cells)
Detection of Plasmodium Parasites: This stage falls under image classification. Feature vectors formed in the above
stage are used as input to this stage. Trained classifiers are used to categorize thin blood smear images as either infected
or not infected.
Training of Artificial Neural Network: ANN is a supervised learning technique used to classify patterns into different
classes based on a training set. Training an ANN involves supplying the network with input features and their
corresponding targets (desired outputs). The network then tries to adjust its input coefficients (commonly referred as the
weights and biases) until a point where its output matches the corresponding target for a given input feature. When this
happens the network is said to have learnt to classify different classes of input features. A trained ANN is capable of
correctly classifying features which it has not been trained with. This is known as network generalization.
MATLAB™ has a toolbox for creating artificial neural networks. This toolbox divides input features into three
groups. The first group is made of 60% of the total training set. It is used in training the network (adjusting the weights
and the biases). The second and the third groups each consist of 20% of the training set. One group is used for validating
the network. This means checking that the network is generalizing and it stops training before over-fitting. The other
group is used as an independent test of the network generalization.
Classification Using ANN: The main aim of the work is to discriminate the parasite cells from other normal cells and
artefacts. A multi-layer feedforward Scaled conjugate gradient backpropagation (SCG) neural network was implemented
for classifying the detected objects. The choice of training function was made as SCG as they are a general purpose
second order technique that helps in minimizing the goal functions of several variables, while other standard
backpropagation uses only the first derivatives. SCG has been shown to be considerably faster than standard
backpropagation and than other conjugate gradient methods. Three target output classes namely Parasite, RBC and noise
were created. Input class had 95 objects with 6 features each. The overall collected data for training consisted of
95(*6)*3 = 285(*6). The network uses these data as the prior knowledge and hence the network can only be as accurate
as the data that are used in to train the network. The dataset contains the input matrix (image features) and a target matrix
(trueness of a class). Secondly the data has to be pre-processed and divided into subsets before the training process
begins. The standard practice involves the normalization of inputs in order to avoid the slower training process and to
prevent the transfer function being saturated. For this reason both the inputs and the targets are normalized. There are
several optimization techniques such as mapping to [0, 1], normalizing inputs and targets to have zero mean and unity
variance, and so on. Network used here for the classification uses a most common pre and post processing function
mapminmax which would map the minimum to maximum and normalize the data to fall between [0, 1] . Before training,
the input data is divided into 3 subsets. 1Training set (where the gradient and weights are updated) 2 Validation set (the
weights and biases are saved at minimum validation error) 3 Testing set (for comparison) The random division of input
data is done with 75% of 285 for training and 15% of 285 each for validation and testing. However this division set can
be modified after the training process and the network can be reinitialized, as the network results provides the index of
the data which has been used for training, validation and testing respectively.
The network has been trained in batch mode with mean squared normalized error as the performance function. To
terminate the training process two criteria were used, the minimum performance value and the validation check.
Minimum performance value was set to 0.002 [(mean of variance of targets)/100]. The number of validation check was
set to 10 which represent the number of successive iterations that the validation performance fails to decrease.
Fig 19: ANN Multilayer perceptron
The proposed system components are stored or captured microscopic images from the root directory, a data entry
program to create, add, and delete the image files and finally a diagnosis program which makes the matching process.
The table consists of the following programming files as shown in Table 2.

July- 2015, pp. 863-886
TABLE 2: CODE FILES.
Programmes Program Description
Nnforsign.m Train features
Nnfoomia.m Neural Network Training and Testing
Nn-exp.m Testing, Training and Recognition
Malarie-gui.m Application window
Malaria-gui.fig Image window
Image-conversion.m Conversion of images
Hog-feature.m Extract features
Hog.m Functions related to hog
Colourfet.m Gray level concurrence matrix
All-fet-hog.mat Features stored in matrix format
The proposed system is initialized with the root directory, which holds a number of captured sample images in
BMP/JPEG format – 8 bit per pixel and 65 X 65 h/w. The working model flow of encoding system is shown in following
Fig 20.
Fig 20: The System Processing procedures
In the above research methodology section the discussion started with the classification and features of malaria
parasites which is important for the detection and classification. The image processing concepts were discussed. In data
collection the procedure for preparing slides were also briefly narrated. The preprocessing includes HSV color space
transformation, binarisation and region detection using ROI and BW region. Further segmentation is applied. After
segmentation Gussian filter applied for smoothening of image. The HOG and wavelet method are used to extract features.
In feature extraction eccentricity and convex hull are applied to extract features. Finally classification is carried out by
using ANN. The relevant formulas and equations are explained.
V. RESULT DISCUSSION
In other hand, a new experimental diagnostic model design has been developed to be used in the training,
classification and recognition of neural network models, and it is also as one of the contributions of the research. Where
other research work used moving average method for the experimental data design, in this research the data are prepared
using image processing from the clinical dataset. However, using the clinical dataset, the neural network models are
successful in recognizing the Plasmodium of the clinical image or in deriving depth values and hidden point of neural
network model by given 2D image, while the uses of moving average method are not satisfied, in other words neural
network models are probably not suitable in recognizing the data pattern.
Fig 21: Classification and Recognition system

July- 2015, pp. 863-886
The diagnosis system automatically detects the patient blood sample with the stored samples according to the
classification and recognition algorithm. Fig 21 demonstrates the working model of the proposed system.
When we run the system program to match the patient’s blood sample with the stored samples, we also compare the
system results with Microscopical laboratory investigation results. The Table 3 and Table 4 show the types of Data
samples.
TABLE 3: MALARIA TYPE CLINICAL DATA SAMPLES.

TYPE No. Of Samples
Plasmodium Falciparum 20
Plasmodium Malariae 25
Plasmodium Vivax 20
Plasmodium Ovale 15
Malaria negative/ normal RBC 15
TABLE 4: TRAIN AND TEST DATA SAMPLES.

Train Test Total
TYPE RESULT
Samples Samples Samples
Plasmodium Falciparum 15 5 20 True
Plasmodium Malariae 19 6 25 True
Plasmodium Vivax 15 5 20 True
Plasmodium Ovale 12 3 15 True
Malaria negative/ normal RBC 12 3 15 True
Fig 22a : Result of Plasmodium Falciparum Detection Fig 22b : Result of Plasmodium Ovale Detection
Fig 22c: Result of Plasmodium Malarie 2nd type detection Fig 22d: Result of Normal RBC
(Not Infected or Malaria Negative)
Fig 22e: Result of Plasmodium Vivax Detection Fig 22f: Result of Normal RBC
(Not Infected or Malaria Negative)

July- 2015, pp. 863-886
TABLE 5: COMPARISONS BETWEEN MICROSCOPICAL LABORATORY INVESTIGATION AND SYSTEM RESULTS.
Investigated Result Sample
Type Result
samples Using system
Viva1 Vivax Viatro True
Viva2 Vivax Vivgam False
Ova1 Oval Ovagam True
Ova2 Oval Vivash True
Mal1 Malariae Malgam True
Mal2 Malariae Malash True
Fal1 Falciparum Falcitro True
Fal2 Falciparum Falisch True
It is observed that the matching program system performed 96.00% in detecting the malarial infected blood samples.
The result of the experiment, number of investigated samples and results using the Microscopical investigation were 15
and the result using the system was found 11 and 4 were resulted in unmatched with the samples stored. The problem of
undetermined parasite phases, and we found that the system is sensitive to the differences of parasite phases.
Receiver Operating Characteristics and Percent Accuracy: The predictive performance of the automated diagnosis of
parasite infected RBCs and hence its generalization capability was measured in terms of the area under the receiver-
operating characteristic. In medical prediction, the receiver operating characteristics (ROC) is commonly used to
determine the accuracy of predicted values as it can be used across different classification tools.
The ROC is a plot of sensitivity versus specificity for different test results [3].
Data sample which is infected and had a malaria “positive” test result is termed a True Positive,
Data sample which is infected and had a malaria “negative” test result is termed a False Negative
Data sample which is not infected and had a malaria “positive” test result is termed a False Positive.
Data sample which is not infected and had a malaria “negative” test result is termed a True Negative.
The summary of the above are shown in Table 6.
TABLE 6: THE DEFINITION OF TRUE POSITIVES/NEGATIVES

Infected (+) Not Infected (-)
Result A = True B = False
Positive Positive Positive
Result C = False D = True
Negative Negative Negative
Sensitivity, equation (1) is the true positive test results divided by the entire infected cell. This is the probability that
the data sample will be classified as positive, when data image is infected.
Sensitivity = (a / (a + c)) ……. (1)
The specificity, equation (2) of a test is the true-negative test results divided by most the cell that are not infected. This
is the probability that data sample will be classified as not infected when sample is negative. “1-specificity is the
probability that sample will be classified as positive when the sample data not infected.
Specificity = (d / (b + d)) ……. (2)
To generate the ROC curve it is first necessary to determine the sensitivity and specificity for each test result. The X-
axis ranges from 0 to 1, or 0% to 100% and is the false positive rate, that is 1-specificity. The Y-axis ranges from 0 to 1,
or 0% to 100% and is the true positive rate, that is the sensitivity. The curve starts at (0,0) and increases towards (1,1).
The endpoints of the curve will run to these points and an area of the resulting trapezoids can therefore be calculated as
shown in Fig 23. The larger the area under the curve the better is the prediction.
Fig 23: ROC Curve
The accuracy of the predictions is measured by the number of correctly predicted cases divided by all the cases in the
study (Percent Accuracy) .We found that the automated diagnostic detection were able to predict the parasite infected
malaria with an accuracy of 60-96% based on selected dependent variables, validated using ROC characteristics.

July- 2015, pp. 863-886
Diagnostic models were developed to predict the parasite infected digital images. This proposed model with variable
shows excellent performance with a test value of the ROC of 0.8166 and train value of ROC is 0.8209. ROC can range
between 0 and 1 with higher values indicating better performance.
VI. CONCLUSIONS
This section presents a conclusion for the research and ideas for further research. The discussion starts with an
introduction to the research achievements, research framework summaries, research work summaries, and the
contribution of the research. The discussion ends up with the ideas for future works.
Everything that is newly invented has its merits and demerits. The assessment of the newly invented thing is, perhaps,
the most crucial phase in not just the invention process, but also in the decision of retaining it as useful, or in proposing
to bring in modifications to improve the performance or discarding it as unworthy. However, in fields where robust
and/or credible methodologies are already existent, a new approach introduced should not only be entirely assessed, but it
should also be thoroughly compared with the existing ones. This gives a clear picture of not only how good the new
approach is, but also if it is worthwhile pursuing improvements over the methodology, and also where the approach
stands against the state of the art. The newly proposed approach should closely follow the already existing robust ones,
and be preferably even better. This is the surest way of bringing in any kind of credibility to the approach right in its
inception. The following sections might be of use in assessing new approaches that we have taken up in our research
work.
As per to the best of our knowledge and efforts, we could not find standard methods for the classification and
recognition of plasmodium parasitamia, or for that matter, the likes of it. We made an extensive study of the existing
methods and fewer have been used, viz, HSV color space transformation, binarisation and region detection using ROI
and BW region. Next segmentation is applied. After segmentation Gussian filter applied for smoothening of image. The
HOG and wavelet method are used to extract features. In feature extraction eccentricity and convex hull are applied to
extract features. Finally classification is performed using ANN.
In this research work we have presented a hybrid model, which is the combination of digital image process and
artificial intelligence techniques to detect the parasites infected red blood cells. The proposed method automatically
identifies the parasites using colour, shape and size information, extracted by a digital image operation and AI techniques.
We have used the features of parasite infection in RBC to detect the parasites, according to a connectivity of a disk
shaped structuring element whose radius is the greatest size of the red blood cells.
Future Research Avenues: We found that the hybrid model is able to detect the malaria parasites infected blood cells
images with an accuracy of 73.33%-96% based on selected variables. The results of this model are significant, this
approach experimented and the results obtained in this research could be useful in determining potential treatment
methods and monitoring the progress of treatment for Malaria affected patients.
The classification algorithm is sensitive for to malaria phase wise features that the results such as, using different types
of dye in malaria diagnosis (Gemsia, Fields and Leisman) with and using different concentration. The system
performance can be further improved by considering the large image size, and colour scaling, and depth. In this
experiment the size and colour depth of the stored images in the database was 65x65 pixels image size and 8 bit
quantization still there is a room for research. The proposed system is sensitive to difference of parasite phases, due to
this reason; it is possible to extend and explore the proposed techniques to diagnose different types of disease.
Using different types of dye with different concentration generate a high noise, so the dye concentration must be equal
in both stored and investigated samples. Further avenue to design and develop a method(s) or technique(s) to reduce
noise as a follow up to our research. Finally we would venture the experimenting by like to incorporate the artificial
intelligent techniques and expert systems in the proposed in an improved efficient system to diagnose the patients
symptoms and then possible to investigate patients’ clinical blood sample.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
We have been fortunate in our collaborative efforts with clinical expert Mr. Bhavani Shankar, District Malaria Officer,
Malaria District Regional Office, Mandya, Karnataka state, India, who not only shared their vast experience in cases of
Malaria and by playing the role of advisor but also provided the means to access fewer data for our experiment. In
particular, the authors would like to express our appreciation to Physician Dr. Dore Swamy, Practicing at Bangalore,
India.
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[33] The Malaria Control Programme, World Malaria Report, World Health Organization, 2008-2014.
AUTHOR’S PROFILE
Dr. S. Raviraja, founder Chairman of Royal Research Foundation, India, a Research Institute
at present and former employee of department of Artificial Intelligence, the Faculty of
Computer Science and IT at University of Malaya (UM), Malaysia. Previously he was attached
to the Faculty of CS & IT at the University of Medical Sciences and Technology in Sudan. He
has received his Bachelors in Computer Science and Masters in Computer Applications from
Dr. S. Raviraja, PhD, University of Mysore, India. Also he has a PhD from University of Honolulu, US in which he
PDRF., built a multilingual script classification & recognition of African Language Scripts. Also
Founder Chairman, served as Post Doctoral Research Fellow at University of Malaya. This contemporary research
Royal Research from several perspectives (such as image process, robotic/ computer vision, 3G mobile
Foundation, application on controlling and monitoring) has met the necessity of addressing many of the
Mysore, India. theoretical, practical and methodological issues surrounding research on AI.
Former Employee, Raviraja started his career with Motorola (India) as Software Engineer, later as Software
Dept. Of Artificial Analyst and then as Project lead in reputed software companies in India, such as Pentsoft
Intelligence Technologies Pvt Ltd, and Raman InfoTech Ltd. He was then working as a research scholar
University of Malaya, and later as Assistant Professor university in Ethiopian, few years later continued his academic
Kuala Lumpur, and research career with university in Sudan working on automated detection of malaria. He
Malaysia. also served as dept. Head and Dean of the school in previous institutions. Later, had selection
from University of Malaya (Ranked 130 by THES QS 2010) as a Post Doctoral Research
Fellow. At present he is a founder chairman of Royal Research Foundation, a research institute
in India.
Raviraja has presented his research findings at several national, international conferences,
journals, workshops and also has innovation awards to his credit. He has previously taught,
examined students of India, Ethiopia, Sudan, Middle East countries, and Malaysia. During his
stay at UM he was also actively involved in teaching and supervising undergraduate and
postgraduate students. Formerly he was serving Editorial Member of Malaysian Journal of
Computer Science (ISI Indexed: ISSN 0127-9084) and ICTACT Journal of Soft Computing
(ISSN 0976-6561) etc., He is also member of Institute of Engineers India, Computer society of
India and several other professional associations. His research interest includes Medical &
Document Image Analysis, DIP, AI & Robotics and in Software Engineering Methodologies.
Geethanjali S D, Student, M.Tech, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, PES

College of Engineering, Mandya, India. She has received her Bachelors of Engineering in
Computer Science from Visvesvaraya Technological University, Belgaum, India.
She is interested in New Innovations and Research in Vision and Intelligence. At present she
has submitted her final thesis towards the award of M.Tech degree and working on a Research
S. D. Geethanjali, BE.,
Research Scholar, Project on Image Processing entitled An Automated Diagnosis and Classification of Parasitic
M.Tech Infected Blood smears using AI Techniques Under the guidance of Dr.S Raviraja, Founder,
Department of Royal Research Foundation, Mysore, India. Also she is working as a Research Associate at
Computer Science and Royal Research Foundation. Her Research areas of interest includes Image processing,
Engineering, Medical & Document Image Analysis, Computer vision. Currently working on newer
PES College of challenges and opportunities in the area of vision and intelligence towards his doctoral studies.
Engineering,
Mandya. India.

July- 2015, pp. 863-886
C Chethana received B.E in Computer Science and M.Tech in Computer Network

Engineering degrees from Vishveshvaraiah Technological University.
Chethana at present working as Assistant Professor in Computer Science and Engineering in
PES College of Engineering, Mandya. He has more than 7 years of teaching experience. He is
C Chethana, B.E, life member of ISTE and Research areas of interest includes Image processing, Medical &
M.Tech Document Image Analysis, Computer vision. Currently working on newer challenges and
Assistant Professor opportunities in the area of vision and intelligence towards his doctoral studies.
CS & E Department
PES College of
Engineering, Mandya,
Karnataka, India.
Dr. Kanthesh M Basalingappa, working as Asst. Professor, in Division of Molecular

Biology, Faculty of Life Sciences, JSS University, Mysuru. Prior to coming to the JSS
University he was a Post Doctoral Fellow at OUHSC, USA. He has received his Master of
Sciences in Microbiology from Kuvempu University, Davangere and Ph.D. from Dept. of
Medical Microbiology, Dr.ALM PGIBMS, Madras University, Chennai. His main work on
Dr. Kanthesh BM,
Molecular characterization of Hepatitis B and C virus infection in certain tribal population of
M.Sc., Ph.D, PDRF
Tamilnadu India. Also served as Post Doctoral Fellow at University of Malaya, West Virginia
Asst. Professor,
University, USA and Oklahoma University.
Division of Molecular
In USA main research work is focused on various aspects of cancer biology at the molecular
Biology,
level. Specific research areas include: (a) Regulation of gene expression at the level of mRNA
Faculty of Life
stability and translation, (b) Cancer Stem Cells. (c) Mechanism of hepatitis C virus induced
Sciences,
Liver Carcinogenesis. (d) Electrolyte transport processes that regulate colonic fluid movement
JSS University,
during physiological and pathophysiological (diarrhea and ulcerative colitis) conditions.
Mysuru, India.
Kanthesh BM after completing his Ph.D. he got Post Doctoral Fellowship from University
Malaya, Kuala Lumpur. His main research area is Arbovirus infections, in that they done
patented work on “Early detection of BK virus using molecular methods”. For his excellent
work Attained Malaysia Prestigious Bio-Malaysia Gold medal Award.
Kanthesh has presented his research findings at several national, international conferences,
journals and workshops. He has previously taught and supervising undergraduate postgraduate
students. He is also Professional and Scientific Memberships in, American Association for
Cancer Research (AACR), Life Member of Indian Association of Applied Microbiology
(IAAM), Life Member of Indian Association of Biomedical Scientists (IABMS), Indian
Association of Medical Microbiologist (IAMM). At present he is a having collaboration with
Royal Research Foundation, a research institute in India.
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The Classiﬁcation and Recognition of Plasmodium Parasite in Prediction of

Article · August 2015

S. Raviraja Kanthesh M Basalingappa

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Computational Model and Cognitive Neuro Science. View project

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A. Malaria Infected Areas:

© 2015, IJARCSSE All Rights Reserved Page | 863

Fig 1: Malaria Endemic Areas Fig 2: Malaria Endemic Areas

Fig 3 Malaria zones in India

D. Malaria rapid diagnostic test:

© 2015, IJARCSSE All Rights Reserved Page | 864

Fig 6: Malaria microscopy Fig 7: Stained slide

F. Malaria Transmission cycle:

Fig 8: Malaria Transmission Cycle

© 2015, IJARCSSE All Rights Reserved Page | 865

II. LITERATURE REVIEW

© 2015, IJARCSSE All Rights Reserved Page | 866

© 2015, IJARCSSE All Rights Reserved Page | 867

© 2015, IJARCSSE All Rights Reserved Page | 868

© 2015, IJARCSSE All Rights Reserved Page | 869

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TABLE 1: CLASSIFICATION OF MALARIA PARASITES

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Fig 9: Malarial Parasites of Man: Differential Characters of Erythrocytic Phases.

Fig 10 Fig 11 Fig 12 Fig 13

Fig 14: Laboratory investigation

Microscopical laboratory techniques for investigation includes

Fig 15: Preliminary identification of parasites in the thick films

Fig 16: Digitization of a continuous image

© 2015, IJARCSSE All Rights Reserved Page | 875

© 2015, IJARCSSE All Rights Reserved Page | 877

Fig 18: HOG descriptor algorithm

Masks to compute derivatives and gradients

Fig 19: ANN Multilayer perceptron

© 2015, IJARCSSE All Rights Reserved Page | 879

Fig 20: The System Processing procedures

Fig 21: Classification and Recognition system

© 2015, IJARCSSE All Rights Reserved Page | 880

TABLE 3: MALARIA TYPE CLINICAL DATA SAMPLES.

TABLE 4: TRAIN AND TEST DATA SAMPLES.

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TABLE 6: THE DEFINITION OF TRUE POSITIVES/NEGATIVES

Fig 23: ROC Curve

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© 2015, IJARCSSE All Rights Reserved Page | 883

© 2015, IJARCSSE All Rights Reserved Page | 884

Geethanjali S D, Student, M.Tech, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, PES

© 2015, IJARCSSE All Rights Reserved Page | 885

C Chethana received B.E in Computer Science and M.Tech in Computer Network

Dr. Kanthesh M Basalingappa, working as Asst. Professor, in Division of Molecular

© 2015, IJARCSSE All Rights Reserved Page | 886

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