Fuzzy Statistical Matrices for Cell Classification

Abstract

In this paper, we generalize image (texture) statistical descriptors and propose algorithms that improve their efficacy. Recently, a new method showed how the popular Co-Occurrence Matrix (COM) can be modified into a fuzzy version (FCOM) which is more effective and robust to noise. Here, we introduce new fuzzy versions of two additional higher order statistical matrices: the Run Length Matrix (RLM) and the Size Zone Matrix (SZM). We define the fuzzy zones and propose an efficient algorithm to compute the descriptors. We demonstrate the advantage of the proposed improvements over several state-of-the-art methods on three tasks from quantitative cell biology: analyzing and classifying Human Epithelial type 2 (HEp-2) cells using Indirect Immunofluorescence protocol (IFF).