This work presents a method for liver isolation in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) abdomen images. It is based on a priori statistical information about the shape of the liver obtained from a training set using the segmentation approach. Morphological watershed algorithm is used as a key technique as it is a simple and intuitive method, producing a complete division of the image in separated regions even if the contrast is poor, and it is fast, with possibility for parallel implementation. To overcome the over-segmentation problem of the watershed process, image preprocessing and postprocessing are applied. Morphological smoothing, Gaussian smoothing, intensity thresholding, gradient computation and gradient thresholding are proposed for preprocessing with morphological and graph based region adjacent list constructed for region merging. A new integrated region similarity function is also defined for region merging control. The proposed method produces good isolation of liver in axial MRI images of the abdomen, as is shown in this paper.
Histological examination of serial sections through the abdomen of workers of three species of Myopias ants revealed the presence of several exocrine glands. These include the common venom and Dufour glands as well as the pygidial gland, but also more specific sternal glands and glands associated with the sting base and the gonostyli. Two of these glands have not been reported previously among ants: one is the paired oblong plate gland, that occurs next to the oblong plate and may have a pheromonal function. The other novel gland is the paired sting shaft gland, that occurs at the dorsal side in the proximal region of the sting shaft. A remarkable characteristic of these Myopias ants is that all glands of class-3 show ducts with gradually widening internal diameter. Myopias emeryi shows a clearly more simple variety of abdominal glands than Myopias maligna and M. sp.1.