Cell Analysis Device Usability Filtering for Accurate Counting
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Existing methods for counting cells in culture containers lack accuracy and efficiency, often due to issues like blurriness, container edges, and non-representative images, which affect the reliability of cell counting.
Innovation Solution
A cell analysis device and method that includes a cell-image acquiring unit, a usability determining unit to assess image quality, and a number-of-cells calculating unit, which calculates cell counts by averaging usable images and excluding non-usable ones based on criteria like blurriness, container edges, and image uniqueness.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If cell counting is performed using phase-contrast images, then cell shapes can be recognized, but counting accuracy deteriorates due to blurriness and container edges appearing in images
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary action by performing usability determination on images before they are used for cell counting. The system evaluates images for blurriness, container edges, and other quality issues beforehand, and only uses images that pass the usability criteria. This preliminary filtering ensures that only high-quality images contribute to the cell count, thereby improving counting accuracy while maintaining reliability.
2Measurement precision
If multiple images are acquired for counting, then counting accuracy improves through averaging, but the time required for analysis increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary usability determination on each image before it is included in the averaging process. By evaluating image quality in advance and excluding unusable images, the system ensures that only valid images are processed further. This preliminary filtering reduces wasted computation time on poor-quality images while still benefiting from the accuracy improvement of averaging multiple valid images.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes the parameter of image selection criteria by introducing usability determination based on multiple factors (blurriness, container edges, etc.). This parameter change allows the system to dynamically select which images to include in the analysis, optimizing the balance between using enough images for accuracy and limiting the number to reduce analysis time.
3Measurement precision
If images with container edges are excluded, then counting accuracy improves, but the number of usable images decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies parameter changes by establishing specific usability criteria that define which images are acceptable for counting. The system evaluates images based on multiple parameters including the presence of container edges, blurriness, and other quality factors. By changing the selection parameters to be more selective, the system ensures that only images meeting the quality standards are used, improving accuracy even though fewer images qualify.
Data Source
AI summary
For the purpose of counting the number of cells within a culture container readily and accurately, a cell analysis device includes a cell-image acquiring unit that acquires an image of cells within a culture container in which the cells are cultured, a usability determining unit that determines whether or not the image acquired by the cell-image acquiring unit is usable, a number-of-cells counting unit that counts the number of cells within the image determined as being usable by the usability determining unit, and a number-of-cells calculating unit that calculates the number of cells within the culture container based on the number of cells counted by the number-of-cells counting unit.