Project Reports 1997
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	Individual Ovarian Follicle Dynamics (Preliminary project) Leader:  Assoc. Prof. Dr. Damjan Zazula Participants: Božidar Potocnik, Bogdan Viher Project partners: General Hospital of Maribor, Slovenia (Prof. Dr. Veljko Vlaisavljević) and the Institute of Biology of Göttingen, Germany (Dr. Mauvis A. Gore) Financed by: Preliminary phase of the project has been financed by each partner separately Duration: 1995-1997 In order to answer crucial questions on the possibilities of automated computer-assisted analysis of ultrasound recordings of women's ovaries, we initiated a two-year preliminary project which ended in 1997. We tried to detect ovarian follicles and measure their features, such as their position, area, contour, echogenicity, etc. A program package called "xultra" was written in the C programming language for X-Windows. The program works in two phases: first, it looks for the ovary, then it detects follicles within the ovary. The ovary search is based on a new technique applying the histograms of edges. An image is pre-processed by despeckle filter and, afterwards, the edges are extracted by the Kirsch operator. The side minima in the vertical and horizontal histogram of the edges determine the ovary position. Follicles must be found within the ovary using thresholding. The efficiency of such an automated approach is, compared to the expert's readings for the dominant follicles, 88.6 %. However, we also tested an approach with cellular automata. In this case, we analysed the images in two consecutive steps: firstly, we constructed an immune system for all the potentially important objects in the image, then an attack on the black cells was initiated. All the cells whose immune system protected them formed black regions that were recognised as ovarian follicles with more than 80 % probability. Moreover, taking only dominant follicles into account the sensitivity of the method increased to 100 %. Seven conference papers have been published in conjunction with this project, and in addition two more journal papers are being printed and two master theses will be completed soon.
	Multiplatform Computer-Performance Monitoring Tool Leader:  Andrej Šoštaric, MSc Participants: Milan Gabor Project partners: SWITCH Zürich, Switzterland (Dr. Andreas Gygi) Financed by: Town Research Council of Murska Sobota Duration: 14 days This is an example of a project which started in the System Software Laboratory of Maribor, Slovenia, without external financial support. Already producing results, it was adapted to the needs of the academic network of Switzerland, SWITCH. This program package acts as a multiplatform computer performance measuring tool constructed on three-tier architecture. The central server collects all the data from the observed network systems. The programs are written in Java and, consequently, platform independent. The same is true for the clients. They connect to the server in order to follow the events in the network, of course, only to a degree permitted by the client's privileges. Every measured system must run a special deamon whose duty is to communicate with the central server and send the desired data. The use of Java assures security and protection of data and all access is verified before being granted or denied by the central server. Only a privileged owner may change the settings on the central server. At the moment, the MTool package supporst the UNIX and Linux operating systems. MTool has been described in two published conference papers and presented at two workshops, whilst one additional journal paper is in print.
	Installation of Web Server with Courseware in Java at the Technical Museum of Innovation, San Jose, USA Leader:  Prof. Dr. Zvonko Fazarinc Participants: Milan Gabor Project partners: Hewlett-Packard Labs, Palo Alto, and Technical Museum of Innovation, San Jose Financed by: Hewlett-Packard Labs Duration: 2,5 months The Hewlett-Packard Labs from Palo Alto, USA, supported an installation of the Web server in the Technical Museum of Innovation of San Jose. The server runs under both Windows NT and under Linux. We ported to Java and installed there the applets for the Conductivity in Electric Wires course by Z. Fazarinc. These applets will serve nation-wide as educational tools for American high-school teachers.

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