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However, the variability in vessel structures and the marginal distinction between arteries and veins poses challenges to accurate A\/V classification. This paper proposes a novel Multi-task Segmentation and Classification Network (MSC-Net) that utilizes the vessel features extracted by a specific module to improve A\/V classification and alleviate the aforementioned limitations. The proposed method introduces three modules to enhance the performance of A\/V classification: a Multi-scale Vessel Extraction (MVE) module, which distinguishes between vessel pixels and background using semantics of vessels, a Multi-structure A\/V Extraction (MAE) module that classifies arteries and veins by combining the original image with the vessel features produced by the MVE module, and a Multi-source Feature Integration (MFI) module that merges the outputs from the former two modules to obtain the final A\/V classification results. Extensive empirical experiments verify the high performance of the proposed MSC-Net for retinal A\/V classification over state-of-the-art methods on several public datasets.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/e25081148","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2023,7,31]],"date-time":"2023-07-31T09:22:38Z","timestamp":1690795358000},"page":"1148","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":7,"title":["Multi-Task Segmentation and Classification Network for Artery\/Vein Classification in Retina Fundus"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"25","author":[{"given":"Junyan","family":"Yi","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Computer Science and Technology, Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Beijing 100044, China"}]},{"given":"Chouyu","family":"Chen","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Computer Science and Technology, Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Beijing 100044, China"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2023,7,31]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2081","DOI":"10.1016\/j.ophtha.2014.05.013","article-title":"Global Prevalence of Glaucoma and Projections of Glaucoma Burden through 2040: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis","volume":"11","author":"Tham","year":"2014","journal-title":"Ophthalmology"},{"key":"ref_2","first-page":"20","article-title":"Vascular Complications of Diabetes: Mechanisms of Injury and Protective Factors","volume":"1","author":"King","year":"2013","journal-title":"Cell Metab."},{"key":"ref_3","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"442","DOI":"10.1161\/01.HYP.0000140772.40322.ec","article-title":"Retinal Arteriolar Narrowing Is Associated With 5-Year Incident Severe Hypertension","volume":"44","author":"Smith","year":"2004","journal-title":"Hypertension"},{"key":"ref_4","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"438","DOI":"10.1038\/nri3459","article-title":"Immunology of age-related macular degeneration","volume":"6","author":"Ambati","year":"2013","journal-title":"Nat. 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