{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,11,22]],"date-time":"2025-11-22T17:07:56Z","timestamp":1763831276189,"version":"build-2065373602"},"reference-count":30,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"3","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2022,3,19]],"date-time":"2022-03-19T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1647648000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["J. Imaging"],"abstract":"<jats:p>(1) Background: Ultrasonography is the main method used during pregnancy to assess the fetal growth, amniotic fluid, umbilical cord and placenta. The placenta\u2019s structure suffers dynamic modifications throughout the whole pregnancy and many of these changes, in which placental microcalcifications are by far the most prominent, are related to the process of aging and maturation and have no effect on fetal wellbeing. However, when placental microcalcifications are noticed earlier during pregnancy, they could suggest a major placental dysfunction with serious consequences for the fetus and mother. For better detectability of microcalcifications, we propose a new approach based on improving the clarity of details and the analysis of the placental structure using first and second order statistics, and fractal dimension. (2) Methods: The methodology is based on four stages: (i) cropping the region of interest and preprocessing steps; (ii) feature extraction, first order\u2014standard deviation (SD), skewness (SK) and kurtosis (KR)\u2014and second order\u2014contrast (C), homogeneity (H), correlation (CR), energy (E) and entropy (EN)\u2014are computed from a gray level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM) and fractal dimension (FD); (iii) statistical analysis (t-test); (iv) classification with the K-Nearest Neighbors algorithm (K-NN algorithm) and performance comparison with results from the support vector machine algorithm (SVM algorithm). (3) Results: Experimental results obtained from real clinical data show an improvement in the detectability and visibility of placental microcalcifications.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/jimaging8030081","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2022,3,20]],"date-time":"2022-03-20T21:30:14Z","timestamp":1647811814000},"page":"81","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":6,"title":["A New Approach in Detectability of Microcalcifications in the Placenta during Pregnancy Using Textural Features and K-Nearest Neighbors Algorithm"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"8","author":[{"given":"Mihaela","family":"Miron","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Computer Science and Information Technology, Faculty of Automation, Computers, Electrical Engineering and Electronics, Dunarea de Jos University of Galati, 47 Domneasca Str., 800008 Galati, Romania"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-5934-329X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Simona","family":"Moldovanu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Computer Science and Information Technology, Faculty of Automation, Computers, Electrical Engineering and Electronics, Dunarea de Jos University of Galati, 47 Domneasca Str., 800008 Galati, Romania"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Bogdan Ioan","family":"\u0218tef\u0103nescu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Clinical Surgical, Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy, Dunarea de Jos University of Galati, 47 Domneasca Str., 800008 Galati, Romania"},{"name":"Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Clinical Emergency Hospital \u201cSf. Ap. Andrei\u201d Gala\u021bi, 800578 Galati, Romania"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Mihai","family":"Culea","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Computer Science and Information Technology, Faculty of Automation, Computers, Electrical Engineering and Electronics, Dunarea de Jos University of Galati, 47 Domneasca Str., 800008 Galati, Romania"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Sorin Marius","family":"Pavel","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Electronics and Telecommunications, Faculty of Automation, Computers, Electrical Engineering and Electronics, Dunarea de Jos University of Galati, 47 Domneasca Str., 800008 Galati, Romania"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-1362-909X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Anisia Luiza","family":"Culea-Florescu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Electronics and Telecommunications, Faculty of Automation, Computers, Electrical Engineering and Electronics, Dunarea de Jos University of Galati, 47 Domneasca Str., 800008 Galati, Romania"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2022,3,19]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"419","DOI":"10.1016\/j.bspc.2012.02.002","article-title":"Ultrasound image enhancement: A review","volume":"7","author":"Ortiz","year":"2012","journal-title":"Biomed. 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