Jin Sook Kang , Jin Sook Kim , Eui Young Cha

The KIPS Transactions:PartB , Vol. 11, No. 3, pp. 281-288, Jun. 2004
10.3745/KIPSTB.2004.11.3.281,   PDF Download:

Abstract

In order to extract and analyze complex features of the behavior of animals in response to external stimuli such as toxic chemicals, we implemented an adaptive computational method to characterize changes in the behavior of chironomids in response to treatment with the insecticide, diazinon. In this paper, we propose an energy minimization model to extract the features of response behavior of chironomids under toxic treatment, which is applied on the image of velocity vectors. It is based on the improved active contour model and the variations of the energy functional, which are produced by the evolving active contour. The movement tracks of individual chironomid larvae were continuously measured in 0.25 second intervals during the survey period of 4 days before and after the treatment. Velocity on each sample track at 0.25 second intervals was collected in 15-20 minute periods and was subsequently checked to effectively reveal behavioral states of the specimens tested. Active contour was formed around each collection of velocities to gradually evolve to find the optimal boundaries of velocity collections through processes of energy minimization. The active contour which is improved by T. Chan and L. Vese is used in this paper. The energy minimization model effectively revealed characteristic patterns of behavior for the treatment versus no treatment, and identified changes in behavioral states as the time progressed.

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