IMAGE-ANALYSIS AS A RAPID PATHOGEN DETECTION METHOD FOR USE IN POULTRY-INDUSTRY

An image analysis system was developed and evaluated as a method for r apid detection of Salmonella typhimurium in pure culture and in chicke n washes. A direct immunomagnetic separation and immunofluorescent sta ining technique was developed to capture and identify target cells, Di gital images were acquired and segmented into background and bacteria. Bacteria were enumerated using a custom designed image analysis softw are, The image analyses results were compared with manual enumeration. A correlation coefficient of 0.78 was established between manual and image analysis counts. In addition, the difference between the manual and the image analysis bacterial counts in individual images was low. Image analysis took an average of 15 s to analyze an image, The result s indicate that the proposed system has the potential to be used as a rapid screening procedure for bacterial detection in the food industry .