Device for bacteria classification and pretreatment device for bacteria test

Abstract

When automatically classified results are different from judgment of a laboratory technician, the laboratory technician has to reselect the bacterial colonies one-by-one to be a pickup colony through watching the displayed image. To get rid of the inconvenience, provided is a pretreatment device for a bacteria test comprising: a specification unit by which an operator instructs to specify the number of bacterial colonies and the increased/decreased number of the bacterial colonies to be displayed; and a display unit for displaying classification results obtained following the operator's instruction. The pretreatment device for a bacteria test facilitates the automatically classified results to be brought close to the judgment of the laboratory technician, resulting in the saving of the time required for checking the appropriate bacterial colonies for the pickup colony.

1 . A device for bacteria classification comprising:
 an imaging unit for taking an image in a petri dish including bacterial colonies therein;   a display unit for displaying the image in the petri dish; and   a classification unit for classifying the bacterial colonies in the petri dish based on a feature quantity thereof, wherein   the bacterial colonies once classified are reclassified based on the classification number specified by an operator and the feature quantity of each bacterial colony.   
     
     
         2 . The device for bacteria classification as described in  claim 1 , wherein any of a plurality of groups adjacent in a distribution space that is calculated by a multivariate analysis of the feature quantities, are made to be one group, if the classification number needs to be decreased. 
     
     
         3 . The device for bacteria classification as described in  claim 1 , wherein any of a plurality of groups in a distribution space that is calculated by a multivariate analysis of the feature quantities, are made to be divided into a plurality of groups, if the classification number needs to be increased. 
     
     
         4 . The device for bacteria classification as described in  claim 1 , further comprising an interface for increasing/decreasing the number of candidate bacterial colonies, corresponding to the classification results of the bacterial colonies in the petri dish, in accordance with the classification number specified by the operator, wherein the device classifies the bacterial colonies following a specified degree of the increased/decreased number of the bacterial colonies. 
     
     
         5 . The device for bacteria classification as described in  claim 4 , wherein the classification following the specified degree of the increased/decreased number of the bacterial colonies represents the feature quantities of the bacterial colonies by a Mahalanobis' generalized distance, thereby to be performed by modulating a threshold. 
     
     
         6 . A device for bacteria classification comprising: an imaging unit for taking an image in a petri dish; a display unit for displaying the image in the petri dish; a pickup colony unit for picking up bacterial colonies in the petri dish,
 the device further comprising:   a classification unit for classifying the bacterial colonies in the petri dish into the classification number of groups specified by an operator, wherein the classification unit classifies the bacterial colonies by a feature quantity of each bacterial colony.   
     
     
         7 . The device for bacteria classification as described in  claim 1 , wherein the specified classification number and classification results obtained following the specified classification number, are stored as history data. 
     
     
         8 . The device for bacteria classification as described in  claim 4 , wherein the specified degree of the increased/decreased number of the candidate bacterial colonies and classification results obtained following the specified degree thereof, are stored as history data. 
     
     
         9 . A pretreatment device for a bacteria test comprising:
 the device for bacteria classification as described in  claim 1 ;   a selection unit for selecting bacterial colonies in a petri dish; and   a pickup colony unit for picking up the selected bacterial colonies.   
     
     
         10 . A pretreatment device for a bacteria test comprising:
 the device for bacteria classification as described in  claim 6 ;   a selection unit for selecting bacterial colonies in a petri dish; and   a pickup colony unit for picking up the selected bacterial colonies.