Hitachi, Ltd.

Agency of Industrial Science and Technology

Ministry of International Trade & Industry

Hajime Matsushita

Ryohei Yabe

Toshiaki Yokobayashi

Masaaki Kurimura

Shinichi Sakuraba

Yoshimasa Shimura

Satosi Mizuno

Isao Fujimoto

Katsuhiro Ojima

Tsuyoshi Nishida

A stain discriminating apparatus in which light rays having at least light component having a wavelength in a predetermined range are projected to a cell sample to discriminate the staining method by which the cell sample has been stained on the basis of the light intensity of the light component transmitted through the sample and having the wavelength (530 nm) in the predetermined range. An automatic cell sample classifying apparatus in which a plurality of cell sample slides are sequentially fed to the stain discriminating apparatus is used to determine the staining method by which the cell samples have been stained, respectively. One of the examination/classification programs previously stored in a memory is read out according to the staining method as discriminated and the cell samples are processed in accordance with the program as read out.

Automatic cell sample classifying apparatus

A first video signal is obtained by picking up an image of a sample by a TV camera. A second video signal representing character information regarding the sample is derived from a memory connected to a computer system. The first and second signals are superposed to obtain a sum signal representing a combined single scene, and the sum signal is displayed as a visible picture on a display device. Before the step of superposition of the first and second video signals, at least one of the video signals may be multiplied by a weight.

Cell classification apparatus capable of displaying a scene obtained by

An automatic focusing control method for microscope includes preliminarily determining and storing respective in-focus positions of an objective lens of the microscope for a plurality of points on a stage of the microscope prior to observation and measurement of a sample by the microscope. Upon actual measurement after the sample has been mounted on the microscope stage, an approximate in-focus position of the objective lens for the sample is determined on the basis of the stored in-focus positions of the objective lens for at least one of the plurality of points in the vicinity of the sample. Then, the objective lens is moved to the determined approximate in-focus position at a high speed, and a usual automatic focusing is thereafter carried out, thereby making it possible to perform the automatic focusing operation rapidly and accurately.

Automatic focusing control method for microscope

An automatic cell analyzing system for automatically analyzing a large number of sample slides prepared for cellular samples. The sample slides include a plurality of sample slide sets each prepared by different staining methods for each sample. Cellular images obtained by observing through a microscope the numerous sample slides picked out sequentially are analyzed by an image fetching/feature extracting circuit, the resulting morphological features of the individual cells being converted into digital information to be stored. Upon completion of the analysis for all the sample slides, the digital information obtained from the sample slide is synthetically examined for each associated sample to thereby classify the sample into one of predetermined categories.

Cellular analysis system

After a slide glass having blood smeared thereon has been mounted on a movable stage of a microscope, the stage is moved to position a view field of the microscope to the center of the slide glass. Then, the stage is moved in one direction along the length of the slide glass. The view field of the microscope moves as the stage is moved so that red blood corpuscle densities on the smear are measured sequentially along the length of the slide glass. Based on the measurement a computer determines an optimum test area on the smear for the recognition of white blood corpuscles and the stage is moved to a start position of the optimum test area by an instruction from the computer. Thereafter, a normal stage scan operation for detecting the white blood corpuscles is carried out and the detected white blood corpuscles are automatically classified.

Method and apparatus for recognizing smears

An apparatus for the preparation of blood smear specimens is constructed to successively discharge glass slides from a stack. A first glass slide is laid horizontally near the point of discharge and a second glass slide is discharged into a slanted position with its lower edge in contact with the leading end of horizontal glass slide. A drop of blood is applied near the leading end of the horizontal glass slide behind the position of contact of the glass slide in the slanted position and the horizontal glass slide is advanced to smear the blood onto the horizontal slide using the slanted glass slide as a coater. The slanted glass slide is then allowed to fall into the horizontal position and another glass slide is discharged from the stack into the slanted position, whereafter the process is repeated.

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Katsuta, Japan

Hajime Matsushita