Bhargav Bhatkalkar

The title of my Ph.D. thesis is “DETECTION AND GRADING OF IDIOPATHIC MACULAR HOLE IN COLOR FUNDUS IMAGES USING DEEP LEARNING TECHNIQUES”. The research is focused on the design and development of an automated retinal diagnosis tool using Machine learning techniques. A set of novel deep learning models are designed and implemented for the detection and grading of a critical retinal disease named Idiopathic Macular Hole in color fundus images. During the retinal screening programs, the ophthalmologists will have to manually detect the idiopathic macular hole cases from the huge number of samples collected. The proposed tool help reduce manual labor and aid the ophthalmologists by precisely detecting and grading the idiopathic macular holes from the given samples in a relatively short period of time. The tool also saves costs incurred in retinal screening programs by discarding inadequate quality images on the go and alarming the technicians to recapture the images with good quality.

The course has the core subjects specific to Computer Science and Computer Engineering. The final year project titled “Secret and Secure Data Transmission over Covert Channels” is completed under the guidance of Dr. Roshan Fernandes, Associate Professor, NAM Institute of Technology, India. The research outcome of this project is published in ELSEVIER Proceedings of International Conference on “Emerging Research in Computing, Information, Communication, and Applications,” pp. 182-186, ERCICA, 2013. The objective of the project is to securely transfer secret information over the internet. Th e project uses Steganography, Cryptography, and Data Compression to implement 3 layered security during sensitive data transmission. As an additional security measure, the project also utilizes the concept of covert channels to hide the data during its transit by manipulating the unused bit s in the network protocol packet headers.

The course has subjects specific to Computer Science and Engineering. The degree is completed without having a backlog in any of the semesters. The final year project titled “Medical Agency management” is completed under the guidance of Dr .G C Bhanuprakash, Professor, Sir M Visvesvaraya Institute of Technology, India.

Secured 8th rank in the state in the final year exam. The degree has more emphasis on practical as well as computer hardware related subjects. Mini projects were implemented in C++ and Java programming languages.