Detailed Description
Embodiments of the present application are described in detail below, examples of which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings, wherein like or similar reference numerals refer to like or similar elements or elements having like or similar functions throughout. The embodiments described below by referring to the drawings are illustrative and intended to explain the present application and should not be construed as limiting the application.
The following describes a navigation path planning method based on a pulmonary tracheal tree according to an embodiment of the present application with reference to the accompanying drawings.
Fig. 1 is a flow chart of a navigation path planning method based on a pulmonary tracheal tree according to an embodiment of the present application.
As shown in fig. 1, the navigation path planning method based on the pulmonary tracheal tree comprises the following steps:
step 101, acquiring coordinates of an input focus position.
The focus position may be a pulmonary nodule position or other pulmonary focus positions, which is not limited.
For example, the coordinates of the lesion location may refer to the coordinates of the lesion location in a three-dimensional reconstructed model of the lung.
Step 102, determining the number of the bronchus point with the focus position nearest to the nearest position by inquiring the coordinate distribution array in the lung according to the coordinates of the focus position.
According to the application, the intra-lung coordinate allocation array can be obtained according to the distance between each coordinate point and each bronchus point in the intra-lung space.
Wherein the intrapulmonary coordinate allocation array may include a number of a bronchial point where each coordinate point in the intrapulmonary space is closest to. Wherein, the bronchial point with each coordinate point nearest to each coordinate point may refer to the bronchial point nearest to each coordinate point, and the bronchial point may refer to a point on the bronchus, for example, may be a point on the bronchial centerline.
Because the intrapulmonary coordinate distribution array comprises the number of the bronchus point with the nearest coordinate point in the intrapulmonary space, the coordinate of the focus position can be compared with the coordinate of the coordinate point in the intrapulmonary space to find the coordinate point which is consistent with the coordinate of the focus position in the intrapulmonary space, and then the bronchus point with the nearest coordinate point which is consistent with the coordinate of the focus position in the intrapulmonary space is the bronchus point with the nearest focus position, so that the number of the bronchus point with the nearest focus position can be found.
And 103, taking the bronchial point with the focus position closest to the focus as a child node, and reading the father node of the bronchial point with the focus position closest to the focus position by inquiring the coordinate sequence of the bronchial point according to the serial number of the child node, and continuously circularly reading the read father node as the child node until the read father node is the tracheal entrance position.
In the application, the bronchus points of the lung can be ordered based on the lung tracheobronchial tree so as to obtain a bronchus point coordinate sequence.
In the application, the bronchial point coordinate sequence can comprise the number of each bronchial point in the pulmonary tracheal tree and the number of the father node of each bronchial point, namely the bronchial point coordinate sequence records the father-son relationship among the bronchial points in the pulmonary tracheal tree.
In the application, the number of the child node can be compared with the number of the bronchus point in the bronchus point coordinate sequence by taking the bronchus point with the nearest focus position as the child node, if the number of a certain bronchus point in the bronchus point coordinate sequence is consistent with the number of the child node, the father node of the bronchus point is the father node of the child node, then the father node is taken as the child node, the father node of the child node can be determined according to the father-son relationship among the bronchus points recorded in the bronchus point coordinate sequence, and the father node is continuously taken as the child node to circularly read the father node until the read father node is the tracheal entrance position.
Illustratively, the tracheal entrance location may be the location where the bronchoscope first enters the body, such as the throat location.
Step 104, determining a navigation path from the tracheal entrance position to the focus position according to the nodes read in the circulation process.
In the application, based on the father-son relationship of the nodes read in the circulation process, the sequence of the nodes read in the circulation process from the position of the inlet of the air pipe to the position of the focus can be determined, so that the navigation path from the position of the inlet of the air pipe to the position of the focus can be obtained.
For example, the focus position is x, the bronchial point closest to the focus position x is a6, the parent node of the bronchial point a6 is a5, the parent node of the bronchial point a5 is a4, the parent node of the bronchial point a4 is a3, the parent node of the bronchial point a3 is a2, the parent node of the bronchial point a2 is a1, and the parent node of the bronchial point a1 is the tracheal entrance position, and then the navigation path from the tracheal entrance position to the focus position is tracheal entrance position-a 1-a2-a 3-a 4-a5-a 6-focus position.
In the embodiment of the application, the number of the bronchial point closest to the focus position is determined by inquiring the coordinate distribution array in the lung according to the coordinate of the focus position, then the bronchial point closest to the focus position is taken as a child node, the father node of the child node is read by inquiring the coordinate sequence of the bronchial point, the father node is continuously taken as the child node to circularly read the father node until the read father node is the tracheal entrance position, and the navigation path from the tracheal entrance position to the focus position is obtained based on the node read in the circulation process. Therefore, the number of the bronchus point closest to the focus position is determined based on the number of the bronchus point closest to the coordinate point in the lung space recorded in the lung internal coordinate distribution array, the parent node is continuously and circularly read by taking the bronchus point closest to the focus position as the child node based on the parent-child relationship between the bronchus points recorded in the bronchus point coordinate sequence until the read parent node is the trachea entrance position, and therefore, the navigation path from the trachea entrance position to the focus position can be rapidly determined based on the lung internal coordinate distribution array and the bronchus point coordinate sequence, and the real-time navigation of the bronchus path is realized.
Fig. 2 is a flow chart of another navigation path planning method based on a pulmonary tracheal tree according to an embodiment of the present application.
As shown in fig. 2, the method for obtaining the bronchial coordinate sequence may include the following steps:
step 201, constructing a three-dimensional spatial pulmonary tracheal tree.
According to the method, a three-dimensional spatial pulmonary tracheal tree can be constructed according to pulmonary CT scanning plain scan data or enhanced data.
Illustratively, the preliminary tracheal tree may be obtained by reasoning through the tracheal tree segmentation model, and the rendering effect of the preliminary tracheal tree in the three-dimensional space may be as shown in fig. 3. The uppermost part of the preliminary tracheal tree can be the throat part of a human body, and the left branch and the right branch below are continuously branched because a plurality of capillaries are continuously branched and extend into the lung to reach the edge part. It should be noted that the overall bronchial tree structure conforms to the one-to-many case, i.e. one upper branch always branches into multiple lower branches, whereas one lower branch usually corresponds to only one upper branch.
Further, the preliminary tracheal tree may be post-processed to remove excess impurities, where after removing excess impurities, it is necessary to ensure that the remaining portion is the same communication area, i.e. a portion where no break or individual piece exists.
Step 202, extracting the center line of bronchus from the pulmonary tracheal tree, and numbering the points on the center line to obtain the number of each point on the center line.
In the application, after a complete preliminary bronchial tree without fracture is obtained, the tracheal tree can be sequenced in the operation process, and the tracheal tree can be sequenced and then positioned, which is not limited. The positioning is performed after the sorting, so that the positioning speed can be improved, and the real-time interactive operation requirement is met.
According to the method, the center line of the bronchus can be extracted from the tracheobronchial tree, the center line of the bronchus is used for replacing the tracheobronchial tree, and the tracheobronchial tree is simplified to be used as a framework, so that the calculated amount can be reduced while the data amount is reduced.
In the application, the points on the central line of the bronchus can be numbered to obtain the number of each point on the central line. Wherein a point on the centerline of the bronchi may be referred to as a bronchi point.
In step 203, the points on the centerline are ordered to obtain a bronchial point coordinate sequence.
In the application, the tracheal entrance is taken as a starting point, the tracheal entrance is taken as a father node of the current circulation, the father node is taken as the center to search for the preset number of coordinate points in the preset range, if the coordinate points which are positioned on the central line and are not accessed exist in the preset number of coordinate points, the coordinate points which are positioned on the central line and are not accessed are taken as child nodes of the father node, the father node is recorded as the accessed node, the child node is taken as the father node, the father node is taken as the center to search for the preset number of coordinate points in the preset range to continuously search for the child node, and the father node is recorded as the accessed node until all the father nodes have no child nodes, and the coordinate sequence of the bronchus point is obtained.
Illustratively, the tracheal entrance may be the location where the bronchoscope first enters the human body, such as the throat.
The preset range and the preset number can be determined according to actual needs, and are not limited.
The specific algorithm may be that, by taking the uppermost point of the z axis as a starting point, and simultaneously taking the uppermost point as a current parent node, starting an initial cycle, searching for the 26 (3 x3, minus 1) positions of the parent node as the center in each cycle, if other points on the central line exist, the points are child nodes of the parent node, if a plurality of child nodes exist, the points are parent nodes of all the child nodes, entering the next cycle after finding the child nodes, changing the child nodes into the parent nodes, and searching for the child nodes of the child nodes, namely continuously recording the parent-child relationship. An array is maintained for recording the nodes that have been accessed, preventing endless loops. And automatically skipping if there are already accessed nodes in the child node. If the uppermost point of the z-axis is considered as the beginning, the entire family is made by continuously confirming the parent-child relationship by searching for 26 coordinates within a preset range of parent node coordinates, whether they are located on the mid-line and not recorded.
It can be seen that the above-mentioned sorting algorithm is continuously diffused from the uppermost part of the pulmonary tracheal tree along the central line to the periphery, and finally forms a sorted bronchial point coordinate sequence, the length of which is identical to the number of points on the central line, and it records the parent node number of each number.
Illustratively, the above-described tracheal tree ordering algorithm may be decomposed into:
(1) The uppermost point of the z-axis is taken as a starting point and simultaneously serves as a father node of the current cycle.
(2) A tuple is initialized to record the accessed nodes to prevent endless loops.
(3) The node is marked as an accessed point every time, and the total 26 positions of the front, back, upper, lower, left, right and oblique angles within the preset range of the coordinate position of the node are searched, and if other points on the central line exist and are not accessed, the points are child nodes of the father node. If there are no child nodes, the node ends.
(4) If there are multiple child nodes to the parent node of the current cycle, this parent node is the parent of all of these child nodes. These points may put a stack variable waiting to loop later.
(5) The points in the stack are read continuously and the next cycle is entered continuously until all parent nodes have no child nodes.
(6) The saved parent-child relationship is essentially an array number. The index of a node in the array may be the number of the node itself, and the corresponding value is the index of the parent node, that is, the number of the parent node.
Therefore, from the starting position of the tracheal tree, the points on the bronchial centerline can be ordered by continuously determining the parent-child relationship among the points on the bronchial centerline, and the bronchial point coordinate sequence is obtained.
In the embodiment of the application, the central line of the bronchus can be extracted from the constructed pulmonary tracheal tree, the points on the central line are numbered to obtain the number of each point on the central line, and the points on the central line are sequenced to obtain the coordinate sequence of the bronchus points. Therefore, by extracting the center line of the bronchus and numbering the points on the center line, the method for ordering the positions of the bronchus in the lung is realized, and reduces the calculated amount while reducing the data amount.
Fig. 4 is a flow chart of another navigation path planning method based on a pulmonary tracheal tree according to an embodiment of the present application.
As shown in fig. 4, the method for acquiring the intra-lung coordinate allocation array may include the following steps:
step 401, acquiring a three-dimensional lung reconstruction model.
In the application, a lung lobed lung segment training method can be adopted to obtain a lung three-dimensional reconstruction model.
Step 402, calculating distances between each coordinate point of the non-bronchi and all bronchi points in each layer in the space in the lung in batches from top to bottom along the three-dimensional lung reconstruction model.
Because the distance between one coordinate point and one bronchus point is calculated in sequence, the time consumption is relatively high, and therefore, in the application, the coordinate points in the lung can be processed in batches by introducing a matrix calculation method, and the calculation time is saved.
In order to prevent memory overflow, the method can perform batch calculation on the distance between each coordinate point of a non-bronchus and all bronchus points in the same layer in the space in the lung from top to bottom along the three-dimensional lung reconstruction model.
It is understood that each coordinate point in the intrapulmonary space may refer to a coordinate point remaining in the lung except for a point on the bronchi.
For example, the distance between two points may be expressed in terms of Euclidean distance, i.e., the sum of squares of the distances in the x, y, z axes.
Step 403, determining the bronchus point with the nearest distance between each coordinate point and all bronchus points according to the distance between each coordinate point and all bronchus points in each layer in the intrapulmonary space, and recording the serial number of the bronchus point with the nearest distance between each coordinate point to obtain the intrapulmonary coordinate distribution array.
In the application, for each coordinate point of each layer in the intrapulmonary space, the bronchial point with the smallest distance between all the bronchial points and each coordinate point can be determined as the bronchial point with the nearest distance between each coordinate point, so that each coordinate point in each intrapulmonary space can calculate one bronchial point with the nearest distance.
For the bronchus point with each coordinate point nearest to the nearest bronchus point, the number of the bronchus point with each coordinate point nearest to the nearest bronchus point can be recorded, so that the intra-lung coordinate allocation array can be obtained.
For example, a new three-dimensional array having the same dimensions as the intrapulmonary space may be maintained, wherein each point has an original intrapulmonary space corresponding thereto, except that a value corresponding to a point in the new array may be the number of the bronchial point closest to the point, and a value corresponding to each point in the old three-dimensional array may be 0 or 1 to indicate whether the lung exists.
Illustratively, the above-described intra-lung spatial coordinate assignment algorithm may be decomposed into:
(1) An array of the same size as the input lung is generated to record the number of the nearest bronchial points for all points.
(2) And (3) circulating along the z axis, acquiring coordinates of all points in the lung in a certain layer each time, namely eliminating all points in bronchi and non-lung areas, and reserving the rest points.
(3) The distances between all intrapulmonary points and all bronchial points are calculated per cycle, the euclidean distance can be used, and the number of the bronchial point with the shortest distance is recorded until the cycle is finished.
For example, the size of the lung is 100×500×500, and an array of the same dimension, i.e. an array of 100×500×500, is generated to record the numbers of the bronchus points closest to all coordinate points in the lung space.
According to the embodiment of the application, the distances between each coordinate point and all the bronchus points in each layer in the intrapulmonary space can be calculated in batches, the nearest bronchus point of each coordinate point is determined, and the number of the nearest bronchus point of each coordinate point is recorded, so that the nearest bronchus point can be allocated to each point in the intrapulmonary space, and the intrapulmonary space coordinate allocation is realized. The method for distributing the space coordinates in the lung can improve the calculation speed, save the calculation time and prevent the memory from overflowing.
After the bronchial point coordinate sequence and the intrapulmonary coordinate allocation array are obtained, real-time path reasoning can be performed. Assuming that a point in the lung is a lesion nodule in the lung, the physician wants to know how to navigate the bronchoscope or how the path from the throat to the nearest bronchial point at that point is. After the doctor selects the position of the nodule, the coordinates of the position of the nodule are input, and at the moment, the coordinate distribution array in the lung is available, so that the nearest bronchus point can be obtained by directly corresponding to the corresponding coordinates. The parent node of the node is known by comparing the bronchial points with the nearest bronchial points from the node position and sequencing the numbers of the bronchial points. And then comparing the numbers by using the father node again to know the father node of the father node. The continuous circulation can reach the throat directly, namely the initial father node. At this time, all the father node numbers which have undergone are saved, and an implementation path can be obtained.
The real-time navigation path reasoning process can be decomposed into:
(1) The doctor gives the coordinates of the location of a nodule in the lung.
(2) Substituting the position of the node coordinate in the intra-lung coordinate allocation array to acquire the number of the nearest bronchus point.
(3) And taking the nearest bronchus point of the node as a child node, reading the parent node, and continuously circularly reading the parent node as the child node until the initial parent node near the throat is reached.
(4) All nodes visited during the loop will be saved as the final path result.
For example, given the coordinates of the nodule location in fig. 5, the black spot on the centerline is the node visited during the cycle, and the black spot on the centerline is the navigation path from the throat location to the nodule location.
The navigation path planning method based on the lung tracheal tree can be applied to the auxiliary field of medical operation, such as the fields of diffusion type human trachea, blood vessels and the like. According to the navigation path planning method, a tree structure is constructed to perform three-dimensional modeling on human bronchi, and then the tree structure can be utilized to deduce paths in real time for the parts to be calculated, such as the nodules to be excised or other places to be detected by a bronchoscope, so that the purpose of assisting in operation path planning is achieved.
In order to achieve the above embodiment, the application further provides a navigation path planning device based on the pulmonary tracheal tree.
Fig. 6 is a schematic structural diagram of a navigation path planning device based on a pulmonary tracheal tree according to an embodiment of the present application.
As shown in fig. 6, the pulmonary tracheal tree-based navigation path planning apparatus 600 includes:
A first obtaining module 610, configured to obtain coordinates of an input focal position;
A first determining module 620, configured to determine, according to coordinates of a lesion position, a number of a bronchus point closest to the lesion position by querying an intra-lung coordinate allocation array, where the intra-lung coordinate allocation array includes a number of a bronchus point closest to each coordinate point in an intra-lung space;
A second determining module 630, configured to take the bronchial point with the focus position closest to the focus position as a child node, and read a parent node of the bronchial point with the focus position closest to the focus position by querying a bronchial point coordinate sequence according to the number of the child node, and continuously circularly read the read parent node as the child node until the read parent node is a tracheal entrance position, where the bronchial point coordinate sequence includes the number of each bronchial point in the pulmonary tracheal tree and the number of the parent node of each bronchial point;
A third determining module 640, configured to determine a navigation path from the tracheal entrance position to the lesion position according to the nodes read during the circulation.
Further, in a possible implementation manner of the embodiment of the present application, the apparatus may further include:
the construction module is used for constructing a three-dimensional space pulmonary tracheal tree;
The system comprises a first acquisition module, a second acquisition module and a control module, wherein the first acquisition module is used for acquiring a lung tracheal tree, extracting the center line of bronchi, and numbering points on the center line to acquire the number of each point on the center line, wherein the points on the center line are bronchi points;
The points on the centerline are ordered to obtain the bronchial point coordinate sequence.
Further, in a possible implementation manner of the embodiment of the present application, the second obtaining module is configured to:
Taking the air pipe inlet as a starting point, taking the air pipe inlet as a father node of the current cycle, taking the father node as a center, searching a preset number of coordinate points in a preset range, if the coordinate points which are positioned on a central line and are not accessed exist in the preset number of coordinate points, taking the coordinate points which are positioned on the central line and are not accessed as child nodes of the father node, and recording the father node as accessed nodes;
And taking the child nodes as parent nodes, searching a preset number of coordinate points in a preset range by taking the parent nodes as centers, continuously searching the child nodes, recording the parent nodes as accessed nodes until all the parent nodes have no child nodes, and obtaining the coordinate sequence of the bronchus point.
Further, in a possible implementation manner of the embodiment of the present application, the apparatus may further include:
The third acquisition module is used for acquiring a lung three-dimensional reconstruction model;
the calculation module is used for calculating the distances between each coordinate point of the non-bronchus and all bronchus points in each layer in the space in the lung in batches from top to bottom along the three-dimensional lung reconstruction model;
And the fourth acquisition module is used for determining the bronchus point with the nearest coordinate point according to the distance between each coordinate point and all bronchus points of each layer in the intra-lung space, and recording the serial number of the bronchus point with the nearest coordinate point so as to acquire the intra-lung coordinate allocation array.
It should be noted that the foregoing explanation of the embodiment of the navigation path planning method based on the pulmonary tracheal tree is also applicable to the navigation path planning device based on the pulmonary tracheal tree of this embodiment, and will not be repeated herein.
In the embodiment of the application, the number of the bronchus point closest to the focus position is determined based on the number of the bronchus point closest to the coordinate point in the lung space recorded in the lung coordinate distribution array, the parent node is continuously and circularly read by taking the bronchus point closest to the focus position as the child node based on the father-child relationship between the bronchus points recorded by the bronchus point coordinate sequence until the read parent node is the trachea inlet position, so that the navigation path from the trachea inlet position to the focus position can be rapidly determined based on the lung coordinate distribution array and the bronchus point coordinate sequence, and the real-time navigation of the bronchus path is realized.
In order to realize the embodiment, the application also provides electronic equipment which comprises a processor and a memory which is in communication connection with the processor, wherein the memory stores computer execution instructions, and the processor executes the computer execution instructions stored in the memory so as to realize the method for executing the embodiment.
In order to implement the above-described embodiments, the present application also proposes a computer-readable storage medium having stored therein computer-executable instructions that, when executed by a processor, are adapted to implement the methods provided by the foregoing embodiments.
In order to implement the above embodiments, the present application also proposes a computer program product comprising a computer program which, when executed by a processor, implements the method provided by the above embodiments.
The processing of collecting, storing, using, processing, transmitting, providing, disclosing and the like of the personal information of the user in the application accords with the regulations of related laws and regulations and does not violate the popular regulations of the public order.
It should be noted that personal information from users should be collected for legitimate and reasonable uses and not shared or sold outside of these legitimate uses. In addition, such collection/sharing should be performed after receiving user informed consent, including but not limited to informing the user to read user agreements/user notifications and signing agreements/authorizations including authorization-related user information before the user uses the functionality. In addition, any necessary steps are taken to safeguard and ensure access to such personal information data and to ensure that other persons having access to the personal information data adhere to their privacy policies and procedures.
The present application contemplates embodiments that may provide a user with selective prevention of use or access to personal information data. That is, the present disclosure contemplates that hardware and/or software may be provided to prevent or block access to such personal information data. Once personal information data is no longer needed, risk can be minimized by limiting data collection and deleting data. In addition, personal identification is removed from such personal information, as applicable, to protect the privacy of the user.
In the foregoing description of embodiments, reference has been made to the terms "one embodiment," "some embodiments," "example," "a particular example," or "some examples," etc., meaning that a particular feature, structure, material, or characteristic described in connection with the embodiment or example is included in at least one embodiment or example of the application. In this specification, schematic representations of the above terms are not necessarily directed to the same embodiment or example. Furthermore, the particular features, structures, materials, or characteristics described may be combined in any suitable manner in any one or more embodiments or examples. Furthermore, the different embodiments or examples described in this specification and the features of the different embodiments or examples may be combined and combined by those skilled in the art without contradiction.
Furthermore, the terms "first," "second," and the like, are used for descriptive purposes only and are not to be construed as indicating or implying a relative importance or implicitly indicating the number of technical features indicated. Thus, a feature defining "a first" or "a second" may explicitly or implicitly include at least one such feature. In the description of the present application, the meaning of "plurality" means at least two, for example, two, three, etc., unless specifically defined otherwise.
Any process or method descriptions in flow charts or otherwise described herein may be understood as representing modules, segments, or portions of code which include one or more executable instructions for implementing specific logical functions or steps of the process, and additional implementations are included within the scope of the preferred embodiment of the present application in which functions may be executed out of order from that shown or discussed, including substantially concurrently or in reverse order from that shown or discussed, depending on the functionality involved, as would be understood by those reasonably skilled in the art of the embodiments of the present application.
Logic and/or steps represented in the flowcharts or otherwise described herein, e.g., a ordered listing of executable instructions for implementing logical functions, can be embodied in any computer-readable medium for use by or in connection with an instruction execution system, apparatus, or device, such as a computer-based system, processor-containing system, or other system that can fetch the instructions from the instruction execution system, apparatus, or device and execute the instructions. For the purposes of this description, a "computer-readable medium" can be any means that can contain, store, communicate, propagate, or transport the program for use by or in connection with the instruction execution system, apparatus, or device. More specific examples (a non-exhaustive list) of the computer-readable medium would include an electrical connection (an electronic device) having one or more wires, a portable computer diskette (a magnetic device), a Random Access Memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM or flash memory), an optical fiber device, and a portable compact disc read-only memory (CDROM). In addition, the computer readable medium may even be paper or other suitable medium on which the program is printed, as the program may be electronically captured, via, for instance, optical scanning of the paper or other medium, then compiled, interpreted or otherwise processed in a suitable manner, if necessary, and then stored in a computer memory.
It is to be understood that portions of the present application may be implemented in hardware, software, firmware, or a combination thereof. In the above-described embodiments, the various steps or methods may be implemented in software or firmware stored in a memory and executed by a suitable instruction execution system. If implemented in hardware as in another embodiment, may be implemented using any one or combination of techniques known in the art, discrete logic circuits with logic gates for implementing logic functions on data signals, application specific integrated circuits with appropriate combinational logic gates, programmable Gate Arrays (PGAs), field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), etc.
Those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that all or a portion of the steps carried out in the method of the above-described embodiments may be implemented by a program to instruct related hardware, where the program may be stored in a computer readable storage medium, and where the program, when executed, includes one or a combination of the steps of the method embodiments.
In addition, each functional unit in the embodiments of the present application may be integrated in one processing module, or each unit may exist alone physically, or two or more units may be integrated in one module. The integrated modules may be implemented in hardware or in software functional modules. The integrated modules may also be stored in a computer readable storage medium if implemented in the form of software functional modules and sold or used as a stand-alone product.
The above-mentioned storage medium may be a read-only memory, a magnetic disk or an optical disk, or the like. While embodiments of the present application have been shown and described above, it will be understood that the above embodiments are illustrative and not to be construed as limiting the application, and that variations, modifications, alternatives and variations may be made to the above embodiments by one of ordinary skill in the art within the scope of the application.