249,608 research outputs found
Multi-modal and multi-dimensional biomedical image data analysis using deep learning
There is a growing need for the development of computational methods and tools for automated, objective, and quantitative analysis of biomedical signal and image data to facilitate disease and treatment monitoring, early diagnosis, and scientific discovery. Recent advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning, particularly in deep learning, have revolutionized computer vision and image analysis for many application areas. While processing of non-biomedical signal, image, and video data using deep learning methods has been very successful, high-stakes biomedical applications present unique challenges such as different image modalities, limited training data, need for explainability and interpretability etc. that need to be addressed. In this dissertation, we developed novel, explainable, and attention-based deep learning frameworks for objective, automated, and quantitative analysis of biomedical signal, image, and video data. The proposed solutions involve multi-scale signal analysis for oraldiadochokinesis studies; ensemble of deep learning cascades using global soft attention mechanisms for segmentation of meningeal vascular networks in confocal microscopy; spatial attention and spatio-temporal data fusion for detection of rare and short-term video events in laryngeal endoscopy videos; and a novel discrete Fourier transform driven class activation map for explainable-AI and weakly-supervised object localization and segmentation for detailed vocal fold motion analysis using laryngeal endoscopy videos. Experiments conducted on the proposed methods showed robust and promising results towards automated, objective, and quantitative analysis of biomedical data, that is of great value for potential early diagnosis and effective disease progress or treatment monitoring.Includes bibliographical references
Technical Note: Enhancing Soft Tissue Contrast And Radiation‐Induced Image Changes With Dual‐Energy CT For Radiation Therapy
Purpose
The purpose of this work is to investigate the use of low‐energy monoenergetic decompositions obtained from dual‐energy CT (DECT) to enhance image contrast and the detection of radiation‐induced changes of CT textures in pancreatic cancer. Methods
The DECT data acquired for 10 consecutive pancreatic cancer patients during routine nongated CT‐guided radiation therapy (RT) using an in‐room CT (Definition AS Open, Siemens Healthcare, Malvern, PA) were analyzed. With a sequential DE protocol, the scanner rapidly performs two helical acquisitions, the first at a tube voltage of 80 kVp and the second at a tube voltage of 140 kVp. Virtual monoenergetic images across a range of energies from 40 to 140 keV were reconstructed using an image‐based material decomposition. Intravenous (IV) bolus‐free contrast enhancement in pancreas patient tumors was measured across a spectrum of monoenergies. For treatment response assessment, the changes in CT histogram features (including mean CT number (MCTN), entropy, kurtosis) in pancreas tumors were measured during treatment. The results from the monoenergetic decompositions were compared to those obtained from the standard 120 kVp CT protocol for the same subjects. Results
Data of monoenergetic decompositions of the 10 patients confirmed the expected enhancement of soft tissue contrast as the energy is decreased. The changes in the selected CT histogram features in the pancreas during RT delivery were amplified with the low‐energy monoenergetic decompositions, as compared to the changes measured from the 120 kVp CTs. For the patients studied, the average reduction in the MCTN in pancreas from the first to the last (the 28th) treatment fraction was 4.09 HU for the standard 120 kVp and 11.15 HU for the 40 keV monoenergetic decomposition. Conclusions
Low‐energy monoenergetic decompositions from DECT substantially increase soft tissue contrast and increase the magnitude of radiation‐induced changes in CT histogram textures during RT delivery for pancreatic cancer. Therefore, quantitative DECT may assist the detection of early RT response
Iterative Log Thresholding
Sparse reconstruction approaches using the re-weighted l1-penalty have been
shown, both empirically and theoretically, to provide a significant improvement
in recovering sparse signals in comparison to the l1-relaxation. However,
numerical optimization of such penalties involves solving problems with
l1-norms in the objective many times. Using the direct link of reweighted
l1-penalties to the concave log-regularizer for sparsity, we derive a simple
prox-like algorithm for the log-regularized formulation. The proximal splitting
step of the algorithm has a closed form solution, and we call the algorithm
'log-thresholding' in analogy to soft thresholding for the l1-penalty.
We establish convergence results, and demonstrate that log-thresholding
provides more accurate sparse reconstructions compared to both soft and hard
thresholding. Furthermore, the approach can be directly extended to
optimization over matrices with penalty for rank (i.e. the nuclear norm penalty
and its re-weigthed version), where we suggest a singular-value
log-thresholding approach.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
Sparse and Non-Negative BSS for Noisy Data
Non-negative blind source separation (BSS) has raised interest in various
fields of research, as testified by the wide literature on the topic of
non-negative matrix factorization (NMF). In this context, it is fundamental
that the sources to be estimated present some diversity in order to be
efficiently retrieved. Sparsity is known to enhance such contrast between the
sources while producing very robust approaches, especially to noise. In this
paper we introduce a new algorithm in order to tackle the blind separation of
non-negative sparse sources from noisy measurements. We first show that
sparsity and non-negativity constraints have to be carefully applied on the
sought-after solution. In fact, improperly constrained solutions are unlikely
to be stable and are therefore sub-optimal. The proposed algorithm, named nGMCA
(non-negative Generalized Morphological Component Analysis), makes use of
proximal calculus techniques to provide properly constrained solutions. The
performance of nGMCA compared to other state-of-the-art algorithms is
demonstrated by numerical experiments encompassing a wide variety of settings,
with negligible parameter tuning. In particular, nGMCA is shown to provide
robustness to noise and performs well on synthetic mixtures of real NMR
spectra.Comment: 13 pages, 18 figures, to be published in IEEE Transactions on Signal
Processin
Segmentation of articular cartilage and early osteoarthritis based on the fuzzy soft thresholding approach driven by modified evolutionary ABC optimization and local statistical aggregation
Articular cartilage assessment, with the aim of the cartilage loss identification, is a crucial task for the clinical practice of orthopedics. Conventional software (SW) instruments allow for just a visualization of the knee structure, without post processing, offering objective cartilage modeling. In this paper, we propose the multiregional segmentation method, having ambitions to bring a mathematical model reflecting the physiological cartilage morphological structure and spots, corresponding with the early cartilage loss, which is poorly recognizable by the naked eye from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The proposed segmentation model is composed from two pixel's classification parts. Firstly, the image histogram is decomposed by using a sequence of the triangular fuzzy membership functions, when their localization is driven by the modified artificial bee colony (ABC) optimization algorithm, utilizing a random sequence of considered solutions based on the real cartilage features. In the second part of the segmentation model, the original pixel's membership in a respective segmentation class may be modified by using the local statistical aggregation, taking into account the spatial relationships regarding adjacent pixels. By this way, the image noise and artefacts, which are commonly presented in the MR images, may be identified and eliminated. This fact makes the model robust and sensitive with regards to distorting signals. We analyzed the proposed model on the 2D spatial MR image records. We show different MR clinical cases for the articular cartilage segmentation, with identification of the cartilage loss. In the final part of the analysis, we compared our model performance against the selected conventional methods in application on the MR image records being corrupted by additive image noise.Web of Science117art. no. 86
CLEAR: Covariant LEAst-square Re-fitting with applications to image restoration
In this paper, we propose a new framework to remove parts of the systematic
errors affecting popular restoration algorithms, with a special focus for image
processing tasks. Generalizing ideas that emerged for regularization,
we develop an approach re-fitting the results of standard methods towards the
input data. Total variation regularizations and non-local means are special
cases of interest. We identify important covariant information that should be
preserved by the re-fitting method, and emphasize the importance of preserving
the Jacobian (w.r.t. the observed signal) of the original estimator. Then, we
provide an approach that has a "twicing" flavor and allows re-fitting the
restored signal by adding back a local affine transformation of the residual
term. We illustrate the benefits of our method on numerical simulations for
image restoration tasks
A packet error recovery scheme for vertical handovers mobility management protocols
Mobile devices are connecting to the Internet through an increasingly heterogeneous network environment. This connectivity via multiple types of wireless networks allows the mobile devices to take advantage of the high speed and the low cost of wireless local area networks and the large coverage of wireless wide area networks. In this context, we propose a new handoff framework for switching seamlessly between the different network technologies by taking advantage of the temporary availability of both the old and the new network technology through the use of an "on the fly" erasure coding method. The goal is to demonstrate that our framework, based on a real implementation of such coding scheme, 1) allows the application to achieve higher goodput rate compared to existing bicasting proposals and other erasure coding schemes;
2) is easy to configure and as a result 3) is a perfect candidate to ensure the reliability of vertical handovers mobility management protocols. In this paper, we present the implementation of such framework and show that our proposal allows to maintain the TCP goodput(with a negligible transmission overhead) while providing in a timely manner a full reliability in challenged conditions
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