Aerospace Medicine and Biology. A continuing bibliography with indexes

This bibliography lists 244 reports, articles, and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system in February 1981. Aerospace medicine and aerobiology topics are included. Listings for physiological factors, astronaut performance, control theory, artificial intelligence, and cybernetics are included

Contrast enhancement by multi-scale adaptive histogram equalization

An approach for contrast enhancement utilizing multi-scale analysis is introduced. Sub-band coefficients were modified by the method of adaptive histogram equalization. To achieve optimal contrast enhancement, the sizes of sub-regions were chosen with consideration to the support of the analysis filters. The enhanced images provided subtle details of tissues that are only visible with tedious contrast/brightness windowing methods currently used in clinical reading. We present results on chest CT data, which shows significant improvement over existing state-of-the-art methods: unsharp masking, adaptive histogram equalization (AHE), and the contrast limited adaptive histogram equalization (CLAHE). A systematic study on 109 clinical chest CT images by three radiologists suggests the promise of this method in terms of both interpretation time and diagnostic performance on different pathological cases. In addition, radiologists observed no noticeable artifacts or amplification of noise that usually appears in traditional adaptive histogram equalization and its variations

Flaw reconstruction in NDE using a limited number of x-ray radiographic projections

One of the major problems in nondestructive evaluation (NDE) is the evaluation of flaw sizes and locations in a limited inspectability environment. In NDE x-ray radiography, this frequently occurs when the geometry of the part under test does not allow x-ray penetration in certain directions. Other times, the inspection setup in the field does not allow for inspection at all angles around the object. This dissertation presents a model based reconstruction technique which requires a small number of x-ray projections from one side of the object under test. The estimation and reconstruction of model parameters rather than the flaw distribution itself requires much less information, thereby reducing the number of required projections. Crack-like flaws are modeled as piecewise linear curves (connected points) and are reconstructed stereographically from at least two projections by matching corresponding endpoints of the linear segments. Volumetric flaws are modeled as ellipsoids and elliptical slices through ellipsoids. The elliptical principal axes lengths, orientation angles and locations are estimated by fitting a forward model to the projection data. The fitting procedure is highly nonlinear and requires stereographic projections to obtain initial estimates of the model parameters. The methods are tested both on simulated and experimental data. Comparisons are made with models from the field of stereology. Finally, analysis of reconstruction errors is presented for both models

New technology in radiological diagnosis: An investigation of diagnostic image quality in digital displays of radiographs

Digital radiology is undergoing rapid evolution. Its objectives can be summarized as the creation within the modern radiology department - and indeed within the entire hospital - of a harmonious, integrated, electronic network capable of handling all diagnostic radiological images, obviating the need for conventional film-based radiology. One of the limiting factors in the introduction and exploitation of digital technology is the issue of image display quality: if electronic display systems are to be widely used for primary radiological diagnosis, it is essential that the diagnostic quality of the displayed images should not be compromised. From the perspective of the practising radiologist, this study examines the performance of the first two commercially available digital radiological display systems to be purchased and installed in a British hospital. This work incorporates an extensive observer performance investigation of image quality from existing 1024- and 1280-line display systems, and suggests that displayed images digitized at a pixel size of 210?m show a significant reduction in diagnostic performance when compared with original film. Such systems appear to be unsuitable for primary radiological diagnosis of subtle lesions. Some of the physical properties of such systems, some relevant methodological issues, and the relationship between image quality and other factors influencing the development acceptance and implementation of digital technology, have also been investigated; the results are presented. This is a controversial subject, and conflicting views have been expressed in the British literature concerning the issue of whether or not the technology is now ready for total system implementation; the view of this author is that careful testing of display systems, and of every other component of digital networks, should precede their entry into clinical use

Aerospace medicine and biology: A continuing bibliography with indexes, supplement 130, July 1974

This special bibliography lists 291 reports, articles, and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system in June 1974

Application of the X-ray measurement model to image processing of X-ray radiographs

Information can be conveyed in many forms, yet it is perhaps easiest interpreted when in a visual form. The human mind has the ability to look at a scene containing complex patterns and extract particular features by considering the content of the entire image and focusing on the items of interest. The processing power, speed to decipher images, and complexity of the human brain has yet to be matched by any artificial means. Although the brain is a excellent processor and interpreter, a human can tire and become less accurate with time, potentially causing costly errors. Since consistency is especially important in inspection situations, it is desirable to automate part or all of the vision process to simplify the inspection. Thus, images can be acquired and processed to improve image quality for either human interpretation or machine perception and analysis. With image processing, it is possible to remove patterns or artifacts induced by the testing equipment, or to seek particular features for enhancement or extraction. The use of imaging technologies facilitates quantitative analysis and objective interpretation of selected parameters, especially in repetitive tasks

Aerospace Medicine and Biology: A continuing bibliography with indexes (supplement 246)

This bibliography lists 219 reports, articles and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system in May 1983

Hybrid Region-based Image Compression Scheme for Mamograms and Ultrasound Images

The need for transmission and archive of mammograms and ultrasound Images has dramatically increased in tele-healthcare applications. Such images require large amount of' storage space which affect transmission speed. Therefore an effective compression scheme is essential. Compression of these images. in general. laces a great challenge to compromise between the higher compression ratio and the relevant diagnostic information. Out of the many studied compression schemes. lossless . IPl. (i- LS and lossy SPII IT are found to he the most efficient ones. JPEG-LS and SI'll IT are chosen based on a comprehensive experimental study carried on a large number of mammograms and ultrasound images of different sizes and texture. The lossless schemes are evaluated based on the compression ratio and compression speed. The distortion in the image quality which is introduced by lossy methods evaluated based on objective criteria using Mean Square Error (MSE) and Peak signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR). It is found that lossless compression can achieve a modest compression ratio 2: 1 - 4: 1. bossy compression schemes can achieve higher compression ratios than lossless ones but at the price of the image quality which may impede diagnostic conclusions. In this work, a new compression approach called Ilvbrid Region-based Image Compression Scheme (IIYRICS) has been proposed for the mammograms and ultrasound images to achieve higher compression ratios without compromising the diagnostic quality. In I LYRICS, a modification for JPI; G-LS is introduced to encode the arbitrary shaped disease affected regions. Then Shape adaptive SPIT IT is applied on the remaining non region of interest. The results clearly show that this hybrid strategy can yield high compression ratios with perfect reconstruction of diagnostic relevant regions, achieving high speed transmission and less storage requirement. For the sample images considered in our experiment, the compression ratio increases approximately ten times. However, this increase depends upon the size of the region of interest chosen. It is also föund that the pre-processing (contrast stretching) of region of interest improves compression ratios on mammograms but not on ultrasound images

Aerospace medicine and biology. A continuing bibliography with indexes, supplement 195

This bibliography lists 148 reports, articles, and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system in June 1979