36,253 research outputs found
Spatially-variant noise filtering in magnetic resonance imaging : a consensus-based approach
In order to accelerate the acquisition process in multiple-coil Magnetic Resonance scanners, parallel techniques were developed. These techniques reduce the acquisition time via a sub-sampling of the k-space and a reconstruction process. From a signal and noise perspective, the use of a acceleration techniques modify the structure of the noise within the image. In the most common algorithms, like SENSE, the final magnitude image after the reconstruction is known to follow a Rician distribution for each pixel, just like single coil systems. However, the noise is spatially non-stationary, i.e. the variance of noise becomes x-dependent. This effect can also be found in magnitude images due to other processing inside the scanner. In this work we propose a method to adapt well-known noise filtering techniques initially designed to deal with stationary noise to the case of spatially variant Rician noise. The method copes with inaccurate estimates of variant noise patterns in the image, showing its robustness in realistic cases. The method employs a consensus strategy in conjunction with a set of aggregation functions and a penalty function. Multiple possible outputs are generated for each pixel assuming different unknown input parameters. The consensus approach merges them into a unique filtered image. As a filtering technique, we have selected the Linear Minimum Mean Square Error (LMMSE) estimator for Rician data, which has been used to test our methodology due to its simplicity and robustness. Results with synthetic and in vivo data confirm the good behavior of our approach
Monte Carlo-based Noise Compensation in Coil Intensity Corrected Endorectal MRI
Background: Prostate cancer is one of the most common forms of cancer found
in males making early diagnosis important. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has
been useful in visualizing and localizing tumor candidates and with the use of
endorectal coils (ERC), the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) can be improved. The
coils introduce intensity inhomogeneities and the surface coil intensity
correction built into MRI scanners is used to reduce these inhomogeneities.
However, the correction typically performed at the MRI scanner level leads to
noise amplification and noise level variations. Methods: In this study, we
introduce a new Monte Carlo-based noise compensation approach for coil
intensity corrected endorectal MRI which allows for effective noise
compensation and preservation of details within the prostate. The approach
accounts for the ERC SNR profile via a spatially-adaptive noise model for
correcting non-stationary noise variations. Such a method is useful
particularly for improving the image quality of coil intensity corrected
endorectal MRI data performed at the MRI scanner level and when the original
raw data is not available. Results: SNR and contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR)
analysis in patient experiments demonstrate an average improvement of 11.7 dB
and 11.2 dB respectively over uncorrected endorectal MRI, and provides strong
performance when compared to existing approaches. Conclusions: A new noise
compensation method was developed for the purpose of improving the quality of
coil intensity corrected endorectal MRI data performed at the MRI scanner
level. We illustrate that promising noise compensation performance can be
achieved for the proposed approach, which is particularly important for
processing coil intensity corrected endorectal MRI data performed at the MRI
scanner level and when the original raw data is not available.Comment: 23 page
Graph Signal Processing: Overview, Challenges and Applications
Research in Graph Signal Processing (GSP) aims to develop tools for
processing data defined on irregular graph domains. In this paper we first
provide an overview of core ideas in GSP and their connection to conventional
digital signal processing. We then summarize recent developments in developing
basic GSP tools, including methods for sampling, filtering or graph learning.
Next, we review progress in several application areas using GSP, including
processing and analysis of sensor network data, biological data, and
applications to image processing and machine learning. We finish by providing a
brief historical perspective to highlight how concepts recently developed in
GSP build on top of prior research in other areas.Comment: To appear, Proceedings of the IEE
Bayesian reconstruction of the cosmological large-scale structure: methodology, inverse algorithms and numerical optimization
We address the inverse problem of cosmic large-scale structure reconstruction
from a Bayesian perspective. For a linear data model, a number of known and
novel reconstruction schemes, which differ in terms of the underlying signal
prior, data likelihood, and numerical inverse extra-regularization schemes are
derived and classified. The Bayesian methodology presented in this paper tries
to unify and extend the following methods: Wiener-filtering, Tikhonov
regularization, Ridge regression, Maximum Entropy, and inverse regularization
techniques. The inverse techniques considered here are the asymptotic
regularization, the Jacobi, Steepest Descent, Newton-Raphson,
Landweber-Fridman, and both linear and non-linear Krylov methods based on
Fletcher-Reeves, Polak-Ribiere, and Hestenes-Stiefel Conjugate Gradients. The
structures of the up-to-date highest-performing algorithms are presented, based
on an operator scheme, which permits one to exploit the power of fast Fourier
transforms. Using such an implementation of the generalized Wiener-filter in
the novel ARGO-software package, the different numerical schemes are
benchmarked with 1-, 2-, and 3-dimensional problems including structured white
and Poissonian noise, data windowing and blurring effects. A novel numerical
Krylov scheme is shown to be superior in terms of performance and fidelity.
These fast inverse methods ultimately will enable the application of sampling
techniques to explore complex joint posterior distributions. We outline how the
space of the dark-matter density field, the peculiar velocity field, and the
power spectrum can jointly be investigated by a Gibbs-sampling process. Such a
method can be applied for the redshift distortions correction of the observed
galaxies and for time-reversal reconstructions of the initial density field.Comment: 40 pages, 11 figure
Sampling of stochastic operators
We develop sampling methodology aimed at determining stochastic operators
that satisfy a support size restriction on the autocorrelation of the operators
stochastic spreading function. The data that we use to reconstruct the operator
(or, in some cases only the autocorrelation of the spreading function) is based
on the response of the unknown operator to a known, deterministic test signal
Bayesian demosaicing using Gaussian scale mixture priors with local adaptivity in the dual tree complex wavelet packet transform domain
In digital cameras and mobile phones, there is an ongoing trend to increase the image resolution, decrease the sensor size and to use lower exposure times. Because smaller sensors inherently lead to more noise and a worse spatial resolution, digital post-processing techniques are required to resolve many of the artifacts. Color filter arrays (CFAs), which use alternating patterns of color filters, are very popular because of price and power consumption reasons. However, color filter arrays require the use of a post-processing technique such as demosaicing to recover full resolution RGB images. Recently, there has been some interest in techniques that jointly perform the demosaicing and denoising. This has the advantage that the demosaicing and denoising can be performed optimally (e.g. in the MSE sense) for the considered noise model, while avoiding artifacts introduced when using demosaicing and denoising sequentially. ABSTRACT In this paper, we will continue the research line of the wavelet-based demosaicing techniques. These approaches are computationally simple and very suited for combination with denoising. Therefore, we will derive Bayesian Minimum Squared Error (MMSE) joint demosaicing and denoising rules in the complex wavelet packet domain, taking local adaptivity into account. As an image model, we will use Gaussian Scale Mixtures, thereby taking advantage of the directionality of the complex wavelets. Our results show that this technique is well capable of reconstructing fine details in the image, while removing all of the noise, at a relatively low computational cost. In particular, the complete reconstruction (including color correction, white balancing etc) of a 12 megapixel RAW image takes 3.5 sec on a recent mid-range GPU
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