Deep learning-based parameter mapping for joint relaxation and diffusion tensor MR Fingerprinting

Magnetic Resonance Fingerprinting (MRF) enables the simultaneous quantification of multiple properties of biological tissues. It relies on a pseudo-random acquisition and the matching of acquired signal evolutions to a precomputed dictionary. However, the dictionary is not scalable to higher-parametric spaces, limiting MRF to the simultaneous mapping of only a small number of parameters (proton density, T1 and T2 in general). Inspired by diffusion-weighted SSFP imaging, we present a proof-of-concept of a novel MRF sequence with embedded diffusion-encoding gradients along all three axes to efficiently encode orientational diffusion and T1 and T2 relaxation. We take advantage of a convolutional neural network (CNN) to reconstruct multiple quantitative maps from this single, highly undersampled acquisition. We bypass expensive dictionary matching by learning the implicit physical relationships between the spatiotemporal MRF data and the T1, T2 and diffusion tensor parameters. The predicted parameter maps and the derived scalar diffusion metrics agree well with state-of-the-art reference protocols. Orientational diffusion information is captured as seen from the estimated primary diffusion directions. In addition to this, the joint acquisition and reconstruction framework proves capable of preserving tissue abnormalities in multiple sclerosis lesions

Recursive Compressed Sensing

We introduce a recursive algorithm for performing compressed sensing on streaming data. The approach consists of a) recursive encoding, where we sample the input stream via overlapping windowing and make use of the previous measurement in obtaining the next one, and b) recursive decoding, where the signal estimate from the previous window is utilized in order to achieve faster convergence in an iterative optimization scheme applied to decode the new one. To remove estimation bias, a two-step estimation procedure is proposed comprising support set detection and signal amplitude estimation. Estimation accuracy is enhanced by a non-linear voting method and averaging estimates over multiple windows. We analyze the computational complexity and estimation error, and show that the normalized error variance asymptotically goes to zero for sublinear sparsity. Our simulation results show speed up of an order of magnitude over traditional CS, while obtaining significantly lower reconstruction error under mild conditions on the signal magnitudes and the noise level.Comment: Submitted to IEEE Transactions on Information Theor

Project SEMACODE : a scale-invariant object recognition system for content-based queries in image databases

For the efficient management of large image databases, the automated characterization of images and the usage of that characterization for searching and ordering tasks is highly desirable. The purpose of the project SEMACODE is to combine the still unsolved problem of content-oriented characterization of images with scale-invariant object recognition and modelbased compression methods. To achieve this goal, existing techniques as well as new concepts related to pattern matching, image encoding, and image compression are examined. The resulting methods are integrated in a common framework with the aid of a content-oriented conception. For the application, an image database at the library of the university of Frankfurt/Main (StUB; about 60000 images), the required operations are developed. The search and query interfaces are defined in close cooperation with the StUB project “Digitized Colonial Picture Library”. This report describes the fundamentals and first results of the image encoding and object recognition algorithms developed within the scope of the project

Learning Fast and Slow: PROPEDEUTICA for Real-time Malware Detection

In this paper, we introduce and evaluate PROPEDEUTICA, a novel methodology and framework for efficient and effective real-time malware detection, leveraging the best of conventional machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL) algorithms. In PROPEDEUTICA, all software processes in the system start execution subjected to a conventional ML detector for fast classification. If a piece of software receives a borderline classification, it is subjected to further analysis via more performance expensive and more accurate DL methods, via our newly proposed DL algorithm DEEPMALWARE. Further, we introduce delays to the execution of software subjected to deep learning analysis as a way to "buy time" for DL analysis and to rate-limit the impact of possible malware in the system. We evaluated PROPEDEUTICA with a set of 9,115 malware samples and 877 commonly used benign software samples from various categories for the Windows OS. Our results show that the false positive rate for conventional ML methods can reach 20%, and for modern DL methods it is usually below 6%. However, the classification time for DL can be 100X longer than conventional ML methods. PROPEDEUTICA improved the detection F1-score from 77.54% (conventional ML method) to 90.25%, and reduced the detection time by 54.86%. Further, the percentage of software subjected to DL analysis was approximately 40% on average. Further, the application of delays in software subjected to ML reduced the detection time by approximately 10%. Finally, we found and discussed a discrepancy between the detection accuracy offline (analysis after all traces are collected) and on-the-fly (analysis in tandem with trace collection). Our insights show that conventional ML and modern DL-based malware detectors in isolation cannot meet the needs of efficient and effective malware detection: high accuracy, low false positive rate, and short classification time.Comment: 17 pages, 7 figure