111,303 research outputs found
A Better Looking Brain: Image Pre-Processing Approaches for fMRI Data
Researchers in the field of functional neuroimaging have faced a long standing problem in pre-processing low spatial resolution data without losing meaningful details within. Commonly, the brain function is recorded by a technique known as echo-planar imaging that represents the measure of blood flow (BOLD signal) through a particular location in the brain as an array of intensity values changing over time. This approach to record a movie of blood flow in the brain is known as fMRI. The neural activity is then studied from the temporal correlation patterns existing within the fMRI time series. However, the resulting images are noisy and contain low spatial detail, thus making it imperative to pre-process them appropriately to derive meaningful activation patterns. Two of the several standard preprocessing steps employed just before the analysis stage are denoising and normalization. Fundamentally, it is difficult to perfectly remove noise from an image without making assumptions about signal and noise distributions. A convenient and commonly used alternative is to smooth the image with a Gaussian filter, but this method suffers from various obvious drawbacks, primarily loss of spatial detail. A greater challenge arises when we attempt to derive average activation patterns from fMRI images acquired from a group of individuals. The brain of one individual differs from others in a structural sense as well as in a functional sense. Commonly, the inter-individual differences in anatomical structures are compensated for by co-registering each subject\u27s data to a common normalization space, known as spatial normalization. However, there are no existing methods to compensate for the differences in functional organization of the brain. This work presents first steps towards data-driven robust algorithms for fMRI image denoising and multi-subject image normalization by utilizing inherent information within fMRI data. In addition, a new validation approach based on spatial shape of the activation regions is presented to quantify the effects of preprocessing and also as a tool to record the differences in activation patterns between individual subjects or within two groups such as healthy controls and patients with mental illness. Qualititative and quantitative results of the proposed framework compare favorably against existing and widely used model-driven approaches such as Gaussian smoothing and structure-based spatial normalization. This work is intended to provide neuroscience researchers tools to derive more meaningful activation patterns to accurately identify imaging biomarkers for various neurodevelopmental diseases and also maximize the specificity of a diagnosis
Novel Structured Low-rank algorithm to recover spatially smooth exponential image time series
We propose a structured low rank matrix completion algorithm to recover a
time series of images consisting of linear combination of exponential
parameters at every pixel, from under-sampled Fourier measurements. The spatial
smoothness of these parameters is exploited along with the exponential
structure of the time series at every pixel, to derive an annihilation relation
in the domain. This annihilation relation translates into a structured
low rank matrix formed from the samples. We demonstrate the algorithm in
the parameter mapping setting and show significant improvement over state of
the art methods.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, accepted at ISBI 2017, Melbourne, Australi
Fast and Accurate Multiclass Inference for MI-BCIs Using Large Multiscale Temporal and Spectral Features
Accurate, fast, and reliable multiclass classification of
electroencephalography (EEG) signals is a challenging task towards the
development of motor imagery brain-computer interface (MI-BCI) systems. We
propose enhancements to different feature extractors, along with a support
vector machine (SVM) classifier, to simultaneously improve classification
accuracy and execution time during training and testing. We focus on the
well-known common spatial pattern (CSP) and Riemannian covariance methods, and
significantly extend these two feature extractors to multiscale temporal and
spectral cases. The multiscale CSP features achieve 73.7015.90% (mean
standard deviation across 9 subjects) classification accuracy that surpasses
the state-of-the-art method [1], 70.614.70%, on the 4-class BCI
competition IV-2a dataset. The Riemannian covariance features outperform the
CSP by achieving 74.2715.5% accuracy and executing 9x faster in training
and 4x faster in testing. Using more temporal windows for Riemannian features
results in 75.4712.8% accuracy with 1.6x faster testing than CSP.Comment: Published as a conference paper at the IEEE European Signal
Processing Conference (EUSIPCO), 201
On the Degree of Ill-Posedness of Multi-Dimensional Magnetic Particle Imaging
Magnetic particle imaging is an imaging modality of relatively recent origin,
and it exploits the nonlinear magnetization response for reconstructing the
concentration of nanoparticles. Since first invented in 2005, it has received
much interest in the literature. In this work, we study one prototypical
mathematical model in multi-dimension, i.e., the equilibrium model, which
formulates the problem as a linear Fredholm integral equation of the first
kind. We analyze the degree of ill-posedness of the associated linear integral
operator by means of the singular value decay estimate for Sobolev smooth
bivariate functions, and discuss the influence of various experimental
parameters. In particular, applied magnetic fields with a field free point and
a field free line are distinguished. The study is complemented with extensive
numerical experiments.Comment: 20 pages, 6 figure
Reconstructing the Traffic State by Fusion of Heterogeneous Data
We present an advanced interpolation method for estimating smooth
spatiotemporal profiles for local highway traffic variables such as flow, speed
and density. The method is based on stationary detector data as typically
collected by traffic control centres, and may be augmented by floating car data
or other traffic information. The resulting profiles display transitions
between free and congested traffic in great detail, as well as fine structures
such as stop-and-go waves. We establish the accuracy and robustness of the
method and demonstrate three potential applications: 1. compensation for gaps
in data caused by detector failure; 2. separation of noise from dynamic traffic
information; and 3. the fusion of floating car data with stationary detector
data.Comment: For more information see http://www.mtreiber.de or
http://www.akesting.d
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