7,916 research outputs found
Estimating the granularity coefficient of a Potts-Markov random field within an MCMC algorithm
This paper addresses the problem of estimating the Potts parameter B jointly
with the unknown parameters of a Bayesian model within a Markov chain Monte
Carlo (MCMC) algorithm. Standard MCMC methods cannot be applied to this problem
because performing inference on B requires computing the intractable
normalizing constant of the Potts model. In the proposed MCMC method the
estimation of B is conducted using a likelihood-free Metropolis-Hastings
algorithm. Experimental results obtained for synthetic data show that
estimating B jointly with the other unknown parameters leads to estimation
results that are as good as those obtained with the actual value of B. On the
other hand, assuming that the value of B is known can degrade estimation
performance significantly if this value is incorrect. To illustrate the
interest of this method, the proposed algorithm is successfully applied to real
bidimensional SAR and tridimensional ultrasound images
Graph Spectral Image Processing
Recent advent of graph signal processing (GSP) has spurred intensive studies
of signals that live naturally on irregular data kernels described by graphs
(e.g., social networks, wireless sensor networks). Though a digital image
contains pixels that reside on a regularly sampled 2D grid, if one can design
an appropriate underlying graph connecting pixels with weights that reflect the
image structure, then one can interpret the image (or image patch) as a signal
on a graph, and apply GSP tools for processing and analysis of the signal in
graph spectral domain. In this article, we overview recent graph spectral
techniques in GSP specifically for image / video processing. The topics covered
include image compression, image restoration, image filtering and image
segmentation
BiofilmQuant: A Computer-Assisted Tool for Dental Biofilm Quantification
Dental biofilm is the deposition of microbial material over a tooth
substratum. Several methods have recently been reported in the literature for
biofilm quantification; however, at best they provide a barely automated
solution requiring significant input needed from the human expert. On the
contrary, state-of-the-art automatic biofilm methods fail to make their way
into clinical practice because of the lack of effective mechanism to
incorporate human input to handle praxis or misclassified regions. Manual
delineation, the current gold standard, is time consuming and subject to expert
bias. In this paper, we introduce a new semi-automated software tool,
BiofilmQuant, for dental biofilm quantification in quantitative light-induced
fluorescence (QLF) images. The software uses a robust statistical modeling
approach to automatically segment the QLF image into three classes (background,
biofilm, and tooth substratum) based on the training data. This initial
segmentation has shown a high degree of consistency and precision on more than
200 test QLF dental scans. Further, the proposed software provides the
clinicians full control to fix any misclassified areas using a single click. In
addition, BiofilmQuant also provides a complete solution for the longitudinal
quantitative analysis of biofilm of the full set of teeth, providing greater
ease of usability.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, 36th Annual International Conference of the IEEE
Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC 2014
Recommended from our members
Statistical Region Based Segmentation of Ultrasound Images
Segmentation of ultrasound images is a challenging problem due to speckle, which
corrupts the image and can result in weak or missing image boundaries, poor signal to
noise ratio, and diminished contrast resolution. Speckle is a random interference pattern
that is characterized by an asymmetric distribution as well as significant spatial correla-
tion. These attributes of speckle are challenging to model in a segmentation approach, so
many previous ultrasound segmentation methods simplify the problem by assuming that
the speckle is white and/or Gaussian distributed. Unlike these methods, in this paper
we present an ultrasound-specific segmentation approach that addresses both the spatial
correlation of the data as well as its intensity distribution. We first decorrelate the image
and then apply a region-based active contour whose motion is derived from an appropri-
ate parametric distribution for maximum likelihood image segmentation. We consider
zero-mean complex Gaussian, Rayleigh, and Fisher-Tippett flows, which are designed
to model fully formed speckle in the in-phase/quadrature (IQ), envelope detected, and
display (log compressed) images, respectively. We present experimental results demon-
strating the effectiveness of our method, and compare the results to other parametric
and non-parametric active contours
Bayesian Lattice Filters for Time-Varying Autoregression and Time-Frequency Analysis
Modeling nonstationary processes is of paramount importance to many
scientific disciplines including environmental science, ecology, and finance,
among others. Consequently, flexible methodology that provides accurate
estimation across a wide range of processes is a subject of ongoing interest.
We propose a novel approach to model-based time-frequency estimation using
time-varying autoregressive models. In this context, we take a fully Bayesian
approach and allow both the autoregressive coefficients and innovation variance
to vary over time. Importantly, our estimation method uses the lattice filter
and is cast within the partial autocorrelation domain. The marginal posterior
distributions are of standard form and, as a convenient by-product of our
estimation method, our approach avoids undesirable matrix inversions. As such,
estimation is extremely computationally efficient and stable. To illustrate the
effectiveness of our approach, we conduct a comprehensive simulation study that
compares our method with other competing methods and find that, in most cases,
our approach performs superior in terms of average squared error between the
estimated and true time-varying spectral density. Lastly, we demonstrate our
methodology through three modeling applications; namely, insect communication
signals, environmental data (wind components), and macroeconomic data (US gross
domestic product (GDP) and consumption).Comment: 49 pages, 16 figure
Local Variation as a Statistical Hypothesis Test
The goal of image oversegmentation is to divide an image into several pieces,
each of which should ideally be part of an object. One of the simplest and yet
most effective oversegmentation algorithms is known as local variation (LV)
(Felzenszwalb and Huttenlocher 2004). In this work, we study this algorithm and
show that algorithms similar to LV can be devised by applying different
statistical models and decisions, thus providing further theoretical
justification and a well-founded explanation for the unexpected high
performance of the LV approach. Some of these algorithms are based on
statistics of natural images and on a hypothesis testing decision; we denote
these algorithms probabilistic local variation (pLV). The best pLV algorithm,
which relies on censored estimation, presents state-of-the-art results while
keeping the same computational complexity of the LV algorithm
Recent advances in directional statistics
Mainstream statistical methodology is generally applicable to data observed
in Euclidean space. There are, however, numerous contexts of considerable
scientific interest in which the natural supports for the data under
consideration are Riemannian manifolds like the unit circle, torus, sphere and
their extensions. Typically, such data can be represented using one or more
directions, and directional statistics is the branch of statistics that deals
with their analysis. In this paper we provide a review of the many recent
developments in the field since the publication of Mardia and Jupp (1999),
still the most comprehensive text on directional statistics. Many of those
developments have been stimulated by interesting applications in fields as
diverse as astronomy, medicine, genetics, neurology, aeronautics, acoustics,
image analysis, text mining, environmetrics, and machine learning. We begin by
considering developments for the exploratory analysis of directional data
before progressing to distributional models, general approaches to inference,
hypothesis testing, regression, nonparametric curve estimation, methods for
dimension reduction, classification and clustering, and the modelling of time
series, spatial and spatio-temporal data. An overview of currently available
software for analysing directional data is also provided, and potential future
developments discussed.Comment: 61 page
- …