9,798 research outputs found
Simultaneous denoising and enhancement of signals by a fractal conservation law
In this paper, a new filtering method is presented for simultaneous noise
reduction and enhancement of signals using a fractal scalar conservation law
which is simply the forward heat equation modified by a fractional
anti-diffusive term of lower order. This kind of equation has been first
introduced by physicists to describe morphodynamics of sand dunes. To evaluate
the performance of this new filter, we perform a number of numerical tests on
various signals. Numerical simulations are based on finite difference schemes
or Fast and Fourier Transform. We used two well-known measuring metrics in
signal processing for the comparison. The results indicate that the proposed
method outperforms the well-known Savitzky-Golay filter in signal denoising.
Interesting multi-scale properties w.r.t. signal frequencies are exhibited
allowing to control both denoising and contrast enhancement
Multigrid waveform relaxation for the time-fractional heat equation
In this work, we propose an efficient and robust multigrid method for solving
the time-fractional heat equation. Due to the nonlocal property of fractional
differential operators, numerical methods usually generate systems of equations
for which the coefficient matrix is dense. Therefore, the design of efficient
solvers for the numerical simulation of these problems is a difficult task. We
develop a parallel-in-time multigrid algorithm based on the waveform relaxation
approach, whose application to time-fractional problems seems very natural due
to the fact that the fractional derivative at each spatial point depends on the
values of the function at this point at all earlier times. Exploiting the
Toeplitz-like structure of the coefficient matrix, the proposed multigrid
waveform relaxation method has a computational cost of
operations, where is the number of time steps and is the number of
spatial grid points. A semi-algebraic mode analysis is also developed to
theoretically confirm the good results obtained. Several numerical experiments,
including examples with non-smooth solutions and a nonlinear problem with
applications in porous media, are presented
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Quasi-diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (QDI): A fast, high b-value diffusion imaging technique.
To enable application of non-Gaussian diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI) techniques in large-scale clinical trials and facilitate translation to clinical practice there is a requirement for fast, high contrast, techniques that are sensitive to changes in tissue structure which provide diagnostic signatures at the early stages of disease. Here we describe a new way to compress the acquisition of multi-shell b-value diffusion data, Quasi-Diffusion MRI (QDI), which provides a probe of subvoxel tissue complexity using short acquisition times (1-4âŻmin). We also describe a coherent framework for multi-directional diffusion gradient acquisition and data processing that allows computation of rotationally invariant quasi-diffusion tensor imaging (QDTI) maps. QDI is a quantitative technique that is based on a special case of the Continuous Time Random Walk model of diffusion dynamics and assumes the presence of non-Gaussian diffusion properties within tissue microstructure. QDI parameterises the diffusion signal attenuation according to the rate of decay (i.e. diffusion coefficient, D in mm2 s-1) and the shape of the power law tail (i.e. the fractional exponent, α). QDI provides analogous tissue contrast to Diffusional Kurtosis Imaging (DKI) by calculation of normalised entropy of the parameterised diffusion signal decay curve, Hn, but does so without the limitations of a maximum b-value. We show that QDI generates images with superior tissue contrast to conventional diffusion imaging within clinically acceptable acquisition times of between 84 and 228âŻs. We show that QDI provides clinically meaningful images in cerebral small vessel disease and brain tumour case studies. Our initial findings suggest that QDI may be added to routine conventional dMRI acquisitions allowing simple application in clinical trials and translation to the clinical arena
Spatial Smoothing for Diffusion Tensor Imaging with low Signal to Noise Ratios
Though low signal to noise ratio (SNR) experiments in DTI give key information about tracking and anisotropy, e.g. by measurements with very small voxel sizes, due to the complicated impact of thermal noise such experiments are up to now seldom analysed. In this paper Monte Carlo simulations are presented which investigate the random fields of noise for different DTI variables in low SNR situations. Based on this study a strategy for spatial smoothing, which demands essentially uniform noise, is derived. To construct a convenient filter the weights of the nonlinear Aurich chain are adapted to DTI. This edge preserving three dimensional filter is then validated in different variants via a quasi realistic model and is applied to very new data with isotropic voxels of the size 1x1x1 mm3 which correspond to a spatial mean SNR of approximately 3
Space-Varying Coefficient Models for Brain Imaging
The methodological development and the application in this paper originate from diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), a powerful nuclear magnetic resonance technique enabling diagnosis and monitoring of several diseases as well as reconstruction of neural pathways. We reformulate the current analysis framework of separate voxelwise regressions as a 3d space-varying coefficient model (VCM) for the entire set of DTI images recorded on a 3d grid of voxels. Hence by allowing to borrow strength from spatially adjacent voxels, to smooth noisy observations, and to estimate diffusion tensors at any location within the brain, the three-step cascade of standard data processing is overcome simultaneously. We conceptualize two VCM variants based on B-spline basis functions: a full tensor product approach and a sequential approximation, rendering the VCM numerically and computationally feasible even for the huge dimension of the joint model in a realistic setup. A simulation study shows that both approaches outperform the standard method of voxelwise regressions with subsequent regularization. Due to major efficacy, we apply the sequential method to a clinical DTI data set and demonstrate the inherent ability of increasing the rigid grid resolution by evaluating the incorporated basis functions at intermediate points. In conclusion, the suggested fitting methods clearly improve the current state-of-the-art, but ameloriation of local adaptivity remains desirable
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