Projection image-to-image translation in hybrid X-ray/MR imaging

The potential benefit of hybrid X-ray and MR imaging in the interventional environment is large due to the combination of fast imaging with high contrast variety. However, a vast amount of existing image enhancement methods requires the image information of both modalities to be present in the same domain. To unlock this potential, we present a solution to image-to-image translation from MR projections to corresponding X-ray projection images. The approach is based on a state-of-the-art image generator network that is modified to fit the specific application. Furthermore, we propose the inclusion of a gradient map in the loss function to allow the network to emphasize high-frequency details in image generation. Our approach is capable of creating X-ray projection images with natural appearance. Additionally, our extensions show clear improvement compared to the baseline method.Comment: In proceedings of SPIE Medical Imaging 201

Outsiders within : women in management in the public service in Aotearoa/New Zealand : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Management at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

This thesis explores the management practices of a small number of women in management positions within a large government department in New Zealand, and the factors influencing those practices. Using a feminist standpoint epistemology the study took as its starting point the day to day experiences of managers and their staff. Through analysis of these experiences the context of New Public Management and the reforms of the public sector in New Zealand that took place in the 1980's and 1990's were identified as important features in the management practices of the participants. The study found that the doctrines of New Public Management were embedded within the organisation from which participants were drawn. Within this context, they had an organising or mediating effect on the day to day management practices of the participants, what they valued, how they perceived management and the language they used to talk of their experiences. Overall the participants did not consider that gender relations created either supports or constraints to their management practices or their entry into management positions. They considered that gender-related constraints were a thing of the past. They did, however, note particular events that suggested that women managers continue to be judged in relation to deeply held gender stereotypes. The management practices that the participants valued and/or described as their own practice did not conform to the gendered dichotomies of management that have been prevalent in the literature on successful management and women in management in particular. The participants demonstrated a more androgynous approach to management that is adaptive and sensitive to the wider context

FEUTURE EU 28 Country Report. Estonia

Relations between Estonia and Turkey received renewed impetus after 2004, when Estonia joined the European Union (EU) (while Turkey was in the process of securing the official candidate status) and NATO, of which Turkey has been a member since 1952. Since its accession, Estonia has played a generally constructive role at the EU level when it comes to both its institutional future and enlargement policy. Its key tenets, thereby, seem in line with the principled open-door approach advocated by the fellow Nordic countries

Learning to Find Eye Region Landmarks for Remote Gaze Estimation in Unconstrained Settings

Conventional feature-based and model-based gaze estimation methods have proven to perform well in settings with controlled illumination and specialized cameras. In unconstrained real-world settings, however, such methods are surpassed by recent appearance-based methods due to difficulties in modeling factors such as illumination changes and other visual artifacts. We present a novel learning-based method for eye region landmark localization that enables conventional methods to be competitive to latest appearance-based methods. Despite having been trained exclusively on synthetic data, our method exceeds the state of the art for iris localization and eye shape registration on real-world imagery. We then use the detected landmarks as input to iterative model-fitting and lightweight learning-based gaze estimation methods. Our approach outperforms existing model-fitting and appearance-based methods in the context of person-independent and personalized gaze estimation