Global Ultrasound Elastography Using Convolutional Neural Network

Displacement estimation is very important in ultrasound elastography and failing to estimate displacement correctly results in failure in generating strain images. As conventional ultrasound elastography techniques suffer from decorrelation noise, they are prone to fail in estimating displacement between echo signals obtained during tissue distortions. This study proposes a novel elastography technique which addresses the decorrelation in estimating displacement field. We call our method GLUENet (GLobal Ultrasound Elastography Network) which uses deep Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) to get a coarse time-delay estimation between two ultrasound images. This displacement is later used for formulating a nonlinear cost function which incorporates similarity of RF data intensity and prior information of estimated displacement. By optimizing this cost function, we calculate the finer displacement by exploiting all the information of all the samples of RF data simultaneously. The Contrast to Noise Ratio (CNR) and Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) of the strain images from our technique is very much close to that of strain images from GLUE. While most elastography algorithms are sensitive to parameter tuning, our robust algorithm is substantially less sensitive to parameter tuning.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures; added acknowledgment section, submission type late

Massnahmen der nachhaltigen Gefahrenabwehr fuer Altlasten in Gebieten mit bergbaubedingten Destabilisierungsvorgaengen am Beispiel der Stadt Stassfurt Laufzeit des Verbundvorhabens 01.10.2000-28.02.2002

Ziel des Vorhabens war die interdisziplinaere Zusammenfassung, Analyse und Bewertung vorliegender Einzelergebnisse, die aufgabenbezogene Evaluierung von verfuegbaren Methoden, Forschungsansaetzen und Loesungen, die Durchfuehrung ergaenzender Untersuchungen und methodischer Tests sowie die Feststellung des weiteren Forschungs- und Handlungsbedarfs. (orig.)The project comprised an interdisciplinary assessment, analysis and evaluation of research findings, a problem-oriented evaluation of available methods, research strategies and solutions, supplementary investigations and methodical tests, and an assessment of the need for further research and actions.Available from TIB Hannover: F03B366 / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekSIGLEBundesministerium fuer Bildung und Forschung, Berlin (Germany); Ministerium fuer Wirtschaft und Technologie des Landes Sachsen-Anhalt, Magdeburg (Germany)DEGerman

Massnahmen der nachhaltigen Gefahrenabwehr fuer Altlasten in Gebieten mit bergbaubedingten Destabilisierungsvorgaengen am Beispiel der Stadt Stassfurt Laufzeit des Verbundvorhabens 01.10.2000-28.02.2002

Ziel des Vorhabens war die interdisziplinaere Zusammenfassung, Analyse und Bewertung vorliegender Einzelergebnisse, die aufgabenbezogene Evaluierung von verfuegbaren Methoden, Forschungsansaetzen und Loesungen, die Durchfuehrung ergaenzender Untersuchungen und methodischer Tests sowie die Feststellung des weiteren Forschungs- und Handlungsbedarfs. (orig.)The project comprised an interdisciplinary assessment, analysis and evaluation of research findings, a problem-oriented evaluation of available methods, research strategies and solutions, supplementary investigations and methodical tests, and an assessment of the need for further research and actions.Available from TIB Hannover: F03B366 / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekSIGLEBundesministerium fuer Bildung und Forschung, Berlin (Germany); Ministerium fuer Wirtschaft und Technologie des Landes Sachsen-Anhalt, Magdeburg (Germany)DEGerman

Leadership dynamics promoting systemic reform for inclusive service delivery

This article presents a multicase study of two systems of schools striving to reform service delivery systems for students with special needs. Considering these systems as institutional actors, the study examines what promotes the understanding and implementation of special education service delivery within a system of schools in a manner that strengthens the capacity of schools to welcome students with special needs. Key findings illustrate how central office support and relationships across horizontal, vertical, and diagonal dimensions mediate efforts to reorient organizations, establish policy coherence, provide instructional leadership, and maintain the focus on reform. The article concludes with implications across school sectors for policies and practices that promote inclusive service delivery for students with special needs