Unsupervised Classification of SAR Images using Hierarchical Agglomeration and EM

We implement an unsupervised classification algorithm for high resolution Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images. The foundation of algorithm is based on Classification Expectation-Maximization (CEM). To get rid of two drawbacks of EM type algorithms, namely the initialization and the model order selection, we combine the CEM algorithm with the hierarchical agglomeration strategy and a model order selection criterion called Integrated Completed Likelihood (ICL). We exploit amplitude statistics in a Finite Mixture Model (FMM), and a Multinomial Logistic (MnL) latent class label model for a mixture density to obtain spatially smooth class segments. We test our algorithm on TerraSAR-X data

History of clinical transplantation

How transplantation came to be a clinical discipline can be pieced together by perusing two volumes of reminiscences collected by Paul I. Terasaki in 1991-1992 from many of the persons who were directly involved. One volume was devoted to the discovery of the major histocompatibility complex (MHC), with particular reference to the human leukocyte antigens (HLAs) that are widely used today for tissue matching.1 The other focused on milestones in the development of clinical transplantation.2 All the contributions described in both volumes can be traced back in one way or other to the demonstration in the mid-1940s by Peter Brian Medawar that the rejection of allografts is an immunological phenomenon.3,4 © 2008 Springer New York

Two frameworks for cross-domain heuristic and parameter selection using harmony search

Harmony Search is a metaheuristic technique for optimizing problems involving sets of continuous or discrete variables, inspired by musicians searching for harmony between instruments in a performance. Here we investigate two frameworks, using Harmony Search to select a mixture of continuous and discrete variables forming the components of a Memetic Algorithm for cross-domain heuristic search. The first is a single-point based framework which maintains a single solution, updating the harmony memory based on performance from a fixed starting position. The second is a population-based method which co-evolves a set of solutions to a problem alongside a set of harmony vectors. This work examines the behaviour of each framework over thirty problem instances taken from six different, real-world problem domains. The results suggest that population co-evolution performs better in a time-constrained scenario, however both approaches are ultimately constrained by the underlying metaphors