Transforming Traditions of Material Culture : Spatial and temporal patterns in pottery style, production and use during the second half of the 6th millennium cal BC in south-eastern Transdanubia and beyond

International audienceOne of the most salient traits of a major milestone in European history, the shift to a Neolithic life-style in Central Europe and the associated social changes, was the emergence of pottery production. The main goal of the research project described here is the study of Neolithic pottery production from a complex perspec- tive and the addressing of the associated distinctive social activity types and potential range of meanings during the period from the late Starčevo to the appearance of the Lengyel culture (5500–4900 cal BC). The springboard for our project was the series of intensely investigated sites in southern Transdanubia, a region that acted as a contact zone between the Neolithic communities of Central Europe and the northern Balkans, and thus played a key role in the neolithisation of Central Europe. The research findings from this region are complemented and compared with the data from various sites along the Danube. Aside from our academic colleagues, our research results can be of interest to the broader public too, and our reconstruc- tions of various artefacts and the documentation of our archaeological experiments can be later used as illustrations to museum exhibits. The expected results can be fitted into the broad picture outlined by other research conducted on these sites and offer an exceptionally detailed picture of how the region’s settlements developed during the second half of the 6th millennium BC

Változó tradíciók. A kerámiastílus, -előállítás és -használat tér- és időbeli mintázatai a Kr. e. 6. évezred második felében a Délkelet-Dunántúlon és a környező régiókban

International audienc

Validation of image restoration methods on 3D-printed ultrasound phantoms

National audienceAbstract:The resolution of ultrasound images is limited by the bandwidth of the imaging system and the features of the propagating medium. Using certain assumptions, image restoration can recover out-of-bandwidth data and improve resolution. Several resolution improvement methods have been reported in the literature. However, due to the lack of ground truth, their evaluation on experimental data remains an open issue. Indeed, to evaluate the performance of such methods, knowledge of the scattering function is necessary. Usually this is achieved with numerical simulations, since in traditional phantoms the exact distribution of scatterers is unknown. In the current work, based on a 3D-printed phantom, the feasibility of the evaluation of deconvolution is investigated. The deconvolution method used lp-norm-regularization terms with p=0.5 and p=2. Knowledge of the scattering function allows comparison of the deconvolved images with the ground truth. Thus, using the scattering function and the originally acquired B-mode image, performance of image restoration methods could be evaluated quantitatively through comparison of root mean square error and full width half maximum values. Preliminary results demonstrate the benefits of knowing the scattering function during experimental testing of image restoration methods. In summary, the current work shows the potential of an experimental method for evaluating the extent to which an image restoration method provides a faithful rendering of the underlying scattering structure

Preliminary Clinical Experience with a Novel Optical–Ultrasound Imaging Device on Various Skin Lesions

A compact handheld skin ultrasound imaging device has been developed that uses co-registered optical and ultrasound imaging to provide diagnostic information about the full skin depth. The aim of the current work is to present the preliminary clinical results of this device. Using additional photographic, dermoscopic and ultrasonic images as reference, the images from the device were assessed in terms of the detectability of the main skin layer boundaries and characteristic image features. Combined optical-ultrasonic recordings of various types of skin lesions (melanoma, basal cell carcinoma, seborrheic keratosis, dermatofibroma, naevus, dermatitis and psoriasis) were taken with the device (N = 53) and compared with images captured with a reference portable skin ultrasound imager. The investigator and two additional independent experts performed the evaluation. The detectability of skin structures was over 90% for the epidermis, the dermis and the lesions. The morphological and echogenicity information observed for the different skin lesions were found consistent with those of the reference ultrasound device and relevant ultrasound images in the literature. The presented device was able to obtain simultaneous in-vivo optical and ultrasound images of various skin lesions. This has the potential for further investigations, including the preoperative planning of skin cancer treatment