A New Extended Linear Mixing Model to Address Spectral Variability

International audienceSpectral variability is a phenomenon due, to a grand extend, to variations in the illumination and atmospheric conditions within a hyperspectral image, causing the spectral signature of a material to vary within a image. Data spectral fluctuation due to spectral variability compromises the linear mixing model (LMM) sum-to-one constraint, and is an important source of error in hyperspectral image analysis. Recently, spectral variability has raised more attention and some techniques have been proposed to address this issue, i.e. spectral bundles. Here, we propose the definition of an extended LMM (ELMM) to model spectral variability and we show that the use of spectral bundles models the ELMM implicitly. We also show that the constrained least squares (CLS) is an explicit modelling of the ELMM when the spectral variability is due to scaling effects. We give experimental validation that spectral bundles (and sparsity) and CLS are complementary techniques addressing spectral variability. We finally discuss on future research avenues to fully exploit the proposed ELMM

Classification of hyperspectral images by using morphological attribute filters and Independent Component Analysis

In this paper, a technique based on Independent Component Analysis (ICA) and morphological attribute filters is presented for the classification of high geometrical resolution hyperspectral images. The ICA is computed instead of the conventional principal component analysis (PCA) in order to better model the information in the hyperspectral image. The spatial characteristics of the objects in the scene are modeled by different multi-level attribute filters. Moreover, a method for increasing the robustness of the analysis based on a decision fusion strategy is proposed. A hyperspectral high resolution image acquired over the city of Pavia (Italy) was considered in the experiments

Surgical site infection after caesarean section. Space for post-discharge surveillance improvements and reliable comparisons

Surgical site infections (SSI) after caesarean section (CS) represent a substantial health system concern. Surveying SSI has been associated with a reduction in SSI incidence. We report the findings of three (2008, 2011 and 2013) regional active SSI surveillances after CS in community hospital of the Latium region determining the incidence of SSI. Each CS was surveyed for SSI occurrence by trained staff up to 30 post-operative days, and association of SSI with relevant characteristics was assessed using binomial logistic regression. A total of 3,685 CS were included in the study. A complete 30 day post-operation follow-up was achieved in over 94% of procedures. Overall 145 SSI were observed (3.9% cumulative incidence) of which 131 (90.3%) were superficial and 14 (9.7%) complex (deep or organ/space) SSI; overall 129 SSI (of which 89.9% superficial) were diagnosed post-discharge. Only higher NNIS score was significantly associated with SSI occurrence in the regression analysis. Our work provides the first regional data on CS-associated SSI incidence, highlighting the need for a post-discharge surveillance which should assure 30 days post-operation to not miss data on complex SSI, as well as being less labour intensive

Velocity-resolved reverberation mapping of five bright Seyfert 1 galaxies

We present the first results from a reverberation-mapping campaign undertaken during the first half of 2012, with additional data on one AGN (NGC 3227) from a 2014 campaign. Our main goals are (1) to determine the black hole masses from continuum-Hβ reverberation signatures, and (2) to look for velocity-dependent time delays that might be indicators of the gross kinematics of the broad-line region. We successfully measure Hbeta time delays and black hole masses for five AGNs, four of which have previous reverberation mass measurements. The values measured here are in agreement with earlier estimates, though there is some intrinsic scatter beyond the formal measurement errors. We observe velocity dependent Hβ lags in each case, and find that the patterns have changed in the intervening five years for three AGNs that were also observed in 2007.PostprintPeer reviewe

Cardiopoietic cell therapy for advanced ischemic heart failure: results at 39 weeks of the prospective, randomized, double blind, sham-controlled CHART-1 clinical trial

Cardiopoietic cells, produced through cardiogenic conditioning of patients' mesenchymal stem cells, have shown preliminary efficacy. The Congestive Heart Failure Cardiopoietic Regenerative Therapy (CHART-1) trial aimed to validate cardiopoiesis-based biotherapy in a larger heart failure cohort