A class of second-order geometric quasilinear hyperbolic PDEs and their application in imaging science

In this paper, we study damped second-order dynamics, which are quasilinear hyperbolic partial differential equations (PDEs). This is inspired by the recent development of second-order damping systems for accelerating energy decay of gradient flows. We concentrate on two equations: one is a damped second-order total variation flow, which is primarily motivated by the application of image denoising; the other is a damped second-order mean curvature flow for level sets of scalar functions, which is related to a non-convex variational model capable of correcting displacement errors in image data (e.g. dejittering). For the former equation, we prove the existence and uniqueness of the solution. For the latter, we draw a connection between the equation and some second-order geometric PDEs evolving the hypersurfaces which are described by level sets of scalar functions, and show the existence and uniqueness of the solution for a regularized version of the equation. The latter is used in our algorithmic development. A general algorithm for numerical discretization of the two nonlinear PDEs is proposed and analyzed. Its efficiency is demonstrated by various numerical examples, where simulations on the behavior of solutions of the new equations and comparisons with first-order flows are also documented

Efficiency Analysis of European Freight Villages-Three Peers for Benchmarking

Measuring the performance of Freight Villages (FVs) has important implications for logistics companies and other related companies as well as governments. In this paper we apply Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to measure the performance of European FVs in a purely data-driven way incorporating the nature of FVs as complex operations that use multiple inputs and produce several outputs. We employ several DEA models and perform a complete sensitivity analysis of the appropriateness of the chosen input and output variables, and an assessment of the robustness of the efficiency score. It turns out that about half of the 20 FVs analyzed are inefficient, with utilization of the intermodal area and warehouse capacity and level of goods handed the being the most important areas of improvement. While we find no significant differences in efficiency between FVs of different sizes and in different countries, it turns out that the FVs Eurocentre Toulouse, Interporto Quadrante Europa and GVZ Nürnberg constitute more than 90% of the benchmark share.Series: Working Papers on Information Systems, Information Business and Operation

A class of second-order geometric quasilinear hyperbolic PDEs and their application in imaging science

In this paper, we study damped second-order dynamics, which are quasilinear hyperbolic partial differential equations (PDEs). This is inspired by the recent development of second-order damping systems for accelerating energy decay of gradient flows. We concentrate on two equations: one is a damped second-order total variation flow, which is primarily motivated by the application of image denoising; the other is a damped second-order mean curvature flow for level sets of scalar functions, which is related to a non-convex variational model capable of correcting displacement errors in image data (e.g. dejittering). For the former equation, we prove the existence and uniqueness of the solution. For the latter, we draw a connection between the equation and some second-order geometric PDEs evolving the hypersurfaces which are described by level sets of scalar functions, and show the existence and uniqueness of the solution for a regularized version of the equation. The latter is used in our algorithmic development. A general algorithm for numerical discretization of the two nonlinear PDEs is proposed and analyzed. Its efficiency is demonstrated by various numerical examples, where simulations on the behavior of solutions of the new equations and comparisons with first-order flows are also documented

A class of second-order geometric quasilinear hyperbolic PDEs and their application in imaging science

In this paper, we study damped second-order dynamics, which are quasilinear hyperbolic partial differential equations (PDEs). This is inspired by the recent development of second-order damping systems for accelerating energy decay of gradient flows. We concentrate on two equations: one is a damped second-order total variation flow, which is primarily motivated by the application of image denoising; the other is a damped second-order mean curvature flow for level sets of scalar functions, which is related to a non-convex variational model capable of correcting displacement errors in image data (e.g. dejittering). For the former equation, we prove the existence and uniqueness of the solution. For the latter, we draw a connection between the equation and some second-order geometric PDEs evolving the hypersurfaces which are described by level sets of scalar functions, and show the existence and uniqueness of the solution for a regularized version of the equation. The latter is used in our algorithmic development. A general algorithm for numerical discretization of the two nonlinear PDEs is proposed and analyzed. Its efficiency is demonstrated by various numerical examples, where simulations on the behavior of solutions of the new equations and comparisons with first-order flows are also documented

A physically oriented method for quantitative magnetic resonance imaging

Quantitative magnetic resonance imaging (qMRI) denotes the task of estimating the values of magnetic and tissue parameters, e.g., relaxation times T1, T2, proton density ρ and others. Recently in [Ma et al., Nature, 2013], an approach named Magnetic Resonance Fingerprinting (MRF) was introduced, being capable of simultaneously recovering these parameters by using a two step procedure: (i) a series of magnetization maps are created and then (ii) these are matched to parameters with the help of a pre-computed dictionary (Bloch manifold). In this paper, we initially put MRF and its variants in the perspective of optimization and inverse problems, providing some mathematical insights into these methods. Motivated by the fact that the Bloch manifold is non-convex, and the accuracy of the MRF type algorithms is limited by the discretization size of the dictionary, we propose here a novel physically oriented method for qMRI. In contrast to the conventional two step models, our model is dictionary-free and it is described by a single non-linear equation, governed by an operator for which we prove differentiability and other properties. This non-linear equation is efficiently solved via robust Newton type methods. The effectiveness of our method for noisy and undersampled data is shown both analytically and via numerical examples where also improvement over MRF and its variants is observed

A physically oriented method for quantitative magnetic resonance imaging

Quantitative magnetic resonance imaging (qMRI) denotes the task of estimating the values of magnetic and tissue parameters, e.g., relaxation times T1, T2, proton density p and others. Recently in [Ma et al., Nature, 2013], an approach named Magnetic Resonance Fingerprinting (MRF) was introduced, being capable of simultaneously recovering these parameters by using a two step procedure: (i) a series of magnetization maps are created and then (ii) these are matched to parameters with the help of a pre-computed dictionary (Bloch manifold). In this paper, we initially put MRF and its variants in the perspective of optimization and inverse problems, providing some mathematical insights into these methods. Motivated by the fact that the Bloch manifold is non-convex, and the accuracy of the MRF type algorithms is limited by the discretization size of the dictionary, we propose here a novel physically oriented method for qMRI. In contrast to the conventional two step models, our model is dictionary-free and it is described by a single nonlinear equation, governed by an operator for which we prove differentiability and other properties. This non-linear equation is efficiently solved via robust Newton type methods. The effectiveness of our method for noisy and undersampled data is shown both analytically and via numerical examples where also improvement over MRF and its variants is observed

Optimization with learning-informed differential equation constraints and its applications

Inspired by applications in optimal control of semilinear elliptic partial differential equations and physics-integrated imaging, differential equation constrained optimization problems with constituents that are only accessible through data-driven techniques are studied. A particular focus is on the analysis and on numerical methods for problems with machine-learned components. For a rather general context, an error analysis is provided, and particular properties resulting from artificial neural network based approximations are addressed. Moreover, for each of the two inspiring applications analytical details are presented and numerical results are provided