An Improved Adaptive Deconvolution Algorithm for Single Image Deblurring

One of the most common defects in digital photography is motion blur caused by camera shake. Shift-invariant motion blur can be modeled as a convolution of the true latent image and a point spread function (PSF) with additive noise. The goal of image deconvolution is to reconstruct a latent image from a degraded image. However, ringing is inevitable artifacts arising in the deconvolution stage. To suppress undesirable artifacts, regularization based methods have been proposed using natural image priors to overcome the ill-posedness of deconvolution problem. When the estimated PSF is erroneous to some extent or the PSF size is large, conventional regularization to reduce ringing would lead to loss of image details. This paper focuses on the nonblind deconvolution by adaptive regularization which preserves image details, while suppressing ringing artifacts. The way is to control the regularization weight adaptively according to the image local characteristics. We adopt elaborated reference maps that indicate the edge strength so that textured and smooth regions can be distinguished. Then we impose an appropriate constraint on the optimization process. The experiments’ results on both synthesized and real images show that our method can restore latent image with much fewer ringing and favors the sharp edges

Atomic ionization by sterile-to-active neutrino conversion and constraints on dark matter sterile neutrinos with germanium detectors

The transition magnetic moment of a sterile-to-active neutrino conversion gives rise to not only radiative decay of a sterile neutrino, but also its non-standard interaction (NSI) with matter. For sterile neutrinos of keV-mass as dark matter candidates, their decay signals are actively searched for in cosmic X-ray spectra. In this work, we consider the NSI that leads to atomic ionization, which can be detected by direct dark matter experiments. It is found that this inelastic scattering process for a nonrelativistic sterile neutrino has a pronounced enhancement in the differential cross section at energy transfer about half of its mass, manifesting experimentally as peaks in the measurable energy spectra. The enhancement effects gradually smear out as the sterile neutrino becomes relativistic. Using data taken with germanium detectors that have fine energy resolution in keV and sub-keV regimes, constraints on sterile neutrino mass and its transition magnetic moment are derived and compared with those from astrophysical observations

Hyperspectral sensing for turbid water quality monitoring in freshwater rivers: Empirical relationship between reflectance and turbidity and total solids

Total suspended solid (TSS) is an important water quality parameter. This study was conducted to test the feasibility of the band combination of hyperspectral sensing for inland turbid water monitoring in Taiwan. The field spectral reflectance in the Wu river basin of Taiwan was measured with a spectroradiometer; the water samples were collected from the different sites of the Wu river basin and some water quality parameters were analyzed on the sites (in situ) as well as brought to the laboratory for further analysis. To obtain the data set for this study, 160 in situ sample observations were carried out during campaigns from August to December, 2005. The water quality results were correlated with the reflectivity to determine the spectral characteristics and their relationship with turbidity and TSS. Furthermore, multiple-regression (MR) and artificial neural network (ANN) were used to model the transformation function between TSS concentration and turbidity levels of stream water, and the radiance measured by the spectroradiometer. The value of the turbidity and TSS correlation coefficient was 0.766, which implies that turbidity is significantly related to TSS in the Wu river basin. The results indicated that TSS and turbidity are positively correlated in a significant way across the entire spectrum, when TSS concentration and turbidity levels were under 800 mg·L(-1) and 600 NTU, respectively. Optimal wavelengths for the measurements of TSS and turbidity are found in the 700 and 900 nm range, respectively. Based on the results, better accuracy was obtained only when the ranges of turbidity and TSS concentration were less than 800 mg·L(-1) and less than 600 NTU, respectively and used rather than using whole dataset (R(2) = 0.93 versus 0.88 for turbidity and R(2) = 0.83 versus 0.58 for TSS). On the other hand, the ANN approach can improve the TSS retrieval using MR. The accuracy of TSS estimation applying ANN (R(2) = 0.66) was better than with the MR approach (R(2) = 0.58), as expected due to the nonlinear nature of the transformation model

Ventricular divergence correlates with epicardial wavebreaks and predicts ventricular arrhythmia in isolated rabbit hearts during therapeutic hypothermia

INTRODUCTION: High beat-to-beat morphological variation (divergence) on the ventricular electrogram during programmed ventricular stimulation (PVS) is associated with increased risk of ventricular fibrillation (VF), with unclear mechanisms. We hypothesized that ventricular divergence is associated with epicardial wavebreaks during PVS, and that it predicts VF occurrence. METHOD AND RESULTS: Langendorff-perfused rabbit hearts (n = 10) underwent 30-min therapeutic hypothermia (TH, 30°C), followed by a 20-min treatment with rotigaptide (300 nM), a gap junction modifier. VF inducibility was tested using burst ventricular pacing at the shortest pacing cycle length achieving 1:1 ventricular capture. Pseudo-ECG (p-ECG) and epicardial activation maps were simultaneously recorded for divergence and wavebreaks analysis, respectively. A total of 112 optical and p-ECG recordings (62 at TH, 50 at TH treated with rotigaptide) were analyzed. Adding rotigaptide reduced ventricular divergence, from 0.13±0.10 at TH to 0.09±0.07 (p = 0.018). Similarly, rotigaptide reduced the number of epicardial wavebreaks, from 0.59±0.73 at TH to 0.30±0.49 (p = 0.036). VF inducibility decreased, from 48±31% at TH to 22±32% after rotigaptide infusion (p = 0.032). Linear regression models showed that ventricular divergence correlated with epicardial wavebreaks during TH (p<0.001). CONCLUSION: Ventricular divergence correlated with, and might be predictive of epicardial wavebreaks during PVS at TH. Rotigaptide decreased both the ventricular divergence and epicardial wavebreaks, and reduced the probability of pacing-induced VF during TH