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- Genre: Doctoral Dissertation
Description
Image resolution limits the extent to which zooming enhances clarity, restricts the size digital photographs can be printed at, and, in the context of medical images, can prevent a diagnosis. Interpolation is the supplementing of known data with estimated values based on a function or model involving some or all of the known samples. The selection of the contributing data points and the specifics of how they are used to define the interpolated values influences how effectively the interpolation algorithm is able to estimate the underlying, continuous signal. The main contributions of this dissertation are three fold: 1) Reframing edge-directed interpolation of a single image as an intensity-based registration problem. 2) Providing an analytical framework for intensity-based registration using control grid constraints. 3) Quantitative assessment of the new, single-image enlargement algorithm based on analytical intensity-based registration. In addition to single image resizing, the new methods and analytical approaches were extended to address a wide range of applications including volumetric (multi-slice) image interpolation, video deinterlacing, motion detection, and atmospheric distortion correction. Overall, the new approaches generate results that more accurately reflect the underlying signals than less computationally demanding approaches and with lower processing requirements and fewer restrictions than methods with comparable accuracy.
ContributorsZwart, Christine M. (Author) / Frakes, David H (Thesis advisor) / Karam, Lina (Committee member) / Kodibagkar, Vikram (Committee member) / Spanias, Andreas (Committee member) / Towe, Bruce (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Image understanding has been playing an increasingly crucial role in vision applications. Sparse models form an important component in image understanding, since the statistics of natural images reveal the presence of sparse structure. Sparse methods lead to parsimonious models, in addition to being efficient for large scale learning. In sparse modeling, data is represented as a sparse linear combination of atoms from a "dictionary" matrix. This dissertation focuses on understanding different aspects of sparse learning, thereby enhancing the use of sparse methods by incorporating tools from machine learning. With the growing need to adapt models for large scale data, it is important to design dictionaries that can model the entire data space and not just the samples considered. By exploiting the relation of dictionary learning to 1-D subspace clustering, a multilevel dictionary learning algorithm is developed, and it is shown to outperform conventional sparse models in compressed recovery, and image denoising. Theoretical aspects of learning such as algorithmic stability and generalization are considered, and ensemble learning is incorporated for effective large scale learning. In addition to building strategies for efficiently implementing 1-D subspace clustering, a discriminative clustering approach is designed to estimate the unknown mixing process in blind source separation. By exploiting the non-linear relation between the image descriptors, and allowing the use of multiple features, sparse methods can be made more effective in recognition problems. The idea of multiple kernel sparse representations is developed, and algorithms for learning dictionaries in the feature space are presented. Using object recognition experiments on standard datasets it is shown that the proposed approaches outperform other sparse coding-based recognition frameworks. Furthermore, a segmentation technique based on multiple kernel sparse representations is developed, and successfully applied for automated brain tumor identification. Using sparse codes to define the relation between data samples can lead to a more robust graph embedding for unsupervised clustering. By performing discriminative embedding using sparse coding-based graphs, an algorithm for measuring the glomerular number in kidney MRI images is developed. Finally, approaches to build dictionaries for local sparse coding of image descriptors are presented, and applied to object recognition and image retrieval.
ContributorsJayaraman Thiagarajan, Jayaraman (Author) / Spanias, Andreas (Thesis advisor) / Frakes, David (Committee member) / Tepedelenlioğlu, Cihan (Committee member) / Turaga, Pavan (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Effective modeling of high dimensional data is crucial in information processing and machine learning. Classical subspace methods have been very effective in such applications. However, over the past few decades, there has been considerable research towards the development of new modeling paradigms that go beyond subspace methods. This dissertation focuses on the study of sparse models and their interplay with modern machine learning techniques such as manifold, ensemble and graph-based methods, along with their applications in image analysis and recovery. By considering graph relations between data samples while learning sparse models, graph-embedded codes can be obtained for use in unsupervised, supervised and semi-supervised problems. Using experiments on standard datasets, it is demonstrated that the codes obtained from the proposed methods outperform several baseline algorithms. In order to facilitate sparse learning with large scale data, the paradigm of ensemble sparse coding is proposed, and different strategies for constructing weak base models are developed. Experiments with image recovery and clustering demonstrate that these ensemble models perform better when compared to conventional sparse coding frameworks. When examples from the data manifold are available, manifold constraints can be incorporated with sparse models and two approaches are proposed to combine sparse coding with manifold projection. The improved performance of the proposed techniques in comparison to sparse coding approaches is demonstrated using several image recovery experiments. In addition to these approaches, it might be required in some applications to combine multiple sparse models with different regularizations. In particular, combining an unconstrained sparse model with non-negative sparse coding is important in image analysis, and it poses several algorithmic and theoretical challenges. A convex and an efficient greedy algorithm for recovering combined representations are proposed. Theoretical guarantees on sparsity thresholds for exact recovery using these algorithms are derived and recovery performance is also demonstrated using simulations on synthetic data. Finally, the problem of non-linear compressive sensing, where the measurement process is carried out in feature space obtained using non-linear transformations, is considered. An optimized non-linear measurement system is proposed, and improvements in recovery performance are demonstrated in comparison to using random measurements as well as optimized linear measurements.
ContributorsNatesan Ramamurthy, Karthikeyan (Author) / Spanias, Andreas (Thesis advisor) / Tsakalis, Konstantinos (Committee member) / Karam, Lina (Committee member) / Turaga, Pavan (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Surgery as a profession requires significant training to improve both clinical decision making and psychomotor proficiency. In the medical knowledge domain, tools have been developed, validated, and accepted for evaluation of surgeons' competencies. However, assessment of the psychomotor skills still relies on the Halstedian model of apprenticeship, wherein surgeons are observed during residency for judgment of their skills. Although the value of this method of skills assessment cannot be ignored, novel methodologies of objective skills assessment need to be designed, developed, and evaluated that augment the traditional approach. Several sensor-based systems have been developed to measure a user's skill quantitatively, but use of sensors could interfere with skill execution and thus limit the potential for evaluating real-life surgery. However, having a method to judge skills automatically in real-life conditions should be the ultimate goal, since only with such features that a system would be widely adopted. This research proposes a novel video-based approach for observing surgeons' hand and surgical tool movements in minimally invasive surgical training exercises as well as during laparoscopic surgery. Because our system does not require surgeons to wear special sensors, it has the distinct advantage over alternatives of offering skills assessment in both learning and real-life environments. The system automatically detects major skill-measuring features from surgical task videos using a computing system composed of a series of computer vision algorithms and provides on-screen real-time performance feedback for more efficient skill learning. Finally, the machine-learning approach is used to develop an observer-independent composite scoring model through objective and quantitative measurement of surgical skills. To increase effectiveness and usability of the developed system, it is integrated with a cloud-based tool, which automatically assesses surgical videos upload to the cloud.
ContributorsIslam, Gazi (Author) / Li, Baoxin (Thesis advisor) / Liang, Jianming (Thesis advisor) / Dinu, Valentin (Committee member) / Greenes, Robert (Committee member) / Smith, Marshall (Committee member) / Kahol, Kanav (Committee member) / Patel, Vimla L. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Controlled release formulations for local, in vivo drug delivery are of growing interest to device manufacturers, research scientists, and clinicians; however, most research characterizing controlled release formulations occurs in vitro because the spatial and temporal distribution of drug delivery is difficult to measure in vivo. In this work, in vivo magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of local drug delivery is performed to visualize and quantify the time resolved distribution of MRI contrast agents. I find it is possible to visualize contrast agent distributions in near real time from local delivery vehicles using MRI. Three dimensional T1 maps are processed to produce in vivo concentration maps of contrast agent for individual animal models. The method for obtaining concentration maps is analyzed to estimate errors introduced at various steps in the process. The method is used to evaluate different controlled release vehicles, vehicle placement, and type of surgical wound in rabbits as a model for antimicrobial delivery to orthopaedic infection sites. I are able to see differences between all these factors; however, all images show that contrast agent remains fairly local to the wound site and do not distribute to tissues far from the implant in therapeutic concentrations. I also produce a mathematical model that investigates important mechanisms in the transport of antimicrobials in a wound environment. It is determined from both the images and the mathematical model that antimicrobial distribution in an orthopaedic wounds is dependent on both diffusive and convective mechanisms. Furthermore, I began development of MRI visible therapeutic agents to examine active drug distributions. I hypothesize that this work can be developed into a non-invasive, patient specific, clinical tool to evaluate the success of interventional procedures using local drug delivery vehicles.
ContributorsGiers, Morgan (Author) / Caplan, Michael R (Thesis advisor) / Massia, Stephen P (Committee member) / Frakes, David (Committee member) / McLaren, Alex C. (Committee member) / Vernon, Brent L (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Computed tomography (CT) is one of the essential imaging modalities for medical diagnosis. Since its introduction in 1972, CT technology has been improved dramatically, especially in terms of its acquisition speed. However, the main principle of CT which consists in acquiring only density information has not changed at all until recently. Different materials may have the same CT number, which may lead to uncertainty or misdiagnosis. Dual-energy CT (DECT) was reintroduced recently to solve this problem by using the additional spectral information of X-ray attenuation and aims for accurate density measurement and material differentiation. However, the spectral information lies in the difference between two low and high energy images or measurements, so that it is difficult to acquire the accurate spectral information due to amplification of high pixel noise in the resulting difference image. In this work, a new model and an image enhancement technique for DECT are proposed, based on the fact that the attenuation of a high density material decreases more rapidly as X-ray energy increases. This fact has been previously ignored in most of DECT image enhancement techniques. The proposed technique consists of offset correction, spectral error correction, and adaptive noise suppression. It reduced noise, improved contrast effectively and showed better material differentiation in real patient images as well as phantom studies.
ContributorsPark, Kyung Kook (Author) / Metin, Akay (Thesis advisor) / Pavlicek, William (Committee member) / Akay, Yasemin (Committee member) / Towe, Bruce (Committee member) / Muthuswamy, Jitendran (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Recent advances in medical imaging technology have greatly enhanced imaging based diagnosis which requires computational effective and accurate algorithms to process the images (e.g., measure the objects) for quantitative assessment. In this dissertation, one type of imaging objects is of interest: small blobs. Example small blob objects are cells in histopathology images, small breast lesions in ultrasound images, glomeruli in kidney MR images etc. This problem is particularly challenging because the small blobs often have inhomogeneous intensity distribution and indistinct boundary against the background.
This research develops a generalized four-phased system for small blob detections. The system includes (1) raw image transformation, (2) Hessian pre-segmentation, (3) feature extraction and (4) unsupervised clustering for post-pruning. First, detecting blobs from 2D images is studied where a Hessian-based Laplacian of Gaussian (HLoG) detector is proposed. Using the scale space theory as foundation, the image is smoothed via LoG. Hessian analysis is then launched to identify the single optimal scale based on which a pre-segmentation is conducted. Novel Regional features are extracted from pre-segmented blob candidates and fed to Variational Bayesian Gaussian Mixture Models (VBGMM) for post pruning. Sixteen cell histology images and two hundred cell fluorescent images are tested to demonstrate the performances of HLoG. Next, as an extension, Hessian-based Difference of Gaussians (HDoG) is proposed which is capable to identify the small blobs from 3D images. Specifically, kidney glomeruli segmentation from 3D MRI (6 rats, 3 humans) is investigated. The experimental results show that HDoG has the potential to automatically detect glomeruli, enabling new measurements of renal microstructures and pathology in preclinical and clinical studies. Realizing the computation time is a key factor impacting the clinical adoption, the last phase of this research is to investigate the data reduction technique for VBGMM in HDoG to handle large-scale datasets. A new coreset algorithm is developed for variational Bayesian mixture models. Using the same MRI dataset, it is observed that the four-phased system with coreset-VBGMM has similar performance as using the full dataset but about 20 times faster.
This research develops a generalized four-phased system for small blob detections. The system includes (1) raw image transformation, (2) Hessian pre-segmentation, (3) feature extraction and (4) unsupervised clustering for post-pruning. First, detecting blobs from 2D images is studied where a Hessian-based Laplacian of Gaussian (HLoG) detector is proposed. Using the scale space theory as foundation, the image is smoothed via LoG. Hessian analysis is then launched to identify the single optimal scale based on which a pre-segmentation is conducted. Novel Regional features are extracted from pre-segmented blob candidates and fed to Variational Bayesian Gaussian Mixture Models (VBGMM) for post pruning. Sixteen cell histology images and two hundred cell fluorescent images are tested to demonstrate the performances of HLoG. Next, as an extension, Hessian-based Difference of Gaussians (HDoG) is proposed which is capable to identify the small blobs from 3D images. Specifically, kidney glomeruli segmentation from 3D MRI (6 rats, 3 humans) is investigated. The experimental results show that HDoG has the potential to automatically detect glomeruli, enabling new measurements of renal microstructures and pathology in preclinical and clinical studies. Realizing the computation time is a key factor impacting the clinical adoption, the last phase of this research is to investigate the data reduction technique for VBGMM in HDoG to handle large-scale datasets. A new coreset algorithm is developed for variational Bayesian mixture models. Using the same MRI dataset, it is observed that the four-phased system with coreset-VBGMM has similar performance as using the full dataset but about 20 times faster.
ContributorsZhang, Min (Author) / Wu, Teresa (Thesis advisor) / Li, Jing (Committee member) / Pavlicek, William (Committee member) / Askin, Ronald (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
Using stereo vision for 3D reconstruction and depth estimation has become a popular and promising research area as it has a simple setup with passive cameras and relatively efficient processing procedure. The work in this dissertation focuses on locally adaptive stereo vision methods and applications to different imaging setups and image scenes.
Solder ball height and substrate coplanarity inspection is essential to the detection of potential connectivity issues in semi-conductor units. Current ball height and substrate coplanarity inspection tools are expensive and slow, which makes them difficult to use in a real-time manufacturing setting. In this dissertation, an automatic, stereo vision based, in-line ball height and coplanarity inspection method is presented. The proposed method includes an imaging setup together with a computer vision algorithm for reliable, in-line ball height measurement. The imaging setup and calibration, ball height estimation and substrate coplanarity calculation are presented with novel stereo vision methods. The results of the proposed method are evaluated in a measurement capability analysis (MCA) procedure and compared with the ground-truth obtained by an existing laser scanning tool and an existing confocal inspection tool. The proposed system outperforms existing inspection tools in terms of accuracy and stability.
In a rectified stereo vision system, stereo matching methods can be categorized into global methods and local methods. Local stereo methods are more suitable for real-time processing purposes with competitive accuracy as compared with global methods. This work proposes a stereo matching method based on sparse locally adaptive cost aggregation. In order to reduce outlier disparity values that correspond to mis-matches, a novel sparse disparity subset selection method is proposed by assigning a significance status to candidate disparity values, and selecting the significant disparity values adaptively. An adaptive guided filtering method using the disparity subset for refined cost aggregation and disparity calculation is demonstrated. The proposed stereo matching algorithm is tested on the Middlebury and the KITTI stereo evaluation benchmark images. A performance analysis of the proposed method in terms of the I0 norm of the disparity subset is presented to demonstrate the achieved efficiency and accuracy.
Solder ball height and substrate coplanarity inspection is essential to the detection of potential connectivity issues in semi-conductor units. Current ball height and substrate coplanarity inspection tools are expensive and slow, which makes them difficult to use in a real-time manufacturing setting. In this dissertation, an automatic, stereo vision based, in-line ball height and coplanarity inspection method is presented. The proposed method includes an imaging setup together with a computer vision algorithm for reliable, in-line ball height measurement. The imaging setup and calibration, ball height estimation and substrate coplanarity calculation are presented with novel stereo vision methods. The results of the proposed method are evaluated in a measurement capability analysis (MCA) procedure and compared with the ground-truth obtained by an existing laser scanning tool and an existing confocal inspection tool. The proposed system outperforms existing inspection tools in terms of accuracy and stability.
In a rectified stereo vision system, stereo matching methods can be categorized into global methods and local methods. Local stereo methods are more suitable for real-time processing purposes with competitive accuracy as compared with global methods. This work proposes a stereo matching method based on sparse locally adaptive cost aggregation. In order to reduce outlier disparity values that correspond to mis-matches, a novel sparse disparity subset selection method is proposed by assigning a significance status to candidate disparity values, and selecting the significant disparity values adaptively. An adaptive guided filtering method using the disparity subset for refined cost aggregation and disparity calculation is demonstrated. The proposed stereo matching algorithm is tested on the Middlebury and the KITTI stereo evaluation benchmark images. A performance analysis of the proposed method in terms of the I0 norm of the disparity subset is presented to demonstrate the achieved efficiency and accuracy.
ContributorsLi, Jinjin (Author) / Karam, Lina (Thesis advisor) / Chakrabarti, Chaitali (Committee member) / Patel, Nital (Committee member) / Spanias, Andreas (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
Compressed sensing (CS) is a novel approach to collecting and analyzing data of all types. By exploiting prior knowledge of the compressibility of many naturally-occurring signals, specially designed sensors can dramatically undersample the data of interest and still achieve high performance. However, the generated data are pseudorandomly mixed and must be processed before use. In this work, a model of a single-pixel compressive video camera is used to explore the problems of performing inference based on these undersampled measurements. Three broad types of inference from CS measurements are considered: recovery of video frames, target tracking, and object classification/detection. Potential applications include automated surveillance, autonomous navigation, and medical imaging and diagnosis.
Recovery of CS video frames is far more complex than still images, which are known to be (approximately) sparse in a linear basis such as the discrete cosine transform. By combining sparsity of individual frames with an optical flow-based model of inter-frame dependence, the perceptual quality and peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR) of reconstructed frames is improved. The efficacy of this approach is demonstrated for the cases of \textit{a priori} known image motion and unknown but constant image-wide motion.
Although video sequences can be reconstructed from CS measurements, the process is computationally costly. In autonomous systems, this reconstruction step is unnecessary if higher-level conclusions can be drawn directly from the CS data. A tracking algorithm is described and evaluated which can hold target vehicles at very high levels of compression where reconstruction of video frames fails. The algorithm performs tracking by detection using a particle filter with likelihood given by a maximum average correlation height (MACH) target template model.
Motivated by possible improvements over the MACH filter-based likelihood estimation of the tracking algorithm, the application of deep learning models to detection and classification of compressively sensed images is explored. In tests, a Deep Boltzmann Machine trained on CS measurements outperforms a naive reconstruct-first approach.
Taken together, progress in these three areas of CS inference has the potential to lower system cost and improve performance, opening up new applications of CS video cameras.
Recovery of CS video frames is far more complex than still images, which are known to be (approximately) sparse in a linear basis such as the discrete cosine transform. By combining sparsity of individual frames with an optical flow-based model of inter-frame dependence, the perceptual quality and peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR) of reconstructed frames is improved. The efficacy of this approach is demonstrated for the cases of \textit{a priori} known image motion and unknown but constant image-wide motion.
Although video sequences can be reconstructed from CS measurements, the process is computationally costly. In autonomous systems, this reconstruction step is unnecessary if higher-level conclusions can be drawn directly from the CS data. A tracking algorithm is described and evaluated which can hold target vehicles at very high levels of compression where reconstruction of video frames fails. The algorithm performs tracking by detection using a particle filter with likelihood given by a maximum average correlation height (MACH) target template model.
Motivated by possible improvements over the MACH filter-based likelihood estimation of the tracking algorithm, the application of deep learning models to detection and classification of compressively sensed images is explored. In tests, a Deep Boltzmann Machine trained on CS measurements outperforms a naive reconstruct-first approach.
Taken together, progress in these three areas of CS inference has the potential to lower system cost and improve performance, opening up new applications of CS video cameras.
ContributorsBraun, Henry Carlton (Author) / Turaga, Pavan K (Thesis advisor) / Spanias, Andreas S (Thesis advisor) / Tepedelenlioğlu, Cihan (Committee member) / Berisha, Visar (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
Monitoring vital physiological signals, such as heart rate, blood pressure and breathing pattern, are basic requirements in the diagnosis and management of various diseases. Traditionally, these signals are measured only in hospital and clinical settings. An important recent trend is the development of portable devices for tracking these physiological signals non-invasively by using optical methods. These portable devices, when combined with cell phones, tablets or other mobile devices, provide a new opportunity for everyone to monitor one’s vital signs out of clinic.
This thesis work develops camera-based systems and algorithms to monitor several physiological waveforms and parameters, without having to bring the sensors in contact with a subject. Based on skin color change, photoplethysmogram (PPG) waveform is recorded, from which heart rate and pulse transit time are obtained. Using a dual-wavelength illumination and triggered camera control system, blood oxygen saturation level is captured. By monitoring shoulder movement using differential imaging processing method, respiratory information is acquired, including breathing rate and breathing volume. Ballistocardiogram (BCG) is obtained based on facial feature detection and motion tracking. Blood pressure is further calculated from simultaneously recorded PPG and BCG, based on the time difference between these two waveforms.
The developed methods have been validated by comparisons against reference devices and through pilot studies. All of the aforementioned measurements are conducted without any physical contact between sensors and subjects. The work presented herein provides alternative solutions to track one’s health and wellness under normal living condition.
This thesis work develops camera-based systems and algorithms to monitor several physiological waveforms and parameters, without having to bring the sensors in contact with a subject. Based on skin color change, photoplethysmogram (PPG) waveform is recorded, from which heart rate and pulse transit time are obtained. Using a dual-wavelength illumination and triggered camera control system, blood oxygen saturation level is captured. By monitoring shoulder movement using differential imaging processing method, respiratory information is acquired, including breathing rate and breathing volume. Ballistocardiogram (BCG) is obtained based on facial feature detection and motion tracking. Blood pressure is further calculated from simultaneously recorded PPG and BCG, based on the time difference between these two waveforms.
The developed methods have been validated by comparisons against reference devices and through pilot studies. All of the aforementioned measurements are conducted without any physical contact between sensors and subjects. The work presented herein provides alternative solutions to track one’s health and wellness under normal living condition.
ContributorsShao, Dangdang (Author) / Tao, Nongjian (Thesis advisor) / Li, Baoxin (Committee member) / Hekler, Eric (Committee member) / Karam, Lina (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016