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Purpose HRCT is the preferred imaging technique to evaluate Interstitial-Lung-Disease. Optimal Low-Dose-Computed-Tomography protocol for monitoring ILD with lowest radiation dose and optimal diagnostic accuracy and image quality unknown. Methods 28 Patients underwent HRCT. Image reconstructions with varying combinations of tube current (50mA, 20mA, 15 mA, 10mA) and image-thickness/increment (1/1mm, 2/2mm, 3/2.4mm, 5/4mm) were simulated from raw data. 448 CTs evaluated by 2 readers on image quality and ILD-specific features (ground glass opacification (ggo), honeycombing (hc), reticulation (ret)). Results Reduced dose settings with 20 mA did not show any significant difference to standard dose settings for all parameters in reader 1, while results were significantly altered in reader 2. Slice thickness did not significantly influence rating of typical ILD features like ggo, hc, ret or total disease extent. The correct differentiation between UIP and NSIP could be made on all dose settings and with all slice thickness. It was even found, that an increased slice thickness can compensate for the noise associated image quality degradation. Overall, for ggo detection a combination of 20 mA and 3 or 5 mm slice thickness was not different to the original evaluation. Conclusions Assessment of ILD specific CT features down to 20 mA and a slice thickness of 3 or 5 mm is feasible.

Underdogs are individuals or groups who are at a disadvantage in competitive situations or predicted to fail in competition against rivals. In elections, candidates often label themselves as underdogs, regardless of their poll rankings, using the associated image of weakness to appeal to voters. This study examines the advertising effects related to labeling candidates as underdogs (versus frontrunners) in political communications, and the possible moderating effects of candidate-related factors, including media-based poll rankings, biological sex, and physical attractiveness. The results of two experiments show that a candidate's use of the underdog label generates better advertising effects when polls indicate the promoted candidate is close to or substantially behind the competitor, or when the promoted candidate is female and moderately physically attractive. However, using the frontrunner label generates better advertising effects when the promoted candidate is male, highly physically attractive, or substantially prevailing over the competitor in the polls.

Publicly available skin image datasets are increasingly used to develop machine learning algorithms for skin cancer diagnosis. However, the total number of datasets and their respective content is currently unclear. This systematic review aimed to identify and evaluate all publicly available skin image datasets used for skin cancer diagnosis by exploring their characteristics, data access requirements, and associated image metadata. A combined MEDLINE, Google, and Google Dataset search identified 21 open access datasets containing 106 950 skin lesion images, 17 open access atlases, eight regulated access datasets, and three regulated access atlases. Images and accompanying data from open access datasets were evaluated by two independent reviewers. Among the 14 datasets that reported country of origin, most (11 [79%]) originated from Europe, North America, and Oceania exclusively. Most datasets (19 [91%]) contained dermoscopic images or macroscopic photographs only. Clinical information was available regarding age for 81 662 images (76·4%), sex for 82 848 (77·5%), and body site for 79 561 (74·4%). Subject ethnicity data were available for 1415 images (1·3%), and Fitzpatrick skin type data for 2236 (2·1%). There was limited and variable reporting of characteristics and metadata among datasets, with substantial under-representation of darker skin types. This is the first systematic review to characterise publicly available skin image datasets, highlighting limited applicability to real-life clinical settings and restricted population representation, precluding generalisability. Quality standards for characteristics and metadata reporting for skin image datasets are needed.

International audience; PURPOSE: In radiotherapy, MRI is used for target volume and organs-at-risk delineation for its superior soft-tissue contrast as compared to CT imaging. However, MRI does not provide the electron density of tissue necessary for dose calculation. Several methods of synthetic-CT (sCT) generation from MRI data have been developed for radiotherapy dose calculation. This work reviewed deep learning (DL) sCT generation methods and their associated image and dose evaluation, in the context of MRI-based dose calculation. METHODS: We searched the PubMed and ScienceDirect electronic databases from January 2010 to March 2021. For each paper, several items were screened and compiled in figures and tables. RESULTS: This review included 57 studies. The DL methods were either generator-only based (45% of the reviewed studies), or generative adversarial network (GAN) architecture and its variants (55% of the reviewed studies). The brain and pelvis were the most commonly investigated anatomical localizations (39% and 28% of the reviewed studies, respectively), and more rarely, the head-and-neck (HandN) (15%), abdomen (10%), liver (5%) or breast (3%). All the studies performed an image evaluation of sCTs with a diversity of metrics, with only 36 studies performing dosimetric evaluations of sCT. CONCLUSIONS: The median mean absolute errors were around 76 HU for the brain and HandN sCTs and 40 HU for the pelvis sCTs. For the brain, the mean dose difference between the sCT and the reference CT was

Multiparametric fluorescence imaging via CODEX allows the simultaneous imaging of many biomarkers in a single tissue section. While the digital fluorescence data thus obtained can provide highly specific characterizations of individual cells and microenvironments, the images obtained are different from those usually interpreted by pathologists (i.e., H&E slides and DAB-stained immunohistochemistry slides). Having the fluorescence data plus co-registered H&E or similar data could facilitate adoption of multiparametric imaging into regular workflows, as well as facilitate the transfer of algorithms and machine learning previous developed around H&E slides. Since commercial CODEX instruments do not produce H&E-like images by themselves, we developed a staining protocol and associated image processing to make “virtual H&E” images that can be incorporated into the CODEX workflow. While there are many ways to achieve virtual H&E images, including use of a fluorescent nuclear stain and tissue autofluorescence to simulate eosin staining, we opted to combine fluorescent nuclear staining (via DAPI) with actual eosin staining. We also output images derived from fluorescent nuclear staining and autofluorescence images for additional evaluation.

Contains fulltext : 235787.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access) Anatomical examinations have been designed to assess topographical and/or applied knowledge of anatomy with or without the inclusion of visual resources such as cadaveric specimens or images, radiological images, and/or clinical photographs. Multimedia learning theories have advanced the understanding of how words and images are processed during learning. However, the evidence of the impact of including anatomical and radiological images within written assessments is sparse. This study investigates the impact of including images within clinically oriented single-best-answer questions on students' scores in a tailored online tool. Second-year medical students (n = 174) from six schools in the United Kingdom participated voluntarily in the examination, and 55 students provided free-text comments which were thematically analyzed. All questions were categorized as to whether their stimulus format was purely textual or included an associated image. The type (anatomical and radiological image) and deep structure of images (question referring to a bone or soft tissue on the image) were taken into consideration. Students scored significantly better on questions with images compared to questions without images (P < 0.001), and on questions referring to bones than to soft tissue (P < 0.001), but no difference was found in their performance on anatomical and radiological image questions. The coding highlighted areas of "test applicability" and "challenges faced by the students." In conclusion, images are critical in medical practice for investigating a patient's anatomy, and this study sets out a way to understand the effects of images on students' performance and their views in commonly employed written assessments.

Age-related reductions in neural selectivity have been linked to cognitive decline. We examined whether age differences in the strength of retrieval-related cortical reinstatement could be explained by analogous differences in neural selectivity at encoding, and whether reinstatement was associated with memory performance in an age-dependent or an age-independent manner. Young and older adults underwent fMRI as they encoded words paired with images of faces or scenes. During a subsequent scanned memory test participants judged whether test words were studied or unstudied and, for words judged studied, also made a source memory judgment about the associated image category. Using multi-voxel pattern similarity analyses, we identified robust evidence for reduced scene reinstatement in older relative to younger adults. This decline was however largely explained by age differences in neural differentiation at encoding; moreover, a similar relationship between neural selectivity at encoding and retrieval was evident in young participants. The results suggest that, regardless of age, the selectivity with which events are neurally processed at the time of encoding can determine the strength of retrieval-related cortical reinstatement.

On many photo-sharing social media, e.g., Instagram, a user posting a photo can add tags, i.e., words describing it. Tags are used for keyword-based image search. Some tags, however, describe not image contents but some metadata, e.g., camera names. We propose a method of determining which tag is more likely to describe the associated image contents. We determine it based on pairwise comparisons of tags. Given a pair of tags A and B, we compare three sets of images: (1) those associated with A, (2) those associated with B, and (3) those associated with both A and B. If (3) is more similar to (1) than to (2), A is more likely to describe image contents. Our experiment with Instagram data shows that our method is effective.

Bitter pit is an economically important physiological disorder in apples resulting in serious economic losses. Current visual assessment techniques are not completely useful in evaluating the extent of bitter pit development as they are limited to external symptoms. An X-ray computer tomography (CT) based imaging and associated image processing algorithm was used to assess the number of bitter pits inside the fruit and on the surface of apples. Samples of 40 healthy and 40 bitter pit affected ‘Honeycrisp’ apples were selected from two different field sites, and scanned with CT equipment on 0, 21 and 63 days after harvest. The results showed that the average number of bitter pits increased both on the surface and inside the fruits with increasing storage period. An average of 42–66% pits was present inside the apple fruits in bitter pit-affected apples. In addition, most of the newly developed bitter pits in healthy apples appeared within the fruit. Therefore, the usefulness of X-ray CT imaging as an effective phenotyping tool in identifying internal bitter pit and on the surface in the automated manner was demonstrated in this study.

New technologies can make previously invisible phenomena visible. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the field of light microscopy. Beginning with the observation of “animalcules” by Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, when he figured out how to achieve high magnification by shaping lenses, microscopy has advanced to this day by a continued march of discoveries driven by technical innovations. Recent advances in single-molecule-based technologies have achieved unprecedented resolution, and were the basis of the Nobel prize in Chemistry in 2014. In this article, we focus on developments in camera technologies and associated image processing that have been a major driver of technical innovations in light microscopy. We describe five types of developments in camera technology: video-based analog contrast enhancement, charge-coupled devices (CCDs), intensified sensors, electron multiplying gain, and scientific complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor cameras, which, together, have had major impacts in light microscopy.

In most Multi-Primary displays it becomes necessary to replace the three colors of light-emitting elements with four or more colors of light-emitting elements. Of course, changes in the spatial quality of the display occur as a result. As we will discuss, at times the use of multi-primary displays may require more light-emitting elements to be built into the display than would be necessary for an RGB display. However, conditions are discussed in which the number of light-emitting elements might actually be reduced in multi-primary displays as compared to RGB displays having equivalent image quality. In addition to discussing light emitting elements and rendering algorithms to form high quality multi-primary displays, we discuss methods to evaluate the image quality of multi-primary displays. The ability to predict the impact of incorporating various arrangements of light-emitting elements and associated image processing which is necessary to avoid unnecessary risk when designing multi-primary displays.

In the last few years, the impact of information spread through online social networks has continuously grown. For this reason, understanding the trustworthiness of news has become one of the most important challenges for an Internet user, especially during crisis events or in political, health and social issues. As part of a more comprehensive project for the detection of fake news, this paper proposes a machine learning method to evaluate the trustworthiness of a piece of information especially considering its associated image. In the work described in this paper, the training and test datasets have been first collected from the web, downloading more than 1000 images related to trusted and fake Facebook pages. All collected images have been processed using the Google Vision online service for extracting their specific internal details. For each image, various kinds of features have been considered, including its color composition, the recognized objects, the list of sites in which it is published, and eventually the contained text. These details have been then used for training a classifier using different algorithms which allowed us to reach an accuracy of about 85% in hoax identification. Future research will focus on social-network information related to images, to improve the system accuracy and acquire more knowledge about various types of news spread online.

The Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) wavefront control system will provide active optics control and optimized atmospheric turbulence correction to every instrument on the 25.4 m diameter GMT. All subsystems of the GMT wavefront control system have passed their preliminary design reviews, and several are now in the detailed design and prototyping phases. Significant progress has been made developing optimized control algorithms, and simulating observatory performance over a wide range of environmental conditions. We review the wavefront control strategy in each observing mode, and the associated image quality error budgets. We also describe recent d and prototyping progress, and our plans to complete the wavefront control system development and prepare for first light.

Personal safety and security are essential criteria for measuring the quality of public transport, and research has consistently demonstrated that crime and fear of crime affect levels of patronage. Although authorities throughout the world are implementing Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED), research and practice commonly focus on the elements of surveillance, territoriality, and controlling access. Few studies have investigated the CPTED concepts of “image management” or “geographical juxtaposition” (the surrounding environment). This research compares and contrasts the perceptions of rail users and security experts in relation to two railway stations in Perth, Western Australia. One station was designed in accordance with CPTED principles, and one was not. Interestingly, the findings indicate that the rail users perceived the station that was not designed using CPTED to be marginally safer and to exhibit slightly higher levels of CPTED qualities. This exploratory investigation suggests that the effectiveness of CPTED is mediated by the local environment surrounding each station and its associated image.

Isolated and well-dispersed Au nanoisland arrays were prepared with sputter deposition and post-deposition anneal in a cyclic fashion. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) characterization and associated image analysis in aspects of nanoisland size, coverage, circularity, and density were performed to investigate the influence of cyclic deposition and anneal (DAA) on the morphology of as-prepared Au nanoisland arrays. This study revealed that, given a fixed amount of Au deposition per cycle, increasing the number of DAA cycles drove Au nanoislands’ gradual growth that was interpreted with the increase of their size and coverage and decrease of their density and circularity. In addition, given a fixed amount of total Au deposition, dividing the growth process into more cycles was shown to lower the growth rate of Au nanoislands. Moreover, the as-prepared Au nanoisland arrays were demonstrated to be a viable option as surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) sensing platform whose SERS enhancement was found to be highly dependent upon the size of nanoislands.

To facilitate the training of plastic surgery residents, we analyzed a knowledge-based curriculum for plastic and reconstructive surgery of the lower extremity.The Plastic Surgery In-Service Training Exam (PSITE) is a commonly used tool to assess medical knowledge in plastic surgery. We reviewed the lower extremity content on 6 consecutive score keys (2008-2013). Questions were classified by taxonomy, anatomy, and subject. Answer references were quantified by source and relative year of publication.Totally, 107 questions related to the lower extremity (9.1% of all questions) and 14 questions had an associated image (13.1%). Questions required decision making (49%) over interpretation (36%) and direct recall (15%) skills (p0.001). Conditions of the leg (42.1%) and thigh (24.3%) constituted most of the questions. Subject matter focused on flap reconstruction (38.3%), nerve injury (8.4%), and congenital deformity (6.5%). Analysis of 263 citations to 66 unique journals showed that Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery (54.9%) was the highest yield primary source. The median year of publication relative to PSITE administration was 6 (range: 1-58) with a mode of 2 years. Plastic Surgery by Mathes et al. was the most referenced textbook (21.9%).These data establish a benchmark for lower extremity training during plastic surgery residency. Study efforts focused on the most common topics and references will enhance trainee preparation for lower extremity PSITE questions.

One of the important aspects in graphic design is choosing the font of the caption that matches aesthetically the associated image. To obtain a good match, users would exhaustively examine a long font list requiring them a substantial effort. This paper presents FontMatcher, which supports users to design digital graphic works harmoniously pairing fonts with an image. The system provides three features, recommendation, explaination and feedback. If a warm feeling image is given as input, the system recommends warm feeling fonts, and then explains what is the distinguishing features of the recommendation, e.g. a cursive shape. Users can also provide feedback to find fonts which correspond to their intention. Our evaluation results show that the recommended fonts scored better than selected fonts by novices and provides competing results with the ones chosen by experienced graphic designers. The system also provides explanations that help increasing the reliability of the recommended results.

O efeito da estratégia de branding de identidade, estrangeirismo e país de origem, no valor da marca suscita questões sobre a efetividade da nomeação de estabelecimentos comerciais pelos empreendedores. A pesquisa averiguou a influência do estrangeirismo e do país de origem na percepção de valor de marcas pelos consumidores. Foi realizado um experimento entre sujeitos (2x2) com 280 participantes, tendo o estrangeirismo e o país de origem como variáveis manipuladas e o valor da marca como variável dependente. Os resultados demonstram um efeito positivo e direto do estrangeirismo nos indicadores de brand equity, imagem associada e disposição a pagar preço premium. O país de origem moderou a relação do estrangeirismo com o valor da marca, demonstrando que marca com estrangeirismo aumenta a exclusividade sem identificação do país de origem e marca sem estrangeirismo aumenta o mesmo indicador ao mostrar o país de origem. A pesquisa pode auxiliar na construção e gerenciamento da marca de novos produtos, serviços e lojas. The effect of the brand identity strategies, foreignness and country of origin, on brand equity raises questions about the effectiveness of the names given by entrepreneurs to commercial establishments. This study investigates the influence of foreignness and country of origin on consumer-based brand equity. We conduct a 2x2 between-subjects experiment with 280 participants, using brand foreignness and country of origin as manipulated variables and brand equity as the dependent variable. The results show a positive and direct effect of foreignness on brand equity indicators, associated image and willingness to pay a premium price. Country of origin moderated the relationship between foreignness and brand equity, showing that a brand with foreignness increases exclusivity without any identification of the country of origin and that a brand without foreignness increases the same indicator when the country of origin is present. This research may help in building and managing new product, service, and retail brands.

Michael Tye (2007) argues that phenomenal character cannot be an intrinsic microphysical property of experiences (or be necessitated by intrinsic microphysical properties) because this would entail that experience could occur in a chunk of tissue in a Petri dish. Laudably, Tye attempts to defend the latter claim rather than resting content with the counterintuitiveness of the associated image. However, I show that his defense is problematic in several ways, and ultimately that it still amounts to no more than an appeal to the unargued intuition that experience could not occur in something small enough to fit in a Petri dish.

This study investigates the changes inconsumer sensibility and product preferences according to theireco- friendly productperceptions. Stimulants (released by three companies of sport casual brands)include three shirts made of recycled polyester and three made of organic cotton. A surveymethod was used to respond to the emotion and image while watching the presented pictures of the clothes. The change in the reactions was analyzed before and after the pre- sentation of eco-friendliness information. The questionnaire consists of sensibility adjectives, open-ended questions about the associated image of eco-friendliness, color attractiveness, product favorability, price satisfaction, and reasons for an eco-friendly productpurchase. The survey was conducted on 200adult male and female participants. Two factors ('eco' and 'design')were identifiedthrough the factor analysis of image adjectives. There was a statistically significant increase in the evaluation of sensibility, color attractiveness, product favorability, and price satisfactiondue to the re-evaluation of the same products after consumers recognized the eco-friendly information of apparel products. When consumers recognize products aseco-friendly, they evaluate the products more positively than before. The result of the analysis of the increases by textile materials shows no significant difference in the sensibility changes depending on the materials. However, with regard to 'eco', the increase of sensibility change for organic cotton products was larger than for recycled polyester prod- ucts.

In face centered cubic systems, due to decrease in energy all perfect dislocations dissociates into two Shockley partials separated by stacking fault width. The stacking fault width, which influences the deformation behavior depends on many factors such as composition, stacking fault energy, temperature, surface energy and applied stress. Additionally in thin films, thickness also influences the stacking fault width of dissociated dislocations. In this paper, we investigate the effect of thin film thickness on stacking fault width in Cu using molecular dynamics simulations. The results indicate that with increase in film thickness from 1.25 nm to 11 nm, the stacking fault width increases from 1.6 nm to 3.12 nm. A bi-linear behavior has been observed. Above 11 nm thickness, the width of stacking fault has attained a saturation at higher thickness. This thickness dependent dissociation has been explained using the concept of image dislocations and associated image forces.

In this paper we describe a novel framework and algorithms for discovering image patch patterns from a large corpus of weakly supervised image-caption pairs generated from news events. Current pattern mining techniques attempt to find patterns that are representative and discriminative, we stipulate that our discovered patterns must also be recognizable by humans and preferably with meaningful names. We propose a new multimodal pattern mining approach that leverages the descriptive captions often accompanying news images to learn semantically meaningful image patch patterns. The mutltimodal patterns are then named using words mined from the associated image captions for each pattern. Our methods also discover named patterns beyond those covered by the existing image datasets like ImageNet. To the best of our knowledge this is the first algorithm developed to automatically mine image patch patterns that have strong semantic meaning specific to high-level news events, and then evaluate these patterns based on that criteria.

PurposeThis paper seeks to present a novel X‐ray system and associated image segmentation algorithm for imaging the below‐ground root structures of plants.Design/methodology/approachA matched filter design for segmenting the important root structures from the background clutter in the X‐ray images was presented.FindingsThe feasibility of root imaging and the applicability of matched filters to this problem domain have been demonstrated.Originality/valueThis research offers a novel approach over existing methods for in situ monitoring of root structures through the application of matched filters for image segmentation.

Most computer systems require user authentication, which has led to an increase in the number of passwords one has to remember. In this paper we explore if spatial visual cues can be used to improve password recollection. Specifically, we consider if associating each character in a password to user-defined spatial regions in an image facilitates better recollection. We conduct a user study where participants were asked to recall randomly generated numeric passwords under the following conditions: no image association (No-Image), image association (Image-Only), image association combined with overt visual cues (Overt-Guidance), and image association combined with subtle visual cues (Subtle-Guidance). We measured the accuracy of password recollection and response time as well as average dwell-time at target locations for the gaze guided conditions. Subjects performed significantly better on password recollection when they were actively guided to regions in the associated image using overt visual cues. Accuracy of password recollection using subtle cues was also higher than the No-Image and Image-Only conditions, but the effect was not significant. No significant difference was observed in the average dwell-times between the overt and subtle guidance approaches.

A texture rendering system relying on pseudo-haptic and audio feedback is presented in this paper. While the user touches the texture displayed on a tactile screen, the associated image is deformed according to the contact area and the rubbing motion to simulate pressure. Additionally audio feedback is synthesized in real-time to simulate friction. A novel example-based scheme takes advantage of recorded audio samples of friction between actual textures and a finger at several speeds to synthesize the final output sound. This system can be implemented on any existing tactile screen without any extra mechanical device.

International audience; A low-cost depth camera recently introduced is synchronized with a specially devised low-cost motorized turntable. This results in a low-cost motorized depth sensor, able to provide a large number of registered side views, which is exploited here for the quantitative characterization of the shoots of entire plants. A set of four new shape descriptors of the shoots, constructed from the depth images on multiple side views of the shoots of plants, is proposed. The four descriptors quantify effective volume, multiscale organization, spatial symmetries and lacunarity of the plants. The four descriptors are here defined, validated on synthetic scenes with known properties, and then applied on nine different-looking real plants to illustrate their abilities for quantitative characterization and comparison. The resulting motorized depth sensor and associated image processing open new perspectives to various plant science applications including plant growth and architecture monitoring, plant response to stresses or the assessment of aesthetic parameters for ornamental plants.

In this paper, reconstruction of 3D volumes of a complete lower extremity (including both femur and tibia) from a limited number of calibrated X-ray images is addressed. We present a novel atlas-based method combining 2D-2D image registration-based 3D landmark reconstruction with a B-spline interpolation. In our method, an atlas consisting of intensity volumes and a set of predefined, sparse 3D landmarks, which are derived from the outer surface as well as the intramedullary canal surface of the associated anatomical structures, are used together with the input X-ray images to reconstruct 3D volumes of the complete lower extremity. Robust 2D-2D image registrations are first used to match digitally reconstructed radiographs, which are generated by simulating X-ray projections of an intensity volumes, with the input X-ray images. The obtained 2D-2D non-rigid transformations are used to update the locations of the 2D projections of the 3D landmarks in the associated image views. Combining updated positions for all sparse landmarks and given a grid of B-spline control points, we can estimate displacement vectors on all control points, and further to estimate the spline coefficients to yield a smooth volumetric deformation field. To this end, we develop a method combining the robustness of 2D-3D landmark reconstruction with the global smoothness properties inherent to B-spline parametrization.

I. INTRODUCTION Recent debates about concentration in the broadcast media industry have provoked concerns about the consequences for programming and advertising levels. What is not so obvious is how media concentration can affect the prices of advertised products. By some accounts, over two-thirds of advertising expenditures in the United States are channeled through commercial media such as radio and television (Leading National Advertisers Advertising Age 2002 and 2003). This fact suggests that the structure of the media industry and decisions taken within play an important role, not only in the market for advertising but also in the competition for advertised products. The purpose here is to examine the interaction of commercial media and advertisers who are linked, not only through an advertising market but also through a set of consumers who make choices in the media market and in the product market. Specifically, I ask: How does concentration in the media industry affect the prices of advertised products and, consequently, the profits of advertising firms? Common intuition suggests that advertisers should object to concentration in the media industry because it typically means higher prices for advertising. (1) My analysis challenges this notion by suggesting that media concentration may actually benefit producers of branded consumer products despite higher advertising prices. If concentration in the media industry makes it less likely for consumers to avoid persuasive advertising messages, then advertisers are more effective at differentiating their products and, consequently, enjoy higher prices for their products. It is thus possible for these producers to benefit from media concentration if higher product revenues offset the higher advertising prices. This result is somewhat surprising in contrast to typical notions of vertical relationships, which suggest that less upstream competition leads to higher wholesale prices (advertising prices in this case) and lower profits for downstream firms. The distinction in the present context lies in the view that agents here are related in a circular way, rather than vertically. Consumers participate in both the media industry, through the choice of, say, a TV station, and the advertiser's product market. To illustrate the result, I employ an equilibrium model of the media industry. In the model, competing media firms, referred to as stations, provide some service (news, music, entertainment, etc.) to a set of consumers and sell commercial advertising space to producers. These producers compete for the sale of advertised products to consumers. Stations receive their revenues from advertising sales and enjoy higher advertising prices when they have a large audience. However, consumers in the model dislike advertising because they have presumably tuned in to a station for its programming. Stations choose an amount of advertising to sell, keeping in mind this trade-off. Stations can, in addition, attract audiences by making investments in programming quality. An important aspect of the model is that advertising is used by a firm to differentiate its brand from that of its rivals. Much of the advertising seen on TV or heard on radio contains messages that are intended to associate an image with the product. The new "product" is then the physical product along with the associated image. Such images seem most prominent for conspicuously consumed products, like soda, beer, or automobiles, which are the most heavily advertised products (Leading National Advertisers Advertising Age 2002 and 2003). Broadcast media can be seen as vehicles for these images in the form of commercials interspersed throughout regular programming. Viewers or listeners tune in for the programming and are subject to the effects of advertising. The strength of these effects depends on a variety of factors, which are emphasized in the model. …

In this paper we analyze the Fritz John and Karush--Kuhn--Tucker (KKT) conditions for a (Gâteaux) differentiable nonconvex optimization problem with inequality constraints and a geometric constraint set. The Fritz John condition is characterized in terms of an alternative theorem which covers beyond standard situations, while characterizations of KKT conditions, without assuming constraints qualifications, are related to strong duality of a suitable linear approximation of the given problem and the properties of its associated image mapping. Such characterizations are suitable for dealing with some problems in structural optimization, where most of the known constraint qualifications fail. In particular, several examples are given showing the usefulness and optimality, in a certain sense, of our results, which provide much more information than those (including the Mordukhovich normal cone or Clarke's) appearing elsewhere. The case with a single inequality constraint is discussed in detail by establishing...

The broad objective of the proposed research is to develop an optimized system design and associated image reconstruction algorithms for a hybrid three-dimensional (3D) breast imaging system that combines OAT and UST. Significant progress has been made during last year in accomplishing the specific tasks for this project. In the past year, I (i) developed time-offlight extraction algorithms to perform USCT, (ii) developing image reconstruction algorithms for USCT, (iii) developed iterative image reconstruction OAT algorithms (iv) developed accelerated OAT algorithm to enable 3D image reconstruction for breast imaging, (v) evaluated and validated algorithms by computer simulation studies and experimental phantom studies.

Gene expression analyses by hybridization of probes derived from mRNA to cDNA targets arrayed on a nylon membranes have been performed with increasing frequency and success over the last decade. While the initial costs of generating arrays are moderately high, they are now available commercially as complete packages which include the membranes and associated image analysis software for acquisition and processing of the data. Arrays can be used to generate information concerning the expression of mRNA from cells treated with various agents or from different tissues, e.g. comparing diseased with normal controls. To date, many groups, including immunologists, have used this technology to examine gene expression within their area of biological interest. The main characteristic of these systems is the large amount of data generated, since the expression of many thousands of genes are measured in parallel. The main practical issues are sensitivity of detection, reproducibility, comparability with other systems (e.g. Northern blots) and processing of data. Some of the significant applications of nylon array technology to date are reviewed in this chapter, and with these issues in mind, we include a discussion of our own experiences in this area.

dents is an impractical method of generating an image database. The advent of digital cameras and associated image analysis software presents a unique opportunity for expanding the repertoire of tools in teaching laboratories that employ microscopes. The following article relates our experience using a digital camera to capture student-generated microscopic observations obtained during our Wine Microbiology laboratory class in the Department of Viticulture and Enology at the University of California at Davis. We believe that digital capture systems could be broadly useful for any biological laboratory classrooms that employ microscopes.

This paper presents results of investigations of the relationship between optimal image resolution and associated sky-coverage for ionospheric tomography. Several measures of the variation of image information content as a function of resolution are presented for understanding the trade-offs between information content and computational resources. A new quantitative description of imaging geometry that enables sky-coverage analysis for this limited information tomographic system is introduced here. This paper also presents examples of commonly encountered nonideal system geometries, diagnosis of associated image artifacts, and improvements achieved by minor logistical modifications to the imaging system.

Cyclostratigraphic studies of rhythmically bedded pelagic/hemipelagic carbonate sequences, which are important for understanding paleo-oceanographic conditions and paleoclimatic controls, can be facilitated by computer-assisted grayscale analysis. Application of a simple yet flexible algorithm, “docore”, written for the MATLAB software package and its associated image processing toolbox, can be used to generate detailed grayscale curves or time series that closely approximate carbonate time series from rapidly scanned images. The potential of “docore”-derived grayscale data as proxies for carbonate is demonstrated through comparative analyses of carbonate, organic carbon and grayscale data from a core drilled within the Upper Cretaceous Demopolis Chalk of western Alabama.

Os livros didáticos de física utilizam a definição do aumento linear transversal (AL) com o objetivo de comparar o tamanho da imagem ao do objeto quando abordam espelhos e lentes esféricas. Este trabalho discute as distorções geradas pela utilização do conceito de AL e emprega o conceito de aumento angular (AA) para demonstrar que a visão do observador acerca do tamanho relativo entre o objeto e a sua imagem associada produzida por um espelho esférico côncavo depende da sua própria posição. Foi realizada uma análise qualitativa de dois experimentos, e ainda análises quantitativas e gráficas da variação do módulo do AA em função da posição do observador para os quatro tipos de imagens produzidas por um espelho côncavo. Discute-se a necessidade da introdução do conceito de aumento angular nos livros didáticos para compreender a visualização das imagens formadas por um espelho esférico côncavo. The physics textbooks use the definition of linear magnification (LM) in order to compare the size of the image with the object when addressing spherical mirrors and lenses. This work discusses the distortions generated by using the concept of LM and employs the angular magnification (AM) to show that the vision of the observer about to the relative size between the object and its associated image produced by concave spherical mirror depends on its own position. It was performed a qualitative analysis of two experiments, and even quantitative and graphics analysis of the modulus variation of AA as a function of the observer position for four types of images produced by a concave mirror. It is discussed the need of the introduction of the angular magnification concept in textbooks to understand the visualization of images formed by a concave spherical mirror.

Minimal invasive interventions allow the treatment of lesions without the strain of full open surgery. Such image guided interventions and therapies fully rely on the guidance and navigation based on real-time peri-interventional imaging equipment, such as interventional X-ray and ultrasound. Since these imaging modalities are the ‘eyes’ of the treating physician, the associated image quality and imaging features are essential. The addition and further development of 3D imaging capabilities in recent years has broadened the possibilities and capabilities of such procedures, and enabled minimal invasive treatment that could only be performed by open surgery in the past. In this chapter we describe several recent innovations in the area of 3D interventional X-ray imaging in the areas of image quality, 3D model-based catheter reconstruction, multi-modal image fusion, and stereoscopic visualizations.

This paper discusses some of the problems experienced in sharing radiological images and pathological samples between hospitals. Despite the introduction of DICOM standards for medical imaging, difference are reported in the adoption of this standard by different vendors. Furthermore the standard is under constant review and is being continually updated. These updates mean that imaging conducted under the newer standards are sometimes not readable in older systems, and vice versa. Transmission of images, while theoretically possible, is not practically implemented because of shortcomings in networks, deterioration of resolution on transmitted images and problems of maintaining text or voice based records with an associated image. There are also many obstacles to sharing because of differences in local imaging protocols. While digital imaging is not in widespread use for pathology samples, local processing protocols and techniques regularly prove obstacles to sharing patient pathological data. Co-ordination of both radiology and pathology samples is the most important challenge to sharing this information among hospitals and institutions. This paper describes work in progress to make a comprehensive list of obstacles to sharing radiological image sets and pathological material between referring doctors and specialists. Issues of standards, protocols, procedures and techniques in pathology and radiology are explained.

International audience; This paper addresses the problem of epitome construction for image compression. An optimized epitome construction method is first described, where the epitome and the associated image reconstruction, are both successively performed at full pel and sub-pel accuracy. The resulting complete still image compression scheme is then discussed with details on some innovative tools. The PSNR-rate performance achieved with this epitome-based compression method is significantly higher than the one obtained with H.264 Intra and with state of the art epitome construction method. A bit-rate saving up to 16% comparatively to H.264 Intra is achieved.

This part contains sections titled: Introduction Image coding schemes and their associated image models 3-D model-based coding for facial images 2-D defonnable triangular model for advanced motion compensation Remaining problems for 3-D model based coding This part contains sections titled: References

Purpose The purpose of this study was to assess the radiation dose and associated image noise of previously suggested calcium scoring protocols using dual-source CT. Methods One hundred consecutive patients underwent coronary calcium scoring using dual-source CT. Patients were randomly assigned to five different protocols: retrospective ECG-gating and tube current reduction to 4% outside the pulsing window at 120 (protocol A) and 100 kV (B), prospective ECG-triggering at 120 (C) and 100 kV (D), and prospective ECG-triggering at 100 kV with attenuation-based tube current modulation (E). Radiation dose parameters and image noise were determined and compared. Results Protocol A resulted in an effective dose of 1.3 ± 0.2 mSv, protocol B in 0.8 ± 0.2 mSv, protocol C in 1.0 ± 0.2 mSv, protocol D in 0.6 ± 0.1 mSv, and protocol E in 0.7 ± 0.1 mSv. Effective doses were significantly lower (P

The choice and sequencing of morphological transformations in image analysis applications today largely remain an art. We study this general issue by means of a well-known difficult problem of segmentation in mathematical morphology, namely the eutectic lamellar alloy problem. We explore more than 10 ways in the spirit of morphological tools for solving it, discuss the information introduced in each solution, and compare the presented solutions. Beyond this specific application, this paper reviews all the major binary morphological transformations, their effects on images, and the associated image characteristics they enhance or extract.

Retinopatia de Purtscher-like é uma baixa súbita da visão associada à imagem de múltiplas áreas branco-amareladas (manchas algodonosas) e hemorragias no pólo posterior de ambos os olhos. O exato mecanismo da injúria ainda não é claro, mas provavelmente seria de natureza embólica. Tem sido descrita em uma variedade de condições, incluindo pancreatite aguda, síndrome de embolia gordurosa, insuficiência renal,nascimento (parto e pós-parto), desordens do tecido conectivo, entre outras. Serão relatados três casos de pancreatite aguda confirmada pelos exames laboratoriais e história clínica, associadas a alterações no exame do fundo de olho, compatíveis com esta retinopatia

According to the NIH roadmap, optical molecular imaging has an instrumental role in the development of molecular medicine. Great efforts, including those with bioluminescent imaging techniques, have been made to understand the linkage between genes and phenotypic expressions in normal and disease biology. Currently, bioluminescent techniques are widely used in small animal studies. However, most of the current bioluminescent imaging techniques are done in the 2D mode. In this overview, we review bioluminescence tomography (3D mode), elaborate on its principle and multi-spectral extension, describe associated image unmixing and normalization techniques, and discuss a number of directions for technical improvements and biomedical applications.

Endoscopes are imaging devices routinely used for the diagnosis of disease within the human digestive tract. Light is transmitted into the body cavity via incoherent fibreoptic bundles and is controlled by a light feedback system. Fibreoptic endoscopes use coherent fibreoptic bundles to provide the clinician with an image. It is also possible to couple fibreoptic endoscopes to a clip-on video camera. Video endoscopes consist of a small CCD camera, which is inserted into gastrointestinal tract, and associated image processor to convert the signal to analogue RGB video signals. Images from both types of endoscope are displayed on standard video monitors. Diagnosis is dependent upon being able to determine changes in the structure and colour of tissues and biological fluids, and therefore is dependent upon the ability of the endoscope to reproduce the colour of these tissues and fluids with fidelity. This study investigates the colour reproduction of flexible optical and video endoscopes. Fibreoptic and video endoscopes alter image colour characteristics in different ways. The colour rendition of fibreoptic endoscopes was assessed by coupling them to a video camera and applying video colorimetric techniques. These techniques were then used on video endoscopes to assess how the colour rendition of video endoscopes compared with that of optical endoscopes. In both cases results were obtained at fixed illumination settings. Video endoscopes were then assessed with varying levels of illumination. Initial results show that at constant luminance endoscopy systems introduce non-linear shifts in colour. Techniques for examining how this colour shift varies with illumination intensity were developed and both methodology and results will be presented. We conclude that more rigorous quality assurance is required to reduce colour error and are developing calibration procedures applicable to medical endoscopes.

A computerized image processing set up and associated image processing methods for assessing certain quality features of fabrics namely pilling and wrinkledness are presented. Though the mechanical parameters of the fabric testing devices are properly standardized, the criteria used for the actual visual assessment are poorly defined in the relevant standards. To improve the objectivity of the assessment, an optical measurement set up was designed and manufactured. Measurement methods were developed for evaluating mechanically tormented fabric samples. Measurements according to these methods were compared to the assessments given by textile experts. For both fabric features, special illumination arrangements and sequences were used to enhance of their visual effect. The resulting image-tuples were then normalized, aligned and traced for the visual clues associated with pills and wrinkles. The measurement values presented in a logarithmic scale matched closely the assessment values gathered by human textile experts.

A novel approach for the inspection of composite materials is presented, which utilises image processing techniques for the characterisation of flaws in composites. The technique is based on transient thermography coupled to the processing of infrared images obtained by exciting a composite specimen by a thermal pulse. The authors focus on the reconstruction algorithms developed for subsurface defect location, and overview the associated image processing techniques, as well as the experimental set-up for testing composites and generating thermal images. >

Fast and accurate measurement of gill position is important in automated fish processing, to ensure correct positioning in a cutting machine. Two image-processing techniques for accomplishing this are presented. The methods are based on the isolation and enhancement of an elongated edge-like structure in the image of the head area of a fish. In one approach, the gill position is measured by establishing the smallest rectangle that encloses this structure. In the other, the particular image is transformed into a condensed signature through gray-level averaging in the direction of the edge-like structure. Associated image generation, enhancement, and processing procedures are described. The techniques are implemented on a vision workstation containing a multitasking operating system with a real-time kernel, and are tested on Pacific salmon. >

We report on the development of a fluorescence imaging system for early detection of cancers in the GI tract. The system comprises a modified light source, endoscope, camera and associated image processing software. The photosensitizing agent is 5-aminolaevulinic acid, metabolized within the tumor to form protoporphyrin IX that absorbs strongly between 390-410 nm and fluoresces at 635 nm.