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Sample records for adaptive hifu noise

  1. Adaptive HIFU noise cancellation for simultaneous therapy and imaging using an integrated HIFU/imaging transducer.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jeong, Jong Seob; Cannata, Jonathan Matthew; Shung, K Kirk

    2010-04-07

    It was previously demonstrated that it is feasible to simultaneously perform ultrasound therapy and imaging of a coagulated lesion during treatment with an integrated transducer that is capable of high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) and B-mode ultrasound imaging. It was found that coded excitation and fixed notch filtering upon reception could significantly reduce interference caused by the therapeutic transducer. During HIFU sonication, the imaging signal generated with coded excitation and fixed notch filtering had a range side-lobe level of less than -40 dB, while traditional short-pulse excitation and fixed notch filtering produced a range side-lobe level of -20 dB. The shortcoming is, however, that relatively complicated electronics may be needed to utilize coded excitation in an array imaging system. It is for this reason that in this paper an adaptive noise canceling technique is proposed to improve image quality by minimizing not only the therapeutic interference, but also the remnant side-lobe 'ripples' when using the traditional short-pulse excitation. The performance of this technique was verified through simulation and experiments using a prototype integrated HIFU/imaging transducer. Although it is known that the remnant ripples are related to the notch attenuation value of the fixed notch filter, in reality, it is difficult to find the optimal notch attenuation value due to the change in targets or the media resulted from motion or different acoustic properties even during one sonication pulse. In contrast, the proposed adaptive noise canceling technique is capable of optimally minimizing both the therapeutic interference and residual ripples without such constraints. The prototype integrated HIFU/imaging transducer is composed of three rectangular elements. The 6 MHz center element is used for imaging and the outer two identical 4 MHz elements work together to transmit the HIFU beam. Two HIFU elements of 14.4 mm x 20.0 mm dimensions could

  2. Adaptive HIFU noise cancellation for simultaneous therapy and imaging using an integrated HIFU/imaging transducer

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Jeong, Jong Seob; Cannata, Jonathan Matthew; Shung, K Kirk

    2010-01-01

    It was previously demonstrated that it is feasible to simultaneously perform ultrasound therapy and imaging of a coagulated lesion during treatment with an integrated transducer that is capable of high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) and B-mode ultrasound imaging. It was found that coded excitation and fixed notch filtering upon reception could significantly reduce interference caused by the therapeutic transducer. During HIFU sonication, the imaging signal generated with coded excitation and fixed notch filtering had a range side-lobe level of less than -40 dB, while traditional short-pulse excitation and fixed notch filtering produced a range side-lobe level of -20 dB. The shortcoming is, however, that relatively complicated electronics may be needed to utilize coded excitation in an array imaging system. It is for this reason that in this paper an adaptive noise canceling technique is proposed to improve image quality by minimizing not only the therapeutic interference, but also the remnant side-lobe 'ripples' when using the traditional short-pulse excitation. The performance of this technique was verified through simulation and experiments using a prototype integrated HIFU/imaging transducer. Although it is known that the remnant ripples are related to the notch attenuation value of the fixed notch filter, in reality, it is difficult to find the optimal notch attenuation value due to the change in targets or the media resulted from motion or different acoustic properties even during one sonication pulse. In contrast, the proposed adaptive noise canceling technique is capable of optimally minimizing both the therapeutic interference and residual ripples without such constraints. The prototype integrated HIFU/imaging transducer is composed of three rectangular elements. The 6 MHz center element is used for imaging and the outer two identical 4 MHz elements work together to transmit the HIFU beam. Two HIFU elements of 14.4 mm x 20.0 mm dimensions could

  3. Robust adaptive extended Kalman filtering for real time MR-thermometry guided HIFU interventions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Roujol, Sébastien; de Senneville, Baudouin Denis; Hey, Silke; Moonen, Chrit; Ries, Mario

    2012-03-01

    Real time magnetic resonance (MR) thermometry is gaining clinical importance for monitoring and guiding high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) ablations of tumorous tissue. The temperature information can be employed to adjust the position and the power of the HIFU system in real time and to determine the therapy endpoint. The requirement to resolve both physiological motion of mobile organs and the rapid temperature variations induced by state-of-the-art high-power HIFU systems require fast MRI-acquisition schemes, which are generally hampered by low signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs). This directly limits the precision of real time MR-thermometry and thus in many cases the feasibility of sophisticated control algorithms. To overcome these limitations, temporal filtering of the temperature has been suggested in the past, which has generally an adverse impact on the accuracy and latency of the filtered data. Here, we propose a novel filter that aims to improve the precision of MR-thermometry while monitoring and adapting its impact on the accuracy. For this, an adaptive extended Kalman filter using a model describing the heat transfer for acoustic heating in biological tissues was employed together with an additional outlier rejection to address the problem of sparse artifacted temperature points. The filter was compared to an efficient matched FIR filter and outperformed the latter in all tested cases. The filter was first evaluated on simulated data and provided in the worst case (with an approximate configuration of the model) a substantial improvement of the accuracy by a factor 3 and 15 during heat up and cool down periods, respectively. The robustness of the filter was then evaluated during HIFU experiments on a phantom and in vivo in porcine kidney. The presence of strong temperature artifacts did not affect the thermal dose measurement using our filter whereas a high measurement variation of 70% was observed with the FIR filter.

  4. Model-based ultrasound temperature visualization during and following HIFU exposure.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ye, Guoliang; Smith, Penny Probert; Noble, J Alison

    2010-02-01

    This paper describes the application of signal processing techniques to improve the robustness of ultrasound feedback for displaying changes in temperature distribution in treatment using high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU), especially at the low signal-to-noise ratios that might be expected in in vivo abdominal treatment. Temperature estimation is based on the local displacements in ultrasound images taken during HIFU treatment, and a method to improve robustness to outliers is introduced. The main contribution of the paper is in the application of a Kalman filter, a statistical signal processing technique, which uses a simple analytical temperature model of heat dispersion to improve the temperature estimation from the ultrasound measurements during and after HIFU exposure. To reduce the sensitivity of the method to previous assumptions on the material homogeneity and signal-to-noise ratio, an adaptive form is introduced. The method is illustrated using data from HIFU exposure of ex vivo bovine liver. A particular advantage of the stability it introduces is that the temperature can be visualized not only in the intervals between HIFU exposure but also, for some configurations, during the exposure itself. 2010 World Federation for Ultrasound in Medicine & Biology. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  5. Adaptive noise cancellation

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Akram, N.

    1999-01-01

    In this report we describe the concept of adaptive noise canceling, an alternative method of estimating signals corrupted by additive noise of interference. The method uses 'primary' input containing the corrupted signal and a 'reference' input containing noise correlated in some unknown way with the primary noise, the reference input is adaptively filtered and subtracted from the primary input to obtain the signal estimate. Adaptive filtering before subtraction allows the treatment of inputs that are deterministic or stochastic, stationary or time variable. When the reference input is free of signal and certain other conditions are met then noise in the primary input can be essentially eliminated without signal distortion. It is further shown that the adaptive filter also acts as notch filter. Simulated results illustrate the usefulness of the adaptive noise canceling technique. (author)

  6. Segmental liver resection assisted by HIFU: tissue precauterization using a toroidal-shaped HIFU transducer

    Science.gov (United States)

    N'Djin, W. A.; Melodelima, D.; Schenone, F.; Rivoire, M.; Chapelon, J. Y.

    2010-03-01

    The development of new cauterization techniques for hepatic resection is critical for improving the safety of the procedure. Previous studies showed the feasibility of using HIFU or radiofrequency precoagulation to limit blood loss during dissection of the organ. Here we report a new therapeutic modality using high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) to perform a bloodless hepatic resection that could represent a promising alternative. A comparative study was performed to evaluate the interest of using this complementary tool to improve surgical resection in the liver. This study used a 3 MHz HIFU toroidal-shaped phased array transducer which allows the generation of a single conical lesion of 7 cm3 in 40 seconds. In order to minimize blood loss and dissection time, a barrier of coagulative necrosis was generated with the HIFU device before hepatectomy, by juxtaposing single conical lesions on the line of dissection. Resection assisted by HIFU (RA-HIFU) was compared with classical dissections with clamping (RC) and without clamping (Control). For each technique 14 partial liver resections were performed in seven pigs. The parameters examined were vascular control and times of treatment. Precoagulation allowed the vascular isolation of small vessels and surgical clips were mainly used for the control of vessels>5 mm in diameter. The number of clips used per unit of liver surface dissected in RA-HIFU (0.8±0.3 cm-2) was significantly lower than in the other groups (RC: 1.6±0.4 cm-2, Control: 1.8±0.8 cm-2, p<0.01). In addition, blood loss was lower in RA-HIFU (7.4±6.5 ml.cm-2) than in RC (11.2±4.5 ml.cm-2) and Control (14.0±6.7 ml.cm-2). The time of dissection in RA-HIFU (13±5 min) was shorter than in RC (23±8 minutes) and Control (18±5 minutes). The feasibility and the efficiency of RA-HIFU using a toroidal-shaped HIFU transducer without additional devices were demonstrated. This technique enhances the resection procedure and will be able to be tested in

  7. Salvage HIFU after radiotherapy and salvage radiotherapy after HIFU in locally recurrent prostate cancer: Retrospective analysis of morbidity

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Lee, J.-W.; Hannoun-Leviac, J.-M.; Chevallier, D.; Rouscoff, Y.; Durand, M.; Amiel, J.; Gal, J.; Natale, R.; Chand, M.-E.; Raffaelli, C.; Ambrosetti, D.

    2012-01-01

    To evaluate the toxicity of therapeutic sequences High Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU)-salvage radiotherapy (HIFU-RT) or radiotherapy-salvage HIFU (RT-HIFU) in case of locally recurrent prostate cancer. Nineteen patients had a local recurrence of prostate cancer. Among them, 10 patients were treated by HIFU-RT and 9 patients by RT- HIFU (4 by external beam radiotherapy [EBR] and 5 by brachytherapy [BRACHY]). Urinary side effects were assessed using CTCAE v4. At the time of the initial management, the median age was 66.5 years (53 72), the median PSA was 10.8 ng/mL (3.4 50) and the median initial Gleason score was 6.3 (5 8). Median follow-up after salvage treatment was 46.3 months (2 108). Thirty percent of the patients in the HIFU-RT group and 33.3 % of the patients in the RT-HIFU group, all belonging to the sub-group BRACHY-HIFU, had urinary complication greater than or equal to grade 2. Among all the patients, only 1 had grade 1 gastrointestinal toxicity. BRACHY-HIFU sequence seems to be purveyor of many significant urinary side effects. A larger database is needed to confirm this conclusion. (authors)

  8. Development of a High Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU) Hydrophone System

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Schafer, Mark E.; Gessert, James

    2009-01-01

    The growing clinical use of High Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU) has driven a need for reliable, reproducible measurements of HIFU acoustic fields. We have previously presented data on a reflective scatterer approach, incorporating several novel features for improved bandwidth, reliability, and reproducibility [Proc. 2005 IEEE Ultrasonics Symposium, 1739-1742]. We now report on several design improvements which have increase the signal to noise ratio of the system, and potentially reduced the cost of implementation. For the scattering element, we now use an artificial sapphire material to provide a more uniform radiating surface. The receiver is a segmented, truncated spherical structure with a 10 cm radius; the scattering element is positioned at the center of the sphere. The receiver is made from 25 micron thick, biaxially stretched PVDF, with a Pt-Au electrode on the front surface. In the new design, a specialized backing material provides the stiffness required to maintain structural stability, while at the same time providing both electrical shielding and ultrasonic absorption. Compared with the previous version, the new receiver design has improved the noise performance by 8-12 dB; the new scattering sphere has reduced the scattering loss by another 14 dB, producing an effective sensitivity of -298 dB re 1 microVolt/Pa. The design trade-off still involves receiver sensitivity with effective spot size, and signal distortion from the scatter structure. However, the reduced cost and improved repeatability of the new scatter approach makes the overall design more robust for routine waveform measurements of HIFU systems.

  9. Simulation for noise cancellation using LMS adaptive filter

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lee, Jia-Haw; Ooi, Lu-Ean; Ko, Ying-Hao; Teoh, Choe-Yung

    2017-06-01

    In this paper, the fundamental algorithm of noise cancellation, Least Mean Square (LMS) algorithm is studied and enhanced with adaptive filter. The simulation of the noise cancellation using LMS adaptive filter algorithm is developed. The noise corrupted speech signal and the engine noise signal are used as inputs for LMS adaptive filter algorithm. The filtered signal is compared to the original noise-free speech signal in order to highlight the level of attenuation of the noise signal. The result shows that the noise signal is successfully canceled by the developed adaptive filter. The difference of the noise-free speech signal and filtered signal are calculated and the outcome implies that the filtered signal is approaching the noise-free speech signal upon the adaptive filtering. The frequency range of the successfully canceled noise by the LMS adaptive filter algorithm is determined by performing Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) on the signals. The LMS adaptive filter algorithm shows significant noise cancellation at lower frequency range.

  10. Adaptive EMG noise reduction in ECG signals using noise level approximation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Marouf, Mohamed; Saranovac, Lazar

    2017-12-01

    In this paper the usage of noise level approximation for adaptive Electromyogram (EMG) noise reduction in the Electrocardiogram (ECG) signals is introduced. To achieve the adequate adaptiveness, a translation-invariant noise level approximation is employed. The approximation is done in the form of a guiding signal extracted as an estimation of the signal quality vs. EMG noise. The noise reduction framework is based on a bank of low pass filters. So, the adaptive noise reduction is achieved by selecting the appropriate filter with respect to the guiding signal aiming to obtain the best trade-off between the signal distortion caused by filtering and the signal readability. For the evaluation purposes; both real EMG and artificial noises are used. The tested ECG signals are from the MIT-BIH Arrhythmia Database Directory, while both real and artificial records of EMG noise are added and used in the evaluation process. Firstly, comparison with state of the art methods is conducted to verify the performance of the proposed approach in terms of noise cancellation while preserving the QRS complex waves. Additionally, the signal to noise ratio improvement after the adaptive noise reduction is computed and presented for the proposed method. Finally, the impact of adaptive noise reduction method on QRS complexes detection was studied. The tested signals are delineated using a state of the art method, and the QRS detection improvement for different SNR is presented.

  11. Noise adaptation in integrate-and fire neurons.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rudd, M E; Brown, L G

    1997-07-01

    The statistical spiking response of an ensemble of identically prepared stochastic integrate-and-fire neurons to a rectangular input current plus gaussian white noise is analyzed. It is shown that, on average, integrate-and-fire neurons adapt to the root-mean-square noise level of their input. This phenomenon is referred to as noise adaptation. Noise adaptation is characterized by a decrease in the average neural firing rate and an accompanying decrease in the average value of the generator potential, both of which can be attributed to noise-induced resets of the generator potential mediated by the integrate-and-fire mechanism. A quantitative theory of noise adaptation in stochastic integrate-and-fire neurons is developed. It is shown that integrate-and-fire neurons, on average, produce transient spiking activity whenever there is an increase in the level of their input noise. This transient noise response is either reduced or eliminated over time, depending on the parameters of the model neuron. Analytical methods are used to prove that nonleaky integrate-and-fire neurons totally adapt to any constant input noise level, in the sense that their asymptotic spiking rates are independent of the magnitude of their input noise. For leaky integrate-and-fire neurons, the long-run noise adaptation is not total, but the response to noise is partially eliminated. Expressions for the probability density function of the generator potential and the first two moments of the potential distribution are derived for the particular case of a nonleaky neuron driven by gaussian white noise of mean zero and constant variance. The functional significance of noise adaptation for the performance of networks comprising integrate-and-fire neurons is discussed.

  12. HIFU as a Neoadjuvant Therapy in Cancer Treatment

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhong, P.; Xing, F.; Huang, X.; Zhu, H.; Lo, H. W.; Zhong, X.; Pruitt, S.; Robertson, C.

    2011-09-01

    To broaden the application spectrum of HIFU in cancer therapy, we performed a pilot experiment to evaluate the potential of using HIFU as a neoadjuvant therapy prior to surgery. Mice bearing wild-type B16F10 melanoma inoculated subcutaneously were either untreated (control) or treated by HIFU, CPA-7 or HIFU+CPA-7 before surgical resection of the primary tumor two days after HIFU treatment. The animals were then followed for four weeks or up to the humane endpoint to determine local recurrence, distant metastasis, and survival rate. The results demonstrate that animals treated by HIFU+CPA-7 (which is a small molecule that suppresses STAT3 activity) had a significantly lower recurrence rate, and slower growth of the recurrent tumor, with concomitantly higher survival rate, followed by those treated with CPA-7 and HIFU, respectively. Immunological assays revealed that CPA-7 treatment could significantly lower STAT3, and subsequently, Treg activities. In particular, the combination of HIFU and CPA-7 can induce a much stronger anti-tumor immune response than HIFU or surgery alone, as assessed by CTL and IFN-γ secretion. Overall, our results suggest that HIFU in combination with immunotherapy strategies has the potential to be used as a neoadjuvant therapy to prime the host with a strong anti-tumor immune response before surgical resection of the primary tumor. This multimodality, combinational therapy has the potential to greatly broaden the range of HIFU applications in cancer therapy with lower tumor recurrence and improved survival rate.

  13. Model of aircraft noise adaptation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dempsey, T. K.; Coates, G. D.; Cawthorn, J. M.

    1977-01-01

    Development of an aircraft noise adaptation model, which would account for much of the variability in the responses of subjects participating in human response to noise experiments, was studied. A description of the model development is presented. The principal concept of the model, was the determination of an aircraft adaptation level which represents an annoyance calibration for each individual. Results showed a direct correlation between noise level of the stimuli and annoyance reactions. Attitude-personality variables were found to account for varying annoyance judgements.

  14. TU-A-210-01: HIFU Physics and Delivery

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Eames, M. [Focused Ultrasound Foundation (United States)

    2015-06-15

    High-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) has developed rapidly in recent years and is used frequently for clinical treatments in Asia and Europe with increasing clinical use and clinical trial activity in the US, making it an important medical technology with which the medical physics community must become familiar. Akin to medical devices that deliver treatments using ionizing radiation, HIFU relies on emitter geometry to non-invasively form a tight focus that can be used to affect diseased tissue while leaving healthy tissue intact. HIFU is unique in that it does not involve the use of ionizing radiation, it causes thermal necrosis in 100% of the treated tissue volume, and it has an immediate treatment effect. However, because it is an application of ultrasound energy, HIFU interacts strongly with tissue interfaces, which makes treatment planning challenging. In order to appreciate the advantages and disadvantages of HIFU as a thermal therapy, it is important to understand the underlying physics of ultrasound tissue interactions. The first lecture in the session will provide an overview of the physics of ultrasound wave propagation; the mechanism for the accumulation of heat in soft-tissue; image-guidance modalities including temperature monitoring; current clinical applications and commercial devices; active clinical trials; alternate mechanisms of action (future of FUS). The second part of the session will compare HIFU to existing ionization radiation techniques. The difficulties in defining a clear concept of absorbed dose for HIFU will be discussed. Some of the technical challenges that HIFU faces will be described, with an emphasis on how the experience of radiation oncology physicists could benefit the field. Learning Objectives: Describe the basic physics and biology of HIFU, including treatment delivery and image guidance techniques. Summarize existing and emerging clinical applications and manufacturers for HIFU. Understand that thermal ablation with

  15. TU-A-210-00: HIFU Therapies - A Primer

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    NONE

    2015-06-15

    High-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) has developed rapidly in recent years and is used frequently for clinical treatments in Asia and Europe with increasing clinical use and clinical trial activity in the US, making it an important medical technology with which the medical physics community must become familiar. Akin to medical devices that deliver treatments using ionizing radiation, HIFU relies on emitter geometry to non-invasively form a tight focus that can be used to affect diseased tissue while leaving healthy tissue intact. HIFU is unique in that it does not involve the use of ionizing radiation, it causes thermal necrosis in 100% of the treated tissue volume, and it has an immediate treatment effect. However, because it is an application of ultrasound energy, HIFU interacts strongly with tissue interfaces, which makes treatment planning challenging. In order to appreciate the advantages and disadvantages of HIFU as a thermal therapy, it is important to understand the underlying physics of ultrasound tissue interactions. The first lecture in the session will provide an overview of the physics of ultrasound wave propagation; the mechanism for the accumulation of heat in soft-tissue; image-guidance modalities including temperature monitoring; current clinical applications and commercial devices; active clinical trials; alternate mechanisms of action (future of FUS). The second part of the session will compare HIFU to existing ionization radiation techniques. The difficulties in defining a clear concept of absorbed dose for HIFU will be discussed. Some of the technical challenges that HIFU faces will be described, with an emphasis on how the experience of radiation oncology physicists could benefit the field. Learning Objectives: Describe the basic physics and biology of HIFU, including treatment delivery and image guidance techniques. Summarize existing and emerging clinical applications and manufacturers for HIFU. Understand that thermal ablation with

  16. TU-A-210-01: HIFU Physics and Delivery

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Eames, M.

    2015-01-01

    High-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) has developed rapidly in recent years and is used frequently for clinical treatments in Asia and Europe with increasing clinical use and clinical trial activity in the US, making it an important medical technology with which the medical physics community must become familiar. Akin to medical devices that deliver treatments using ionizing radiation, HIFU relies on emitter geometry to non-invasively form a tight focus that can be used to affect diseased tissue while leaving healthy tissue intact. HIFU is unique in that it does not involve the use of ionizing radiation, it causes thermal necrosis in 100% of the treated tissue volume, and it has an immediate treatment effect. However, because it is an application of ultrasound energy, HIFU interacts strongly with tissue interfaces, which makes treatment planning challenging. In order to appreciate the advantages and disadvantages of HIFU as a thermal therapy, it is important to understand the underlying physics of ultrasound tissue interactions. The first lecture in the session will provide an overview of the physics of ultrasound wave propagation; the mechanism for the accumulation of heat in soft-tissue; image-guidance modalities including temperature monitoring; current clinical applications and commercial devices; active clinical trials; alternate mechanisms of action (future of FUS). The second part of the session will compare HIFU to existing ionization radiation techniques. The difficulties in defining a clear concept of absorbed dose for HIFU will be discussed. Some of the technical challenges that HIFU faces will be described, with an emphasis on how the experience of radiation oncology physicists could benefit the field. Learning Objectives: Describe the basic physics and biology of HIFU, including treatment delivery and image guidance techniques. Summarize existing and emerging clinical applications and manufacturers for HIFU. Understand that thermal ablation with

  17. TU-A-210-00: HIFU Therapies - A Primer

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2015-01-01

    High-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) has developed rapidly in recent years and is used frequently for clinical treatments in Asia and Europe with increasing clinical use and clinical trial activity in the US, making it an important medical technology with which the medical physics community must become familiar. Akin to medical devices that deliver treatments using ionizing radiation, HIFU relies on emitter geometry to non-invasively form a tight focus that can be used to affect diseased tissue while leaving healthy tissue intact. HIFU is unique in that it does not involve the use of ionizing radiation, it causes thermal necrosis in 100% of the treated tissue volume, and it has an immediate treatment effect. However, because it is an application of ultrasound energy, HIFU interacts strongly with tissue interfaces, which makes treatment planning challenging. In order to appreciate the advantages and disadvantages of HIFU as a thermal therapy, it is important to understand the underlying physics of ultrasound tissue interactions. The first lecture in the session will provide an overview of the physics of ultrasound wave propagation; the mechanism for the accumulation of heat in soft-tissue; image-guidance modalities including temperature monitoring; current clinical applications and commercial devices; active clinical trials; alternate mechanisms of action (future of FUS). The second part of the session will compare HIFU to existing ionization radiation techniques. The difficulties in defining a clear concept of absorbed dose for HIFU will be discussed. Some of the technical challenges that HIFU faces will be described, with an emphasis on how the experience of radiation oncology physicists could benefit the field. Learning Objectives: Describe the basic physics and biology of HIFU, including treatment delivery and image guidance techniques. Summarize existing and emerging clinical applications and manufacturers for HIFU. Understand that thermal ablation with

  18. High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU) in Localized Prostate Cancer Treatment

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Alkhorayef, Mohammed; Mahmoud, Mustafa Z.; Alzimami, Khalid S.; Sulieman, Abdelmoneim; Fagiri, Maram A.

    2015-01-01

    High-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) applies high-intensity focused ultrasound energy to locally heat and destroy diseased or damaged tissue through ablation. This study intended to review HIFU to explain the fundamentals of HIFU, evaluate the evidence concerning the role of HIFU in the treatment of prostate cancer (PC), review the technologies used to perform HIFU and the published clinical literature regarding the procedure as a primary treatment for PC. Studies addressing HIFU in localized PC were identified in a search of internet scientific databases. The analysis of outcomes was limited to journal articles written in English and published between 2000 and 2013. HIFU is a non-invasive approach that uses a precisely delivered ultrasound energy to achieve tumor cell necrosis without radiation or surgical excision. In current urological oncology, HIFU is used clinically in the treatment of PC. Clinical research on HIFU therapy for localized PC began in the 1990s, and the majority of PC patients were treated with the Ablatherm device. HIFU treatment for localized PC can be considered as an alternative minimally invasive therapeutic modality for patients who are not candidates for radical prostatectomy. Patients with lower pre-HIFU PSA level and favourable pathologic Gleason score seem to present better oncologic outcomes. Future advances in technology and safety will undoubtedly expand the HIFU role in this indication as more of patient series are published, with a longer follow-up period

  19. Background Noise Reduction Using Adaptive Noise Cancellation Determined by the Cross-Correlation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Spalt, Taylor B.; Brooks, Thomas F.; Fuller, Christopher R.

    2012-01-01

    Background noise due to flow in wind tunnels contaminates desired data by decreasing the Signal-to-Noise Ratio. The use of Adaptive Noise Cancellation to remove background noise at measurement microphones is compromised when the reference sensor measures both background and desired noise. The technique proposed modifies the classical processing configuration based on the cross-correlation between the reference and primary microphone. Background noise attenuation is achieved using a cross-correlation sample width that encompasses only the background noise and a matched delay for the adaptive processing. A present limitation of the method is that a minimum time delay between the background noise and desired signal must exist in order for the correlated parts of the desired signal to be separated from the background noise in the crosscorrelation. A simulation yields primary signal recovery which can be predicted from the coherence of the background noise between the channels. Results are compared with two existing methods.

  20. When noise is beneficial for sensory encoding: Noise adaptation can improve face processing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Menzel, Claudia; Hayn-Leichsenring, Gregor U; Redies, Christoph; Németh, Kornél; Kovács, Gyula

    2017-10-01

    The presence of noise usually impairs the processing of a stimulus. Here, we studied the effects of noise on face processing and show, for the first time, that adaptation to noise patterns has beneficial effects on face perception. We used noiseless faces that were either surrounded by random noise or presented on a uniform background as stimuli. In addition, the faces were either preceded by noise adaptors or not. Moreover, we varied the statistics of the noise so that its spectral slope either matched that of the faces or it was steeper or shallower. Results of parallel ERP recordings showed that the background noise reduces the amplitude of the face-evoked N170, indicating less intensive face processing. Adaptation to a noise pattern, however, led to reduced P1 and enhanced N170 amplitudes as well as to a better behavioral performance in two of the three noise conditions. This effect was also augmented by the presence of background noise around the target stimuli. Additionally, the spectral slope of the noise pattern affected the size of the P1, N170 and P2 amplitudes. We reason that the observed effects are due to the selective adaptation of noise-sensitive neurons present in the face-processing cortical areas, which may enhance the signal-to-noise-ratio. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  1. Musical noise reduction using an adaptive filter

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hanada, Takeshi; Murakami, Takahiro; Ishida, Yoshihisa; Hoya, Tetsuya

    2003-10-01

    This paper presents a method for reducing a particular noise (musical noise). The musical noise is artificially produced by Spectral Subtraction (SS), which is one of the most conventional methods for speech enhancement. The musical noise is the tin-like sound and annoying in human auditory. We know that the duration of the musical noise is considerably short in comparison with that of speech, and that the frequency components of the musical noise are random and isolated. In the ordinary SS-based methods, the musical noise is removed by the post-processing. However, the output of the ordinary post-processing is delayed since the post-processing uses the succeeding frames. In order to improve this problem, we propose a novel method using an adaptive filter. In the proposed system, the observed noisy signal is used as the input signal to the adaptive filter and the output of SS is used as the reference signal. In this paper we exploit the normalized LMS (Least Mean Square) algorithm for the adaptive filter. Simulation results show that the proposed method has improved the intelligibility of the enhanced speech in comparison with the conventional method.

  2. PREVENTION OF DYSURIA AFTER HIFU THERAPY FOR PROSTATE CANCER

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    A. Yu. Shestaev

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available Objective: to identify factors for the development of dysuria and its prevention in patients with prostate cancer (PC after high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU therapy.Subjects and methods. In September 2008 to June 2013, the Clinic of Urology, S.M. Kirov Military Medical Academy, treated 98 patients, by performing HIFU sessions on an Ablatherm apparatus (EDAP, France. All the patients underwent transurethral resection of the prostate (TURP to reduce the volume of the ablated tissue. The patients were divided into 2 groups: 1 29 patients underwent TURP 3 days before HIFU therapy; 2 69 did this 1 month before major surgery. Each group was divided into 2 subgroups: 1 after ultrasound ablation, a urethral catheter was inserted for 10 days; 2 epicystostoma was applied, followed by its overlapping on day 3 postablation and spontaneous urination. The postoperative incidence of dysuria was estimated from subjective (complaints, voiding diary, and Inter-national Prostate Symptom Score and objective (uroflowmetry, small pelvic ultrasonography with determination of residual urine volume criteria.Results. In the patients who had undergone TURP one month before HIFU therapy, grades I–II urinary incontinence and urethral pros-tatic stricture occurred much less infrequently than in those who had undergone this maneuver 3 days prior to major surgery. Urinary in-continence and urethral prostatic stricture occurred 2-fold more frequently after TURP being carried out 3 days before HIFU therapy than after the urethral catheter being inserted. TURP performed one month before HIFU therapy showed no great difference in the incidence complications regardless of the type of bladder drainage.Conclusion. The short interval between TURP and HIFU therapy for PC increases the risk of postoperative dysuric events. The optimal time to perform TURP prior to HIFU therapy is 1 month.

  3. PREVENTION OF DYSURIA AFTER HIFU THERAPY FOR PROSTATE CANCER

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    A. Yu. Shestaev

    2014-07-01

    Full Text Available Objective: to identify factors for the development of dysuria and its prevention in patients with prostate cancer (PC after high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU therapy.Subjects and methods. In September 2008 to June 2013, the Clinic of Urology, S.M. Kirov Military Medical Academy, treated 98 patients, by performing HIFU sessions on an Ablatherm apparatus (EDAP, France. All the patients underwent transurethral resection of the prostate (TURP to reduce the volume of the ablated tissue. The patients were divided into 2 groups: 1 29 patients underwent TURP 3 days before HIFU therapy; 2 69 did this 1 month before major surgery. Each group was divided into 2 subgroups: 1 after ultrasound ablation, a urethral catheter was inserted for 10 days; 2 epicystostoma was applied, followed by its overlapping on day 3 postablation and spontaneous urination. The postoperative incidence of dysuria was estimated from subjective (complaints, voiding diary, and Inter-national Prostate Symptom Score and objective (uroflowmetry, small pelvic ultrasonography with determination of residual urine volume criteria.Results. In the patients who had undergone TURP one month before HIFU therapy, grades I–II urinary incontinence and urethral pros-tatic stricture occurred much less infrequently than in those who had undergone this maneuver 3 days prior to major surgery. Urinary in-continence and urethral prostatic stricture occurred 2-fold more frequently after TURP being carried out 3 days before HIFU therapy than after the urethral catheter being inserted. TURP performed one month before HIFU therapy showed no great difference in the incidence complications regardless of the type of bladder drainage.Conclusion. The short interval between TURP and HIFU therapy for PC increases the risk of postoperative dysuric events. The optimal time to perform TURP prior to HIFU therapy is 1 month.

  4. High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU) in Uterine Fibroid Treatment: Review Study

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Mahmoud, Mustafa Z.; Alkhorayef, Mohammed; Alzimami, Khalid S.; Aljuhani, Manal Saud; Sulieman, Abdelmoneim

    2014-01-01

    High-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) is a highly precise medical procedure used locally to heat and destroy diseased tissue through ablation. This study intended to review HIFU in uterine fibroid therapy, to evaluate the role of HIFU in the therapy of leiomyomas as well as to review the actual clinical activities in this field including efficacy and safety measures beside the published clinical literature. An inclusive literature review was carried out in order to review the scientific foundation, and how it resulted in the development of extracorporeal distinct devices. Studies addressing HIFU in leiomyomas were identified from a search of the Internet scientific databases. The analysis of literature was limited to journal articles written in English and published between 2000 and 2013. In current gynecologic oncology, HIFU is used clinically in the treatment of leiomyomas. Clinical research on HIFU therapy for leiomyomas began in the 1990s, and the majority of patients with leiomyomas were treated predominantly with HIFUNIT 9000 and prototype single focus ultrasound devices. HIFU is a non-invasive and highly effective standard treatment with a large indication range for all sizes of leiomyomas, associated with high efficacy, low operative morbidity and no systemic side effects. Uterine fibroid treatment using HIFU was effective and safe in treating symptomatic uterine fibroids. Few studies are available in the literature regarding uterine artery embolization (UAE). HIFU provides an excellent option to treat uterine fibroids

  5. A region-based segmentation method for ultrasound images in HIFU therapy

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Zhang, Dong; Liu, Yu; Yang, Yan; Xu, Menglong; Yan, Yu; Qin, Qianqing

    2016-01-01

    Purpose: Precisely and efficiently locating a tumor with less manual intervention in ultrasound-guided high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) therapy is one of the keys to guaranteeing the therapeutic result and improving the efficiency of the treatment. The segmentation of ultrasound images has always been difficult due to the influences of speckle, acoustic shadows, and signal attenuation as well as the variety of tumor appearance. The quality of HIFU guidance images is even poorer than that of conventional diagnostic ultrasound images because the ultrasonic probe used for HIFU guidance usually obtains images without making contact with the patient’s body. Therefore, the segmentation becomes more difficult. To solve the segmentation problem of ultrasound guidance image in the treatment planning procedure for HIFU therapy, a novel region-based segmentation method for uterine fibroids in HIFU guidance images is proposed. Methods: Tumor partitioning in HIFU guidance image without manual intervention is achieved by a region-based split-and-merge framework. A new iterative multiple region growing algorithm is proposed to first split the image into homogenous regions (superpixels). The features extracted within these homogenous regions will be more stable than those extracted within the conventional neighborhood of a pixel. The split regions are then merged by a superpixel-based adaptive spectral clustering algorithm. To ensure the superpixels that belong to the same tumor can be clustered together in the merging process, a particular construction strategy for the similarity matrix is adopted for the spectral clustering, and the similarity matrix is constructed by taking advantage of a combination of specifically selected first-order and second-order texture features computed from the gray levels and the gray level co-occurrence matrixes, respectively. The tumor region is picked out automatically from the background regions by an algorithm according to a priori

  6. A region-based segmentation method for ultrasound images in HIFU therapy

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Zhang, Dong, E-mail: dongz@whu.edu.cn; Liu, Yu; Yang, Yan; Xu, Menglong; Yan, Yu [School of Physics and Technology, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072 (China); Qin, Qianqing [State Key Laboratory of Information Engineering in Surveying, Mapping and Remote Sensing, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072 (China)

    2016-06-15

    Purpose: Precisely and efficiently locating a tumor with less manual intervention in ultrasound-guided high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) therapy is one of the keys to guaranteeing the therapeutic result and improving the efficiency of the treatment. The segmentation of ultrasound images has always been difficult due to the influences of speckle, acoustic shadows, and signal attenuation as well as the variety of tumor appearance. The quality of HIFU guidance images is even poorer than that of conventional diagnostic ultrasound images because the ultrasonic probe used for HIFU guidance usually obtains images without making contact with the patient’s body. Therefore, the segmentation becomes more difficult. To solve the segmentation problem of ultrasound guidance image in the treatment planning procedure for HIFU therapy, a novel region-based segmentation method for uterine fibroids in HIFU guidance images is proposed. Methods: Tumor partitioning in HIFU guidance image without manual intervention is achieved by a region-based split-and-merge framework. A new iterative multiple region growing algorithm is proposed to first split the image into homogenous regions (superpixels). The features extracted within these homogenous regions will be more stable than those extracted within the conventional neighborhood of a pixel. The split regions are then merged by a superpixel-based adaptive spectral clustering algorithm. To ensure the superpixels that belong to the same tumor can be clustered together in the merging process, a particular construction strategy for the similarity matrix is adopted for the spectral clustering, and the similarity matrix is constructed by taking advantage of a combination of specifically selected first-order and second-order texture features computed from the gray levels and the gray level co-occurrence matrixes, respectively. The tumor region is picked out automatically from the background regions by an algorithm according to a priori

  7. Multi-Stage Adaptive Noise Cancellation Technique for Synthetic Hard-α Inclusion

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kim, Jae Joon

    2003-01-01

    Adaptive noise cancellation techniques are ideally suitable for reducing spatially varying noise due to the grain structure of material in ultrasonic nondestructive evaluation. Grain noises have an un-correlation property, while flaw echoes are correlated. Thus, adaptive filtering algorithms use the correlation properties of signals to enhance the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the output signal. In this paper, a multi-stage adaptive noise cancellation (MANC) method using adaptive least mean square error (LMSE) filter for enhancing flaw detection in ultrasonic signals is proposed

  8. Applications of adaptive filters in active noise control

    Science.gov (United States)

    Darlington, Paul

    The active reduction of acoustic noise is achieved by the addition of a cancelling acoustic signal to the unwanted sound. Successful definition of the cancelling signal amounts to a system identification problem. Recent advances in adaptive signal processing have allowed this problem to be tackled using adaptive filters, which offer significant advantages over conventional solutions. The extension of adaptive noise cancelling techniques, which were developed in the electrical signal conditioning context, to the control of acoustic systems is studied. An analysis is presented of the behavior of the Widrow-Hoff LMS adaptive noise canceller with a linear filter in its control loop. The active control of plane waves propagating axially in a hardwalled duct is used as a motivating model problem. The model problem also motivates the study of the effects of feedback around an LMS adaptive filter. An alternative stochastic gradient algorithm for controlling adaptive filters in the presence of feedback is presented.

  9. Communication system with adaptive noise suppression

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kozel, David (Inventor); Devault, James A. (Inventor); Birr, Richard B. (Inventor)

    2007-01-01

    A signal-to-noise ratio dependent adaptive spectral subtraction process eliminates noise from noise-corrupted speech signals. The process first pre-emphasizes the frequency components of the input sound signal which contain the consonant information in human speech. Next, a signal-to-noise ratio is determined and a spectral subtraction proportion adjusted appropriately. After spectral subtraction, low amplitude signals can be squelched. A single microphone is used to obtain both the noise-corrupted speech and the average noise estimate. This is done by determining if the frame of data being sampled is a voiced or unvoiced frame. During unvoiced frames an estimate of the noise is obtained. A running average of the noise is used to approximate the expected value of the noise. Spectral subtraction may be performed on a composite noise-corrupted signal, or upon individual sub-bands of the noise-corrupted signal. Pre-averaging of the input signal's magnitude spectrum over multiple time frames may be performed to reduce musical noise.

  10. HIFU Monitoring and Control with Dual-Mode Ultrasound Arrays

    Science.gov (United States)

    Casper, Andrew Jacob

    The biological effects of high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) have been known and studied for decades. HIFU has been shown capable of treating a wide variety of diseases and disorders. However, despite its demonstrated potential, HIFU has been slow to gain clinical acceptance. This is due, in part, to the difficulty associated with robustly monitoring and controlling the delivery of the HIFU energy. The non-invasive nature of the surgery makes the assessment of treatment progression difficult, leading to long treatment times and a significant risk of under treatment. This thesis research develops new techniques and systems for robustly monitoring HIFU therapies for the safe and efficacious delivery of the intended treatment. Systems and algorithms were developed for the two most common modes of HIFU delivery systems: single-element and phased array applicators. Delivering HIFU with a single element transducer is a widely used technique in HIFU therapies. The simplicity of a single element offers many benefits in terms of cost and overall system complexity. Typical monitoring schemes rely on an external device (e.g. diagnostic ultrasound or MRI) to assess the progression of therapy. The research presented in this thesis explores using the same element to both deliver and monitor the HIFU therapy. The use of a dual-mode ultrasound transducer (DMUT) required the development of an FPGA based single-channel arbitrary waveform generator and high-speed data acquisition unit. Data collected from initial uncontrolled ablations led to the development of monitoring and control algorithms which were implemented directly on the FPGA. Close integration between the data acquisition and arbitrary waveform units allowed for fast, low latency control over the ablation process. Results are presented that demonstrate control of HIFU therapies over a broad range of intensities and in multiple in vitro tissues. The second area of investigation expands the DMUT research to an

  11. PASSIVE CAVITATION DETECTION DURING PULSED HIFU EXPOSURES OF EX VIVO TISSUES AND IN VIVO MOUSE PANCREATIC TUMORS

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Tong; Chen, Hong; Khokhlova, Tatiana; Wang, Yak-Nam; Kreider, Wayne; He, Xuemei; Hwang, Joo Ha

    2014-01-01

    Pulsed high-intensity focused ultrasound (pHIFU) has been demonstrated to enhance vascular permeability, disrupt tumor barriers and enhance drug penetration into tumor tissue through acoustic cavitation. Monitoring of cavitation activity during pHIFU treatments and knowing the ultrasound pressure levels sufficient to reliably induce cavitation in a given tissue are therefore very important. Here, three metrics of cavitation activity induced by pHIFU and evaluated by confocal passive cavitation detection were introduced: cavitation probability, cavitation persistence and the level of the broadband acoustic emissions. These metrics were used to characterize cavitation activity in several ex vivo tissue types (bovine tongue and liver and porcine adipose tissue and kidney) and gel phantoms (polyacrylamide and agarose) at varying peak-rarefactional focal pressures (1–12 MPa) during the following pHIFU protocol: frequency 1.1 MHz, pulse duration 1 ms, pulse repetition frequency 1 Hz. To evaluate the relevance of the measurements in ex vivo tissue, cavitation metrics were also investigated and compared in the ex vivo and in vivo murine pancreatic tumors that develop spontaneously in transgenic KPC mice and closely recapitulate human disease in their morphology. The cavitation threshold, defined at 50 % cavitation probability, was found to vary broadly among the investigated tissues (within 2.5–10 MPa), depending mostly on the water-lipid ratio that characterizes the tissue composition. Cavitation persistence and the intensity of broadband emissions depended both on tissue structure and lipid concentration. Both the cavitation threshold and broadband noise emission level were similar between ex vivo and in vivo pancreatic tumor tissue. The largest difference between in vivo and ex vivo settings was found in the pattern of cavitation occurrence throughout pHIFU exposure: it was sporadic in vivo, but ex vivo it decreased rapidly and stopped over the first few pulses

  12. Passive cavitation detection during pulsed HIFU exposures of ex vivo tissues and in vivo mouse pancreatic tumors.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Tong; Chen, Hong; Khokhlova, Tatiana; Wang, Yak-Nam; Kreider, Wayne; He, Xuemei; Hwang, Joo Ha

    2014-07-01

    Pulsed high-intensity focused ultrasound (pHIFU) has been shown to enhance vascular permeability, disrupt tumor barriers and enhance drug penetration into tumor tissue through acoustic cavitation. Monitoring of cavitation activity during pHIFU treatments and knowing the ultrasound pressure levels sufficient to reliably induce cavitation in a given tissue are therefore very important. Here, three metrics of cavitation activity induced by pHIFU and evaluated by confocal passive cavitation detection were introduced: cavitation probability, cavitation persistence and the level of the broadband acoustic emissions. These metrics were used to characterize cavitation activity in several ex vivo tissue types (bovine tongue and liver and porcine adipose tissue and kidney) and gel phantoms (polyacrylamide and agarose) at varying peak-rare factional focal pressures (1-12 MPa) during the following pHIFU protocol: frequency 1.1 MHz, pulse duration 1 ms and pulse repetition frequency 1 Hz. To evaluate the relevance of the measurements in ex vivo tissue, cavitation metrics were also investigated and compared in the ex vivo and in vivo murine pancreatic tumors that develop spontaneously in transgenic KrasLSL.G12 D/+; p53 R172 H/+; PdxCretg/+ (KPC) mice and closely re-capitulate human disease in their morphology. The cavitation threshold, defined at 50% cavitation probability, was found to vary broadly among the investigated tissues (within 2.5-10 MPa), depending mostly on the water-lipid ratio that characterizes the tissue composition. Cavitation persistence and the intensity of broadband emissions depended both on tissue structure and lipid concentration. Both the cavitation threshold and broadband noise emission level were similar between ex vivo and in vivo pancreatic tumor tissue. The largest difference between in vivo and ex vivo settings was found in the pattern of cavitation occurrence throughout pHIFU exposure: it was sporadic in vivo, but it decreased rapidly and stopped

  13. Adaptive Noise Canceling Menggunakan Algoritma Least Mean Square (Lms)

    OpenAIRE

    Nardiana, Anita; Sumaryono, Sari Sujoko

    2011-01-01

    Noise is inevitable in communication system. In some cases, noise can disturb signal. It is veryannoying as the received signal is jumbled with the noise itself. To reduce or remove noise, filter lowpass,highpass or bandpass can solve the problems, but this method cannot reach a maximum standard. One ofthe alternatives to solve the problem is by using adaptive filter. Adaptive algorithm frequently used is LeastMean Square (LMS) Algorithm which is compatible to Finite Impulse Response (FIR). T...

  14. Investigation of HIFU-induced anti-tumor immunity in a murine tumor model

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lyerly H Kim

    2007-07-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background High intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU is an emerging non-invasive treatment modality for localized treatment of cancers. While current clinical strategies employ HIFU exclusively for thermal ablation of the target sites, biological responses associated with both thermal and mechanical damage from focused ultrasound have not been thoroughly investigated. In particular, endogenous danger signals from HIFU-damaged tumor cells may trigger the activation of dendritic cells. This response may play a critical role in a HIFU-elicited anti-tumor immune response which can be harnessed for more effective treatment. Methods Mice bearing MC-38 colon adenocarcinoma tumors were treated with thermal and mechanical HIFU exposure settings in order to independently observe HIFU-induced effects on the host's immunological response. In vivo dendritic cell activity was assessed along with the host's response to challenge tumor growth. Results Thermal and mechanical HIFU were found to increase CD11c+ cells 3.1-fold and 4-fold, respectively, as compared to 1.5-fold observed for DC injection alone. In addition, thermal and mechanical HIFU increased CFSE+ DC accumulation in draining lymph nodes 5-fold and 10-fold, respectively. Moreover, focused ultrasound treatments not only caused a reduction in the growth of primary tumors, with tumor volume decreasing by 85% for thermal HIFU and 43% for mechanical HIFU, but they also provided protection against subcutaneous tumor re-challenge. Further immunological assays confirmed an enhanced CTL activity and increased tumor-specific IFN-γ-secreting cells in the mice treated by focused ultrasound, with cytotoxicity induced by mechanical HIFU reaching as high as 27% at a 10:1 effector:target ratio. Conclusion These studies present initial encouraging results confirming that focused ultrasound treatment can elicit a systemic anti-tumor immune response, and they suggest that this immunity is closely related to

  15. The role of numerical simulation for the development of an advanced HIFU system

    Science.gov (United States)

    Okita, Kohei; Narumi, Ryuta; Azuma, Takashi; Takagi, Shu; Matumoto, Yoichiro

    2014-10-01

    High-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) has been used clinically and is under clinical trials to treat various diseases. An advanced HIFU system employs ultrasound techniques for guidance during HIFU treatment instead of magnetic resonance imaging in current HIFU systems. A HIFU beam imaging for monitoring the HIFU beam and a localized motion imaging for treatment validation of tissue are introduced briefly as the real-time ultrasound monitoring techniques. Numerical simulations have a great impact on the development of real-time ultrasound monitoring as well as the improvement of the safety and efficacy of treatment in advanced HIFU systems. A HIFU simulator was developed to reproduce ultrasound propagation through the body in consideration of the elasticity of tissue, and was validated by comparison with in vitro experiments in which the ultrasound emitted from the phased-array transducer propagates through the acrylic plate acting as a bone phantom. As the result, the defocus and distortion of the ultrasound propagating through the acrylic plate in the simulation quantitatively agree with that in the experimental results. Therefore, the HIFU simulator accurately reproduces the ultrasound propagation through the medium whose shape and physical properties are well known. In addition, it is experimentally confirmed that simulation-assisted focus control of the phased-array transducer enables efficient assignment of the focus to the target. Simulation-assisted focus control can contribute to design of transducers and treatment planning.

  16. Soundscape elaboration from anthrophonic adaptation of community noise

    Science.gov (United States)

    Teddy Badai Samodra, FX

    2018-03-01

    Under the situation of an urban environment, noise has been a critical issue in affecting the indoor environment. A reliable approach is required for evaluation of the community noise as one factor of anthrophonic in the urban environment. This research investigates the level of noise exposure from different community noise sources and elaborates the advantage of the noise disadvantages for soundscape innovation. Integrated building element design as a protector for noise control and speech intelligibility compliance using field experiment and MATLAB programming and modeling are also carried out. Meanwhile, for simulation analysis and building acoustic optimization, Sound Reduction-Speech Intelligibility and Reverberation Time are the main parameters for identifying tropical building model as case study object. The results show that the noise control should consider its integration with the other critical issue, thermal control, in an urban environment. The 1.1 second of reverberation time for speech activities and noise reduction more than 28.66 dBA for critical frequency (20 Hz), the speech intelligibility index could be reached more than fair assessment, 0.45. Furthermore, the environmental psychology adaptation result “Close The Opening” as the best method in high noise condition and personal adjustment as the easiest and the most adaptable way.

  17. Evaluation of temperature rise in a tissue mimicking material during HIFU exposure

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Maruvada, S; Liu, Y; Herman, B A; Harris, G R

    2011-01-01

    In pre-clinical testing it is essential to characterize clinical high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) devices using tissue-mimicking materials (TMMs) with well known characteristics, including temperature rise and cavitation properties. The purpose of this study was to monitor cavitation behavior and correlate its effect with temperature rise in a HIFU TMM containing an embedded thermocouple. A 75-μm fine wire thermocouple was embedded in a hydrogel-based TMM previously developed for HIFU. HIFU at 1.1 and 3.3 MHz was focused at the thermocouple junction. Focal pressures from 1-11 MPa were applied and the temperature profiles were recorded. Three hydrophones were used to monitor cavitation activity during sonication. A hydrophone confocal with the HIFU transducer and a cylindrical hydrophone lateral to the HIFU beam were used as passive cavitation detectors for spectral analysis of signals, and a needle hydrophone placed beyond the HIFU focus was used to record changes in the pressure amplitude due to blockage by bubbles at or near the focus. B-mode imaging scans were employed to visualize bubble presence during sonication. In a separate measurement, schlieren imaging was used to monitor the change in field distribution behind the TMM. All hydrophone methods correlated well with cavitation in the TMM.

  18. Evaluation of temperature rise in a tissue mimicking material during HIFU exposure

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Maruvada, S; Liu, Y; Herman, B A; Harris, G R, E-mail: subha.maruvada@fda.hhs.gov [Food and Drug Administration, Center for Devices and Radiological Health, 10903 New Hampshire Ave., Bldg., Silver Spring, MD 20993 (United States)

    2011-02-01

    In pre-clinical testing it is essential to characterize clinical high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) devices using tissue-mimicking materials (TMMs) with well known characteristics, including temperature rise and cavitation properties. The purpose of this study was to monitor cavitation behavior and correlate its effect with temperature rise in a HIFU TMM containing an embedded thermocouple. A 75-{mu}m fine wire thermocouple was embedded in a hydrogel-based TMM previously developed for HIFU. HIFU at 1.1 and 3.3 MHz was focused at the thermocouple junction. Focal pressures from 1-11 MPa were applied and the temperature profiles were recorded. Three hydrophones were used to monitor cavitation activity during sonication. A hydrophone confocal with the HIFU transducer and a cylindrical hydrophone lateral to the HIFU beam were used as passive cavitation detectors for spectral analysis of signals, and a needle hydrophone placed beyond the HIFU focus was used to record changes in the pressure amplitude due to blockage by bubbles at or near the focus. B-mode imaging scans were employed to visualize bubble presence during sonication. In a separate measurement, schlieren imaging was used to monitor the change in field distribution behind the TMM. All hydrophone methods correlated well with cavitation in the TMM.

  19. TU-A-210-02: HIFU: Why Should a Radiation Oncology Physicist Pay Attention?

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Schlesinger, D.

    2015-01-01

    High-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) has developed rapidly in recent years and is used frequently for clinical treatments in Asia and Europe with increasing clinical use and clinical trial activity in the US, making it an important medical technology with which the medical physics community must become familiar. Akin to medical devices that deliver treatments using ionizing radiation, HIFU relies on emitter geometry to non-invasively form a tight focus that can be used to affect diseased tissue while leaving healthy tissue intact. HIFU is unique in that it does not involve the use of ionizing radiation, it causes thermal necrosis in 100% of the treated tissue volume, and it has an immediate treatment effect. However, because it is an application of ultrasound energy, HIFU interacts strongly with tissue interfaces, which makes treatment planning challenging. In order to appreciate the advantages and disadvantages of HIFU as a thermal therapy, it is important to understand the underlying physics of ultrasound tissue interactions. The first lecture in the session will provide an overview of the physics of ultrasound wave propagation; the mechanism for the accumulation of heat in soft-tissue; image-guidance modalities including temperature monitoring; current clinical applications and commercial devices; active clinical trials; alternate mechanisms of action (future of FUS). The second part of the session will compare HIFU to existing ionization radiation techniques. The difficulties in defining a clear concept of absorbed dose for HIFU will be discussed. Some of the technical challenges that HIFU faces will be described, with an emphasis on how the experience of radiation oncology physicists could benefit the field. Learning Objectives: Describe the basic physics and biology of HIFU, including treatment delivery and image guidance techniques. Summarize existing and emerging clinical applications and manufacturers for HIFU. Understand that thermal ablation with

  20. TU-A-210-02: HIFU: Why Should a Radiation Oncology Physicist Pay Attention?

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Schlesinger, D. [University of Virginia Health Systems (United States)

    2015-06-15

    High-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) has developed rapidly in recent years and is used frequently for clinical treatments in Asia and Europe with increasing clinical use and clinical trial activity in the US, making it an important medical technology with which the medical physics community must become familiar. Akin to medical devices that deliver treatments using ionizing radiation, HIFU relies on emitter geometry to non-invasively form a tight focus that can be used to affect diseased tissue while leaving healthy tissue intact. HIFU is unique in that it does not involve the use of ionizing radiation, it causes thermal necrosis in 100% of the treated tissue volume, and it has an immediate treatment effect. However, because it is an application of ultrasound energy, HIFU interacts strongly with tissue interfaces, which makes treatment planning challenging. In order to appreciate the advantages and disadvantages of HIFU as a thermal therapy, it is important to understand the underlying physics of ultrasound tissue interactions. The first lecture in the session will provide an overview of the physics of ultrasound wave propagation; the mechanism for the accumulation of heat in soft-tissue; image-guidance modalities including temperature monitoring; current clinical applications and commercial devices; active clinical trials; alternate mechanisms of action (future of FUS). The second part of the session will compare HIFU to existing ionization radiation techniques. The difficulties in defining a clear concept of absorbed dose for HIFU will be discussed. Some of the technical challenges that HIFU faces will be described, with an emphasis on how the experience of radiation oncology physicists could benefit the field. Learning Objectives: Describe the basic physics and biology of HIFU, including treatment delivery and image guidance techniques. Summarize existing and emerging clinical applications and manufacturers for HIFU. Understand that thermal ablation with

  1. Whole Body Bone Scan Findings after High Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU) Treatment

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Seo, Ye Young; O, Joo Hyun; Sohn, Hyung Sun; Choi, Eun Kyoung; Yoo, Ik Dong; Oh, Jin Kyoung; Han, Eun Ji; Jung, Seung Eun; Kim, Sung Hoon

    2011-01-01

    This study aims to examine the findings of 99mT c diphosphonate bone scans in cancer patients with a history of HIFU treatment. Bone scan images of patients with a history of HIFU treatment for primary of metastatic cancer from January 2006 to July 2010 were retrospectively reviewed. Cases of primary bone tumor or HIFU treatment reaching only the superficial soft tissue layer were excluded. Bone scan images of 62 patients (26 female, 36 male; mean age 57±9 years) were studied. HIFU treatment was performed in the liver (n=40), pancreas (n=40), pancreas (n=16), and breast (n=6). Mean interval time between HIFU treatment and bone scan was 106±105 days (range: 1-572 days). Of 62 scans, 43 showed diffusely decreased uptake of bone within the path of HIFU treatment: antero axillary and/or posterior arcs of right 5th to 11th ribs in 34 cases after treatment of hepatic lesions; anterior arcs of 2nd to 5th ribs in 5 cases after treatment for breast tumors; and posterior arcs of left 9th to 11th ribs or thoraco lumbar vertebrae in 4 cases after treatment for pancreas tumor. Of 20 patients who had bone scans more than twice, five showed recovered uptake of the radiotracer in the involved ribs in the follow up bone scan. Of 62 bone scans in patients with a history of HIFU treatment for primary of metastatic cancer, 69% presented diffusely decreased uptake in the bone in the path of HIFU treatment.

  2. Adaptive nonlocal means filtering based on local noise level for CT denoising

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Li, Zhoubo; Trzasko, Joshua D.; Lake, David S.; Blezek, Daniel J.; Manduca, Armando; Yu, Lifeng; Fletcher, Joel G.; McCollough, Cynthia H.

    2014-01-01

    Purpose: To develop and evaluate an image-domain noise reduction method based on a modified nonlocal means (NLM) algorithm that is adaptive to local noise level of CT images and to implement this method in a time frame consistent with clinical workflow. Methods: A computationally efficient technique for local noise estimation directly from CT images was developed. A forward projection, based on a 2D fan-beam approximation, was used to generate the projection data, with a noise model incorporating the effects of the bowtie filter and automatic exposure control. The noise propagation from projection data to images was analytically derived. The analytical noise map was validated using repeated scans of a phantom. A 3D NLM denoising algorithm was modified to adapt its denoising strength locally based on this noise map. The performance of this adaptive NLM filter was evaluated in phantom studies in terms of in-plane and cross-plane high-contrast spatial resolution, noise power spectrum (NPS), subjective low-contrast spatial resolution using the American College of Radiology (ACR) accreditation phantom, and objective low-contrast spatial resolution using a channelized Hotelling model observer (CHO). Graphical processing units (GPU) implementation of this noise map calculation and the adaptive NLM filtering were developed to meet demands of clinical workflow. Adaptive NLM was piloted on lower dose scans in clinical practice. Results: The local noise level estimation matches the noise distribution determined from multiple repetitive scans of a phantom, demonstrated by small variations in the ratio map between the analytical noise map and the one calculated from repeated scans. The phantom studies demonstrated that the adaptive NLM filter can reduce noise substantially without degrading the high-contrast spatial resolution, as illustrated by modulation transfer function and slice sensitivity profile results. The NPS results show that adaptive NLM denoising preserves the

  3. Evaluation of Adaptive Noise Management Technologies for School-Age Children with Hearing Loss.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wolfe, Jace; Duke, Mila; Schafer, Erin; Jones, Christine; Rakita, Lori

    2017-05-01

    Children with hearing loss experience significant difficulty understanding speech in noisy and reverberant situations. Adaptive noise management technologies, such as fully adaptive directional microphones and digital noise reduction, have the potential to improve communication in noise for children with hearing aids. However, there are no published studies evaluating the potential benefits children receive from the use of adaptive noise management technologies in simulated real-world environments as well as in daily situations. The objective of this study was to compare speech recognition, speech intelligibility ratings (SIRs), and sound preferences of children using hearing aids equipped with and without adaptive noise management technologies. A single-group, repeated measures design was used to evaluate performance differences obtained in four simulated environments. In each simulated environment, participants were tested in a basic listening program with minimal noise management features, a manual program designed for that scene, and the hearing instruments' adaptive operating system that steered hearing instrument parameterization based on the characteristics of the environment. Twelve children with mild to moderately severe sensorineural hearing loss. Speech recognition and SIRs were evaluated in three hearing aid programs with and without noise management technologies across two different test sessions and various listening environments. Also, the participants' perceptual hearing performance in daily real-world listening situations with two of the hearing aid programs was evaluated during a four- to six-week field trial that took place between the two laboratory sessions. On average, the use of adaptive noise management technology improved sentence recognition in noise for speech presented in front of the participant but resulted in a decrement in performance for signals arriving from behind when the participant was facing forward. However, the improvement

  4. A New Clinical HIFU System (Teleson II)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ma, Yixin; Symonds-Tayler, Richard; Rivens, Ian H.; ter Haar, Gail R.

    2007-05-01

    Previous clinical trials with our first prototype HIFU system (Teleson I) for the treatment of liver tumors, demonstrated a major challenge to be treatment of those tumors located behind the ribs. We have designed a new multi-element transducer for rib sparing. Initial simulation and experimental results (using a single channel power amplifier) are very encouraging. A new clinical HIFU system which can drive the multi-element transducer and control each channel independently is being designed and constructed. This second version of a clinical prototype HIFU system consists of a 3D motorised gantry, a multi-channel signal generator, a multi-channel power amplifier, a user interface PC, an embedded controller and auxiliary circuits for real-time interleaving/synchronization control and a to-be-implemented safety monitoring and data logging unit. For multi-element transducers, each element can be individually switched on and off for rib sparing, and phase and amplitude modulated for potential phased array applications. The multi-channel power amplifier can be switched on/off very rapidly at required intervals to interleave with ultrasound B-Scan imaging for HIFU monitoring or radiation force elastography imaging via a dedicated interleaving/timing module. The gantry movement can also be synchronised with power amplifier on/off and phase/amplitude updating for lesion generation under a wide variety of conditions including single lesions, lesion arrays and lesions "tracks" created whilst translating the active transducer. Results from testing the system using excised tissue will be presented.

  5. A multi-stage noise adaptive switching filter for extremely corrupted images

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dinh, Hai; Adhami, Reza; Wang, Yi

    2015-07-01

    A multi-stage noise adaptive switching filter (MSNASF) is proposed for the restoration of images extremely corrupted by impulse and impulse-like noise. The filter consists of two steps: noise detection and noise removal. The proposed extrema-based noise detection scheme utilizes the false contouring effect to get better over detection rate at low noise density. It is adaptive and will detect not only impulse but also impulse-like noise. In the noise removal step, a novel multi-stage filtering scheme is proposed. It replaces corrupted pixel with the nearest uncorrupted median to preserve details. When compared with other methods, MSNASF provides better peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR) and structure similarity index (SSIM). A subjective evaluation carried out online also demonstrates that MSNASF yields higher fidelity.

  6. TU-B-210-01: MRg HIFU - Bone and Soft Tissue Tumor Ablation

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ghanouni, P.

    2015-01-01

    MR guided focused ultrasound (MRgFUS), or alternatively high-intensity focused ultrasound (MRgHIFU), is approved for thermal ablative treatment of uterine fibroids and pain palliation in bone metastases. Ablation of malignant tumors is under active investigation in sites such as breast, prostate, brain, liver, kidney, pancreas, and soft tissue. Hyperthermia therapy with MRgFUS is also feasible, and may be used in conjunction with radiotherapy and for local targeted drug delivery. MRI allows in situ target definition and provides continuous temperature monitoring and subsequent thermal dose mapping during HIFU. Although MRgHIFU can be very precise, treatment of mobile organs is challenging and advanced techniques are required because of artifacts in MR temperature mapping, the need for intercostal firing, and need for gated HIFU or tracking of the lesion in real time. The first invited talk, “MR guided Focused Ultrasound Treatment of Tumors in Bone and Soft Tissue”, will summarize the treatment protocol and review results from treatment of bone tumors. In addition, efforts to extend this technology to treat both benign and malignant soft tissue tumors of the extremities will be presented. The second invited talk, “MRI guided High Intensity Focused Ultrasound – Advanced Approaches for Ablation and Hyperthermia”, will provide an overview of techniques that are in or near clinical trials for thermal ablation and hyperthermia, with an emphasis of applications in abdominal organs and breast, including methods for MRTI and tracking targets in moving organs. Learning Objectives: Learn background on devices and techniques for MR guided HIFU for cancer therapy Understand issues and current status of clinical MRg HIFU Understand strategies for compensating for organ movement during MRgHIFU Understand strategies for strategies for delivering hyperthermia with MRgHIFU CM - research collaboration with Philips

  7. TU-B-210-02: MRg HIFU - Advanced Approaches for Ablation and Hyperthermia

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Moonen, C. [University Medical Center Utrecht (Netherlands)

    2015-06-15

    MR guided focused ultrasound (MRgFUS), or alternatively high-intensity focused ultrasound (MRgHIFU), is approved for thermal ablative treatment of uterine fibroids and pain palliation in bone metastases. Ablation of malignant tumors is under active investigation in sites such as breast, prostate, brain, liver, kidney, pancreas, and soft tissue. Hyperthermia therapy with MRgFUS is also feasible, and may be used in conjunction with radiotherapy and for local targeted drug delivery. MRI allows in situ target definition and provides continuous temperature monitoring and subsequent thermal dose mapping during HIFU. Although MRgHIFU can be very precise, treatment of mobile organs is challenging and advanced techniques are required because of artifacts in MR temperature mapping, the need for intercostal firing, and need for gated HIFU or tracking of the lesion in real time. The first invited talk, “MR guided Focused Ultrasound Treatment of Tumors in Bone and Soft Tissue”, will summarize the treatment protocol and review results from treatment of bone tumors. In addition, efforts to extend this technology to treat both benign and malignant soft tissue tumors of the extremities will be presented. The second invited talk, “MRI guided High Intensity Focused Ultrasound – Advanced Approaches for Ablation and Hyperthermia”, will provide an overview of techniques that are in or near clinical trials for thermal ablation and hyperthermia, with an emphasis of applications in abdominal organs and breast, including methods for MRTI and tracking targets in moving organs. Learning Objectives: Learn background on devices and techniques for MR guided HIFU for cancer therapy Understand issues and current status of clinical MRg HIFU Understand strategies for compensating for organ movement during MRgHIFU Understand strategies for strategies for delivering hyperthermia with MRgHIFU CM - research collaboration with Philips.

  8. TU-B-210-01: MRg HIFU - Bone and Soft Tissue Tumor Ablation

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Ghanouni, P. [Stanford University (United States)

    2015-06-15

    MR guided focused ultrasound (MRgFUS), or alternatively high-intensity focused ultrasound (MRgHIFU), is approved for thermal ablative treatment of uterine fibroids and pain palliation in bone metastases. Ablation of malignant tumors is under active investigation in sites such as breast, prostate, brain, liver, kidney, pancreas, and soft tissue. Hyperthermia therapy with MRgFUS is also feasible, and may be used in conjunction with radiotherapy and for local targeted drug delivery. MRI allows in situ target definition and provides continuous temperature monitoring and subsequent thermal dose mapping during HIFU. Although MRgHIFU can be very precise, treatment of mobile organs is challenging and advanced techniques are required because of artifacts in MR temperature mapping, the need for intercostal firing, and need for gated HIFU or tracking of the lesion in real time. The first invited talk, “MR guided Focused Ultrasound Treatment of Tumors in Bone and Soft Tissue”, will summarize the treatment protocol and review results from treatment of bone tumors. In addition, efforts to extend this technology to treat both benign and malignant soft tissue tumors of the extremities will be presented. The second invited talk, “MRI guided High Intensity Focused Ultrasound – Advanced Approaches for Ablation and Hyperthermia”, will provide an overview of techniques that are in or near clinical trials for thermal ablation and hyperthermia, with an emphasis of applications in abdominal organs and breast, including methods for MRTI and tracking targets in moving organs. Learning Objectives: Learn background on devices and techniques for MR guided HIFU for cancer therapy Understand issues and current status of clinical MRg HIFU Understand strategies for compensating for organ movement during MRgHIFU Understand strategies for strategies for delivering hyperthermia with MRgHIFU CM - research collaboration with Philips.

  9. Comparative study of adaptive-noise-cancellation algorithms for intrusion detection systems

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Claassen, J.P.; Patterson, M.M.

    1981-01-01

    Some intrusion detection systems are susceptible to nonstationary noise resulting in frequent nuisance alarms and poor detection when the noise is present. Adaptive inverse filtering for single channel systems and adaptive noise cancellation for two channel systems have both demonstrated good potential in removing correlated noise components prior detection. For such noise susceptible systems the suitability of a noise reduction algorithm must be established in a trade-off study weighing algorithm complexity against performance. The performance characteristics of several distinct classes of algorithms are established through comparative computer studies using real signals. The relative merits of the different algorithms are discussed in the light of the nature of intruder and noise signals

  10. An analytical solution for improved HIFU SAR estimation

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Dillon, C R; Vyas, U; Christensen, D A; Roemer, R B; Payne, A

    2012-01-01

    Accurate determination of the specific absorption rates (SARs) present during high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) experiments and treatments provides a solid physical basis for scientific comparison of results among HIFU studies and is necessary to validate and improve SAR predictive software, which will improve patient treatment planning, control and evaluation. This study develops and tests an analytical solution that significantly improves the accuracy of SAR values obtained from HIFU temperature data. SAR estimates are obtained by fitting the analytical temperature solution for a one-dimensional radial Gaussian heating pattern to the temperature versus time data following a step in applied power and evaluating the initial slope of the analytical solution. The analytical method is evaluated in multiple parametric simulations for which it consistently (except at high perfusions) yields maximum errors of less than 10% at the center of the focal zone compared with errors up to 90% and 55% for the commonly used linear method and an exponential method, respectively. For high perfusion, an extension of the analytical method estimates SAR with less than 10% error. The analytical method is validated experimentally by showing that the temperature elevations predicted using the analytical method's SAR values determined for the entire 3D focal region agree well with the experimental temperature elevations in a HIFU-heated tissue-mimicking phantom. (paper)

  11. A Split-and-Merge-Based Uterine Fibroid Ultrasound Image Segmentation Method in HIFU Therapy.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Menglong Xu

    Full Text Available High-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU therapy has been used to treat uterine fibroids widely and successfully. Uterine fibroid segmentation plays an important role in positioning the target region for HIFU therapy. Presently, it is completed by physicians manually, reducing the efficiency of therapy. Thus, computer-aided segmentation of uterine fibroids benefits the improvement of therapy efficiency. Recently, most computer-aided ultrasound segmentation methods have been based on the framework of contour evolution, such as snakes and level sets. These methods can achieve good performance, although they need an initial contour that influences segmentation results. It is difficult to obtain the initial contour automatically; thus, the initial contour is always obtained manually in many segmentation methods. A split-and-merge-based uterine fibroid segmentation method, which needs no initial contour to ensure less manual intervention, is proposed in this paper. The method first splits the image into many small homogeneous regions called superpixels. A new feature representation method based on texture histogram is employed to characterize each superpixel. Next, the superpixels are merged according to their similarities, which are measured by integrating their Quadratic-Chi texture histogram distances with their space adjacency. Multi-way Ncut is used as the merging criterion, and an adaptive scheme is incorporated to decrease manual intervention further. The method is implemented using Matlab on a personal computer (PC platform with Intel Pentium Dual-Core CPU E5700. The method is validated on forty-two ultrasound images acquired from HIFU therapy. The average running time is 9.54 s. Statistical results showed that SI reaches a value as high as 87.58%, and normHD is 5.18% on average. It has been demonstrated that the proposed method is appropriate for segmentation of uterine fibroids in HIFU pre-treatment imaging and planning.

  12. A User-Friendly Software Package for HIFU Simulation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Soneson, Joshua E.

    2009-04-01

    A freely-distributed, MATLAB (The Mathworks, Inc., Natick, MA)-based software package for simulating axisymmetric high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) beams and their heating effects is discussed. The package (HIFU_Simulator) consists of a propagation module which solves the Khokhlov-Zabolotskaya-Kuznetsov (KZK) equation and a heating module which solves Pennes' bioheat transfer (BHT) equation. The pressure, intensity, heating rate, temperature, and thermal dose fields are computed, plotted, the output is released to the MATLAB workspace for further user analysis or postprocessing.

  13. Adaptive mean filtering for noise reduction in CT polymer gel dosimetry

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hilts, Michelle; Jirasek, Andrew

    2008-01-01

    X-ray computed tomography (CT) as a method of extracting 3D dose information from irradiated polymer gel dosimeters is showing potential as a practical means to implement gel dosimetry in a radiation therapy clinic. However, the response of CT contrast to dose is weak and noise reduction is critical in order to achieve adequate dose resolutions with this method. Phantom design and CT imaging technique have both been shown to decrease image noise. In addition, image postprocessing using noise reduction filtering techniques have been proposed. This work evaluates in detail the use of the adaptive mean filter for reducing noise in CT gel dosimetry. Filter performance is systematically tested using both synthetic patterns mimicking a range of clinical dose distribution features as well as actual clinical dose distributions. Both low and high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) situations are examined. For all cases, the effects of filter kernel size and the number of iterations are investigated. Results indicate that adaptive mean filtering is a highly effective tool for noise reduction CT gel dosimetry. The optimum filtering strategy depends on characteristics of the dose distributions and image noise level. For low noise images (SNR ∼20), the filtered results are excellent and use of adaptive mean filtering is recommended as a standard processing tool. For high noise images (SNR ∼5) adaptive mean filtering can also produce excellent results, but filtering must be approached with more caution as spatial and dose distortions of the original dose distribution can occur

  14. Investigation of Diesel’s Residual Noise on Predictive Vehicles Noise Cancelling using LMS Adaptive Algorithm

    Science.gov (United States)

    Arttini Dwi Prasetyowati, Sri; Susanto, Adhi; Widihastuti, Ida

    2017-04-01

    Every noise problems require different solution. In this research, the noise that must be cancelled comes from roadway. Least Mean Square (LMS) adaptive is one of the algorithm that can be used to cancel that noise. Residual noise always appears and could not be erased completely. This research aims to know the characteristic of residual noise from vehicle’s noise and analysis so that it is no longer appearing as a problem. LMS algorithm was used to predict the vehicle’s noise and minimize the error. The distribution of the residual noise could be observed to determine the specificity of the residual noise. The statistic of the residual noise close to normal distribution with = 0,0435, = 1,13 and the autocorrelation of the residual noise forming impulse. As a conclusion the residual noise is insignificant.

  15. Adaptive Intelligent Ventilation Noise Control, Phase II

    Data.gov (United States)

    National Aeronautics and Space Administration — To address the NASA need for quiet on-orbit crew quarters (CQ), Physical Optics Corporation (POC) proposes to develop a new Adaptive Intelligent Ventilation Noise...

  16. Adaptive Intelligent Ventilation Noise Control, Phase I

    Data.gov (United States)

    National Aeronautics and Space Administration — To address NASA needs for quiet crew volumes in a space habitat, Physical Optics Corporation (POC) proposes to develop a new Adaptive Intelligent Ventilation Noise...

  17. Adaptive noise reduction circuit for a sound reproduction system

    Science.gov (United States)

    Engebretson, A. Maynard (Inventor); O'Connell, Michael P. (Inventor)

    1995-01-01

    A noise reduction circuit for a hearing aid having an adaptive filter for producing a signal which estimates the noise components present in an input signal. The circuit includes a second filter for receiving the noise-estimating signal and modifying it as a function of a user's preference or as a function of an expected noise environment. The circuit also includes a gain control for adjusting the magnitude of the modified noise-estimating signal, thereby allowing for the adjustment of the magnitude of the circuit response. The circuit also includes a signal combiner for combining the input signal with the adjusted noise-estimating signal to produce a noise reduced output signal.

  18. Monitoring and guidance of HIFU beams with dual-mode ultrasound arrays.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ballard, John R; Casper, Andrew J; Ebbini, Emad S

    2009-01-01

    We present experimental results illustrating the unique advantages of dual-mode array (DMUA) systems in monitoring and guidance of high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) lesion formation. DMUAs offer a unique paradigm in image-guided surgery; one in which images obtained using the same therapeutic transducer provide feedback for: 1) refocusing the array in the presence of strongly scattering objects, e.g. the ribs, 2) temperature change at the intended location of the HIFU focus, and 3) changes in the echogenicity of the tissue in response to therapeutic HIFU. These forms of feedback have been demonstrated in vitro in preparation for the design and implementation of a real-time system for imaging and therapy with DMUAs. The results clearly demonstrate that DMUA image feedback is spatially accurate and provide sufficient spatial and contrast resolution for identification of high contrast objects like the ribs and significant blood vessels in the path of the HIFU beam.

  19. Adaptive Subband Filtering Method for MEMS Accelerometer Noise Reduction

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Piotr PIETRZAK

    2008-12-01

    Full Text Available Silicon microaccelerometers can be considered as an alternative to high-priced piezoelectric sensors. Unfortunately, relatively high noise floor of commercially available MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems sensors limits the possibility of their usage in condition monitoring systems of rotating machines. The solution of this problem is the method of signal filtering described in the paper. It is based on adaptive subband filtering employing Adaptive Line Enhancer. For filter weights adaptation, two novel algorithms have been developed. They are based on the NLMS algorithm. Both of them significantly simplify its software and hardware implementation and accelerate the adaptation process. The paper also presents the software (Matlab and hardware (FPGA implementation of the proposed noise filter. In addition, the results of the performed tests are reported. They confirm high efficiency of the solution.

  20. Parallel feedback active noise control of MRI acoustic noise with signal decomposition using hybrid RLS-NLMS adaptive algorithms.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ganguly, Anshuman; Krishna Vemuri, Sri Hari; Panahi, Issa

    2014-01-01

    This paper presents a cost-effective adaptive feedback Active Noise Control (FANC) method for controlling functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) acoustic noise by decomposing it into dominant periodic components and residual random components. Periodicity of fMRI acoustic noise is exploited by using linear prediction (LP) filtering to achieve signal decomposition. A hybrid combination of adaptive filters-Recursive Least Squares (RLS) and Normalized Least Mean Squares (NLMS) are then used to effectively control each component separately. Performance of the proposed FANC system is analyzed and Noise attenuation levels (NAL) up to 32.27 dB obtained by simulation are presented which confirm the effectiveness of the proposed FANC method.

  1. Adaptive elimination of optical fiber transmission noise in fiber ocean bottom seismic system

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhong, Qiuwen; Hu, Zhengliang; Cao, Chunyan; Dong, Hongsheng

    2017-10-01

    In this paper, a pressure and acceleration insensitive reference Interferometer is used to obtain laser and public noise introduced by transmission fiber and laser. By using direct subtraction and adaptive filtering, this paper attempts to eliminate and estimation the transmission noise of sensing probe. This paper compares the noise suppression effect of four methods, including the direct subtraction (DS), the least mean square error adaptive elimination (LMS), the normalized least mean square error adaptive elimination (NLMS) and the least square (RLS) adaptive filtering. The experimental results show that the noise reduction effect of RLS and NLMS are almost the same, better than LMS and DS, which can reach 8dB (@100Hz). But considering the workload, RLS is not conducive to the real-time operating system. When it comes to the same treatment effect, the practicability of NLMS is higher than RLS. The noise reduction effect of LMS is slightly worse than that of RLS and NLMS, about 6dB (@100Hz), but its computational complexity is small, which is beneficial to the real time system implementation. It can also be seen that the DS method has the least amount of computational complexity, but the noise suppression effect is worse than that of the adaptive filter due to the difference of the noise amplitude between the RI and the SI, only 4dB (@100Hz) can be reached. The adaptive filter can basically eliminate the influence of the transmission noise, and the simulation signal of the sensor is kept intact.

  2. Real-time Monitoring of High Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU) Ablation of In Vitro Canine Livers Using Harmonic Motion Imaging for Focused Ultrasound (HMIFU).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Grondin, Julien; Payen, Thomas; Wang, Shutao; Konofagou, Elisa E

    2015-11-03

    Harmonic Motion Imaging for Focused Ultrasound (HMIFU) is a technique that can perform and monitor high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) ablation. An oscillatory motion is generated at the focus of a 93-element and 4.5 MHz center frequency HIFU transducer by applying a 25 Hz amplitude-modulated signal using a function generator. A 64-element and 2.5 MHz imaging transducer with 68kPa peak pressure is confocally placed at the center of the HIFU transducer to acquire the radio-frequency (RF) channel data. In this protocol, real-time monitoring of thermal ablation using HIFU with an acoustic power of 7 W on canine livers in vitro is described. HIFU treatment is applied on the tissue during 2 min and the ablated region is imaged in real-time using diverging or plane wave imaging up to 1,000 frames/second. The matrix of RF channel data is multiplied by a sparse matrix for image reconstruction. The reconstructed field of view is of 90° for diverging wave and 20 mm for plane wave imaging and the data are sampled at 80 MHz. The reconstruction is performed on a Graphical Processing Unit (GPU) in order to image in real-time at a 4.5 display frame rate. 1-D normalized cross-correlation of the reconstructed RF data is used to estimate axial displacements in the focal region. The magnitude of the peak-to-peak displacement at the focal depth decreases during the thermal ablation which denotes stiffening of the tissue due to the formation of a lesion. The displacement signal-to-noise ratio (SNRd) at the focal area for plane wave was 1.4 times higher than for diverging wave showing that plane wave imaging appears to produce better displacement maps quality for HMIFU than diverging wave imaging.

  3. On-line adaptive line frequency noise cancellation from a nuclear power measuring channel

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Qadir Javed

    2011-01-01

    Full Text Available On-line software for adaptively canceling 50 Hz line frequency noise has been designed and tested at Pakistan Research Reactor 1. Line frequency noise causes much problem in weak signals acquisition. Sometimes this noise is so dominant that original signal is totally corrupted. Although notch filter can be used for eliminating this noise, but if signal of interest is in close vicinity of 50 Hz, then original signal is also attenuated and hence overall performance is degraded. Adaptive noise removal is a technique which could be employed for removing line frequency without degrading the desired signal. In this paper line frequency noise has been eliminated on-line from a nuclear power measuring channel. The adaptive LMS algorithm has been used to cancel 50 Hz noise. The algorithm has been implemented in labVIEW with NI 6024 data acquisition card. The quality of the acquired signal has been improved much as can be seen in experimental results.

  4. A computer simulation of an adaptive noise canceler with a single input

    Science.gov (United States)

    Albert, Stuart D.

    1991-06-01

    A description of an adaptive noise canceler using Widrows' LMS algorithm is presented. A computer simulation of canceler performance (adaptive convergence time and frequency transfer function) was written for use as a design tool. The simulations, assumptions, and input parameters are described in detail. The simulation is used in a design example to predict the performance of an adaptive noise canceler in the simultaneous presence of both strong and weak narrow-band signals (a cosited frequency hopping radio scenario). On the basis of the simulation results, it is concluded that the simulation is suitable for use as an adaptive noise canceler design tool; i.e., it can be used to evaluate the effect of design parameter changes on canceler performance.

  5. Magnetic Resonance-Guided High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound (MRgHIFU) for Treatment of Symptomatic Uterine Fibroids: An Economic Analysis

    Science.gov (United States)

    Babashov, V; Palimaka, S; Blackhouse, G; O'Reilly, D

    2015-01-01

    Background Uterine fibroids, or leiomyomas, are the most common benign tumours in women of childbearing age. Some women experience symptoms (e.g., heavy bleeding) that require aggressive forms of treatment such as uterine artery embolization (UAE), myomectomy, magnetic resonance-guided high-intensity focused ultrasound (MRgHIFU), and even hysterectomy. It is important to note that hysterectomy is not appropriate for women who desire future childbearing. Objectives The objective of this analysis was to evaluate the cost-effectiveness and budgetary impact of implementing MRgHIFU as a treatment option for symptomatic uterine fibroids in premenopausal women for whom drugs have been ineffective. Review Methods We performed an original cost-effectiveness analysis to assess the long-term costs and effects of MRgHIFU compared with hysterectomy, myomectomy, and UAE as a strategy for treating symptomatic uterine fibroids in premenopausal women aged 40 to 51 years. We explored a number of scenarios, e.g., comparing MRgHIFU with uterine-preserving procedures only, considering MRgHIFU-eligible patients only, and eliminating UAE as a treatment option. In addition, we performed a one-year budget impact analysis, using data from Ontario administrative sources. Four scenarios were explored in the budgetary impact analysis: MRgHIFU funded at 2 centres MRgHIFU funded at 2 centres and replacing only uterine-preserving procedures MRgHIFU funded at 6 centres MRgHIFU funded at 6 centres and replacing only uterine-preserving procedures Analyses were conducted from the Ontario public payer perspective. Results The base case determined that the uterine artery embolization (UAE) treatment strategy was the cost-effective option at commonly accepted willingness-to-pay values. Compared with hysterectomy, UAE was calculated as having an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) of $46,480 per quality-adjusted life-year (QALY) gained. The MRgHIFU strategy was extendedly dominated by a

  6. THE POSSIBILITY OF HIFU THERAPY AT THE PRESENT STAGE

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    E. A. Suleimanov

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Writing this article is prompted by growing interest in the technology of high intensity focused ultrasound (high-intensity focused ultrasound, HIFU, which, in turn, is associated with a wide range of potential points of use, minimal invasiveness of this method, minimal impact on the patient’s body, characterized by a short period of rehabilitation. Also, this treatment method has a high reproducibility, which in turn contributes to the rapid spread of HIFU therapy in practice. The review is devoted to the history of development, study and application of the method of ultrasonic ablation, the modern view on how to conduct HIFU therapy, the currently available technical possibilities for non-invasive high-intensity focused ultrasound therapy as well as demonstrate the effectiveness of this treatment in patients with malignant and benign tumors of different localization, as in a standalone version or in combination with other treatment options (surgery, drug therapy, radiation therapy, an attempt to systematize the early and remote results of treatment. The article represents the data of world and national literature. One of the important directions of the study of the described technique is an expansion of possible application in various malignant pathologies, both local and generalized nature of the lesion. A separate item is the application of HIFU therapy in the treatment of chronic pain syndrome.

  7. Multireference adaptive noise canceling applied to the EEG.

    Science.gov (United States)

    James, C J; Hagan, M T; Jones, R D; Bones, P J; Carroll, G J

    1997-08-01

    The technique of multireference adaptive noise canceling (MRANC) is applied to enhance transient nonstationarities in the electroeancephalogram (EEG), with the adaptation implemented by means of a multilayer-perception artificial neural network (ANN). The method was applied to recorded EEG segments and the performance on documented nonstationarities recorded. The results show that the neural network (nonlinear) gives an improvement in performance (i.e., signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the nonstationarities) compared to a linear implementation of MRANC. In both cases an improvement in the SNR was obtained. The advantage of the spatial filtering aspect of MRANC is highlighted when the performance of MRANC is compared to that of the inverse auto-regressive filtering of the EEG, a purely temporal filter.

  8. Wavelet Adaptive Algorithm and Its Application to MRE Noise Control System

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Zhang Yulin

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available To address the limitation of conventional adaptive algorithm used for active noise control (ANC system, this paper proposed and studied two adaptive algorithms based on Wavelet. The twos are applied to a noise control system including magnetorheological elastomers (MRE, which is a smart viscoelastic material characterized by a complex modulus dependent on vibration frequency and controllable by external magnetic fields. Simulation results reveal that the Decomposition LMS algorithm (D-LMS and Decomposition and Reconstruction LMS algorithm (DR-LMS based on Wavelet can significantly improve the noise reduction performance of MRE control system compared with traditional LMS algorithm.

  9. Beamspace Adaptive Beamforming for Hydrodynamic Towed Array Self-Noise Cancellation

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    Premus, Vincent

    2001-01-01

    ... against signal self-nulling associated with steering vector mismatch. Particular attention is paid to the definition of white noise gain as the metric that reflects the level of mainlobe adaptive nulling for an adaptive beamformer...

  10. Beamspace Adaptive Beamforming for Hydrodynamic Towed Array Self-Noise Cancellation

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    Premus, Vincent

    2000-01-01

    ... against signal self-nulling associated with steering vector mismatch. Particular attention is paid to the definition of white noise gain as the metric that reflects the level of mainlobe adaptive nulling for an adaptive beamformer...

  11. A Background Noise Reduction Technique Using Adaptive Noise Cancellation for Microphone Arrays

    Science.gov (United States)

    Spalt, Taylor B.; Fuller, Christopher R.; Brooks, Thomas F.; Humphreys, William M., Jr.; Brooks, Thomas F.

    2011-01-01

    Background noise in wind tunnel environments poses a challenge to acoustic measurements due to possible low or negative Signal to Noise Ratios (SNRs) present in the testing environment. This paper overviews the application of time domain Adaptive Noise Cancellation (ANC) to microphone array signals with an intended application of background noise reduction in wind tunnels. An experiment was conducted to simulate background noise from a wind tunnel circuit measured by an out-of-flow microphone array in the tunnel test section. A reference microphone was used to acquire a background noise signal which interfered with the desired primary noise source signal at the array. The technique s efficacy was investigated using frequency spectra from the array microphones, array beamforming of the point source region, and subsequent deconvolution using the Deconvolution Approach for the Mapping of Acoustic Sources (DAMAS) algorithm. Comparisons were made with the conventional techniques for improving SNR of spectral and Cross-Spectral Matrix subtraction. The method was seen to recover the primary signal level in SNRs as low as -29 dB and outperform the conventional methods. A second processing approach using the center array microphone as the noise reference was investigated for more general applicability of the ANC technique. It outperformed the conventional methods at the -29 dB SNR but yielded less accurate results when coherence over the array dropped. This approach could possibly improve conventional testing methodology but must be investigated further under more realistic testing conditions.

  12. Reduced Rank Adaptive Filtering in Impulsive Noise Environments

    KAUST Repository

    Soury, Hamza

    2014-01-06

    An impulsive noise environment is used in this paper. A new aspect of signal truncation is deployed to reduce the harmful effect of the impulsive noise to the signal. A full rank direct solution is derived followed by an iterative solution. The reduced rank adaptive filter is presented in this environment by using two methods for rank reduction. The minimized objective function is defined using the Lp norm. The results are presented and the efficiency of each algorithm is discussed.

  13. Reduced Rank Adaptive Filtering in Impulsive Noise Environments

    KAUST Repository

    Soury, Hamza; Abed-Meraim, Karim; Alouini, Mohamed-Slim

    2014-01-01

    An impulsive noise environment is used in this paper. A new aspect of signal truncation is deployed to reduce the harmful effect of the impulsive noise to the signal. A full rank direct solution is derived followed by an iterative solution. The reduced rank adaptive filter is presented in this environment by using two methods for rank reduction. The minimized objective function is defined using the Lp norm. The results are presented and the efficiency of each algorithm is discussed.

  14. Noise-exploitation and adaptation in neuromorphic sensors

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hindo, Thamira; Chakrabartty, Shantanu

    2012-04-01

    Even though current micro-nano fabrication technology has reached integration levels where ultra-sensitive sensors can be fabricated, the sensing performance (resolution per joule) of synthetic systems are still orders of magnitude inferior to those observed in neurobiology. For example, the filiform hairs in crickets operate at fundamental limits of noise; auditory sensors in a parasitoid fly can overcome fundamental limitations to precisely localize ultra-faint acoustic signatures. Even though many of these biological marvels have served as inspiration for different types of neuromorphic sensors, the main focus these designs have been to faithfully replicate the biological functionalities, without considering the constructive role of "noise". In man-made sensors device and sensor noise are typically considered as a nuisance, where as in neurobiology "noise" has been shown to be a computational aid that enables biology to sense and operate at fundamental limits of energy efficiency and performance. In this paper, we describe some of the important noise-exploitation and adaptation principles observed in neurobiology and how they can be systematically used for designing neuromorphic sensors. Our focus will be on two types of noise-exploitation principles, namely, (a) stochastic resonance; and (b) noise-shaping, which are unified within our previously reported framework called Σ▵ learning. As a case-study, we describe the application of Σ▵ learning for the design of a miniature acoustic source localizer whose performance matches that of its biological counterpart(Ormia Ochracea).

  15. Effect of hydrodynamic cavitation in the tissue erosion by pulsed high-intensity focused ultrasound (pHIFU)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhou, Yufeng; Gao, Xiaobin Wilson

    2016-09-01

    High-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) is emerging as an effective therapeutic modality in clinics. Besides the thermal ablation, tissue disintegration is also possible because of the interaction between the distorted HIFU bursts and either bubble cloud or boiling bubble. Hydrodynamic cavitation is another type of cavitation and has been employed widely in industry, but its role in mechanical erosion to tissue is not clearly known. In this study, the bubble dynamics immediately after the termination of HIFU exposure in the transparent gel phantom was captured by high-speed photography, from which the bubble displacement towards the transducer and the changes of bubble size was quantitatively determined. The characteristics of hydrodynamic cavitation due to the release of the acoustic radiation force and relaxation of compressed surrounding medium were found to associate with the number of pulses delivered and HIFU parameters (i.e. pulse duration and pulse repetition frequency). Because of the initial big bubble (~1 mm), large bubble expansion (up to 1.76 folds), and quick bubble motion (up to ~1 m s-1) hydrodynamic cavitation is significant after HIFU exposure and may lead to mechanical erosion. The shielding effect of residual tiny bubbles would reduce the acoustic energy delivered to the pre-existing bubble at the focus and, subsequently, the hydrodynamic cavitation effect. Tadpole shape of mechanical erosion in ex vivo porcine kidney samples was similar to the contour of bubble dynamics in the gel. Liquefied tissue was observed to emit towards the transducer through the punctured tissue after HIFU exposure in the sonography. In summary, the release of HIFU exposure-induced hydrodynamic cavitation produces significant bubble expansion and motion, which may be another important mechanism of tissue erosion. Understanding its mechanism and optimizing the outcome would broaden and enhance HIFU applications.

  16. Effect of hydrodynamic cavitation in the tissue erosion by pulsed high-intensity focused ultrasound (pHIFU).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhou, Yufeng; Gao, Xiaobin Wilson

    2016-09-21

    High-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) is emerging as an effective therapeutic modality in clinics. Besides the thermal ablation, tissue disintegration is also possible because of the interaction between the distorted HIFU bursts and either bubble cloud or boiling bubble. Hydrodynamic cavitation is another type of cavitation and has been employed widely in industry, but its role in mechanical erosion to tissue is not clearly known. In this study, the bubble dynamics immediately after the termination of HIFU exposure in the transparent gel phantom was captured by high-speed photography, from which the bubble displacement towards the transducer and the changes of bubble size was quantitatively determined. The characteristics of hydrodynamic cavitation due to the release of the acoustic radiation force and relaxation of compressed surrounding medium were found to associate with the number of pulses delivered and HIFU parameters (i.e. pulse duration and pulse repetition frequency). Because of the initial big bubble (~1 mm), large bubble expansion (up to 1.76 folds), and quick bubble motion (up to ~1 m s -1 ) hydrodynamic cavitation is significant after HIFU exposure and may lead to mechanical erosion. The shielding effect of residual tiny bubbles would reduce the acoustic energy delivered to the pre-existing bubble at the focus and, subsequently, the hydrodynamic cavitation effect. Tadpole shape of mechanical erosion in ex vivo porcine kidney samples was similar to the contour of bubble dynamics in the gel. Liquefied tissue was observed to emit towards the transducer through the punctured tissue after HIFU exposure in the sonography. In summary, the release of HIFU exposure-induced hydrodynamic cavitation produces significant bubble expansion and motion, which may be another important mechanism of tissue erosion. Understanding its mechanism and optimizing the outcome would broaden and enhance HIFU applications.

  17. Reduced rank adaptive filtering in impulsive noise environments

    KAUST Repository

    Soury, Hamza

    2014-11-01

    An impulsive noise environment is considered in this paper. A new aspect of signal truncation is deployed to reduce the harmful effect of the impulsive noise to the signal. A full rank direct solution is derived followed by an iterative solution. The reduced rank adaptive filter is presented in this environment by using two methods for rank reduction, while the minimized objective function is defined using the Lp norm. The results are presented and the efficiency of each method is discussed. © 2014 IEEE.

  18. Segmentation of tumor ultrasound image in HIFU therapy based on texture and boundary encoding

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Zhang, Dong; Xu, Menglong; Quan, Long; Yang, Yan; Qin, Qianqing; Zhu, Wenbin

    2015-01-01

    It is crucial in high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) therapy to detect the tumor precisely with less manual intervention for enhancing the therapy efficiency. Ultrasound image segmentation becomes a difficult task due to signal attenuation, speckle effect and shadows. This paper presents an unsupervised approach based on texture and boundary encoding customized for ultrasound image segmentation in HIFU therapy. The approach oversegments the ultrasound image into some small regions, which are merged by using the principle of minimum description length (MDL) afterwards. Small regions belonging to the same tumor are clustered as they preserve similar texture features. The mergence is completed by obtaining the shortest coding length from encoding textures and boundaries of these regions in the clustering process. The tumor region is finally selected from merged regions by a proposed algorithm without manual interaction. The performance of the method is tested on 50 uterine fibroid ultrasound images from HIFU guiding transducers. The segmentations are compared with manual delineations to verify its feasibility. The quantitative evaluation with HIFU images shows that the mean true positive of the approach is 93.53%, the mean false positive is 4.06%, the mean similarity is 89.92%, the mean norm Hausdorff distance is 3.62% and the mean norm maximum average distance is 0.57%. The experiments validate that the proposed method can achieve favorable segmentation without manual initialization and effectively handle the poor quality of the ultrasound guidance image in HIFU therapy, which indicates that the approach is applicable in HIFU therapy. (paper)

  19. Two-antenna GNSS Aided-INS Alignment Using Adaptive Control of Filter Noise Covariance

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    HAO Yushi

    2018-04-01

    Full Text Available This paper developed a theory of INS fine alignment in order to restrain the divergence of yaw angle,two antennas GNSS aided-INS integrated alignment algorithm was utilized.An attitude error measurement equation was conducted based on the relationship between baseline vectors calculated by two sensors and attitude error.The algorithm was executed by EKF using adaptive control of filter noise covariance.The experimental results showed that stability of the integrated system was improved under the system noise covariance adaptive control mechanism;The measurement noise covariance adaptive control mechanism can reduce the influence of measurement noise and improve the alignment absolute accuracy;Further improvement was achieved under the condition of minim bias of baseline length.The accuracy of roll and pitch was 0.02°,the accuracy of yaw was 0.04°.

  20. CT and Ultrasound Guided Stereotactic High Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wood, Bradford J.; Yanof, J.; Frenkel, V.; Viswanathan, A.; Dromi, S.; Oh, K.; Kruecker, J.; Bauer, C.; Seip, R.; Kam, A.; Li, K. C. P.

    2006-05-01

    To demonstrate the feasibility of CT and B-mode Ultrasound (US) targeted HIFU, a prototype coaxial focused ultrasound transducer was registered and integrated to a CT scanner. CT and diagnostic ultrasound were used for HIFU targeting and monitoring, with the goals of both thermal ablation and non-thermal enhanced drug delivery. A 1 megahertz coaxial ultrasound transducer was custom fabricated and attached to a passive position-sensing arm and an active six degree-of-freedom robotic arm via a CT stereotactic frame. The outer therapeutic transducer with a 10 cm fixed focal zone was coaxially mounted to an inner diagnostic US transducer (2-4 megahertz, Philips Medical Systems). This coaxial US transducer was connected to a modified commercial focused ultrasound generator (Focus Surgery, Indianapolis, IN) with a maximum total acoustic power of 100 watts. This pre-clinical paradigm was tested for ability to heat tissue in phantoms with monitoring and navigation from CT and live US. The feasibility of navigation via image fusion of CT with other modalities such as PET and MRI was demonstrated. Heated water phantoms were tested for correlation between CT numbers and temperature (for ablation monitoring). The prototype transducer and integrated CT/US imaging system enabled simultaneous multimodality imaging and therapy. Pre-clinical phantom models validated the treatment paradigm and demonstrated integrated multimodality guidance and treatment monitoring. Temperature changes during phantom cooling corresponded to CT number changes. Contrast enhanced or non-enhanced CT numbers may potentially be used to monitor thermal ablation with HIFU. Integrated CT, diagnostic US, and therapeutic focused ultrasound bridges a gap between diagnosis and therapy. Preliminary results show that the multimodality system may represent a relatively inexpensive, accessible, and simple method of both targeting and monitoring HIFU effects. Small animal pre-clinical models may be translated to large

  1. Health-related quality of life after salvage high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) treatment for locally radiorecurrent prostate cancer

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Berge, V.; Baco, E.; Dahl, A.A.; Karlsen, S.J.

    2011-01-01

    The objective of this study was to evaluate health-related quality of life (HRQOL) after salvage high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) for locally radiorecurrent prostate cancer (PCa). Since June 2006 we have treated 61 patients consecutively by salvage HIFU. All patients were offered the University of California, Los Angeles Prostate Cancer Index (UCLA-PCI) questionnaire at baseline and at follow-up. Scores ranged from 0 (worst) to 100 (best). Clinically significant changes were defined as a minimum difference of 10 points between the baseline score and the score at follow-up. Fifty-seven patients (93%) had evaluable data at baseline, compared with 46 (75%) after treatment. The mean time lapse between HIFU treatment and questionnaire response was 17.5 months (range 6-29 months). The mean score for urinary function decreased from 79.7±12.1 prior to HIFU to 67.4±17.8 after HIFU (P<0.001). The mean score for sexual function decreased from 32.1±24.1 prior to HIFU to 17.2±17.0 after HIFU (P<0.001). There were no significant effects on bowel function. There was a significant reduction in the mean score for Physical HRQOL, but the mean score for Mental HRQOL was did not change significantly. Treatment of localized radiorecurrent PCa by salvage HIFU is associated with clinically significant reductions in urinary and sexual function domains after a mean follow-up of 17.5 months. (author)

  2. AN AMELIORATED DETECTION STATISTICS FOR ADAPTIVE MASK MEDIAN FILTRATION OF HEAVILY NOISED DIGITAL IMAGES

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Geeta Hanji

    2016-11-01

    Full Text Available Noise reduction is an important area of research in image processing applications. The performance of the digital image noise filtering method primarily depends upon the accuracy of noise detection scheme. This paper presents an effective detector based, adaptive mask, median filtration of heavily noised digital images affected with fixed value (or salt and pepper impulse noise. The proposed filter presents a novel approach; an ameliorated Rank Ordered Absolute Deviation (ROAD statistics to judge whether the input pixel is noised or noise free. If a pixel is detected as corrupted, it is subjected to adaptive mask median filtration; otherwise, it is kept unchanged. Extensive experimental results and comparative performance evaluations demonstrate that the proposed filter outperforms the existing decision type, median based filters with powerful noise detectors in terms of objective performance measures and visual retrieviation accuracy.

  3. PASSIVE CAVITATION DETECTION DURING PULSED HIFU EXPOSURES OF EX VIVO TISSUES AND IN VIVO MOUSE PANCREATIC TUMORS

    OpenAIRE

    Li, Tong; Chen, Hong; Khokhlova, Tatiana; Wang, Yak-Nam; Kreider, Wayne; He, Xuemei; Hwang, Joo Ha

    2014-01-01

    Pulsed high-intensity focused ultrasound (pHIFU) has been demonstrated to enhance vascular permeability, disrupt tumor barriers and enhance drug penetration into tumor tissue through acoustic cavitation. Monitoring of cavitation activity during pHIFU treatments and knowing the ultrasound pressure levels sufficient to reliably induce cavitation in a given tissue are therefore very important. Here, three metrics of cavitation activity induced by pHIFU and evaluated by confocal passive cavitatio...

  4. An Adaptive Filter for the Removal of Drifting Sinusoidal Noise Without a Reference.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kelly, John W; Siewiorek, Daniel P; Smailagic, Asim; Wang, Wei

    2016-01-01

    This paper presents a method for filtering sinusoidal noise with a variable bandwidth filter that is capable of tracking a sinusoid's drifting frequency. The method, which is based on the adaptive noise canceling (ANC) technique, will be referred to here as the adaptive sinusoid canceler (ASC). The ASC eliminates sinusoidal contamination by tracking its frequency and achieving a narrower bandwidth than typical notch filters. The detected frequency is used to digitally generate an internal reference instead of relying on an external one as ANC filters typically do. The filter's bandwidth adjusts to achieve faster and more accurate convergence. In this paper, the focus of the discussion and the data is physiological signals, specifically electrocorticographic (ECoG) neural data contaminated with power line noise, but the presented technique could be applicable to other recordings as well. On simulated data, the ASC was able to reliably track the noise's frequency, properly adjust its bandwidth, and outperform comparative methods including standard notch filters and an adaptive line enhancer. These results were reinforced by visual results obtained from real ECoG data. The ASC showed that it could be an effective method for increasing signal to noise ratio in the presence of drifting sinusoidal noise, which is of significant interest for biomedical applications.

  5. Detecting the presence of a magnetic field under Gaussian and non-Gaussian noise by adaptive measurement

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Wang, Yuan-Mei; Li, Jun-Gang, E-mail: jungl@bit.edu.cn; Zou, Jian

    2017-06-15

    Highlights: • Adaptive measurement strategy is used to detect the presence of a magnetic field. • Gaussian Ornstein–Uhlenbeck noise and non-Gaussian noise have been considered. • Weaker magnetic fields may be more easily detected than some stronger ones. - Abstract: By using the adaptive measurement method we study how to detect whether a weak magnetic field is actually present or not under Gaussian noise and non-Gaussian noise. We find that the adaptive measurement method can effectively improve the detection accuracy. For the case of Gaussian noise, we find the stronger the magnetic field strength, the easier for us to detect the magnetic field. Counterintuitively, for non-Gaussian noise, some weaker magnetic fields are more likely to be detected rather than some stronger ones. Finally, we give a reasonable physical interpretation.

  6. Chinese-adapted youth attitude to noise scale: Evaluation of validity and reliability

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Xiaofang Zhu

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available Noise exposure is central to hearing impairment, especially for adolescents. Chinese youth frequently and consciously expose themselves to loud noise, often for many hours. Hence, a Chinese-adapted evaluative scale to measure youth′s attitude toward noise could rigorously evaluate data validity and reliability. After authenticating the youth attitude to noise scale (YANS originally developed by Olsen and Erlandsson, we purposively sampled and surveyed 642 freshmen at Capital Medical University in Beijing, China. To establish validity, we conducted confirmatory factor analysis according to Olsen′s classification. To establish reliability, we calculated Cronbach′s alpha coefficient and split-half coefficient. We used Bland-Altman analysis to calculate the agreement limits between test and retest. Among 642 students, 550 (85.67% participated in statistical analysis (399 females [72.55%] vs. 151 males [27.45%]. Confirmatory factorial analysis sorted 19 items into four main subcategories (F1-F4 in terms of factor load, yielding a correlation coefficient between factors <0.40. The Cronbach′s alpha coefficient (0.70 was within the desirable range, confirming the reliability of Chinese-adapted YANS. The split-half coefficient was 0.53. Furthermore, the paired t-test reported a mean difference of 0.002 (P = 0.9601. Notably, the mean overall YANS score (3.46 was similar to YANS testing in Belgium (3.10, but higher than Sweden (2.10 and Brazil (2.80. The Chinese version of the YANS questionnaire is valid, reliable, and adaptable to Chinese adolescents. Analysis of the adapted YANS showed that a significant number of Chinese youth display a poor attitude and behavior toward noise. Therefore, Chinese YANS can play a pivotal role in programs that focus on increasing youth awareness of noise and hearing health.

  7. Hardware Implementation of LMS-Based Adaptive Noise Cancellation Core with Low Resource Utilization

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Omid Sharifi Tehrani

    2011-10-01

    Full Text Available A hardware implementation of adaptive noise cancellation (ANC core is proposed. Adaptive filters are widely used in different applications such as adaptive noise cancellation, prediction, equalization, inverse modeling and system identification. FIR adaptive filters are mostly used because of their low computation costs and their linear phase. Least mean squared algorithm (LMS is used to train FIR adaptive filter weights. Advances in semiconductor technology especially in digital signal processors (DSP and field programmable gate arrays (FPGA with hundreds of mega hertz in speed, will allow digital designers to embed essential digital signal processing units in small chips. But designing a synthesizable core on an FPGA is not always as simple as DSP chips due to complexity and limitations of FPGAs. In this paper we design anLMS-based FIR adaptive filter for adaptive noise cancellation based on VHDL97 hardware description language (HDL and Xilinx SPARTAN3E (XC3S500E which utilizes low resources and is high performance and FPGA-brand independent so can be implemented on different FPGA brands (Xilinx, ALTERA, ACTEL. Simulations are done in MODELSIM and MATLAB and implementation is done with Xilinx ISE. Finally, result are compared with other papers for better judgment.

  8. Microseismic Event Location Improvement Using Adaptive Filtering for Noise Attenuation

    Science.gov (United States)

    de Santana, F. L., Sr.; do Nascimento, A. F.; Leandro, W. P. D. N., Sr.; de Carvalho, B. M., Sr.

    2017-12-01

    In this work we show how adaptive filtering noise suppression improves the effectiveness of the Source Scanning Algorithm (SSA; Kao & Shan, 2004) in microseism location in the context of fracking operations. The SSA discretizes the time and region of interest in a 4D vector and, for each grid point and origin time, a brigthness value (seismogram stacking) is calculated. For a given set of velocity model parameters, when origin time and hypocenter of the seismic event are correct, a maximum value for coherence (or brightness) is achieved. The result is displayed on brightness maps for each origin time. Location methods such as SSA are most effective when the noise present in the seismograms is incoherent, however, the method may present false positives when the noise present in the data is coherent as occurs in fracking operations. To remove from the seismograms, the coherent noise from the pump and engines used in the operation, we use an adaptive filter. As the noise reference, we use the seismogram recorded at the station closest to the machinery employed. Our methodology was tested on semi-synthetic data. The microseismic was represented by Ricker pulses (with central frequency of 30Hz) on synthetics seismograms, and to simulate real seismograms on a surface microseismic monitoring situation, we added real noise recorded in a fracking operation to these synthetics seismograms. The results show that after the filtering of the seismograms, we were able to improve our detection threshold and to achieve a better resolution on the brightness maps of the located events.

  9. Adaptive neuro-fuzzy methodology for noise assessment of wind turbine.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shamshirband, Shahaboddin; Petković, Dalibor; Hashim, Roslan; Motamedi, Shervin

    2014-01-01

    Wind turbine noise is one of the major obstacles for the widespread use of wind energy. Noise tone can greatly increase the annoyance factor and the negative impact on human health. Noise annoyance caused by wind turbines has become an emerging problem in recent years, due to the rapid increase in number of wind turbines, triggered by sustainable energy goals set forward at the national and international level. Up to now, not all aspects of the generation, propagation and perception of wind turbine noise are well understood. For a modern large wind turbine, aerodynamic noise from the blades is generally considered to be the dominant noise source, provided that mechanical noise is adequately eliminated. The sources of aerodynamic noise can be divided into tonal noise, inflow turbulence noise, and airfoil self-noise. Many analytical and experimental acoustical studies performed the wind turbines. Since the wind turbine noise level analyzing by numerical methods or computational fluid dynamics (CFD) could be very challenging and time consuming, soft computing techniques are preferred. To estimate noise level of wind turbine, this paper constructed a process which simulates the wind turbine noise levels in regard to wind speed and sound frequency with adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS). This intelligent estimator is implemented using Matlab/Simulink and the performances are investigated. The simulation results presented in this paper show the effectiveness of the developed method.

  10. In vivo preclinical evaluation of the accuracy of toroidal-shaped HIFU treatments using a tumor-mimic model

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    N'Djin, W A; Melodelima, D; Parmentier, H; Chapelon, J Y; Rivoire, M

    2010-01-01

    The pig is an ideal animal model for preclinical evaluation of HIFU treatments, especially in the liver. However, there is no liver tumor model available for pigs. In this work, we propose to study an in vivo tumor-mimic model as a tool for evaluating if a sonographycally guided HIFU treatment, delivered by a toroidal-shaped device dedicated for the treatment of liver metastases, is correctly located in the liver. One centimeter tumor-mimics were created in liver tissues. These tumor-mimics were detectable on ultrasound imaging and on gross pathology. Two studies were carried out. First, an in vivo study of tolerance at mid-term (30 days, 10 pigs) revealed that tumor-mimics are suitable for studying HIFU treatments at a preclinical stage, since local and biological tolerances were excellent. The dimensions of the tumor-mimics were reproducible (diameter at day 0: 9.7 ± 2.0 mm) and were the same as a function of time (p = 0.64). A second in vivo study was carried out in ten pigs. Tumor mimics were used as targets in liver tissues in order to determine if the HIFU treatment is correctly located in the liver. A procedure of extensive HIFU ablation using multiple HIFU lesions juxtaposed manually was then tested on eight tumor-mimics. In 88% of the cases (seven out of eight), tumor-mimics were treated with negative margins (≥1 mm) in all directions. On average, negative margins measured 10.0 ± 6.7 mm. These tumor-mimics constitute an excellent reference for studying in vivo the accuracy of HIFU therapy in the liver.

  11. A Robust Adaptive Unscented Kalman Filter for Nonlinear Estimation with Uncertain Noise Covariance.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zheng, Binqi; Fu, Pengcheng; Li, Baoqing; Yuan, Xiaobing

    2018-03-07

    The Unscented Kalman filter (UKF) may suffer from performance degradation and even divergence while mismatch between the noise distribution assumed as a priori by users and the actual ones in a real nonlinear system. To resolve this problem, this paper proposes a robust adaptive UKF (RAUKF) to improve the accuracy and robustness of state estimation with uncertain noise covariance. More specifically, at each timestep, a standard UKF will be implemented first to obtain the state estimations using the new acquired measurement data. Then an online fault-detection mechanism is adopted to judge if it is necessary to update current noise covariance. If necessary, innovation-based method and residual-based method are used to calculate the estimations of current noise covariance of process and measurement, respectively. By utilizing a weighting factor, the filter will combine the last noise covariance matrices with the estimations as the new noise covariance matrices. Finally, the state estimations will be corrected according to the new noise covariance matrices and previous state estimations. Compared with the standard UKF and other adaptive UKF algorithms, RAUKF converges faster to the actual noise covariance and thus achieves a better performance in terms of robustness, accuracy, and computation for nonlinear estimation with uncertain noise covariance, which is demonstrated by the simulation results.

  12. High intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) applied to hepato-bilio-pancreatic and the digestive system—current state of the art and future perspectives

    Science.gov (United States)

    Diana, Michele; Schiraldi, Luigi; Liu, Yu-Yin; Memeo, Riccardo; Mutter, Didier; Pessaux, Patrick

    2016-01-01

    Background High intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) is emerging as a valid minimally-invasive image-guided treatment of malignancies. We aimed to review to current state of the art of HIFU therapy applied to the digestive system and discuss some promising avenues of the technology. Methods Pertinent studies were identified through PubMed and Embase search engines using the following keywords, combined in different ways: HIFU, esophagus, stomach, liver, pancreas, gallbladder, colon, rectum, and cancer. Experimental proof of the concept of endoluminal HIFU mucosa/submucosa ablation using a custom-made transducer has been obtained in vivo in the porcine model. Results Forty-four studies reported on the clinical use of HIFU to treat liver lesions, while 19 series were found on HIFU treatment of pancreatic cancers and four studies included patients suffering from both liver and pancreatic cancers, reporting on a total of 1,682 and 823 cases for liver and pancreas, respectively. Only very limited comparative prospective studies have been reported. Conclusions Digestive system clinical applications of HIFU are limited to pancreatic and liver cancer. It is safe and well tolerated. The exact place in the hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) management algorithm remains to be defined. HIFU seems to add clear survival advantages over trans arterial chemo embolization (TACE) alone and similar results when compared to radio frequency (RF). For pancreatic cancer, HIFU achieves consistent cancer-related pain relief. Further research is warranted to improve targeting accuracy and efficacy monitoring. Furthermore, additional work is required to transfer this technology on appealing treatments such as endoscopic HIFU-based therapies. PMID:27500145

  13. High intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) therapy for local treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma: Role of partial rib resection

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Zhu Hui; Zhou Kun; Zhang Lian; Jin Chengbin; Peng Song; Yang Wei; Li Kequan; Su Haibing; Chen Wenzhi; Bai Jin; Wu Feng; Wang, Zhibiao

    2009-01-01

    Objective: It has long been known that high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) can kill tissue through coagulative necrosis. However, it is only in recent years that practical clinical applications are becoming possible. Since the ribs have strong reflections to ultrasonic beams, they may affect the deposition of ultrasound energy, decreasing the efficacy of HIFU treatment and increasing the chance of adverse events when the intra-abdominal tumours concealed by ribs are treated. The aim of this study was to evaluate the influence of partial rib resection on the efficacy and safety of HIFU treatment. Methods: This prospective study was approved by the ethics committee at Chongqing University of Medical Sciences. An informed consent form was obtained from each patient and family member. A total of 16 patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), consisting of 13 males and 3 females, were studied. All patients had the successful HIFU treatment. To create a better acoustic pathway for HIFU treatment, all of the 16 patients had the ribs that shield the tumour mass to be removed. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was used to evaluate the efficacy of HIFU treatment. Results: Sixteen cases had 23 nodules, including 12 cases with a single nodule, 1 case with 2 nodules, 3 cases with 3 nodules. The mean diameter of tumours was 7.0 ± 2.1 cm (5-10 cm). According to TNM classification, 9 patients were diagnosed as stage II, 4 patients were stage III, and 3 patients were stage IV. Follow-up imaging showed an absence of tumour blood supply and shrinkage of all treated lesions. The survival rates at 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 years were 100%, 83.3%, 69.4%, 55.6%, and 55.6%, respectively. No serious complications were observed in the patients treated with HIFU. Conclusion: Partial rib resection can create a better acoustic pathway of HIFU therapy. Even though it is an invasive treatment, this measure offers patients an improved prospect of complete tumour ablation when no other treatment is

  14. Adaptive lesion formation using dual mode ultrasound array system

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Dalong; Casper, Andrew; Haritonova, Alyona; Ebbini, Emad S.

    2017-03-01

    We present the results from an ultrasound-guided focused ultrasound platform designed to perform real-time monitoring and control of lesion formation. Real-time signal processing of echogenicity changes during lesion formation allows for identification of signature events indicative of tissue damage. The detection of these events triggers the cessation or the reduction of the exposure (intensity and/or time) to prevent overexposure. A dual mode ultrasound array (DMUA) is used for forming single- and multiple-focus patterns in a variety of tissues. The DMUA approach allows for inherent registration between the therapeutic and imaging coordinate systems providing instantaneous, spatially-accurate feedback on lesion formation dynamics. The beamformed RF data has been shown to have high sensitivity and specificity to tissue changes during lesion formation, including in vivo. In particular, the beamformed echo data from the DMUA is very sensitive to cavitation activity in response to HIFU in a variety of modes, e.g. boiling cavitation. This form of feedback is characterized by sudden increase in echogenicity that could occur within milliseconds of the application of HIFU (see http://youtu.be/No2wh-ceTLs for an example). The real-time beamforming and signal processing allowing the adaptive control of lesion formation is enabled by a high performance GPU platform (response time within 10 msec). We present results from a series of experiments in bovine cardiac tissue demonstrating the robustness and increased speed of volumetric lesion formation for a range of clinically-relevant exposures. Gross histology demonstrate clearly that adaptive lesion formation results in tissue damage consistent with the size of the focal spot and the raster scan in 3 dimensions. In contrast, uncontrolled volumetric lesions exhibit significant pre-focal buildup due to excessive exposure from multiple full-exposure HIFU shots. Stopping or reducing the HIFU exposure upon the detection of such an

  15. Adaptive control of dynamical synchronization on evolving networks with noise disturbances

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yuan, Wu-Jie; Zhou, Jian-Fang; Sendiña-Nadal, Irene; Boccaletti, Stefano; Wang, Zhen

    2018-02-01

    In real-world networked systems, the underlying structure is often affected by external and internal unforeseen factors, making its evolution typically inaccessible. An adaptive strategy was introduced for maintaining synchronization on unpredictably evolving networks [Sorrentino and Ott, Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 114101 (2008), 10.1103/PhysRevLett.100.114101], which yet does not consider the noise disturbances widely existing in networks' environments. We provide here strategies to control dynamical synchronization on slowly and unpredictably evolving networks subjected to noise disturbances which are observed at the node and at the communication channel level. With our strategy, the nodes' coupling strength is adaptively adjusted with the aim of controlling synchronization, and according only to their received signal and noise disturbances. We first provide a theoretical analysis of the control scheme by introducing an error potential function to seek for the minimization of the synchronization error. Then, we show numerical experiments which verify our theoretical results. In particular, it is found that our adaptive strategy is effective even for the case in which the dynamics of the uncontrolled network would be explosive (i.e., the states of all the nodes would diverge to infinity).

  16. MRI evaluation following partial HIFU therapy for localized prostate cancer: A single-center study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hoquetis, L; Malavaud, B; Game, X; Beauval, J B; Portalez, D; Soulie, M; Rischmann, P

    2016-09-01

    To evaluate the value of MRI for surveillance of primary hemi-HIFU therapy for localized PCa in a single-center. Patients with localized prostate cancer were treated with hemi-HIFU from October 2009 to March 2014. All patients performed MRI before focal therapy, the reader was blinded to the treatment. Oncological failure was defined as positive biopsy or biochemical recurrence (Phoenix). Twenty-five patients were treated with hemi-HIFU in one center. The median nadir PSA was 1.45±1.4ng/mL. Prostate volume decreased from 45 cc to 25 cc on MRI findings. At 20 months, none of the patients had histological recurrence. Biochemical-free survival rate was 88%. MRI evaluation had a negative predictive value of 100% on the treated area and 81% on the untreated area. PSAd≥0.1ng/mL(2) was a predictive factor for cancer on untreated area (P=0.042). MRI control at 6 months is a potentially effective evaluation of treated area after hemi-HIFU and may replace randomized biopsies if PSAd<0.1ng/mL(2) during follow-up. 4. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

  17. Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Methodology for Noise Assessment of Wind Turbine

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shamshirband, Shahaboddin; Petković, Dalibor; Hashim, Roslan; Motamedi, Shervin

    2014-01-01

    Wind turbine noise is one of the major obstacles for the widespread use of wind energy. Noise tone can greatly increase the annoyance factor and the negative impact on human health. Noise annoyance caused by wind turbines has become an emerging problem in recent years, due to the rapid increase in number of wind turbines, triggered by sustainable energy goals set forward at the national and international level. Up to now, not all aspects of the generation, propagation and perception of wind turbine noise are well understood. For a modern large wind turbine, aerodynamic noise from the blades is generally considered to be the dominant noise source, provided that mechanical noise is adequately eliminated. The sources of aerodynamic noise can be divided into tonal noise, inflow turbulence noise, and airfoil self-noise. Many analytical and experimental acoustical studies performed the wind turbines. Since the wind turbine noise level analyzing by numerical methods or computational fluid dynamics (CFD) could be very challenging and time consuming, soft computing techniques are preferred. To estimate noise level of wind turbine, this paper constructed a process which simulates the wind turbine noise levels in regard to wind speed and sound frequency with adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS). This intelligent estimator is implemented using Matlab/Simulink and the performances are investigated. The simulation results presented in this paper show the effectiveness of the developed method. PMID:25075621

  18. Adaptive neuro-fuzzy methodology for noise assessment of wind turbine.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Shahaboddin Shamshirband

    Full Text Available Wind turbine noise is one of the major obstacles for the widespread use of wind energy. Noise tone can greatly increase the annoyance factor and the negative impact on human health. Noise annoyance caused by wind turbines has become an emerging problem in recent years, due to the rapid increase in number of wind turbines, triggered by sustainable energy goals set forward at the national and international level. Up to now, not all aspects of the generation, propagation and perception of wind turbine noise are well understood. For a modern large wind turbine, aerodynamic noise from the blades is generally considered to be the dominant noise source, provided that mechanical noise is adequately eliminated. The sources of aerodynamic noise can be divided into tonal noise, inflow turbulence noise, and airfoil self-noise. Many analytical and experimental acoustical studies performed the wind turbines. Since the wind turbine noise level analyzing by numerical methods or computational fluid dynamics (CFD could be very challenging and time consuming, soft computing techniques are preferred. To estimate noise level of wind turbine, this paper constructed a process which simulates the wind turbine noise levels in regard to wind speed and sound frequency with adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS. This intelligent estimator is implemented using Matlab/Simulink and the performances are investigated. The simulation results presented in this paper show the effectiveness of the developed method.

  19. Efficient and controllable thermal ablation induced by short-pulsed HIFU sequence assisted with perfluorohexane nanodroplets.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chang, Nan; Lu, Shukuan; Qin, Dui; Xu, Tianqi; Han, Meng; Wang, Supin; Wan, Mingxi

    2018-07-01

    A HIFU sequence with extremely short pulse duration and high pulse repetition frequency can achieve thermal ablation at a low acoustic power using inertial cavitation. Because of its cavitation-dependent property, the therapeutic outcome is unreliable when the treatment zone lacks cavitation nuclei. To overcome this intrinsic limitation, we introduced perfluorocarbon nanodroplets as extra cavitation nuclei into short-pulsed HIFU-mediated thermal ablation. Two types of nanodroplets were used with perfluorohexane (PFH) as the core material coated with bovine serum albumin (BSA) or an anionic fluorosurfactant (FS) to demonstrate the feasibility of this study. The thermal ablation process was recorded by high-speed photography. The inertial cavitation activity during the ablation was revealed by sonoluminescence (SL). The high-speed photography results show that the thermal ablation volume increased by ∼643% and 596% with BSA-PFH and FS-PFH, respectively, than the short-pulsed HIFU alone at an acoustic power of 19.5 W. Using nanodroplets, much larger ablation volumes were created even at a much lower acoustic power. Meanwhile, the treatment time for ablating a desired volume significantly reduced in the presence of nanodroplets. Moreover, by adjusting the treatment time, lesion migration towards the HIFU transducer could also be avoided. The SL results show that the thermal lesion shape was significantly dependent on the inertial cavitation in this short-pulsed HIFU-mediated thermal ablation. The inertial cavitation activity became more predictable by using nanodroplets. Therefore, the introduction of PFH nanodroplets as extra cavitation nuclei made the short-pulsed HIFU thermal ablation more efficient by increasing the ablation volume and speed, and more controllable by reducing the acoustic power and preventing lesion migration. Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier B.V.

  20. Adaptive Active Noise Suppression Using Multiple Model Switching Strategy

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Quanzhen Huang

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available Active noise suppression for applications where the system response varies with time is a difficult problem. The computation burden for the existing control algorithms with online identification is heavy and easy to cause control system instability. A new active noise control algorithm is proposed in this paper by employing multiple model switching strategy for secondary path varying. The computation is significantly reduced. Firstly, a noise control system modeling method is proposed for duct-like applications. Then a multiple model adaptive control algorithm is proposed with a new multiple model switching strategy based on filter-u least mean square (FULMS algorithm. Finally, the proposed algorithm was implemented on Texas Instruments digital signal processor (DSP TMS320F28335 and real time experiments were done to test the proposed algorithm and FULMS algorithm with online identification. Experimental verification tests show that the proposed algorithm is effective with good noise suppression performance.

  1. Effects of oxytocin on high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) ablation of adenomysis: A prospective study

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Zhang, Xin; Zou, Min; Zhang, Cai; He, Jia; Mao, Shihua; Wu, Qingrong; He, Min; Wang, Jian; Zhang, Ruitao; Zhang, Lian

    2014-01-01

    Objective: To investigate the effects of oxytocin on high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) ablation for the treatment of adenomyosis. Materials and methods: Eighty-six patients with adenomyosis from three hospitals were randomly assigned to the oxytocin group or control group for HIFU treatment. During HIFU treatment, 80 units of oxytocin was added in 500 ml of 0.9% normal saline running at the rate of 2 ml/min (0.32 U/min) in the oxytocin group, while 0.9% normal saline was used in the control group. Both patients and HIFU operators were blinded to oxytocin or saline application. Treatment results, adverse effects were compared. Results: When using oxytocin, the non-perfused volume (NPV) ratio was 80.7 ± 11.6%, the energy-efficiency factor (EEF) was 8.1 ± 9.9 J/mm 3 , and the sonication time required to ablate 1 cm 3 was 30.0 ± 36.0 s/cm 3 . When not using oxytocin, the non-perfused volume ratio was 70.8 ± 16.7%, the EEF was 15.8 ± 19.6 J/mm 3 , and the sonication time required to ablate 1 cm 3 was 58.2 ± 72.7 S/cm 3 . Significant difference in the NPV ratio, EEF, and the sonication time required to ablate 1 cm 3 between the two groups was observed. No oxytocin related adverse effects occurred. Conclusion: Oxytocin could significantly decrease the energy for ablating adenomyosis with HIFU, safely enhance the treatment efficiency

  2. [High-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) for tumor pain relief in inoperable pancreatic cancer : Evaluation with the pain sensation scale (SES)].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Marinova, M; Strunk, H M; Rauch, M; Henseler, J; Clarens, T; Brüx, L; Dolscheid-Pommerich, R; Conrad, R; Cuhls, H; Radbruch, L; Schild, H H; Mücke, M

    2017-02-01

    High-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) in combination with palliative standard therapy is an innovative and effective treatment option for pain reduction in patients with inoperable pancreatic cancer. Evaluation of the effects of additive ultrasound (US)-guided HIFU treatment in inoperable pancreatic cancer on the sensory and affective pain perception using validated questionnaries. In this study 20 patients with locally advanced inoperable pancreatic cancer and tumor-related pain were treated by US-guided HIFU (6 stage III, 12 stage IV according to UICC and 2 with local recurrence after surgery). Ablation was performed using the JC HIFU system (HAIFU, Chongqing, China) with an ultrasonic device for real-time imaging. Clinical assessment included evaluation of pain severity using validated questionnaires with particular attention to the pain sensation scale (SES) with its affective and sensory component and the numeric rating scale (NRS). The average pain reduction after HIFU was 2.87 points on the NRS scale and 57.3 % compared to the mean baseline score (n = 15, 75 %) in 19 of 20 treated patients. Four patients did not report pain relief, however, the previous opioid medication could be stopped (n = 2) or the analgesic dosage could be reduced (n = 2). No pain reduction was achieved in one patient. Furthermore, after HIFU emotional as well as sensory pain aspects were significantly reduced (before vs. 1 week after HIFU, p pain scales). US-guided HIFU can be used for effective and early pain relief and reduction of emotional and sensory pain sensation in patients with locally advanced pancreatic cancer.

  3. Study of a scanning HIFU therapy protocol, Part II: Experiment and results

    Science.gov (United States)

    Andrew, Marilee A.; Kaczkowski, Peter; Cunitz, Bryan W.; Brayman, Andrew A.; Kargl, Steven G.

    2003-04-01

    Instrumentation and protocols for creating scanned HIFU lesions in freshly excised bovine liver were developed in order to study the in vitro HIFU dose response and validate models. Computer-control of the HIFU transducer and 3-axis positioning system provided precise spatial placement of the thermal lesions. Scan speeds were selected in the range of 1 to 8 mm/s, and the applied electrical power was varied from 20 to 60 W. These parameters were chosen to hold the thermal dose constant. A total of six valid scans of 15 mm length were created in each sample; a 3.5 MHz single-element, spherically focused transducer was used. Treated samples were frozen, then sliced in 1.27 mm increments. Digital photographs of slices were downloaded to computer for image processing and analysis. Lesion characteristics, including the depth within the tissue, axial length, and radial width, were computed. Results were compared with those generated from modified KZK and BHTE models, and include a comparison of the statistical variation in the across-scan lesion radial width. [Work supported by USAMRMC.

  4. HIFU Ultrasound Power Measurements at INRiM

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Durando, G; Guglielmone, C; Musacchio, C

    2011-01-01

    In this work the new system for the ultrasound power measurement of High Intensity Focused Ultrasound transducers realized at INRIM ultrasounds laboratory is presented. The system is based on a submersible load cell that takes the place of the balance. This solution presents essentially two advantages. The first one, of mechanical nature, is relevant to the fact that the target is directly connected to the force transducer, eliminating unwanted target motion at high power. The second, of electric nature, concerns the possibility to reduce the insonation time (the ON period of the electric driving signal to the HIFU transducer) under of 2 s, and is allowed for by the faster response of the force transducer (700 Hz bandwidth). The main components of uncertainty and the overall budget of the measurement system are presented together with the results of measures of conductance, G, carried on a HIFU transducer, at the work frequencies 2.0 MHz and 6.38 MHz, for values of power ranging from 10 W to 100 W. The results of the ultrasonic conductance, G, obtained with the new system are compared with values obtained using the traditional measuring system for low powers (P ≤ 20W).

  5. Development of a high-field MR-guided HIFU setup for thermal and mechanical ablation methods in small animals

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Hoogenboom, M.; Amerongen, M.J. van; Eikelenboom, D.C.; Wassink, M.; Brok, M.H. den; Hulsbergen-van de Kaa, C.A.; Dumont, E.; Adema, G.J.; Heerschap, A.; Futterer, J.J.

    2015-01-01

    BACKGROUND: Thermal and mechanical high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) ablation techniques are in development for non-invasive treatment of cancer. However, knowledge of in vivo histopathologic and immunologic reactions after HIFU ablation is still limited. This study aims to create a setup for

  6. Binaural noise reduction via cue-preserving MMSE filter and adaptive-blocking-based noise PSD estimation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Azarpour, Masoumeh; Enzner, Gerald

    2017-12-01

    Binaural noise reduction, with applications for instance in hearing aids, has been a very significant challenge. This task relates to the optimal utilization of the available microphone signals for the estimation of the ambient noise characteristics and for the optimal filtering algorithm to separate the desired speech from the noise. The additional requirements of low computational complexity and low latency further complicate the design. A particular challenge results from the desired reconstruction of binaural speech input with spatial cue preservation. The latter essentially diminishes the utility of multiple-input/single-output filter-and-sum techniques such as beamforming. In this paper, we propose a comprehensive and effective signal processing configuration with which most of the aforementioned criteria can be met suitably. This relates especially to the requirement of efficient online adaptive processing for noise estimation and optimal filtering while preserving the binaural cues. Regarding noise estimation, we consider three different architectures: interaural (ITF), cross-relation (CR), and principal-component (PCA) target blocking. An objective comparison with two other noise PSD estimation algorithms demonstrates the superiority of the blocking-based noise estimators, especially the CR-based and ITF-based blocking architectures. Moreover, we present a new noise reduction filter based on minimum mean-square error (MMSE), which belongs to the class of common gain filters, hence being rigorous in terms of spatial cue preservation but also efficient and competitive for the acoustic noise reduction task. A formal real-time subjective listening test procedure is also developed in this paper. The proposed listening test enables a real-time assessment of the proposed computationally efficient noise reduction algorithms in a realistic acoustic environment, e.g., considering time-varying room impulse responses and the Lombard effect. The listening test outcome

  7. Transform Domain Robust Variable Step Size Griffiths' Adaptive Algorithm for Noise Cancellation in ECG

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hegde, Veena; Deekshit, Ravishankar; Satyanarayana, P. S.

    2011-12-01

    The electrocardiogram (ECG) is widely used for diagnosis of heart diseases. Good quality of ECG is utilized by physicians for interpretation and identification of physiological and pathological phenomena. However, in real situations, ECG recordings are often corrupted by artifacts or noise. Noise severely limits the utility of the recorded ECG and thus needs to be removed, for better clinical evaluation. In the present paper a new noise cancellation technique is proposed for removal of random noise like muscle artifact from ECG signal. A transform domain robust variable step size Griffiths' LMS algorithm (TVGLMS) is proposed for noise cancellation. For the TVGLMS, the robust variable step size has been achieved by using the Griffiths' gradient which uses cross-correlation between the desired signal contaminated with observation or random noise and the input. The algorithm is discrete cosine transform (DCT) based and uses symmetric property of the signal to represent the signal in frequency domain with lesser number of frequency coefficients when compared to that of discrete Fourier transform (DFT). The algorithm is implemented for adaptive line enhancer (ALE) filter which extracts the ECG signal in a noisy environment using LMS filter adaptation. The proposed algorithm is found to have better convergence error/misadjustment when compared to that of ordinary transform domain LMS (TLMS) algorithm, both in the presence of white/colored observation noise. The reduction in convergence error achieved by the new algorithm with desired signal decomposition is found to be lower than that obtained without decomposition. The experimental results indicate that the proposed method is better than traditional adaptive filter using LMS algorithm in the aspects of retaining geometrical characteristics of ECG signal.

  8. Significant skin burns may occur with the use of a water balloon in HIFU treatment

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ritchie, Robert; Collin, Jamie; Wu, Feng; Coussios, Constantin; Leslie, Tom; Cranston, David

    2012-10-01

    HIFU is a minimally-invasive therapy suitable for treating selected intra-abdominal tumors. Treatment is safe although skin burns may occur due to pre-focal heating. HIFU treatment of a renal transplant tumor located in the left lower abdomen was undertaken in our centre. Treatment was performed prone, requiring displacement of the abdominal wall away from the treatment field using a water balloon, constructed of natural rubber latex and filled with degassed water. Intra-operatively, ultrasound imaging and physical examination of the skin directly over the focal region was normal. Immediately post-operative, a full-thickness skin burn was evident at the periphery of the balloon location, outside the expected HIFU path. Three possibilities may account for this complication. Firstly, the water balloon may have acted as a lens, focusing the HIFU to a neo-focus off axis. Secondly, air bubbles may have been entrapped between the balloon and the skin, causing heating at the interface. Finally, heating of the isolated water within the balloon may have been sufficient to cause burning. In this case, the placement of a water balloon caused a significant skin burn. Care should be taken in their use as burns, situated off axis, may occur even if the overlying skin appears normal.

  9. An adaptive segment method for smoothing lidar signal based on noise estimation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Yuzhao; Luo, Pingping

    2014-10-01

    An adaptive segmentation smoothing method (ASSM) is introduced in the paper to smooth the signal and suppress the noise. In the ASSM, the noise is defined as the 3σ of the background signal. An integer number N is defined for finding the changing positions in the signal curve. If the difference of adjacent two points is greater than 3Nσ, the position is recorded as an end point of the smoothing segment. All the end points detected as above are recorded and the curves between them will be smoothed separately. In the traditional method, the end points of the smoothing windows in the signals are fixed. The ASSM creates changing end points in different signals and the smoothing windows could be set adaptively. The windows are always set as the half of the segmentations and then the average smoothing method will be applied in the segmentations. The Iterative process is required for reducing the end-point aberration effect in the average smoothing method and two or three times are enough. In ASSM, the signals are smoothed in the spacial area nor frequent area, that means the frequent disturbance will be avoided. A lidar echo was simulated in the experimental work. The echo was supposed to be created by a space-born lidar (e.g. CALIOP). And white Gaussian noise was added to the echo to act as the random noise resulted from environment and the detector. The novel method, ASSM, was applied to the noisy echo to filter the noise. In the test, N was set to 3 and the Iteration time is two. The results show that, the signal could be smoothed adaptively by the ASSM, but the N and the Iteration time might be optimized when the ASSM is applied in a different lidar.

  10. In vivo photoacoustics and high frequency ultrasound imaging of mechanical high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) ablation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Daoudi, Khalid; Hoogenboom, Martijn; den Brok, Martijn; Eikelenboom, Dylan; Adema, Gosse J; Fütterer, Jürgen J; de Korte, Chris L

    2017-04-01

    The thermal effect of high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) has been clinically exploited over a decade, while the mechanical HIFU is still largely confined to laboratory investigations. This is in part due to the lack of adequate imaging techniques to better understand the in-vivo pathological and immunological effects caused by the mechanical treatment. In this work, we explore the use of high frequency ultrasound (US) and photoacoustics (PA) as a potential tool to evaluate the effect of mechanical ablation in-vivo , e.g. boiling histotripsy. Two mice bearing a neuroblastoma tumor in the right leg were ablated using an MRI-HIFU system conceived for small animals and monitored using MRI thermometry. High frequency US and PA imaging were performed before and after the HIFU treatment. Afterwards, the tumor was resected for further assessment and evaluation of the ablated region using histopathology. High frequency US imaging revealed the presence of liquefied regions in the treated area together with fragmentized tissue which appeared with different reflecting proprieties compared to the surrounding tissue. Photoacoustic imaging on the other hand revealed the presence of deoxygenated blood within the tumor after the ablation due to the destruction of blood vessel network while color Doppler imaging confirmed the blood vessel network destruction within the tumor. The treated area and the presence of red blood cells detected by photoacoustics were further confirmed by the histopathology. This feasibility study demonstrates the potential of high frequency US and PA approach for assessing in-vivo the effect of mechanical HIFU tumor ablation.

  11. HIFU e nanobolle di ossigeno: due differenti approcci per il trattamento del cancro - HIFU and oxygen load nanobubbles:two different approches for cancer treatment

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chiara Magnetto

    2015-07-01

    Full Text Available L’utilizzo di ultrasuoni focalizzati ad alta intensità (HIFU ha ottenuto un rapido consenso in ambito clinico come strumento chirurgico non invasivo per l’ablazione di cellule tumorali. L’impiego di tale tecnologia, applicata simultaneamente a nano-bolle riempite di ossigeno (OLN, realizzate e caratterizzate presso l’INRiM e volte a trattare patologie associate all’ipossia (come i tumori, costituiscono un innovativo strumento terapeutico per la cura del cancro proposto in questo lavoro. ---------- Use of high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU beam has gained rapid agreement in clinical environment as a tool for non-invasive surgical ablation of tumor cells. This technology, applied simultaneously to nano-bubbles filled with oxygen (OLN, realized and characterized at INRiM with the purpose of treating diseases associated to hypoxia (such as tumors, constitute an innovative therapeutic tool for cancer treatment proposed in this article.

  12. Adaptive Filtering to Enhance Noise Immunity of Impedance and Admittance Spectroscopy: Comparison with Fourier Transformation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stupin, Daniil D.; Koniakhin, Sergei V.; Verlov, Nikolay A.; Dubina, Michael V.

    2017-05-01

    The time-domain technique for impedance spectroscopy consists of computing the excitation voltage and current response Fourier images by fast or discrete Fourier transformation and calculating their relation. Here we propose an alternative method for excitation voltage and current response processing for deriving a system impedance spectrum based on a fast and flexible adaptive filtering method. We show the equivalence between the problem of adaptive filter learning and deriving the system impedance spectrum. To be specific, we express the impedance via the adaptive filter weight coefficients. The noise-canceling property of adaptive filtering is also justified. Using the RLC circuit as a model system, we experimentally show that adaptive filtering yields correct admittance spectra and elements ratings in the high-noise conditions when the Fourier-transform technique fails. Providing the additional sensitivity of impedance spectroscopy, adaptive filtering can be applied to otherwise impossible-to-interpret time-domain impedance data. The advantages of adaptive filtering are justified with practical living-cell impedance measurements.

  13. An adaptive grid to improve the efficiency and accuracy of modelling underwater noise from shipping

    Science.gov (United States)

    Trigg, Leah; Chen, Feng; Shapiro, Georgy; Ingram, Simon; Embling, Clare

    2017-04-01

    Underwater noise from shipping is becoming a significant concern and has been listed as a pollutant under Descriptor 11 of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive. Underwater noise models are an essential tool to assess and predict noise levels for regulatory procedures such as environmental impact assessments and ship noise monitoring. There are generally two approaches to noise modelling. The first is based on simplified energy flux models, assuming either spherical or cylindrical propagation of sound energy. These models are very quick but they ignore important water column and seabed properties, and produce significant errors in the areas subject to temperature stratification (Shapiro et al., 2014). The second type of model (e.g. ray-tracing and parabolic equation) is based on an advanced physical representation of sound propagation. However, these acoustic propagation models are computationally expensive to execute. Shipping noise modelling requires spatial discretization in order to group noise sources together using a grid. A uniform grid size is often selected to achieve either the greatest efficiency (i.e. speed of computations) or the greatest accuracy. In contrast, this work aims to produce efficient and accurate noise level predictions by presenting an adaptive grid where cell size varies with distance from the receiver. The spatial range over which a certain cell size is suitable was determined by calculating the distance from the receiver at which propagation loss becomes uniform across a grid cell. The computational efficiency and accuracy of the resulting adaptive grid was tested by comparing it to uniform 1 km and 5 km grids. These represent an accurate and computationally efficient grid respectively. For a case study of the Celtic Sea, an application of the adaptive grid over an area of 160×160 km reduced the number of model executions required from 25600 for a 1 km grid to 5356 in December and to between 5056 and 13132 in August, which

  14. Respiratory-Gated MRgHIFU in Upper Abdomen Using an MR-Compatible In-Bore Digital Camera

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Vincent Auboiroux

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available Objective. To demonstrate the technical feasibility and the potential interest of using a digital optical camera inside the MR magnet bore for monitoring the breathing cycle and subsequently gating the PRFS MR thermometry, MR-ARFI measurement, and MRgHIFU sonication in the upper abdomen. Materials and Methods. A digital camera was reengineered to remove its magnetic parts and was further equipped with a 7 m long USB cable. The system was electromagnetically shielded and operated inside the bore of a closed 3T clinical scanner. Suitable triggers were generated based on real-time motion analysis of the images produced by the camera (resolution 640×480 pixels, 30 fps. Respiratory-gated MR-ARFI prepared MRgHIFU ablation was performed in the kidney and liver of two sheep in vivo, under general anaesthesia and ventilator-driven forced breathing. Results. The optical device demonstrated very good MR compatibility. The current setup permitted the acquisition of motion artefact-free and high resolution MR 2D ARFI and multiplanar interleaved PRFS thermometry (average SNR 30 in liver and 56 in kidney. Microscopic histology indicated precise focal lesions with sharply delineated margins following the respiratory-gated HIFU sonications. Conclusion. The proof-of-concept for respiratory motion management in MRgHIFU using an in-bore digital camera has been validated in vivo.

  15. Speech understanding in background noise with the two-microphone adaptive beamformer BEAM in the Nucleus Freedom Cochlear Implant System.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Spriet, Ann; Van Deun, Lieselot; Eftaxiadis, Kyriaky; Laneau, Johan; Moonen, Marc; van Dijk, Bas; van Wieringen, Astrid; Wouters, Jan

    2007-02-01

    This paper evaluates the benefit of the two-microphone adaptive beamformer BEAM in the Nucleus Freedom cochlear implant (CI) system for speech understanding in background noise by CI users. A double-blind evaluation of the two-microphone adaptive beamformer BEAM and a hardware directional microphone was carried out with five adult Nucleus CI users. The test procedure consisted of a pre- and post-test in the lab and a 2-wk trial period at home. In the pre- and post-test, the speech reception threshold (SRT) with sentences and the percentage correct phoneme scores for CVC words were measured in quiet and background noise at different signal-to-noise ratios. Performance was assessed for two different noise configurations (with a single noise source and with three noise sources) and two different noise materials (stationary speech-weighted noise and multitalker babble). During the 2-wk trial period at home, the CI users evaluated the noise reduction performance in different listening conditions by means of the SSQ questionnaire. In addition to the perceptual evaluation, the noise reduction performance of the beamformer was measured physically as a function of the direction of the noise source. Significant improvements of both the SRT in noise (average improvement of 5-16 dB) and the percentage correct phoneme scores (average improvement of 10-41%) were observed with BEAM compared to the standard hardware directional microphone. In addition, the SSQ questionnaire and subjective evaluation in controlled and real-life scenarios suggested a possible preference for the beamformer in noisy environments. The evaluation demonstrates that the adaptive noise reduction algorithm BEAM in the Nucleus Freedom CI-system may significantly increase the speech perception by cochlear implantees in noisy listening conditions. This is the first monolateral (adaptive) noise reduction strategy actually implemented in a mainstream commercial CI.

  16. An Adaptive Low-Cost INS/GNSS Tightly-Coupled Integration Architecture Based on Redundant Measurement Noise Covariance Estimation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Zheng; Zhang, Hai; Zhou, Qifan; Che, Huan

    2017-09-05

    The main objective of the introduced study is to design an adaptive Inertial Navigation System/Global Navigation Satellite System (INS/GNSS) tightly-coupled integration system that can provide more reliable navigation solutions by making full use of an adaptive Kalman filter (AKF) and satellite selection algorithm. To achieve this goal, we develop a novel redundant measurement noise covariance estimation (RMNCE) theorem, which adaptively estimates measurement noise properties by analyzing the difference sequences of system measurements. The proposed RMNCE approach is then applied to design both a modified weighted satellite selection algorithm and a type of adaptive unscented Kalman filter (UKF) to improve the performance of the tightly-coupled integration system. In addition, an adaptive measurement noise covariance expanding algorithm is developed to mitigate outliers when facing heavy multipath and other harsh situations. Both semi-physical simulation and field experiments were conducted to evaluate the performance of the proposed architecture and were compared with state-of-the-art algorithms. The results validate that the RMNCE provides a significant improvement in the measurement noise covariance estimation and the proposed architecture can improve the accuracy and reliability of the INS/GNSS tightly-coupled systems. The proposed architecture can effectively limit positioning errors under conditions of poor GNSS measurement quality and outperforms all the compared schemes.

  17. An adaptive filtering method based on EMD for X-ray pulsar navigation with uncertain measurement noise

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Li N.

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available Affected by the unstable pulse radiation and the pulsar directional errors, the statistical characteristics of the pulsar measurement noise may vary with time slowly and cannot be accurately determined, which cause the filtering accuracy of the extended Kalman filter(EKF in pulsar navigation positioning system decline sharply or even diverge. To solve this problem, an adaptive extended Kalman filtering algorithm based on the empirical mode decomposition(EMD is proposed. In this method, the high frequency noise is separated from measurement information of pulsar by the method of EMD, and the noise variance can be estimated to update the parameters of EKF. The simulation results demonstrate that compared with conventional EKF, the proposed method can adaptively track the change of the measurement noise, and still keeps high estimation accuracy with unknown measurement noise, the positioning accuracy of the pulsar navigation is improved simultaneously.

  18. Adaptive iterated function systems filter for images highly corrupted with fixed - Value impulse noise

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shanmugavadivu, P.; Eliahim Jeevaraj, P. S.

    2014-06-01

    The Adaptive Iterated Functions Systems (AIFS) Filter presented in this paper has an outstanding potential to attenuate the fixed-value impulse noise in images. This filter has two distinct phases namely noise detection and noise correction which uses Measure of Statistics and Iterated Function Systems (IFS) respectively. The performance of AIFS filter is assessed by three metrics namely, Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR), Mean Structural Similarity Index Matrix (MSSIM) and Human Visual Perception (HVP). The quantitative measures PSNR and MSSIM endorse the merit of this filter in terms of degree of noise suppression and details/edge preservation respectively, in comparison with the high performing filters reported in the recent literature. The qualitative measure HVP confirms the noise suppression ability of the devised filter. This computationally simple noise filter broadly finds application wherein the images are highly degraded by fixed-value impulse noise.

  19. An environment-adaptive management algorithm for hearing-support devices incorporating listening situation and noise type classifiers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yook, Sunhyun; Nam, Kyoung Won; Kim, Heepyung; Hong, Sung Hwa; Jang, Dong Pyo; Kim, In Young

    2015-04-01

    In order to provide more consistent sound intelligibility for the hearing-impaired person, regardless of environment, it is necessary to adjust the setting of the hearing-support (HS) device to accommodate various environmental circumstances. In this study, a fully automatic HS device management algorithm that can adapt to various environmental situations is proposed; it is composed of a listening-situation classifier, a noise-type classifier, an adaptive noise-reduction algorithm, and a management algorithm that can selectively turn on/off one or more of the three basic algorithms-beamforming, noise-reduction, and feedback cancellation-and can also adjust internal gains and parameters of the wide-dynamic-range compression (WDRC) and noise-reduction (NR) algorithms in accordance with variations in environmental situations. Experimental results demonstrated that the implemented algorithms can classify both listening situation and ambient noise type situations with high accuracies (92.8-96.4% and 90.9-99.4%, respectively), and the gains and parameters of the WDRC and NR algorithms were successfully adjusted according to variations in environmental situation. The average values of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), frequency-weighted segmental SNR, Perceptual Evaluation of Speech Quality, and mean opinion test scores of 10 normal-hearing volunteers of the adaptive multiband spectral subtraction (MBSS) algorithm were improved by 1.74 dB, 2.11 dB, 0.49, and 0.68, respectively, compared to the conventional fixed-parameter MBSS algorithm. These results indicate that the proposed environment-adaptive management algorithm can be applied to HS devices to improve sound intelligibility for hearing-impaired individuals in various acoustic environments. Copyright © 2014 International Center for Artificial Organs and Transplantation and Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  20. Tissue Necrosis Monitoring for HIFU Ablation with T1 Contrast MRI Imaging

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hwang, San-Chao; Yao, Ching; Kuo, Ih-Yuan; Tsai, Wei-Cheng; Chang, Hsu

    2011-09-01

    In MR-guided HIFU ablation, MTC (Magnetization Transfer Contrast) or perfusion imaging is usually used after ablation to evaluate the ablated area based on the thermally induced necrosis contrast. In our MR-guided HIFU ablation study, a T1 contrast MRI scan sequence has been used to distinguish between necrotic and non-necrotic tissue. The ablation of porcine meat in-vitro and in-vivo pig leg muscle show that the necrotic area of T1 contrast MRI image coincides with the photographs of sliced specimen. The sequence is considerably easier to apply than MTC or perfusion imaging, while giving good necrosis contrast. In addition, no injection of contrast agent is needed, allowing multiple scans to be applied throughout the entire ablation procedure.

  1. Adaptive Noise Model for Transform Domain Wyner-Ziv Video using Clustering of DCT Blocks

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Luong, Huynh Van; Huang, Xin; Forchhammer, Søren

    2011-01-01

    The noise model is one of the most important aspects influencing the coding performance of Distributed Video Coding. This paper proposes a novel noise model for Transform Domain Wyner-Ziv (TDWZ) video coding by using clustering of DCT blocks. The clustering algorithm takes advantage of the residual...... modelling. Furthermore, the proposed cluster level noise model is adaptively combined with a coefficient level noise model in this paper to robustly improve coding performance of TDWZ video codec up to 1.24 dB (by Bjøntegaard metric) compared to the DISCOVER TDWZ video codec....... information of all frequency bands, iteratively classifies blocks into different categories and estimates the noise parameter in each category. The experimental results show that the coding performance of the proposed cluster level noise model is competitive with state-ofthe- art coefficient level noise...

  2. Oncological and functional outcomes of elderly men treated with HIFU vs. minimally invasive radical prostatectomy: A propensity score analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Capogrosso, Paolo; Barret, Eric; Sanchez-Salas, Rafael; Nunes-Silva, Igor; Rozet, François; Galiano, Marc; Ventimiglia, Eugenio; Briganti, Alberto; Salonia, Andrea; Montorsi, Francesco; Cathelineau, Xavier

    2018-01-01

    To assess outcomes of whole gland high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) as compared with minimally-invasive radical prostatectomy (MIRP) in elderly patients. Patients aged ≥70 years with, cT1-cT2 disease, biopsy Gleason score (GS) 3 + 3 or 3 + 4 and preoperative PSA ≤10 ng/mL were submitted to either whole-gland HIFU or MIRP. Propensity-score matching analysis was performed to ensure the baseline equivalence of groups. Follow-up visits were routinely performed assessing PSA and urinary function according to the International Continence Score (ICS) and the International Prostatic Symptoms Score (IPSS) questionnaires. Estimated rates of salvage-treatment free survival (SFS) overall-survival (OS), cancer-specific survival (CSS) and metastasis-free survival (MTS) were assessed and compared. Overall, 84 (33.3%) and 168 (66.7%) patients were treated with HIFU and MIRP, respectively. MIRP was associated with a 5-yrs SFS of 93.4% compared to 74.8% for HIFU (p < 0.01). The two groups did not differ in terms of OS and MTS. No cancer-related deaths were registered. Patients treated with HIFU showed better short-term (6-mos) continence outcomes [mean-ICS: 1.7 vs. 4.8; p = 0.005] but higher IPSS mean scores at 12-mos assessment. A comparable rate of patients experiencing post-treatment Clavien-Dindo grade ≥III complications was observed within the two groups. Whole-gland HIFU is a feasible treatment in elderly men with low-to intermediate-risk PCa and could be considered for patients either unfit for surgery, or willing a non-invasive treatment with a low morbidity burden, although a non-negligible risk of requiring subsequent treatment for recurrence should be expected. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd, BASO ~ The Association for Cancer Surgery, and the European Society of Surgical Oncology. All rights reserved.

  3. The potential of high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) combine phase-sensitive optical coherence tomography (PhS-OCT) for diseases diagnosis, treatment and monitoring

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhou, Kanheng; Wang, Yan; Feng, Kairui; Li, Chunhui; Huang, Zhihong

    2018-02-01

    HIFU is a truly noninvasive, acoustic therapeutic technique that utilizes high intensity acoustic field in the focus to kill the targeted tissue for disease treatment purpose. The mechanical properties of targeted tissue changes before and after treatment, and this change can be accurately detected by shear wave elastography. Hence, shear wave elastography is usually used for monitoring HIFU treatment asynchronously. To improve the low spatial resolution in ultrasound shear wave elastography, and to perform diseases diagnosis, treatment and monitoring in the same system, a new setup that combines HIFU and PhS-OCT system was proposed in this study. This proposed setup could do 1) HIFU treatment when the transducer works at high energy level, 2) ultrasound induced shear wave optical coherence elastography for HIFU treatment asynchronous monitoring when the transducer works at low energy level. Ex-vivo bovine liver tissue was treated at the same energy level for different time (0s, 1s, 5s, 9s) in this research. Elastography was performed on the lesion area of the sample after HIFU treatment, and the elastogram was reconstructed by the time of flight time method. The elastogram results clearly show the boundary of HIFU lesion area and surrounding normal tissue, even for 1s treatment time. And the average elasticity of the lesion grows linearly as the treatment time increases. Combined with OCT needle probe, the proposed method has a large potential not only to be used for superficial diseases treatment, but also to be used for high-precision-demanded diseases treatment, e.g. nervous disease treatment.

  4. Audiovisual cues benefit recognition of accented speech in noise but not perceptual adaptation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Banks, Briony; Gowen, Emma; Munro, Kevin J; Adank, Patti

    2015-01-01

    Perceptual adaptation allows humans to recognize different varieties of accented speech. We investigated whether perceptual adaptation to accented speech is facilitated if listeners can see a speaker's facial and mouth movements. In Study 1, participants listened to sentences in a novel accent and underwent a period of training with audiovisual or audio-only speech cues, presented in quiet or in background noise. A control group also underwent training with visual-only (speech-reading) cues. We observed no significant difference in perceptual adaptation between any of the groups. To address a number of remaining questions, we carried out a second study using a different accent, speaker and experimental design, in which participants listened to sentences in a non-native (Japanese) accent with audiovisual or audio-only cues, without separate training. Participants' eye gaze was recorded to verify that they looked at the speaker's face during audiovisual trials. Recognition accuracy was significantly better for audiovisual than for audio-only stimuli; however, no statistical difference in perceptual adaptation was observed between the two modalities. Furthermore, Bayesian analysis suggested that the data supported the null hypothesis. Our results suggest that although the availability of visual speech cues may be immediately beneficial for recognition of unfamiliar accented speech in noise, it does not improve perceptual adaptation.

  5. Design and analysis of a BLPC vocoder-based adaptive feedback cancellation with probe noise

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Anand, Ankita; Kar, Asutosh; Swamy, M.N.S.

    2017-01-01

    a BLPC vocoderbased adaptive feedback canceller with probe noise with an objective of reducing the low-frequency bias in digital hearing-aids. A step-wise mathematical analysis of the proposed feedback canceller is presented employing the recursive least square and normalized least mean square adaptive......The band-limited linear predictive coding (BLPC) vocoder-based adaptive feedback cancellation (AFC) removes the high-frequency bias, while the low frequency bias persists between the desired input signal and the loudspeaker signal in the estimate of the feedback path. In this paper, we present...... algorithms. It is observed that the optimal solution of the feedback path is unbiased for an unshaped probe noise, but is biased for a shaped probe signal; the bias term does not consist of correlation between the desired input and the loudspeaker output. The identifiability conditions are analysed...

  6. Adaptive cancellation of geomagnetic background noise for magnetic anomaly detection using coherence

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Liu, Dunge; Xu, Xin; Huang, Chao; Zhu, Wanhua; Liu, Xiaojun; Fang, Guangyou; Yu, Gang

    2015-01-01

    Magnetic anomaly detection (MAD) is an effective method for the detection of ferromagnetic targets against background magnetic fields. Currently, the performance of MAD systems is mainly limited by the background geomagnetic noise. Several techniques have been developed to detect target signatures, such as the synchronous reference subtraction (SRS) method. In this paper, we propose an adaptive coherent noise suppression (ACNS) method. The proposed method is capable of evaluating and detecting weak anomaly signals buried in background geomagnetic noise. Tests with real-world recorded magnetic signals show that the ACNS method can excellently remove the background geomagnetic noise by about 21 dB or more in high background geomagnetic field environments. Additionally, as a general form of the SRS method, the ACNS method offers appreciable advantages over the existing algorithms. Compared to the SRS method, the ACNS algorithm can eliminate the false target signals and represents a noise suppressing capability improvement of 6.4 dB. The positive outcomes in terms of intelligibility make this method a potential candidate for application in MAD systems. (paper)

  7. Characterization of HIFU transducers designed for sonochemistry application: Cavitation distribution and quantification

    Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

    Hallez, L.; Touyeraz, F.; Hihn, J. Y.; Klíma, Jiří; Guey, J.-L.; Spajer, M.; Bailly, Y.

    2010-01-01

    Roč. 50, č. 2 (2010), s. 310-317 ISSN 0041-624X Institutional research plan: CEZ:AV0Z40400503 Keywords : HIFU * acoustic cavitation * MBSCL threshold * sonoreactors Subject RIV: CG - Electrochemistry Impact factor: 1.599, year: 2010

  8. Speckle noise reduction technique for Lidar echo signal based on self-adaptive pulse-matching independent component analysis

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xu, Fan; Wang, Jiaxing; Zhu, Daiyin; Tu, Qi

    2018-04-01

    Speckle noise has always been a particularly tricky problem in improving the ranging capability and accuracy of Lidar system especially in harsh environment. Currently, effective speckle de-noising techniques are extremely scarce and should be further developed. In this study, a speckle noise reduction technique has been proposed based on independent component analysis (ICA). Since normally few changes happen in the shape of laser pulse itself, the authors employed the laser source as a reference pulse and executed the ICA decomposition to find the optimal matching position. In order to achieve the self-adaptability of algorithm, local Mean Square Error (MSE) has been defined as an appropriate criterion for investigating the iteration results. The obtained experimental results demonstrated that the self-adaptive pulse-matching ICA (PM-ICA) method could effectively decrease the speckle noise and recover the useful Lidar echo signal component with high quality. Especially, the proposed method achieves 4 dB more improvement of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) than a traditional homomorphic wavelet method.

  9. Speech perception at positive signal-to-noise ratios using adaptive adjustment of time compression.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schlueter, Anne; Brand, Thomas; Lemke, Ulrike; Nitzschner, Stefan; Kollmeier, Birger; Holube, Inga

    2015-11-01

    Positive signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) characterize listening situations most relevant for hearing-impaired listeners in daily life and should therefore be considered when evaluating hearing aid algorithms. For this, a speech-in-noise test was developed and evaluated, in which the background noise is presented at fixed positive SNRs and the speech rate (i.e., the time compression of the speech material) is adaptively adjusted. In total, 29 younger and 12 older normal-hearing, as well as 24 older hearing-impaired listeners took part in repeated measurements. Younger normal-hearing and older hearing-impaired listeners conducted one of two adaptive methods which differed in adaptive procedure and step size. Analysis of the measurements with regard to list length and estimation strategy for thresholds resulted in a practical method measuring the time compression for 50% recognition. This method uses time-compression adjustment and step sizes according to Versfeld and Dreschler [(2002). J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 111, 401-408], with sentence scoring, lists of 30 sentences, and a maximum likelihood method for threshold estimation. Evaluation of the procedure showed that older participants obtained higher test-retest reliability compared to younger participants. Depending on the group of listeners, one or two lists are required for training prior to data collection.

  10. Speckle noise reduction for optical coherence tomography based on adaptive 2D dictionary

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lv, Hongli; Fu, Shujun; Zhang, Caiming; Zhai, Lin

    2018-05-01

    As a high-resolution biomedical imaging modality, optical coherence tomography (OCT) is widely used in medical sciences. However, OCT images often suffer from speckle noise, which can mask some important image information, and thus reduce the accuracy of clinical diagnosis. Taking full advantage of nonlocal self-similarity and adaptive 2D-dictionary-based sparse representation, in this work, a speckle noise reduction algorithm is proposed for despeckling OCT images. To reduce speckle noise while preserving local image features, similar nonlocal patches are first extracted from the noisy image and put into groups using a gamma- distribution-based block matching method. An adaptive 2D dictionary is then learned for each patch group. Unlike traditional vector-based sparse coding, we express each image patch by the linear combination of a few matrices. This image-to-matrix method can exploit the local correlation between pixels. Since each image patch might belong to several groups, the despeckled OCT image is finally obtained by aggregating all filtered image patches. The experimental results demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed method over other state-of-the-art despeckling methods, in terms of objective metrics and visual inspection.

  11. Adaptive non-local means on local principle neighborhood for noise/artifacts reduction in low-dose CT images.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Yuanke; Lu, Hongbing; Rong, Junyan; Meng, Jing; Shang, Junliang; Ren, Pinghong; Zhang, Junying

    2017-09-01

    Low-dose CT (LDCT) technique can reduce the x-ray radiation exposure to patients at the cost of degraded images with severe noise and artifacts. Non-local means (NLM) filtering has shown its potential in improving LDCT image quality. However, currently most NLM-based approaches employ a weighted average operation directly on all neighbor pixels with a fixed filtering parameter throughout the NLM filtering process, ignoring the non-stationary noise nature of LDCT images. In this paper, an adaptive NLM filtering scheme on local principle neighborhoods (PC-NLM) is proposed for structure-preserving noise/artifacts reduction in LDCT images. Instead of using neighboring patches directly, in the PC-NLM scheme, the principle component analysis (PCA) is first applied on local neighboring patches of the target patch to decompose the local patches into uncorrelated principle components (PCs), then a NLM filtering is used to regularize each PC of the target patch and finally the regularized components is transformed to get the target patch in image domain. Especially, in the NLM scheme, the filtering parameter is estimated adaptively from local noise level of the neighborhood as well as the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the corresponding PC, which guarantees a "weaker" NLM filtering on PCs with higher SNR and a "stronger" filtering on PCs with lower SNR. The PC-NLM procedure is iteratively performed several times for better removal of the noise and artifacts, and an adaptive iteration strategy is developed to reduce the computational load by determining whether a patch should be processed or not in next round of the PC-NLM filtering. The effectiveness of the presented PC-NLM algorithm is validated by experimental phantom studies and clinical studies. The results show that it can achieve promising gain over some state-of-the-art methods in terms of artifact suppression and structure preservation. With the use of PCA on local neighborhoods to extract principal structural

  12. Three-dimensional anisotropic adaptive filtering of projection data for noise reduction in cone beam CT

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Maier, Andreas; Wigstroem, Lars; Hofmann, Hannes G.; Hornegger, Joachim; Zhu Lei; Strobel, Norbert; Fahrig, Rebecca [Department of Radiology, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305 (United States); Department of Radiology, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305 (United States) and Center for Medical Image Science and Visualization, Linkoeping University, Linkoeping (Sweden); Pattern Recognition Laboratory, Department of Computer Science, Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, 91054, Erlangen (Germany); Nuclear and Radiological Engineering and Medical Physics Programs, George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332 (United States); Siemens AG Healthcare, Forchheim 91301 (Germany); Department of Radiology, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305 (United States)

    2011-11-15

    Purpose: The combination of quickly rotating C-arm gantry with digital flat panel has enabled the acquisition of three-dimensional data (3D) in the interventional suite. However, image quality is still somewhat limited since the hardware has not been optimized for CT imaging. Adaptive anisotropic filtering has the ability to improve image quality by reducing the noise level and therewith the radiation dose without introducing noticeable blurring. By applying the filtering prior to 3D reconstruction, noise-induced streak artifacts are reduced as compared to processing in the image domain. Methods: 3D anisotropic adaptive filtering was used to process an ensemble of 2D x-ray views acquired along a circular trajectory around an object. After arranging the input data into a 3D space (2D projections + angle), the orientation of structures was estimated using a set of differently oriented filters. The resulting tensor representation of local orientation was utilized to control the anisotropic filtering. Low-pass filtering is applied only along structures to maintain high spatial frequency components perpendicular to these. The evaluation of the proposed algorithm includes numerical simulations, phantom experiments, and in-vivo data which were acquired using an AXIOM Artis dTA C-arm system (Siemens AG, Healthcare Sector, Forchheim, Germany). Spatial resolution and noise levels were compared with and without adaptive filtering. A human observer study was carried out to evaluate low-contrast detectability. Results: The adaptive anisotropic filtering algorithm was found to significantly improve low-contrast detectability by reducing the noise level by half (reduction of the standard deviation in certain areas from 74 to 30 HU). Virtually no degradation of high contrast spatial resolution was observed in the modulation transfer function (MTF) analysis. Although the algorithm is computationally intensive, hardware acceleration using Nvidia's CUDA Interface provided an 8

  13. Three-dimensional anisotropic adaptive filtering of projection data for noise reduction in cone beam CT

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Maier, Andreas; Wigstroem, Lars; Hofmann, Hannes G.; Hornegger, Joachim; Zhu Lei; Strobel, Norbert; Fahrig, Rebecca

    2011-01-01

    Purpose: The combination of quickly rotating C-arm gantry with digital flat panel has enabled the acquisition of three-dimensional data (3D) in the interventional suite. However, image quality is still somewhat limited since the hardware has not been optimized for CT imaging. Adaptive anisotropic filtering has the ability to improve image quality by reducing the noise level and therewith the radiation dose without introducing noticeable blurring. By applying the filtering prior to 3D reconstruction, noise-induced streak artifacts are reduced as compared to processing in the image domain. Methods: 3D anisotropic adaptive filtering was used to process an ensemble of 2D x-ray views acquired along a circular trajectory around an object. After arranging the input data into a 3D space (2D projections + angle), the orientation of structures was estimated using a set of differently oriented filters. The resulting tensor representation of local orientation was utilized to control the anisotropic filtering. Low-pass filtering is applied only along structures to maintain high spatial frequency components perpendicular to these. The evaluation of the proposed algorithm includes numerical simulations, phantom experiments, and in-vivo data which were acquired using an AXIOM Artis dTA C-arm system (Siemens AG, Healthcare Sector, Forchheim, Germany). Spatial resolution and noise levels were compared with and without adaptive filtering. A human observer study was carried out to evaluate low-contrast detectability. Results: The adaptive anisotropic filtering algorithm was found to significantly improve low-contrast detectability by reducing the noise level by half (reduction of the standard deviation in certain areas from 74 to 30 HU). Virtually no degradation of high contrast spatial resolution was observed in the modulation transfer function (MTF) analysis. Although the algorithm is computationally intensive, hardware acceleration using Nvidia's CUDA Interface provided an 8.9-fold

  14. Tissue lesion created by HIFU in continuous scanning mode

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fan, Tingbo; Liu, Zhenbo; Zhang, Dong

    2012-09-01

    The lesion formation was numerically and experimentally investigated by the continuous scanning mode. Simulations were presented based on the combination of Khokhlov-Zabolotskaya-Kuznetov (KZK) equation and bio-heat equation. Measurements were performed on porcine liver tissues using a 1.01 MHz single-element focused transducer at various acoustic powers, confirmed the predicted results. Controlling of the peak temperature and lesion by the scanning speed may be exploited for improvement of efficiency in HIFU therapy.

  15. HematoPorphyrin Monomethyl Ether polymer contrast agent for ultrasound/photoacoustic dual-modality imaging-guided synergistic high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) therapy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yan, Sijing; Lu, Min; Ding, Xiaoya; Chen, Fei; He, Xuemei; Xu, Chunyan; Zhou, Hang; Wang, Qi; Hao, Lan; Zou, Jianzhong

    2016-08-18

    This study is to prepare a hematoporphyrin monomethyl ether (HMME)-loaded poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) microcapsules (HMME/PLGA), which could not only function as efficient contrast agent for ultrasound (US)/photoacoustic (PA) imaging, but also as a synergistic agent for high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) ablation. Sonosensitizer HMME nanoparticles were integrated into PLGA microcapsules with the double emulsion evaporation method. After characterization, the cell-killing and cell proliferation-inhibiting effects of HMME/PLGA microcapsules on ovarian cancer SKOV3 cells were assessed. The US/PA imaging-enhancing effects and synergistic effects on HIFU were evaluated both in vitro and in vivo. HMME/PLGA microcapsules were highly dispersed with well-defined spherical morphology (357 ± 0.72 nm in diameter, PDI = 0.932). Encapsulation efficiency and drug-loading efficiency were 58.33 ± 0.95% and 4.73 ± 0.15%, respectively. The HMME/PLGA microcapsules remarkably killed the SKOV3 cells and inhibited the cell proliferation, significantly enhanced the US/PA imaging results and greatly enhanced the HIFU ablation effects on ovarian cancer in nude mice by the HMME-mediated sono-dynamic chemistry therapy (SDT). HMME/PLGA microcapsules represent a potential multifunctional contrast agent for HIFU diagnosis and treatment, which might provide a novel strategy for the highly efficient imaging-guided non-invasive HIFU synergistic therapy for cancers by SDT in clinic.

  16. Modelling of the acoustic field of a multi-element HIFU array scattered by human ribs

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gélat, Pierre; ter Haar, Gail; Saffari, Nader

    2011-09-01

    The efficacy of high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) for the treatment of a range of different cancers, including those of the liver, prostate and breast, has been demonstrated. As a non-invasive focused therapy, HIFU offers considerable advantages over techniques such as chemotherapy and surgical resection in terms of reduced risk of harmful side effects. Despite this, there are a number of significant challenges which currently hinder its widespread clinical application. One of these challenges is the need to transmit sufficient energy through the rib cage to induce tissue necrosis in the required volume whilst minimizing the formation of side lobes. Multi-element random-phased arrays are currently showing great promise in overcoming the limitations of single-element transducers. Nevertheless, successful treatment of a patient with liver tumours requires a thorough understanding of the way in which the ultrasonic pressure field from a HIFU array is scattered by the rib cage. In order to address this, a boundary element approach based on a generalized minimal residual (GMRES) implementation of the Burton-Miller formulation was used in conjunction with phase conjugation techniques to focus the field of a 256-element random HIFU array behind human ribs at locations requiring intercostal and transcostal treatment. Simulations were carried out on a 3D mesh of quadratic pressure patches generated using CT scan anatomical data for adult ribs 9-12 on the right side. The methodology was validated on spherical and cylindrical scatterers. Field calculations were also carried out for idealized ribs, consisting of arrays of strip-like scatterers, demonstrating effects of splitting at the focus. This method has the advantage of fully accounting for the effect of scattering and diffraction in 3D under continuous wave excitation.

  17. Modelling of the acoustic field of a multi-element HIFU array scattered by human ribs

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Gelat, Pierre [National Physical Laboratory, Hampton Road, Teddington TW11 0LW (United Kingdom); Ter Haar, Gail [Therapeutic Ultrasound Group, Physics Department, Institute of Cancer Research, Sutton SM2 5NG (United Kingdom); Saffari, Nader, E-mail: Pierre.Gelat@npl.co.uk [Department of Mechanical Engineering, University College London, Torrington Place, London WC1E 7JE (United Kingdom)

    2011-09-07

    The efficacy of high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) for the treatment of a range of different cancers, including those of the liver, prostate and breast, has been demonstrated. As a non-invasive focused therapy, HIFU offers considerable advantages over techniques such as chemotherapy and surgical resection in terms of reduced risk of harmful side effects. Despite this, there are a number of significant challenges which currently hinder its widespread clinical application. One of these challenges is the need to transmit sufficient energy through the rib cage to induce tissue necrosis in the required volume whilst minimizing the formation of side lobes. Multi-element random-phased arrays are currently showing great promise in overcoming the limitations of single-element transducers. Nevertheless, successful treatment of a patient with liver tumours requires a thorough understanding of the way in which the ultrasonic pressure field from a HIFU array is scattered by the rib cage. In order to address this, a boundary element approach based on a generalized minimal residual (GMRES) implementation of the Burton-Miller formulation was used in conjunction with phase conjugation techniques to focus the field of a 256-element random HIFU array behind human ribs at locations requiring intercostal and transcostal treatment. Simulations were carried out on a 3D mesh of quadratic pressure patches generated using CT scan anatomical data for adult ribs 9-12 on the right side. The methodology was validated on spherical and cylindrical scatterers. Field calculations were also carried out for idealized ribs, consisting of arrays of strip-like scatterers, demonstrating effects of splitting at the focus. This method has the advantage of fully accounting for the effect of scattering and diffraction in 3D under continuous wave excitation.

  18. Effects of directional microphone and adaptive multichannel noise reduction algorithm on cochlear implant performance.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chung, King; Zeng, Fan-Gang; Acker, Kyle N

    2006-10-01

    Although cochlear implant (CI) users have enjoyed good speech recognition in quiet, they still have difficulties understanding speech in noise. We conducted three experiments to determine whether a directional microphone and an adaptive multichannel noise reduction algorithm could enhance CI performance in noise and whether Speech Transmission Index (STI) can be used to predict CI performance in various acoustic and signal processing conditions. In Experiment I, CI users listened to speech in noise processed by 4 hearing aid settings: omni-directional microphone, omni-directional microphone plus noise reduction, directional microphone, and directional microphone plus noise reduction. The directional microphone significantly improved speech recognition in noise. Both directional microphone and noise reduction algorithm improved overall preference. In Experiment II, normal hearing individuals listened to the recorded speech produced by 4- or 8-channel CI simulations. The 8-channel simulation yielded similar speech recognition results as in Experiment I, whereas the 4-channel simulation produced no significant difference among the 4 settings. In Experiment III, we examined the relationship between STIs and speech recognition. The results suggested that STI could predict actual and simulated CI speech intelligibility with acoustic degradation and the directional microphone, but not the noise reduction algorithm. Implications for intelligibility enhancement are discussed.

  19. A new time-adaptive discrete bionic wavelet transform for enhancing speech from adverse noise environment

    Science.gov (United States)

    Palaniswamy, Sumithra; Duraisamy, Prakash; Alam, Mohammad Showkat; Yuan, Xiaohui

    2012-04-01

    Automatic speech processing systems are widely used in everyday life such as mobile communication, speech and speaker recognition, and for assisting the hearing impaired. In speech communication systems, the quality and intelligibility of speech is of utmost importance for ease and accuracy of information exchange. To obtain an intelligible speech signal and one that is more pleasant to listen, noise reduction is essential. In this paper a new Time Adaptive Discrete Bionic Wavelet Thresholding (TADBWT) scheme is proposed. The proposed technique uses Daubechies mother wavelet to achieve better enhancement of speech from additive non- stationary noises which occur in real life such as street noise and factory noise. Due to the integration of human auditory system model into the wavelet transform, bionic wavelet transform (BWT) has great potential for speech enhancement which may lead to a new path in speech processing. In the proposed technique, at first, discrete BWT is applied to noisy speech to derive TADBWT coefficients. Then the adaptive nature of the BWT is captured by introducing a time varying linear factor which updates the coefficients at each scale over time. This approach has shown better performance than the existing algorithms at lower input SNR due to modified soft level dependent thresholding on time adaptive coefficients. The objective and subjective test results confirmed the competency of the TADBWT technique. The effectiveness of the proposed technique is also evaluated for speaker recognition task under noisy environment. The recognition results show that the TADWT technique yields better performance when compared to alternate methods specifically at lower input SNR.

  20. Prediction of HIFU Propagation in a Dispersive Medium via Khokhlov–Zabolotskaya–Kuznetsov Model Combined with a Fractional Order Derivative

    OpenAIRE

    Shilei Liu; Yanye Yang; Chenghai Li; Xiasheng Guo; Juan Tu; Dong Zhang

    2018-01-01

    High intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) has been proven to be promising in non-invasive therapies, in which precise prediction of the focused ultrasound field is crucial for its accurate and safe application. Although the Khokhlov–Zabolotskaya–Kuznetsov (KZK) equation has been widely used in the calculation of the nonlinear acoustic field of HIFU, some deviations still exist when it comes to dispersive medium. This problem also exists as an obstacle to the Westervelt model and the Spherical ...

  1. HIFU scattering by the ribs: constrained optimisation with a complex surface impedance boundary condition

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gélat, P.; ter Haar, G.; Saffari, N.

    2014-04-01

    High intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) enables highly localised, non-invasive tissue ablation and its efficacy has been demonstrated in the treatment of a range of cancers, including those of the kidney, prostate and breast. HIFU offers the ability to treat deep-seated tumours locally, and potentially bears fewer side effects than more established treatment modalities such as resection, chemotherapy and ionising radiation. There remains however a number of significant challenges which currently hinder its widespread clinical application. One of these challenges is the need to transmit sufficient energy through the ribcage to ablate tissue at the required foci whilst minimising the formation of side lobes and sparing healthy tissue. Ribs both absorb and reflect ultrasound strongly. This sometimes results in overheating of bone and overlying tissue during treatment, leading to skin burns. Successful treatment of a patient with tumours in the upper abdomen therefore requires a thorough understanding of the way acoustic and thermal energy is deposited. Previously, a boundary element (BE) approach based on a Generalised Minimal Residual (GMRES) implementation of the Burton-Miller formulation was developed to predict the field of a multi-element HIFU array scattered by human ribs, the topology of which was obtained from CT scan data [1]. Dissipative mechanisms inside the propagating medium have since been implemented, together with a complex surface impedance condition at the surface of the ribs. A reformulation of the boundary element equations as a constrained optimisation problem was carried out to determine the complex surface velocities of a multi-element HIFU array which generated the acoustic pressure field that best fitted a required acoustic pressure distribution in a least-squares sense. This was done whilst ensuring that an acoustic dose rate parameter at the surface of the ribs was kept below a specified threshold. The methodology was tested at an

  2. Prediction of HIFU Propagation in a Dispersive Medium via Khokhlov–Zabolotskaya–Kuznetsov Model Combined with a Fractional Order Derivative

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Shilei Liu

    2018-04-01

    Full Text Available High intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU has been proven to be promising in non-invasive therapies, in which precise prediction of the focused ultrasound field is crucial for its accurate and safe application. Although the Khokhlov–Zabolotskaya–Kuznetsov (KZK equation has been widely used in the calculation of the nonlinear acoustic field of HIFU, some deviations still exist when it comes to dispersive medium. This problem also exists as an obstacle to the Westervelt model and the Spherical Beam Equation. Considering that the KZK equation is the most prevalent model in HIFU applications due to its accurate and simple simulation algorithms, there is an urgent need to improve its performance in dispersive medium. In this work, a modified KZK (mKZK equation derived from a fractional order derivative is proposed to calculate the nonlinear acoustic field in a dispersive medium. By correcting the power index in the attenuation term, this model is capable of providing improved prediction accuracy, especially in the axial position of the focal area. Simulation results using the obtained model were further compared with the experimental results from a gel phantom. Good agreements were found, indicating the applicability of the proposed model. The findings of this work will be helpful in making more accurate treatment plans for HIFU therapies, as well as facilitating the application of ultrasound in acoustic hyperthermia therapy.

  3. Cranial nerve threshold for thermal injury induced by MRI-guided high-intensity focused ultrasound (MRgHIFU): preliminary results on an optic nerve model.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Harnof, Sagi; Zibly, Zion; Cohen, Zvi; Shaw, Andrew; Schlaff, Cody; Kassel, Neal F

    2013-04-01

    Future clinical applications of magnetic resonance imaging-guided high-intensity focused ultrasound (MRgHIFU) are moving toward the management of different intracranial pathologies. We sought to validate the production, safety, and efficacy of thermal injury to cranial nerves generated by MRgHIFU. In this study, five female domestic pigs underwent a standard bifrontal craniectomy under general anesthesia. Treatment was then given using an MRgHIFU system to induce hyperthermic ablative sonication (6 to 10 s; 50 to 2000 J.) Histological analyses were done to confirm nerve damage; temperature measured on the optic nerve was approximately 53.4°C (range: 39°C to 70°C.) Histology demonstrated a clear definition between a necrotic, transitional zone, and normal tissue. MRgHIFU induces targeted thermal injury to nervous tissue within a specific threshold of 50°C to 60°C with the tissue near the sonication center yielding the greatest effect; adjacent tissue showed minimal changes. Additional studies utilizing this technology are required to further establish accurate threshold parameters for optic nerve thermo-ablation.

  4. A framework for the correction of slow physiological drifts during MR-guided HIFU therapies: Proof of concept

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Zachiu, Cornel; Moonen, Chrit; Ries, Mario; Denis de Senneville, Baudouin

    2015-01-01

    Purpose: While respiratory motion compensation for magnetic resonance (MR)-guided high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) interventions has been extensively studied, the influence of slow physiological motion due to, for example, peristaltic activity, has so far been largely neglected. During lengthy interventions, the magnitude of the latter can exceed acceptable therapeutic margins. The goal of the present study is to exploit the episodic workflow of these therapies to implement a motion correction strategy for slow varying drifts of the target area and organs at risk over the entire duration of the intervention. Methods: The therapeutic workflow of a MR-guided HIFU intervention is in practice often episodic: Bursts of energy delivery are interleaved with periods of inactivity, allowing the effects of the beam on healthy tissues to recede and/or during which the plan of the intervention is reoptimized. These periods usually last for at least several minutes. It is at this time scale that organ drifts due to slow physiological motion become significant. In order to capture these drifts, the authors propose the integration of 3D MR scans in the therapy workflow during the inactivity intervals. Displacements were estimated using an optical flow algorithm applied on the 3D acquired images. A preliminary study was conducted on ten healthy volunteers. For each volunteer, 3D MR images of the abdomen were acquired at regular intervals of 10 min over a total duration of 80 min. Motion analysis was restricted to the liver and kidneys. For validating the compatibility of the proposed motion correction strategy with the workflow of a MR-guided HIFU therapy, an in vivo experiment on a porcine liver was conducted. A volumetric HIFU ablation was completed over a time span of 2 h. A 3D image was acquired before the first sonication, as well as after each sonication. Results: Following the volunteer study, drifts larger than 8 mm for the liver and 5 mm for the kidneys prove that

  5. A framework for the correction of slow physiological drifts during MR-guided HIFU therapies: Proof of concept

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Zachiu, Cornel, E-mail: C.Zachiu@umcutrecht.nl; Moonen, Chrit; Ries, Mario [Imaging Division, UMC Utrecht, Heidelberglaan 100, Utrecht 3584 CX (Netherlands); Denis de Senneville, Baudouin [Imaging Division, UMC Utrecht, Heidelberglaan 100, Utrecht 3584 CX (Netherlands); Mathematical Institute of Bordeaux, University of Bordeaux, Talence Cedex 33405 (France)

    2015-07-15

    Purpose: While respiratory motion compensation for magnetic resonance (MR)-guided high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) interventions has been extensively studied, the influence of slow physiological motion due to, for example, peristaltic activity, has so far been largely neglected. During lengthy interventions, the magnitude of the latter can exceed acceptable therapeutic margins. The goal of the present study is to exploit the episodic workflow of these therapies to implement a motion correction strategy for slow varying drifts of the target area and organs at risk over the entire duration of the intervention. Methods: The therapeutic workflow of a MR-guided HIFU intervention is in practice often episodic: Bursts of energy delivery are interleaved with periods of inactivity, allowing the effects of the beam on healthy tissues to recede and/or during which the plan of the intervention is reoptimized. These periods usually last for at least several minutes. It is at this time scale that organ drifts due to slow physiological motion become significant. In order to capture these drifts, the authors propose the integration of 3D MR scans in the therapy workflow during the inactivity intervals. Displacements were estimated using an optical flow algorithm applied on the 3D acquired images. A preliminary study was conducted on ten healthy volunteers. For each volunteer, 3D MR images of the abdomen were acquired at regular intervals of 10 min over a total duration of 80 min. Motion analysis was restricted to the liver and kidneys. For validating the compatibility of the proposed motion correction strategy with the workflow of a MR-guided HIFU therapy, an in vivo experiment on a porcine liver was conducted. A volumetric HIFU ablation was completed over a time span of 2 h. A 3D image was acquired before the first sonication, as well as after each sonication. Results: Following the volunteer study, drifts larger than 8 mm for the liver and 5 mm for the kidneys prove that

  6. Complete ensemble local mean decomposition with adaptive noise and its application to fault diagnosis for rolling bearings

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Lei; Liu, Zhiwen; Miao, Qiang; Zhang, Xin

    2018-06-01

    Mode mixing resulting from intermittent signals is an annoying problem associated with the local mean decomposition (LMD) method. Based on noise-assisted approach, ensemble local mean decomposition (ELMD) method alleviates the mode mixing issue of LMD to some degree. However, the product functions (PFs) produced by ELMD often contain considerable residual noise, and thus a relatively large number of ensemble trials are required to eliminate the residual noise. Furthermore, since different realizations of Gaussian white noise are added to the original signal, different trials may generate different number of PFs, making it difficult to take ensemble mean. In this paper, a novel method is proposed called complete ensemble local mean decomposition with adaptive noise (CELMDAN) to solve these two problems. The method adds a particular and adaptive noise at every decomposition stage for each trial. Moreover, a unique residue is obtained after separating each PF, and the obtained residue is used as input for the next stage. Two simulated signals are analyzed to illustrate the advantages of CELMDAN in comparison to ELMD and CEEMDAN. To further demonstrate the efficiency of CELMDAN, the method is applied to diagnose faults for rolling bearings in an experimental case and an engineering case. The diagnosis results indicate that CELMDAN can extract more fault characteristic information with less interference than ELMD.

  7. Background Registration-Based Adaptive Noise Filtering of LWIR/MWIR Imaging Sensors for UAV Applications

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Byeong Hak Kim

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs are equipped with optical systems including an infrared (IR camera such as electro-optical IR (EO/IR, target acquisition and designation sights (TADS, or forward looking IR (FLIR. However, images obtained from IR cameras are subject to noise such as dead pixels, lines, and fixed pattern noise. Nonuniformity correction (NUC is a widely employed method to reduce noise in IR images, but it has limitations in removing noise that occurs during operation. Methods have been proposed to overcome the limitations of the NUC method, such as two-point correction (TPC and scene-based NUC (SBNUC. However, these methods still suffer from unfixed pattern noise. In this paper, a background registration-based adaptive noise filtering (BRANF method is proposed to overcome the limitations of conventional methods. The proposed BRANF method utilizes background registration processing and robust principle component analysis (RPCA. In addition, image quality verification methods are proposed that can measure the noise filtering performance quantitatively without ground truth images. Experiments were performed for performance verification with middle wave infrared (MWIR and long wave infrared (LWIR images obtained from practical military optical systems. As a result, it is found that the image quality improvement rate of BRANF is 30% higher than that of conventional NUC.

  8. Background Registration-Based Adaptive Noise Filtering of LWIR/MWIR Imaging Sensors for UAV Applications

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kim, Byeong Hak; Kim, Min Young; Chae, You Seong

    2017-01-01

    Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are equipped with optical systems including an infrared (IR) camera such as electro-optical IR (EO/IR), target acquisition and designation sights (TADS), or forward looking IR (FLIR). However, images obtained from IR cameras are subject to noise such as dead pixels, lines, and fixed pattern noise. Nonuniformity correction (NUC) is a widely employed method to reduce noise in IR images, but it has limitations in removing noise that occurs during operation. Methods have been proposed to overcome the limitations of the NUC method, such as two-point correction (TPC) and scene-based NUC (SBNUC). However, these methods still suffer from unfixed pattern noise. In this paper, a background registration-based adaptive noise filtering (BRANF) method is proposed to overcome the limitations of conventional methods. The proposed BRANF method utilizes background registration processing and robust principle component analysis (RPCA). In addition, image quality verification methods are proposed that can measure the noise filtering performance quantitatively without ground truth images. Experiments were performed for performance verification with middle wave infrared (MWIR) and long wave infrared (LWIR) images obtained from practical military optical systems. As a result, it is found that the image quality improvement rate of BRANF is 30% higher than that of conventional NUC. PMID:29280970

  9. Background Registration-Based Adaptive Noise Filtering of LWIR/MWIR Imaging Sensors for UAV Applications.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kim, Byeong Hak; Kim, Min Young; Chae, You Seong

    2017-12-27

    Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are equipped with optical systems including an infrared (IR) camera such as electro-optical IR (EO/IR), target acquisition and designation sights (TADS), or forward looking IR (FLIR). However, images obtained from IR cameras are subject to noise such as dead pixels, lines, and fixed pattern noise. Nonuniformity correction (NUC) is a widely employed method to reduce noise in IR images, but it has limitations in removing noise that occurs during operation. Methods have been proposed to overcome the limitations of the NUC method, such as two-point correction (TPC) and scene-based NUC (SBNUC). However, these methods still suffer from unfixed pattern noise. In this paper, a background registration-based adaptive noise filtering (BRANF) method is proposed to overcome the limitations of conventional methods. The proposed BRANF method utilizes background registration processing and robust principle component analysis (RPCA). In addition, image quality verification methods are proposed that can measure the noise filtering performance quantitatively without ground truth images. Experiments were performed for performance verification with middle wave infrared (MWIR) and long wave infrared (LWIR) images obtained from practical military optical systems. As a result, it is found that the image quality improvement rate of BRANF is 30% higher than that of conventional NUC.

  10. Noninvasive MR-Guided HIFU Therapy of TSC-Associated Renal Angiomyolipomas

    Science.gov (United States)

    2014-09-01

    sufficient for this application because coil array configuration is limited by small mouse anatomy. In our third year’s effort, the research plan was...therapy and a new Ingenia 1.5 Tesla MRI scanner from Philips HealthCare. Using the new instrumentation, we established a large animal MR-guided HIFU...anatomy limitation in mice MRI coil development, mouse cancer model was not used eventually. In the third year, we developed a large animal MR

  11. Non-invasive estimation of temperature using diagnostic ultrasound during HIFU therapy

    Science.gov (United States)

    Georg, O.; Wilkens, V.

    2017-03-01

    The use of HIFU for thermal ablation of human tissues requires safe real-time monitoring of the lesion formation during the treatment to avoid damage of the surrounding healthy tissues and to control temperature rise. Besides MR imaging, several methods have been proposed for temperature imaging using diagnostic ultrasound, and echoshift estimation (using speckle tracking) is the most promising and commonly used technique. It is based on the thermal dependence of the ultrasound echo that accounts for two different physical phenomena: local change in speed of sound and thermal expansion of the propagating medium due to changes in temperature. In our experiments we have used two separate transducers: HIFU exposure was performed using a 1.06 MHz single element focusing transducer of 64 mm aperture and 63.2 mm focal length; the ultrasound diagnostic probe of 11 MHz operated in B-mode for image guidance. The temperature measurements were performed in an agar-based tissue-mimicking phantom. To verify the obtained results, numerical modeling of the acoustic and temperature fields was carried out using KZK and Pennes Bioheat equations, as well as measurements with thermocouples were performed.

  12. MR-guided HIFU treatment of symptomatic uterine fibroids using novel feedback-regulated volumetric ablation: effectiveness and clinical practice.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ruhnke, H; Eckey, T; Bohlmann, M K; Beldoch, M P; Neumann, A; Agic, A; Hägele, J; Diedrich, K; Barkhausen, J; Hunold, P

    2013-09-01

    To evaluate a novel feedback-regulated volumetric sonication method in MR-guided HIFU treatment of symptomatic uterine fibroids. 27 fibroids with an average volume of 124.9 ± 139.8 cc in 18 women with symptomatic uterine fibroids were ablated using the new HIFU system Sonalleve (1.5 T MR system Achieva, Philips). 21 myomas in 13 women were reevaluated 6 months later. Standard (treatment) cells (TC) and feedback-regulated (feedback) cells (FC) with a diameter of 4, 8, 12, and 16 mm were used and compared concerning sonication success, diameter of induced necrosis, and maximum achieved temperature. The non-perfused volume ratio (NPV related to myoma volume) was quantified. The fibroid volume was measured before, 1 month, and 6 months after therapy. Symptoms were quantified using a specific questionnaire (UFS-QoL). In total, 205 TC and 227 FC were applied. The NPV ratio was 23 ± 15 % (2 - 55). The TC were slightly smaller than intended (-3.9 ± 52 %; range, -100 - 81), while the FC were 20.1 ± 25.3 % bigger (p = 0.02). Feedback mechanism is less diversifying in diameter (p feedback cells leads to more contiguous necrosis in diameter and a less diversifying temperature. ▶ MR-guided HIFU ablation of symptomatic uterine fibroids is a valuable treatment option. ▶ By non-invasive HIFU fibroid volumes can be reduced and symptoms improved. ▶ The novel feedback-regulated treatment cells offer advantages over standard treatment cells. © Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York.

  13. High speed observation of HIFU-induced cavitation cloud near curved rigid boundaries

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Zuo, Z G; Wang, F B; Liu, S H; Wu, S J

    2015-01-01

    This paper focuses on the experimental study of the influence of surface curvature to the behaviour of HIFU-induced cavitation cloud. A Q-switched ruby pulse laser is used to induce cavitation nuclei in deionized water. A piezoelectric ultrasonic transducer (1.7 MHz) provides a focused ultrasound field to inspire the nucleus to cavitation cloud. A PZT probe type hydrophone is applied for measuring the HIFU sound field. It was observed that the motion of cavitation cloud located near the boundary is significantly influenced by the distance between cloud and boundary, as well as the curvature of the boundary. The curvature was defined by parameters λ and ξ. Convex boundary, concave boundary, and flat boundary correspond to ξ <1, ξ >1 and ξ = 1, respectively. Different behaviours of the cloud, including the migration of the cloud, the characteristics of oscillation, etc., were observed under different boundary curvatures by high-speed photography. Sonoluminescence of the acoustic cavitation bubble clouds were also studied to illustrate the characteristics of acoustic streaming

  14. FPGA implementation of ICA algorithm for blind signal separation and adaptive noise canceling.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kim, Chang-Min; Park, Hyung-Min; Kim, Taesu; Choi, Yoon-Kyung; Lee, Soo-Young

    2003-01-01

    An field programmable gate array (FPGA) implementation of independent component analysis (ICA) algorithm is reported for blind signal separation (BSS) and adaptive noise canceling (ANC) in real time. In order to provide enormous computing power for ICA-based algorithms with multipath reverberation, a special digital processor is designed and implemented in FPGA. The chip design fully utilizes modular concept and several chips may be put together for complex applications with a large number of noise sources. Experimental results with a fabricated test board are reported for ANC only, BSS only, and simultaneous ANC/BSS, which demonstrates successful speech enhancement in real environments in real time.

  15. Design of a Low-Power VLSI Macrocell for Nonlinear Adaptive Video Noise Reduction

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sergio Saponara

    2004-09-01

    Full Text Available A VLSI macrocell for edge-preserving video noise reduction is proposed in the paper. It is based on a nonlinear rational filter enhanced by a noise estimator for blind and dynamic adaptation of the filtering parameters to the input signal statistics. The VLSI filter features a modular architecture allowing the extension of both mask size and filtering directions. Both spatial and spatiotemporal algorithms are supported. Simulation results with monochrome test videos prove its efficiency for many noise distributions with PSNR improvements up to 3.8 dB with respect to a nonadaptive solution. The VLSI macrocell has been realized in a 0.18 μm CMOS technology using a standard-cells library; it allows for real-time processing of main video formats, up to 30 fps (frames per second 4CIF, with a power consumption in the order of few mW.

  16. Root locus analysis and design of the adaptation process in active noise control.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tabatabaei Ardekani, Iman; Abdulla, Waleed H

    2012-10-01

    This paper applies root locus theory to develop a graphical tool for the analysis and design of adaptive active noise control systems. It is shown that the poles of the adaptation process performed in these systems move on typical trajectories in the z-plane as the adaptation step-size varies. Based on this finding, the dominant root of the adaptation process and its trajectory can be determined. The first contribution of this paper is formulating parameters of the adaptation process root locus. The next contribution is introducing a mechanism for modifying the trajectory of the dominant root in the root locus. This mechanism creates a single open loop zero in the original root locus. It is shown that appropriate localization of this zero can cause the dominant root of the locus to be pushed toward the origin, and thereby the adaptation process becomes faster. The validity of the theoretical findings is confirmed in an experimental setup which is implemented using real-time multi-threading and multi-core processing techniques.

  17. Marginalized adaptive particle filtering for nonlinear models with unknown time-varying noise parameters

    Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

    Ökzan, E.; Šmídl, Václav; Saha, S.; Lundquist, C.; Gustafsson, F.

    2013-01-01

    Roč. 49, č. 6 (2013), s. 1566-1575 ISSN 0005-1098 R&D Projects: GA ČR(CZ) GAP102/11/0437 Keywords : Unknown Noise Statistics * Adaptive Filtering * Marginalized Particle Filter * Bayesian Conjugate prior Subject RIV: BC - Control Systems Theory Impact factor: 3.132, year: 2013 http://library.utia.cas.cz/separaty/2013/AS/smidl-0393047.pdf

  18. A de-noising algorithm based on wavelet threshold-exponential adaptive window width-fitting for ground electrical source airborne transient electromagnetic signal

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ji, Yanju; Li, Dongsheng; Yu, Mingmei; Wang, Yuan; Wu, Qiong; Lin, Jun

    2016-05-01

    The ground electrical source airborne transient electromagnetic system (GREATEM) on an unmanned aircraft enjoys considerable prospecting depth, lateral resolution and detection efficiency, etc. In recent years it has become an important technical means of rapid resources exploration. However, GREATEM data are extremely vulnerable to stationary white noise and non-stationary electromagnetic noise (sferics noise, aircraft engine noise and other human electromagnetic noises). These noises will cause degradation of the imaging quality for data interpretation. Based on the characteristics of the GREATEM data and major noises, we propose a de-noising algorithm utilizing wavelet threshold method and exponential adaptive window width-fitting. Firstly, the white noise is filtered in the measured data using the wavelet threshold method. Then, the data are segmented using data window whose step length is even logarithmic intervals. The data polluted by electromagnetic noise are identified within each window based on the discriminating principle of energy detection, and the attenuation characteristics of the data slope are extracted. Eventually, an exponential fitting algorithm is adopted to fit the attenuation curve of each window, and the data polluted by non-stationary electromagnetic noise are replaced with their fitting results. Thus the non-stationary electromagnetic noise can be effectively removed. The proposed algorithm is verified by the synthetic and real GREATEM signals. The results show that in GREATEM signal, stationary white noise and non-stationary electromagnetic noise can be effectively filtered using the wavelet threshold-exponential adaptive window width-fitting algorithm, which enhances the imaging quality.

  19. Effect of high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU combined with radiotherapy on tumor malignancy in patients with advanced pancreatic cancer and evaluation of side effects

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jing Li

    2017-02-01

    Full Text Available Objective: To study the effect of high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU combined with radiotherapy on tumor malignancy in patients with advanced pancreatic cancer and the corresponding side effects. Methods: A total of 84 patients with advanced pancreatic cancer treated in our hospital between May 2013 and March 2016 were selected and randomly divided into HIFU group and IGRT group, HIFU group accepted high-intensity focused ultrasound combined with radiotherapy and IGRT group received radiotherapy alone. 4 weeks after treatment, the levels of tumor markers, liver and kidney function indexes, perineural invasionrelated molecules and cytokines in serum as well as the levels of immune cells in peripheral blood were determined. Results: 4 weeks after treatment, serum CA199, CA242, OPN, NGAL, RBP4, NGF, TrkA, p75, BDNF and TrkB levels of HIFU group were significantly lower than those of IGRT group, serum IL-2, TNF-毩, IFN-γ and IL-13 levels as well as peripheral blood NKT cell and CD4+T cell levels were significantly higher than those of IGRT group, and serum ALT, AST, Cr and BUN levels were not significantly different from those of IGRT group. Conclusion: HIFU combined with radiotherapy treatment of advanced pancreatic cancer can more effectively kill cancer cells, inhibit pancreatic cancer cell invasion to the peripheral nerve and enhance the antitumor immune response mediated by NKT cells and CD4+T cells.

  20. Procedural sedation and analgesia for respiratory-gated MR-HIFU in the liver : a feasibility study

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    van Breugel, Marjolein; Wijlemans, JW; Vaessen, Hermanus H B; de Greef, Martijn; Moonen, Chrit T W; van den Bosch, Maurice A A J; Ries, Mario G

    2016-01-01

    BACKGROUND: Previous studies demonstrated both pre-clinically and clinically the feasibility of magnetic resonance-guided high-intensity focused ultrasound (MR-HIFU) ablations in the liver. To overcome the associated problem of respiratory motion of the ablation area, general anesthesia (GA) and

  1. Influence of cavitation bubble growth by rectified diffusion on cavitation-enhanced HIFU

    Science.gov (United States)

    Okita, Kohei; Sugiyama, Kazuyasu; Takagi, Shu; Matsumoto, Yoichiro

    2017-11-01

    Cavitation is becoming increasingly important in therapeutic ultrasound applications such as diagnostic, tumor ablation and lithotripsy. Mass transfer through gas-liquid interface due to rectified diffusion is important role in an initial stage of cavitation bubble growth. In the present study, influences of the rectified diffusion on cavitation-enhanced high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) was investigated numerically. Firstly, the mass transfer rate of gas from the surrounding medium to the bubble was examined as function of the initial bubble radius and the driving pressure amplitude. As the result, the pressure required to bubble growth was decreases with increasing the initial bubble radius. Next, the cavitation-enhanced HIFU, which generates cavitation bubbles by high-intensity burst and induces the localized heating owing to cavitation bubble oscillation by low-intensity continuous waves, was reproduced by the present simulation. The heating region obtained by the simulation is agree to the treatment region of an in vitro experiment. Additionally, the simulation result shows that the localized heating is enhanced by the increase of the equilibrium bubble size due to the rectified diffusion. This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Numbers JP26420125,JP17K06170.

  2. A History of the Sonocare CST-100: The First FDA-approved HIFU Device

    Science.gov (United States)

    Muratore, Robert

    2006-05-01

    The Sonocare CST-100 Therapeutic Ultrasound System, designed for the treatment of glaucoma, was developed in the 1980s and became the first high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) device to receive Food and Drug Administration approval. The system arose from studies done by F.L. Lizzi, Eng.Sc.D., of Riverside Research Institute and D.J. Coleman, M.D., of Cornell Medical Center/New York Hospital on the safety of ultrasound diagnosis of the eye. As safety limits were probed, therapeutic regimes were discovered. Optimization of operational parameters, clinical experience, and engineering design came together through a spin-off company, Sonocare, Inc., formed to produce and market the ophthalmic device. Various precedents were set during the approval process, including the acceptance by the FDA of radiation momentum imparted to an absorber as a measure of acoustic power. Many devices were sold, but the laser industry, grandfathered into the therapeutic field, eventually out-marketed Sonocare. The CST-100 remains as a model of elegant industrial design, and existing units are used daily in HIFU laboratory experiments.

  3. Fast lesion mapping during HIFU treatment using harmonic motion imaging guided focused ultrasound (HMIgFUS) in vitro and in vivo

    Science.gov (United States)

    Han, Yang; Wang, Shutao; Payen, Thomas; Konofagou, Elisa

    2017-04-01

    The successful clinical application of high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) ablation depends on reliable monitoring of the lesion formation. Harmonic motion imaging guided focused ultrasound (HMIgFUS) is an ultrasound-based elasticity imaging technique, which monitors HIFU ablation based on the stiffness change of the tissue instead of the echo intensity change in conventional B-mode monitoring, rendering it potentially more sensitive to lesion development. Our group has shown that predicting the lesion location based on the radiation force-excited region is feasible during HMIgFUS. In this study, the feasibility of a fast lesion mapping method is explored to directly monitor the lesion map during HIFU. The harmonic motion imaging (HMI) lesion map was generated by subtracting the reference HMI image from the present HMI peak-to-peak displacement map, as streamed on the computer display. The dimensions of the HMIgFUS lesions were compared against gross pathology. Excellent agreement was found between the lesion depth (r 2  =  0.81, slope  =  0.90), width (r 2  =  0.85, slope  =  1.12) and area (r 2  =  0.58, slope  =  0.75). In vivo feasibility was assessed in a mouse with a pancreatic tumor. These findings demonstrate that HMIgFUS can successfully map thermal lesions and monitor lesion development in real time in vitro and in vivo. The HMIgFUS technique may therefore constitute a novel clinical tool for HIFU treatment monitoring.

  4. Joint Use of Adaptive Equalization and Cyclic Noise Cancellation for Band-Limited OQAM Based Multi-Carrier Transmission in Power-Line Communication Systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kunishima, Hiromitsu; Koga, Hisao; Muta, Osamu; Akaiwa, Yoshihiko

    Power-line communication (PLC) technique is one method to realize high-speed communications in a home network. In PLC channels, the transmission signal quality is degraded by colored non-Gaussian noise as well as frequency-selectivity of the channels. In this paper, we describe our investigation of the performance of a OQAM-MCT system in which a noise canceller is used jointly with a time-domain per-subcarrier adaptive equalizer. Furthermore, we propose a noise cancellation method designed for the OQAM-MCT system. The performance of the OQAM-MCT system is evaluated in PLC channels with measured impulse responses in the presence of measured noise. Computer simulation results show that the bit rate of the OQAM-MCT system is improved using both an adaptive equalizer and noise canceller, and that the OQAM-MCT system achieves better performance than an OFDM system with an insufficient length of the guard interval.

  5. A NOISE ADAPTIVE FUZZY EQUALIZATION METHOD FOR PROCESSING SOLAR EXTREME ULTRAVIOLET IMAGES

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Druckmueller, M., E-mail: druckmuller@fme.vutbr.cz [Institute of Mathematics, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Brno University of Technology, Technicka 2, 616 69 Brno (Czech Republic)

    2013-08-15

    A new image enhancement tool ideally suited for the visualization of fine structures in extreme ultraviolet images of the corona is presented in this paper. The Noise Adaptive Fuzzy Equalization method is particularly suited for the exceptionally high dynamic range images from the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly instrument on the Solar Dynamics Observatory. This method produces artifact-free images and gives significantly better results than methods based on convolution or Fourier transform which are often used for that purpose.

  6. Experimental Validation of a Novel MRI-Compatible HIFU Device for the Treatment of Superficial Venous Insufficiency

    Science.gov (United States)

    Salomir, Rares; Pichardo, Samuel; Petrusca, Lorena; Angel, Yves; Lacoste, François; Chapelon, Jean-Yves

    2007-05-01

    A novel High Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU) probe has been designed for minimally-invasive treatment of valvular dysfunction in the saphenous vein, which is known to be the cause of superficial venous insufficiency (SVI) and varicose veins. Treating SVI with HIFU is possible, since venous tissue undergoes localized partial shrinkage when subjected to high temperature elevation. In a previous study in vitro we demonstrated that diameter shrinkage should be sufficient to restore valvular function, as this is done in the more aggressive approach known as external valvuloplasty. Numerical optimization using fast simulations of pressure field have led to a non-spherically shaped probe design with two HIFU elements that focus ultrasound uniformly over a line of length 7 mm, at a depth of 15 mm from the skin. A MR-compatible prototype of the probe has been constructed and this was characterized 1). by electroacustical mapping of the pressure field in water, and 2). by fast, high resolution MR thermal mapping ex vivo on fresh meat samples. Results were in good agreement with those predicted by an analytical approach and numerical simulations. Available experimental data suggest that a short sonication (less than 10 sec duration) should permit sufficient temperature elevation to obtain vein shrinkage. Further studies will be performed on surgically excised samples of human veins under MR thermal mapping in order to determine the optimal sonication parameters (duration and power level).

  7. Design of HIFU Transducers to Generate Specific Nonlinear Ultrasound Fields

    Science.gov (United States)

    Khokhlova, Vera A.; Yuldashev, Petr V.; Rosnitskiy, Pavel B.; Maxwell, Adam D.; Kreider, Wayne; Bailey, Michael R.; Sapozhnikov, Oleg A.

    Various clinical applications of high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) have different requirements on the pressure level and degree of nonlinear waveform distortion at the focus. Applications that utilize nonlinear waves with developed shocks are of growing interest, for example, for mechanical disintegration as well as for accelerated thermal ablation oftissue. In this work, an inverse problem of determining transducer parameters to enable formation of shockswith desired amplitude at the focus is solved. The solution was obtained by performing multipledirect simulations of the parabolic Khokhlov-Zabolotskaya-Kuznetsov (KZK) equation for various parameters of the source. It is shown that results obtained within the parabolic approximation can be used to describe the focal region of single element spherical sourcesas well as complex transducer arrays. It is also demonstrated that the focal pressure level at which fully developed shocksare formed mainly depends on the focusing angle of the source and only slightly depends on its aperture and operating frequency. Using the simulation results, a 256-element HIFU array operating at 1.5 MHz frequency was designed for a specific application of boiling-histotripsy that relies on the presence of 90-100 MPa shocks at the focus. The size of the array elements and focusing angle of the array were chosen to satisfy technical limitations on the intensity at the array elements and desired shock amplitudes in the focal waveform. Focus steering capabilities of the array were analysed using an open-source T-Array software developed at Moscow State University.

  8. Adaptive filtration of speech signals in the presence of correlated noise with random variation of probabilistic characteristics

    OpenAIRE

    M. O. Partala; S. Ya. Zhuk

    2007-01-01

    On the base of mixed Markoff process in discrete time optimal and quasioptimal algorithms is designed for adaptive filtration of speech signals in the presence of correlated noise with random variation of probabilistic characteristics.

  9. Study on the Noise Reduction of Vehicle Exhaust NOX Spectra Based on Adaptive EEMD Algorithm

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kai Zhang

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available It becomes a key technology to measure the concentration of the vehicle exhaust components with the transmission spectra. But in the conventional methods for noise reduction and baseline correction, such as wavelet transform, derivative, interpolation, polynomial fitting, and so forth, the basic functions of these algorithms, the number of decomposition layers, and the way to reconstruct the signal have to be adjusted according to the characteristics of different components in the transmission spectra. The parameter settings of the algorithms above are not transcendental, so with them, it is difficult to achieve the best noise reduction effect for the vehicle exhaust spectra which are sharp and drastic in the waveform. In this paper, an adaptive ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD denoising model based on a special normalized index optimization is proposed and used in the spectral noise reduction of vehicle exhaust NOX. It is shown with the experimental results that the method can effectively improve the accuracy of the spectral noise reduction and simplify the denoising process and its operation difficulty.

  10. Active noise cancellation in hearing devices

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    2013-01-01

    Disclosed is a hearing device system comprising at least one hearing aid circuitry and at least one active noise cancellation unit, the at least one hearing aid circuitry comprises at least one input transducer adapted to convert a first audio signal to an electric audio signal; a signal processor...... connected to the at least one input transducer and adapted to process said electric audio signal by at least partially correcting for a hearing loss of a user; an output transducer adapted to generate from at least said processed electric audio signal a sound pressure in an ear canal of the user, whereby...... the generated sound pressure is at least partially corrected for the hearing loss of the user; ; the at least one active noise cancellation unit being adapted to provide an active noise cancellation signal adapted to perform active noise cancellation of an acoustical signal entering the ear canal in addition...

  11. Characterization of HIFU transducers designed for sonochemistry application: Acoustic streaming.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hallez, L; Touyeras, F; Hihn, J-Y; Bailly, Y

    2016-03-01

    Cavitation distribution in a High Intensity Focused Ultrasound sonoreactors (HIFU) has been extensively described in the recent literature, including quantification by an optical method (Sonochemiluminescence SCL). The present paper provides complementary measurements through the study of acoustic streaming generated by the same kind of HIFU transducers. To this end, results of mass transfer measurements (electrodiffusional method) were compared to optical method ones (Particle Image Velocimetry). This last one was used in various configurations: with or without an electrode in the acoustic field in order to have the same perturbation of the wave propagation. Results show that the maximum velocity is not located at the focal but shifted near the transducer, and that this shift is greater for high powers. The two cavitation modes (stationary and moving bubbles) are greatly affect the hydrodynamic behavior of our sonoreactors: acoustic streaming and the fluid generated by bubble motion. The results obtained by electrochemical measurements show the same low hydrodynamic activity in the transducer vicinity, the same shift of the active focal toward the transducer, and the same absence of activity in the post-focal axial zone. The comparison with theoretical Eckart's velocities (acoustic streaming in non-cavitating media) confirms a very high activity at the "sonochemical focal", accounted for by wave distortion, which induced greater absorption coefficients. Moreover, the equivalent liquid velocities are one order of magnitude larger than the ones measured by PIV, confirming the enhancement of mass transfer by bubbles oscillation and collapse close to the surface, rather than from a pure streaming effect. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  12. Improved CEEMDAN-wavelet transform de-noising method and its application in well logging noise reduction

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Jingxia; Guo, Yinghai; Shen, Yulin; Zhao, Difei; Li, Mi

    2018-06-01

    The use of geophysical logging data to identify lithology is an important groundwork in logging interpretation. Inevitably, noise is mixed in during data collection due to the equipment and other external factors and this will affect the further lithological identification and other logging interpretation. Therefore, to get a more accurate lithological identification it is necessary to adopt de-noising methods. In this study, a new de-noising method, namely improved complete ensemble empirical mode decomposition with adaptive noise (CEEMDAN)-wavelet transform, is proposed, which integrates the superiorities of improved CEEMDAN and wavelet transform. Improved CEEMDAN, an effective self-adaptive multi-scale analysis method, is used to decompose non-stationary signals as the logging data to obtain the intrinsic mode function (IMF) of N different scales and one residual. Moreover, one self-adaptive scale selection method is used to determine the reconstruction scale k. Simultaneously, given the possible frequency aliasing problem between adjacent IMFs, a wavelet transform threshold de-noising method is used to reduce the noise of the (k-1)th IMF. Subsequently, the de-noised logging data are reconstructed by the de-noised (k-1)th IMF and the remaining low-frequency IMFs and the residual. Finally, empirical mode decomposition, improved CEEMDAN, wavelet transform and the proposed method are applied for analysis of the simulation and the actual data. Results show diverse performance of these de-noising methods with regard to accuracy for lithological identification. Compared with the other methods, the proposed method has the best self-adaptability and accuracy in lithological identification.

  13. Design and characterization of a laterally mounted phased-array transducer breast-specific MRgHIFU device with integrated 11-channel receiver array.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Payne, A; Merrill, R; Minalga, E; Vyas, U; de Bever, J; Todd, N; Hadley, R; Dumont, E; Neumayer, L; Christensen, D; Roemer, R; Parker, D

    2012-03-01

    This work presents the design and preliminary evaluation of a new laterally mounted phased-array MRI-guided high-intensity focused ultrasound (MRgHIFU) system with an integrated 11-channel phased-array radio frequency (RF) coil intended for breast cancer treatment. The design goals for the system included the ability to treat the majority of tumor locations, to increase the MR image's signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) throughout the treatment volume and to provide adequate comfort for the patient. In order to treat the majority of the breast volume, the device was designed such that the treated breast is suspended in a 17-cm diameter treatment cylinder. A laterally shooting 1-MHz, 256-element phased-array ultrasound transducer with flexible positioning is mounted outside the treatment cylinder. This configuration achieves a reduced water volume to minimize RF coil loading effects, to position the coils closer to the breast for increased signal sensitivity, and to reduce the MR image noise associated with using water as the coupling fluid. This design uses an 11-channel phased-array RF coil that is placed on the outer surface of the cylinder surrounding the breast. Mechanical positioning of the transducer and electronic steering of the focal spot enable placement of the ultrasound focus at arbitrary locations throughout the suspended breast. The treatment platform allows the patient to lie prone in a face-down position. The system was tested for comfort with 18 normal volunteers and SNR capabilities in one normal volunteer and for heating accuracy and stability in homogeneous phantom and inhomogeneous ex vivo porcine tissue. There was a 61% increase in mean relative SNR achieved in a homogeneous phantom using the 11-channel RF coil when compared to using only a single-loop coil around the chest wall. The repeatability of the system's energy delivery in a single location was excellent, with less than 3% variability between repeated temperature measurements at the same

  14. AN ADAPTIVE OPTIMAL KALMAN FILTER FOR STOCHASTIC VIBRATION CONTROL SYSTEM WITH UNKNOWN NOISE VARIANCES

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    Li Shu; Zhuo Jiashou; Ren Qingwen

    2000-01-01

    In this paper, an optimal criterion is presented for adaptive Kalman filter in a control sys tem with unknown variances of stochastic vibration by constructing a function of noise variances and minimizing the function. We solve the model and measure variances by using DFP optimal method to guarantee the results of Kalman filter to be optimized. Finally, the control of vibration can be implemented by LQG method.

  15. A framework for the correction of slow physiological drifts during MR-guided HIFU therapies : Proof of concept

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Zachiu, Cornel; de Senneville, Baudouin Denis; Moonen, Chrit; Ries, Mario

    Purpose: While respiratory motion compensation for magnetic resonance (MR)-guided high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) interventions has been extensively studied, the influence of slow physiological motion due to, for example, peristaltic activity, has so far been largely neglected. During

  16. Improved Noise Minimum Statistics Estimation Algorithm for Using in a Speech-Passing Noise-Rejecting Headset

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Seyedtabaee Saeed

    2010-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper deals with configuration of an algorithm to be used in a speech-passing angle grinder noise-canceling headset. Angle grinder noise is annoying and interrupts ordinary oral communication. Meaning that, low SNR noisy condition is ahead. Since variation in angle grinder working condition changes noise statistics, the noise will be nonstationary with possible jumps in its power. Studies are conducted for picking an appropriate algorithm. A modified version of the well-known spectral subtraction shows superior performance against alternate methods. Noise estimation is calculated through a multi-band fast adapting scheme. The algorithm is adapted very quickly to the non-stationary noise environment while inflecting minimum musical noise and speech distortion on the processed signal. Objective and subjective measures illustrating the performance of the proposed method are introduced.

  17. An adaptive image sparse reconstruction method combined with nonlocal similarity and cosparsity for mixed Gaussian-Poisson noise removal

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Yong-fei; Gao, Hong-xia; Wu, Zi-ling; Kang, Hui

    2018-01-01

    Compressed sensing (CS) has achieved great success in single noise removal. However, it cannot restore the images contaminated with mixed noise efficiently. This paper introduces nonlocal similarity and cosparsity inspired by compressed sensing to overcome the difficulties in mixed noise removal, in which nonlocal similarity explores the signal sparsity from similar patches, and cosparsity assumes that the signal is sparse after a possibly redundant transform. Meanwhile, an adaptive scheme is designed to keep the balance between mixed noise removal and detail preservation based on local variance. Finally, IRLSM and RACoSaMP are adopted to solve the objective function. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method is superior to conventional CS methods, like K-SVD and state-of-art method nonlocally centralized sparse representation (NCSR), in terms of both visual results and quantitative measures.

  18. Adaptive Beamforming Algorithms for Tow Ship Noise Canceling

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Robert, M.K.; Beerens, S.P.

    2002-01-01

    In towed array sonar, the directional noise originating from the tow ship, mainly machinery and hydrodynamic noise, often limits the sonar performance. When processed with classical beamforming techniques, loud tow ship noise induces high sidelobes that may hide detection of quiet targets in forward

  19. HIFU Transducer Characterization Using a Robust Needle Hydrophone

    Science.gov (United States)

    Howard, Samuel M.; Zanelli, Claudio I.

    2007-05-01

    A robust needle hydrophone has been developed for HIFU transducer characterization and reported on earlier. After a brief review of the hydrophone design and performance, we demonstrate its use to characterize a 1.5 MHz, 10 cm diameter, F-number 1.5 spherically focused source driven to exceed an intensity of 1400 W/cm2at its focus. Quantitative characterization of this source at high powers is assisted by deconvolving the hydrophone's calibrated frequency response in order to accurately reflect the contribution of harmonics generated by nonlinear propagation in the water testing environment. Results are compared to measurements with a membrane hydrophone at 0.3% duty cycle and to theoretical calculations, using measurements of the field at the source's radiating surface as input to a numerical solution of the KZK equation.

  20. Adaptive Multiscale Noise Control Enhanced Stochastic Resonance Method Based on Modified EEMD with Its Application in Bearing Fault Diagnosis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jimeng Li

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available The structure of mechanical equipment becomes increasingly complex, and tough environments under which it works often make bearings and gears subject to failure. However, effective extraction of useful feature information submerged in strong noise that is indicative of structural defects has remained a major challenge. Therefore, an adaptive multiscale noise control enhanced stochastic resonance (SR method based on modified ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD for mechanical fault diagnosis is proposed in the paper. According to the oscillation characteristics of signal itself, the algorithm of modified EEMD can adaptively decompose the fault signals into different scales and it reduces the decomposition levels to improve calculation efficiency of the proposed method. Through filter processing with the constructed filters, the orthogonality of adjacent intrinsic mode functions (IMFs can be improved, which is conducive to enhancing the extraction of weak features from strong noise. The constructed signal obtained by using IMFs is inputted into the SR system, and the noise control parameter of different scales is optimized and selected with the help of the genetic algorithm, thus achieving the enhancement extraction of weak features. Finally, simulation experiments and engineering application of bearing fault diagnosis demonstrate the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed method.

  1. Intra-operative ultrasound hand-held strain imaging for the visualization of ablations produced in the liver with a toroidal HIFU transducer: first in vivo results

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Chenot, J; Melodelima, D; N' Djin, W A; Souchon, Remi; Rivoire, M; Chapelon, J Y, E-mail: jeremy.chenot@inserm.f [Inserm, U556, Lyon, F-69003 (France)

    2010-06-07

    The use of hand-held ultrasound strain imaging for the intra-operative real-time visualization of HIFU (high-intensity focused ultrasound) ablations produced in the liver by a toroidal transducer was investigated. A linear 12 MHz ultrasound imaging probe was used to obtain radiofrequency signals. Using a fast cross-correlation algorithm, strain images were calculated and displayed at 60 frames s{sup -1}, allowing the use of hand-held strain imaging intra-operatively. Fourteen HIFU lesions were produced in four pigs. Intra-operative strain imaging of HIFU ablations in the liver was feasible owing to the high frame rate. The correlation between dimensions measured on gross pathology and dimensions measured on B-mode images and on strain images were R = 0.72 and R = 0.94 respectively. The contrast between ablated and non-ablated tissue was significantly higher (p < 0.05) in the strain images (22 dB) than in the B-mode images (9 dB). Strain images allowed equivalent or improved definition of ablated regions when compared with B-mode images. Real-time intra-operative hand-held strain imaging seems to be a promising complement to conventional B-mode imaging for the guidance of HIFU ablations produced in the liver during an open procedure. These results support that hand-held strain imaging outperforms conventional B-mode ultrasound and could potentially be used for the assessment of thermal therapies.

  2. Noise Tomography and Adaptive Illumination in Noise Radar

    Science.gov (United States)

    2015-10-01

    transform of scatu , defined in (2.15), in y–direction can be written as 2 ( , , ) ( , ) 2 j dn n scat n y scat n y k EU k x d k e O k k j...and J. A. Henning , "Radar penetration imaging using ultra- wideband (UWB) random noise waveforms," IEE Proceedings-Radar Sonar and Navigation, vol

  3. New parameters in adaptive testing of ferromagnetic materials utilizing magnetic Barkhausen noise

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Pal’a, Jozef; Ušák, Elemír

    2016-01-01

    A new method of magnetic Barkhausen noise (MBN) measurement and optimization of the measured data processing with respect to non-destructive evaluation of ferromagnetic materials was tested. Using this method we tried to found, if it is possible to enhance sensitivity and stability of measurement results by replacing the traditional MBN parameter (root mean square) with some new parameter. In the tested method, a complex set of the MBN from minor hysteresis loops is measured. Afterward, the MBN data are collected into suitably designed matrices and optimal parameters of MBN with respect to maximum sensitivity to the evaluated variable are searched. The method was verified on plastically deformed steel samples. It was shown that the proposed measuring method and measured data processing bring an improvement of the sensitivity to the evaluated variable when comparing with measuring traditional MBN parameter. Moreover, we found a parameter of MBN, which is highly resistant to the changes of applied field amplitude and at the same time it is noticeably more sensitive to the evaluated variable. - Highlights: • We test an adaptive magnetic Barkhausen noise method. • The method utilizes measuring a complex set of Barkhausen noise signals. • We define new matrices of parameters for this method. • The pulse density is highly resistant to changes in applied field amplitude.

  4. Real-time temperature estimation and monitoring of HIFU ablation through a combined modeling and passive acoustic mapping approach

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Jensen, C R; Cleveland, R O; Coussios, C C

    2013-01-01

    Passive acoustic mapping (PAM) has been recently demonstrated as a method of monitoring focused ultrasound therapy by reconstructing the emissions created by inertially cavitating bubbles (Jensen et al 2012 Radiology 262 252–61). The published method sums energy emitted by cavitation from the focal region within the tissue and uses a threshold to determine when sufficient energy has been delivered for ablation. The present work builds on this approach to provide a high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) treatment monitoring software that displays both real-time temperature maps and a prediction of the ablated tissue region. This is achieved by determining heat deposition from two sources: (i) acoustic absorption of the primary HIFU beam which is calculated via a nonlinear model, and (ii) absorption of energy from bubble acoustic emissions which is estimated from measurements. The two sources of heat are used as inputs to the bioheat equation that gives an estimate of the temperature of the tissue as well as estimates of tissue ablation. The method has been applied to ex vivo ox liver samples and the estimated temperature is compared to the measured temperature and shows good agreement, capturing the effect of cavitation-enhanced heating on temperature evolution. In conclusion, it is demonstrated that by using PAM and predictions of heating it is possible to produce an evolving estimate of cell death during exposure in order to guide treatment for monitoring ablative HIFU therapy. (paper)

  5. Development of a Voice Activity Controlled Noise Canceller

    Science.gov (United States)

    Abid Noor, Ali O.; Samad, Salina Abdul; Hussain, Aini

    2012-01-01

    In this paper, a variable threshold voice activity detector (VAD) is developed to control the operation of a two-sensor adaptive noise canceller (ANC). The VAD prohibits the reference input of the ANC from containing some strength of actual speech signal during adaptation periods. The novelty of this approach resides in using the residual output from the noise canceller to control the decisions made by the VAD. Thresholds of full-band energy and zero-crossing features are adjusted according to the residual output of the adaptive filter. Performance evaluation of the proposed approach is quoted in terms of signal to noise ratio improvements as well mean square error (MSE) convergence of the ANC. The new approach showed an improved noise cancellation performance when tested under several types of environmental noise. Furthermore, the computational power of the adaptive process is reduced since the output of the adaptive filter is efficiently calculated only during non-speech periods. PMID:22778667

  6. Development of a Voice Activity Controlled Noise Canceller

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Aini Hussain

    2012-05-01

    Full Text Available In this paper, a variable threshold voice activity detector (VAD is developed to control the operation of a two-sensor adaptive noise canceller (ANC. The VAD prohibits the reference input of the ANC from containing some strength of actual speech signal during adaptation periods. The novelty of this approach resides in using the residual output from the noise canceller to control the decisions made by the VAD. Thresholds of full-band energy and zero-crossing features are adjusted according to the residual output of the adaptive filter. Performance evaluation of the proposed approach is quoted in terms of signal to noise ratio improvements as well mean square error (MSE convergence of the ANC. The new approach showed an improved noise cancellation performance when tested under several types of environmental noise. Furthermore, the computational power of the adaptive process is reduced since the output of the adaptive filter is efficiently calculated only during non-speech periods.

  7. Communal Sensor Network for Adaptive Noise Reduction in Aircraft Engine Nacelles

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jones, Kennie H.; Nark, Douglas M.; Jones, Michael G.

    2011-01-01

    Emergent behavior, a subject of much research in biology, sociology, and economics, is a foundational element of Complex Systems Science and is apropos in the design of sensor network systems. To demonstrate engineering for emergent behavior, a novel approach in the design of a sensor/actuator network is presented maintaining optimal noise attenuation as an adaptation to changing acoustic conditions. Rather than use the conventional approach where sensors are managed by a central controller, this new paradigm uses a biomimetic model where sensor/actuators cooperate as a community of autonomous organisms, sharing with neighbors to control impedance based on local information. From the combination of all individual actions, an optimal attenuation emerges for the global system.

  8. Active microphonic noise cancellation in radiation detectors

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Zimmermann, Sergio

    2013-01-01

    A new adaptive filtering technique to reduce microphonic noise in radiation detectors is presented. The technique is based on system identification that actively cancels the microphonic noise. A sensor is used to measures mechanical disturbances that cause vibration on the detector assembly, and the digital adaptive filtering estimates the impact of these disturbances on the microphonic noise. The noise then can be subtracted from the actual detector measurement. In this paper the technique is presented and simulations are used to support this approach. -- Highlights: •A sensor is used to measures mechanical disturbances that cause vibration on the detector assembly. •Digital adaptive filtering estimates the impact of these disturbances on the microphonic noise. •The noise is then subtracted from the actual detector measurement. •We use simulations to demonstrate the performance of this approach. •After cancellation, we recover most of the original energy resolution

  9. Weak-lensing shear estimates with general adaptive moments, and studies of bias by pixellation, PSF distortions, and noise

    Science.gov (United States)

    Simon, Patrick; Schneider, Peter

    2017-08-01

    In weak gravitational lensing, weighted quadrupole moments of the brightness profile in galaxy images are a common way to estimate gravitational shear. We have employed general adaptive moments (GLAM ) to study causes of shear bias on a fundamental level and for a practical definition of an image ellipticity. The GLAM ellipticity has useful properties for any chosen weight profile: the weighted ellipticity is identical to that of isophotes of elliptical images, and in absence of noise and pixellation it is always an unbiased estimator of reduced shear. We show that moment-based techniques, adaptive or unweighted, are similar to a model-based approach in the sense that they can be seen as imperfect fit of an elliptical profile to the image. Due to residuals in the fit, moment-based estimates of ellipticities are prone to underfitting bias when inferred from observed images. The estimation is fundamentally limited mainly by pixellation which destroys information on the original, pre-seeing image. We give an optimised estimator for the pre-seeing GLAM ellipticity and quantify its bias for noise-free images. To deal with images where pixel noise is prominent, we consider a Bayesian approach to infer GLAM ellipticity where, similar to the noise-free case, the ellipticity posterior can be inconsistent with the true ellipticity if we do not properly account for our ignorance about fit residuals. This underfitting bias, quantified in the paper, does not vary with the overall noise level but changes with the pre-seeing brightness profile and the correlation or heterogeneity of pixel noise over the image. Furthermore, when inferring a constant ellipticity or, more relevantly, constant shear from a source sample with a distribution of intrinsic properties (sizes, centroid positions, intrinsic shapes), an additional, now noise-dependent bias arises towards low signal-to-noise if incorrect prior densities for the intrinsic properties are used. We discuss the origin of this

  10. Development of Active Noise Control System for Quieting Transformer Noise

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Lee, Bok Kyu; Song, Seik Young; Choi, Huo Yul [Korea Electric Power Research Institute, Taejon (Korea, Republic of); Yun, Dae Hea; Lee, Hyuk Jae [Korea Electrotechnology Research Institute, Changwon (Korea, Republic of)

    1997-12-31

    The passive noise control technique made use of sound-absorbing or soundproofing materials, so it required a large area and high cost for installation and had a drawback of poor performance at low frequency. Compared to this, the Active Noise Control attenuates noise sound pressure by using secondary source which has same performance ay low-frequency. Furthermore, it is able to save space and expenses. - research on adaptive algorithms - evaluation of global attenuation of the control - computer simulation - real-time Active Noise Control System Hardware Implementation - ANC system setting in the noisy area.

  11. Noise Reduction and Gap Filling of fAPAR Time Series Using an Adapted Local Regression Filter

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Álvaro Moreno

    2014-08-01

    Full Text Available Time series of remotely sensed data are an important source of information for understanding land cover dynamics. In particular, the fraction of absorbed photosynthetic active radiation (fAPAR is a key variable in the assessment of vegetation primary production over time. However, the fAPAR series derived from polar orbit satellites are not continuous and consistent in space and time. Filtering methods are thus required to fill in gaps and produce high-quality time series. This study proposes an adapted (iteratively reweighted local regression filter (LOESS and performs a benchmarking intercomparison with four popular and generally applicable smoothing methods: Double Logistic (DLOG, smoothing spline (SSP, Interpolation for Data Reconstruction (IDR and adaptive Savitzky-Golay (ASG. This paper evaluates the main advantages and drawbacks of the considered techniques. The results have shown that ASG and the adapted LOESS perform better in recovering fAPAR time series over multiple controlled noisy scenarios. Both methods can robustly reconstruct the fAPAR trajectories, reducing the noise up to 80% in the worst simulation scenario, which might be attributed to the quality control (QC MODIS information incorporated into these filtering algorithms, their flexibility and adaptation to the upper envelope. The adapted LOESS is particularly resistant to outliers. This method clearly outperforms the other considered methods to deal with the high presence of gaps and noise in satellite data records. The low RMSE and biases obtained with the LOESS method (|rMBE| < 8%; rRMSE < 20% reveals an optimal reconstruction even in most extreme situations with long seasonal gaps. An example of application of the LOESS method to fill in invalid values in real MODIS images presenting persistent cloud and snow coverage is also shown. The LOESS approach is recommended in most remote sensing applications, such as gap-filling, cloud-replacement, and observing temporal

  12. Adaptive Feed-Forward Control of Low Frequency Interior Noise

    CERN Document Server

    Kletschkowski, Thomas

    2012-01-01

    This book presents a mechatronic approach to Active Noise Control (ANC). It describes the required elements of system theory, engineering acoustics, electroacoustics and adaptive signal processing in a comprehensive, consistent and systematic manner using a unified notation. Furthermore, it includes a design methodology for ANC-systems, explains its application and describes tools to be used for ANC-system design. From the research point of view, the book presents new approaches to sound source localization in weakly damped interiors. One is based on the inverse finite element method, the other is based on a sound intensity probe with an active free field. Furthermore, a prototype of an ANC-system able to reach the physical limits of local (feed-forward) ANC is described. This is one example for applied research in ANC-system design. Other examples are given for (i) local ANC in a semi-enclosed subspace of an aircraft cargo hold and (ii) for the combination of audio entertainment with ANC.

  13. Adaptive Noise Suppression of Pediatric Lung Auscultations With Real Applications to Noisy Clinical Settings in Developing Countries

    Science.gov (United States)

    Emmanouilidou, Dimitra; McCollum, Eric D.; Park, Daniel E.

    2015-01-01

    Goal Chest auscultation constitutes a portable low-cost tool widely used for respiratory disease detection. Though it offers a powerful means of pulmonary examination, it remains riddled with a number of issues that limit its diagnostic capability. Particularly, patient agitation (especially in children), background chatter, and other environmental noises often contaminate the auscultation, hence affecting the clarity of the lung sound itself. This paper proposes an automated multiband denoising scheme for improving the quality of auscultation signals against heavy background contaminations. Methods The algorithm works on a simple two-microphone setup, dynamically adapts to the background noise and suppresses contaminations while successfully preserving the lung sound content. The proposed scheme is refined to offset maximal noise suppression against maintaining the integrity of the lung signal, particularly its unknown adventitious components that provide the most informative diagnostic value during lung pathology. Results The algorithm is applied to digital recordings obtained in the field in a busy clinic in West Africa and evaluated using objective signal fidelity measures and perceptual listening tests performed by a panel of licensed physicians. A strong preference of the enhanced sounds is revealed. Significance The strengths and benefits of the proposed method lie in the simple automated setup and its adaptive nature, both fundamental conditions for everyday clinical applicability. It can be simply extended to a real-time implementation, and integrated with lung sound acquisition protocols. PMID:25879837

  14. Comparison between coupled KZK-BHTE numerical simulations and scanned HIFU exposures in excised bovine liver

    Science.gov (United States)

    Andrew, Marilee A.; Brayman, Andrew A.; Kaczkowski, Peter J.; Kargl, Steven G.

    2004-05-01

    The use of moving high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) treatment protocols is of interest in achieving efficient formation of large-volume lesions in tissue. However, potentially unwanted thermal effects, such as prefocal heating, should be considered. A KZK acoustic model coupled with the BioHeat Transfer Equation has been extended to simulate multiple, moving scans in tissue. Simulation results are compared with experimental data collected over a range of exposure regimes for linear and concentric circular scans with a 3.5-MHz single-element transducer in ex vivo bovine liver. Of particular interest are investigating prefocal thermal buildup and ablating the central core of a circular pattern through conductive heating, that is without direct HIFU exposure. Qualitative agreement is observed between experimental and simulated data; limits of the predictive capability of the model in cavitation regimes will be discussed. [Support provided by the U.S. Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity through The University of Mississippi under terms of Agreement No. DAMD17-02-2-0014. The opinions expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of U.S. Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity or The University of Mississippi.

  15. Multi-parametric monitoring and assessment of high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) boiling by harmonic motion imaging for focused ultrasound (HMIFU): an ex vivo feasibility study

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hou, Gary Y; Marquet, Fabrice; Wang, Shutao; Konofagou, Elisa E

    2014-01-01

    Harmonic motion imaging for focused ultrasound (HMIFU) is a recently developed high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) treatment monitoring method with feasibilities demonstrated in vitro and in vivo. Here, a multi-parametric study is performed to investigate both elastic and acoustics-independent viscoelastic tissue changes using the Harmonic Motion Imaging (HMI) displacement, axial compressive strain and change in relative phase shift during high energy HIFU treatment with tissue boiling. Forty three (n = 43) thermal lesions were formed in ex vivo canine liver specimens (n = 28). Two-dimensional (2D) transverse HMI displacement maps were also obtained before and after lesion formation. The same method was repeated in 10 s, 20 s and 30 s HIFU durations at three different acoustic powers of 8, 10, and 11 W, which were selected and verified as treatment parameters capable of inducing boiling using both thermocouple and passive cavitation detection (PCD) measurements. Although a steady decrease in the displacement, compressive strain, and relative change in the focal phase shift (Δϕ) were obtained in numerous cases, indicating an overall increase in relative stiffness, the study outcomes also showed that during boiling, a reverse lesion-to-background displacement contrast was detected, indicating potential change in tissue absorption, geometrical change and/or, mechanical gelatification or pulverization. Following treatment, corresponding 2D HMI displacement images of the thermal lesions also mapped consistent discrepancy in the lesion-to-background displacement contrast. Despite the expectedly chaotic changes in acoustic properties with boiling, the relative change in phase shift showed a consistent decrease, indicating its robustness to monitor biomechanical properties independent of the acoustic property changes throughout the HIFU treatment. In addition, the 2D HMI displacement images confirmed and indicated the increase in the thermal lesion size with

  16. Extra-auditory responses to long-term intermittent noise stimulation in humans.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fruhstorfer, B; Hensel, H

    1980-12-01

    Respiration, heart rate, cutaneous blood flow, and electroencephalogram (EEG) reactions to long-term intermittent noise exposure were recorded from 13 volunteers (20-29 yr) with normal hearing and vegetative reactivity. They received daily within 1 h 12 noise stimuli (16 s 100 dB (A) white noise) for 10 or 21 days, respectively. Most subjects reported partial subjective adaptation to the noise. Heart rate adapted within a session but did not change considerably during successive days. Vascular responses did not change during one session but diminished mainly during the first 10 days. Noise responses in the EEG remained constant, but a decrease in vigilance occurred during the whole experimental series. Respiration responses were unpredictable and showed no trend within the sessions. It was concluded that certain physiological responses adapt to loud noise but that the time course of adaptation is different. Therefore a general statement about physiological noise adaptation is not possible.

  17. An adaptive noise cancelling system used for beam control at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Himel, T.; Allison, S.; Grossberg, P.; Hendrickson, L.; Sass, R.; Shoaee, H.

    1993-06-01

    The SLAC Linear Collider now has a total of twenty-four beam-steering feedback loops used to keep the electron and positron beams on their desired trajectories. Seven of these loops measure and control the same beam as it proceeds down the linac through the arcs to the final focus. Ideally by each loop should correct only for disturbances that occur between it and the immediate upstream loop. In fact, in the original system each loop corrected for all upstream disturbances. This resulted in undesirable over-correction and ringing. We added MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) adaptive noise cancellers to separate the signal we wish to correct from disturbances further upstream. This adaptive control improved performance in the 1992 run

  18. Reduced rank adaptive filtering in impulsive noise environments

    KAUST Repository

    Soury, Hamza; Abed-Meraim, Karim; Alouini, Mohamed-Slim

    2014-01-01

    An impulsive noise environment is considered in this paper. A new aspect of signal truncation is deployed to reduce the harmful effect of the impulsive noise to the signal. A full rank direct solution is derived followed by an iterative solution

  19. Prediction of thermal coagulation from the instantaneous strain distribution induced by high-intensity focused ultrasound

    Science.gov (United States)

    Iwasaki, Ryosuke; Takagi, Ryo; Tomiyasu, Kentaro; Yoshizawa, Shin; Umemura, Shin-ichiro

    2017-07-01

    The targeting of the ultrasound beam and the prediction of thermal lesion formation in advance are the requirements for monitoring high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) treatment with safety and reproducibility. To visualize the HIFU focal zone, we utilized an acoustic radiation force impulse (ARFI) imaging-based method. After inducing displacements inside tissues with pulsed HIFU called the push pulse exposure, the distribution of axial displacements started expanding and moving. To acquire RF data immediately after and during the HIFU push pulse exposure to improve prediction accuracy, we attempted methods using extrapolation estimation and applying HIFU noise elimination. The distributions going back in the time domain from the end of push pulse exposure are in good agreement with tissue coagulation at the center. The results suggest that the proposed focal zone visualization employing pulsed HIFU entailing the high-speed ARFI imaging method is useful for the prediction of thermal coagulation in advance.

  20. Adaptive spatial filtering of daytime sky noise in a satellite quantum key distribution downlink receiver

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gruneisen, Mark T.; Sickmiller, Brett A.; Flanagan, Michael B.; Black, James P.; Stoltenberg, Kurt E.; Duchane, Alexander W.

    2016-02-01

    Spatial filtering is an important technique for reducing sky background noise in a satellite quantum key distribution downlink receiver. Atmospheric turbulence limits the extent to which spatial filtering can reduce sky noise without introducing signal losses. Using atmospheric propagation and compensation simulations, the potential benefit of adaptive optics (AO) to secure key generation (SKG) is quantified. Simulations are performed assuming optical propagation from a low-Earth-orbit satellite to a terrestrial receiver that includes AO. Higher-order AO correction is modeled assuming a Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor and a continuous-face-sheet deformable mirror. The effects of atmospheric turbulence, tracking, and higher-order AO on the photon capture efficiency are simulated using statistical representations of turbulence and a time-domain wave-optics hardware emulator. SKG rates are calculated for a decoy-state protocol as a function of the receiver field of view for various strengths of turbulence, sky radiances, and pointing angles. The results show that at fields of view smaller than those discussed by others, AO technologies can enhance SKG rates in daylight and enable SKG where it would otherwise be prohibited as a consequence of background optical noise and signal loss due to propagation and turbulence effects.

  1. New adaptive statistical iterative reconstruction ASiR-V: Assessment of noise performance in comparison to ASiR.

    Science.gov (United States)

    De Marco, Paolo; Origgi, Daniela

    2018-03-01

    To assess the noise characteristics of the new adaptive statistical iterative reconstruction (ASiR-V) in comparison to ASiR. A water phantom was acquired with common clinical scanning parameters, at five different levels of CTDI vol . Images were reconstructed with different kernels (STD, SOFT, and BONE), different IR levels (40%, 60%, and 100%) and different slice thickness (ST) (0.625 and 2.5 mm), both for ASiR-V and ASiR. Noise properties were investigated and noise power spectrum (NPS) was evaluated. ASiR-V significantly reduced noise relative to FBP: noise reduction was in the range 23%-60% for a 0.625 mm ST and 12%-64% for the 2.5 mm ST. Above 2 mGy, noise reduction for ASiR-V had no dependence on dose. Noise reduction for ASIR-V has dependence on ST, being greater for STD and SOFT kernels at 2.5 mm. For the STD kernel ASiR-V has greater noise reduction for both ST, if compared to ASiR. For the SOFT kernel, results varies according to dose and ST, while for BONE kernel ASIR-V shows less noise reduction. NPS for CT Revolution has dose dependent behavior at lower doses. NPS for ASIR-V and ASiR is similar, showing a shift toward lower frequencies as the IR level increases for STD and SOFT kernels. The NPS is different between ASiR-V and ASIR with BONE kernel. NPS for ASiR-V appears to be ST dependent, having a shift toward lower frequencies for 2.5 mm ST. ASiR-V showed greater noise reduction than ASiR for STD and SOFT kernels, while keeping the same NPS. For the BONE kernel, ASiR-V presents a completely different behavior, with less noise reduction and modified NPS. Noise properties of the ASiR-V are dependent on reconstruction slice thickness. The noise properties of ASiR-V suggest the need for further measurements and efforts to establish new CT protocols to optimize clinical imaging. © 2018 The Authors. Journal of Applied Clinical Medical Physics published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of American Association of Physicists in Medicine.

  2. Porcine pilot study of MRI-guided HIFU treatment for neonatal intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Looi, Thomas; Waspe, Adam; Mougenot, Charles; Amaral, Joao; Temple, Michael; Hynynen, Kullervo; Drake, James

    2012-11-01

    Intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH) occurs in 15% of premature babies and 50% of IVH cases progress to posthemorrhagic ventricular dilation due to large blood clots forming in the ventricles. Existing treatments such as tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) and surgical intervention have severe side effects in paediatric patients that include excessive bleeding and complications. This study investigates the feasibility of MR-HIFU for sonothrombolysis of blood clots from IVH using natural acoustic windows, known as fontanelles, in the skulls of newborns. The study involved 2 elements: a phantom study to examine beam limitations and acoustic properties, and an in-vivo porcine study. A phantom skull was created from sample patient data and was used to analyze reachability of the Philips Sonavelle system. Acoustic measurements of the phantom (attenuation of 5-14 dB and speed of sound of 1722-2965 m/s) indicated the phantom effectively mimics neonatal skull bone. For the ex-vivo studies, a porcine clot was created and sonicated for 5 mins at 500W with a 0.5% duty cycle. For the in-vivo experiment, a vertex craniotomy was performed and porcine blood was injected into the lateral ventricle under ultrasound guidance. Sonication using the prior parameters induced cavitation and post-sonication T1 and T2 images verified clot lysis. Further H&E analysis showed no presence of blood in the ventricles. These positive results show that MR-HIFU has potential as a noninvasive tool for sonothrombolysis of neonatal IVH clots.

  3. Voltage fluctuations in neurons: signal or noise?

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Yarom, Yosef; Hounsgaard, Jorn

    2011-01-01

    , we discuss noise-free neuronal signaling and detrimental and beneficial forms of noise in large-scale functional neural networks. Evidence that noise and variability in some cases go hand in hand with behavioral variability and increase behavioral choice, richness, and adaptability opens new avenues......Noise and variability are fundamental companions to ion channels and synapses and thus inescapable elements of brain function. The overriding unresolved issue is to what extent noise distorts and limits signaling on one hand and at the same time constitutes a crucial and fundamental enrichment...... that allows and facilitates complex adaptive behavior in an unpredictable world. Here we review the growing experimental evidence that functional network activity is associated with intense fluctuations in membrane potential and spike timing. We trace origins and consequences of noise and variability. Finally...

  4. Active noise canceling system for mechanically cooled germanium radiation detectors

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nelson, Karl Einar; Burks, Morgan T

    2014-04-22

    A microphonics noise cancellation system and method for improving the energy resolution for mechanically cooled high-purity Germanium (HPGe) detector systems. A classical adaptive noise canceling digital processing system using an adaptive predictor is used in an MCA to attenuate the microphonics noise source making the system more deployable.

  5. Adaptive Sensor Tuning for Seismic Event Detection in Environment with Electromagnetic Noise

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ziegler, Abra E.

    The goal of this research is to detect possible microseismic events at a carbon sequestration site. Data recorded on a continuous downhole microseismic array in the Farnsworth Field, an oil field in Northern Texas that hosts an ongoing carbon capture, utilization, and storage project, were evaluated using machine learning and reinforcement learning techniques to determine their effectiveness at seismic event detection on a dataset with electromagnetic noise. The data were recorded from a passive vertical monitoring array consisting of 16 levels of 3-component 15 Hz geophones installed in the field and continuously recording since January 2014. Electromagnetic and other noise recorded on the array has significantly impacted the utility of the data and it was necessary to characterize and filter the noise in order to attempt event detection. Traditional detection methods using short-term average/long-term average (STA/LTA) algorithms were evaluated and determined to be ineffective because of changing noise levels. To improve the performance of event detection and automatically and dynamically detect seismic events using effective data processing parameters, an adaptive sensor tuning (AST) algorithm developed by Sandia National Laboratories was utilized. AST exploits neuro-dynamic programming (reinforcement learning) trained with historic event data to automatically self-tune and determine optimal detection parameter settings. The key metric that guides the AST algorithm is consistency of each sensor with its nearest neighbors: parameters are automatically adjusted on a per station basis to be more or less sensitive to produce consistent agreement of detections in its neighborhood. The effects that changes in neighborhood configuration have on signal detection were explored, as it was determined that neighborhood-based detections significantly reduce the number of both missed and false detections in ground-truthed data. The performance of the AST algorithm was

  6. Adaptive color halftoning for minimum perceived error using the blue noise mask

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yu, Qing; Parker, Kevin J.

    1997-04-01

    Color halftoning using a conventional screen requires careful selection of screen angles to avoid Moire patterns. An obvious advantage of halftoning using a blue noise mask (BNM) is that there are no conventional screen angle or Moire patterns produced. However, a simple strategy of employing the same BNM on all color planes is unacceptable in case where a small registration error can cause objectionable color shifts. In a previous paper by Yao and Parker, strategies were presented for shifting or inverting the BNM as well as using mutually exclusive BNMs for different color planes. In this paper, the above schemes will be studied in CIE-LAB color space in terms of root mean square error and variance for luminance channel and chrominance channel respectively. We will demonstrate that the dot-on-dot scheme results in minimum chrominance error, but maximum luminance error and the 4-mask scheme results in minimum luminance error but maximum chrominance error, while the shift scheme falls in between. Based on this study, we proposed a new adaptive color halftoning algorithm that takes colorimetric color reproduction into account by applying 2-mutually exclusive BNMs on two different color planes and applying an adaptive scheme on other planes to reduce color error. We will show that by having one adaptive color channel, we obtain increased flexibility to manipulate the output so as to reduce colorimetric error while permitting customization to specific printing hardware.

  7. Data-driven adaptive fractional order PI control for PMSM servo system with measurement noise and data dropouts.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xie, Yuanlong; Tang, Xiaoqi; Song, Bao; Zhou, Xiangdong; Guo, Yixuan

    2018-04-01

    In this paper, data-driven adaptive fractional order proportional integral (AFOPI) control is presented for permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) servo system perturbed by measurement noise and data dropouts. The proposed method directly exploits the closed-loop process data for the AFOPI controller design under unknown noise distribution and data missing probability. Firstly, the proposed method constructs the AFOPI controller tuning problem as a parameter identification problem using the modified l p norm virtual reference feedback tuning (VRFT). Then, iteratively reweighted least squares is integrated into the l p norm VRFT to give a consistent compensation solution for the AFOPI controller. The measurement noise and data dropouts are estimated and eliminated by feedback compensation periodically, so that the AFOPI controller is updated online to accommodate the time-varying operating conditions. Moreover, the convergence and stability are guaranteed by mathematical analysis. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated both on simulations and experiments implemented on a practical PMSM servo system. Copyright © 2018 ISA. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  8. A comparative evaluation of adaptive noise cancellation algorithms for minimizing motion artifacts in a forehead-mounted wearable pulse oximeter.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Comtois, Gary; Mendelson, Yitzhak; Ramuka, Piyush

    2007-01-01

    Wearable physiological monitoring using a pulse oximeter would enable field medics to monitor multiple injuries simultaneously, thereby prioritizing medical intervention when resources are limited. However, a primary factor limiting the accuracy of pulse oximetry is poor signal-to-noise ratio since photoplethysmographic (PPG) signals, from which arterial oxygen saturation (SpO2) and heart rate (HR) measurements are derived, are compromised by movement artifacts. This study was undertaken to quantify SpO2 and HR errors induced by certain motion artifacts utilizing accelerometry-based adaptive noise cancellation (ANC). Since the fingers are generally more vulnerable to motion artifacts, measurements were performed using a custom forehead-mounted wearable pulse oximeter developed for real-time remote physiological monitoring and triage applications. This study revealed that processing motion-corrupted PPG signals by least mean squares (LMS) and recursive least squares (RLS) algorithms can be effective to reduce SpO2 and HR errors during jogging, but the degree of improvement depends on filter order. Although both algorithms produced similar improvements, implementing the adaptive LMS algorithm is advantageous since it requires significantly less operations.

  9. Interference-free ultrasound imaging during HIFU therapy, using software tools

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vaezy, Shahram (Inventor); Held, Robert (Inventor); Sikdar, Siddhartha (Inventor); Managuli, Ravi (Inventor); Zderic, Vesna (Inventor)

    2010-01-01

    Disclosed herein is a method for obtaining a composite interference-free ultrasound image when non-imaging ultrasound waves would otherwise interfere with ultrasound imaging. A conventional ultrasound imaging system is used to collect frames of ultrasound image data in the presence of non-imaging ultrasound waves, such as high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU). The frames are directed to a processor that analyzes the frames to identify portions of the frame that are interference-free. Interference-free portions of a plurality of different ultrasound image frames are combined to generate a single composite interference-free ultrasound image that is displayed to a user. In this approach, a frequency of the non-imaging ultrasound waves is offset relative to a frequency of the ultrasound imaging waves, such that the interference introduced by the non-imaging ultrasound waves appears in a different portion of the frames.

  10. Lag synchronization of unknown chaotic delayed Yang-Yang-type fuzzy neural networks with noise perturbation based on adaptive control and parameter identification.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xia, Yonghui; Yang, Zijiang; Han, Maoan

    2009-07-01

    This paper considers the lag synchronization (LS) issue of unknown coupled chaotic delayed Yang-Yang-type fuzzy neural networks (YYFCNN) with noise perturbation. Separate research work has been published on the stability of fuzzy neural network and LS issue of unknown coupled chaotic neural networks, as well as its application in secure communication. However, there have not been any studies that integrate the two. Motivated by the achievements from both fields, we explored the benefits of integrating fuzzy logic theories into the study of LS problems and applied the findings to secure communication. Based on adaptive feedback control techniques and suitable parameter identification, several sufficient conditions are developed to guarantee the LS of coupled chaotic delayed YYFCNN with or without noise perturbation. The problem studied in this paper is more general in many aspects. Various problems studied extensively in the literature can be treated as special cases of the findings of this paper, such as complete synchronization (CS), effect of fuzzy logic, and noise perturbation. This paper presents an illustrative example and uses simulated results of this example to show the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed adaptive scheme. This research also demonstrates the effectiveness of application of the proposed adaptive feedback scheme in secure communication by comparing chaotic masking with fuzziness with some previous studies. Chaotic signal with fuzziness is more complex, which makes unmasking more difficult due to the added fuzzy logic.

  11. A Small Leak Detection Method Based on VMD Adaptive De-Noising and Ambiguity Correlation Classification Intended for Natural Gas Pipelines.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xiao, Qiyang; Li, Jian; Bai, Zhiliang; Sun, Jiedi; Zhou, Nan; Zeng, Zhoumo

    2016-12-13

    In this study, a small leak detection method based on variational mode decomposition (VMD) and ambiguity correlation classification (ACC) is proposed. The signals acquired from sensors were decomposed using the VMD, and numerous components were obtained. According to the probability density function (PDF), an adaptive de-noising algorithm based on VMD is proposed for noise component processing and de-noised components reconstruction. Furthermore, the ambiguity function image was employed for analysis of the reconstructed signals. Based on the correlation coefficient, ACC is proposed to detect the small leak of pipeline. The analysis of pipeline leakage signals, using 1 mm and 2 mm leaks, has shown that proposed detection method can detect a small leak accurately and effectively. Moreover, the experimental results have shown that the proposed method achieved better performances than support vector machine (SVM) and back propagation neural network (BP) methods.

  12. Noise-gating to Clean Astrophysical Image Data

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    DeForest, C. E.

    2017-01-01

    I present a family of algorithms to reduce noise in astrophysical images and image sequences, preserving more information from the original data than is retained by conventional techniques. The family uses locally adaptive filters (“noise gates”) in the Fourier domain to separate coherent image structure from background noise based on the statistics of local neighborhoods in the image. Processing of solar data limited by simple shot noise or by additive noise reveals image structure not easily visible in the originals, preserves photometry of observable features, and reduces shot noise by a factor of 10 or more with little to no apparent loss of resolution. This reveals faint features that were either not directly discernible or not sufficiently strongly detected for quantitative analysis. The method works best on image sequences containing related subjects, for example movies of solar evolution, but is also applicable to single images provided that there are enough pixels. The adaptive filter uses the statistical properties of noise and of local neighborhoods in the data to discriminate between coherent features and incoherent noise without reference to the specific shape or evolution of those features. The technique can potentially be modified in a straightforward way to exploit additional a priori knowledge about the functional form of the noise.

  13. Noise-gating to Clean Astrophysical Image Data

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    DeForest, C. E. [Southwest Research Institute, 1050 Walnut Street, Boulder, CO (United States)

    2017-04-01

    I present a family of algorithms to reduce noise in astrophysical images and image sequences, preserving more information from the original data than is retained by conventional techniques. The family uses locally adaptive filters (“noise gates”) in the Fourier domain to separate coherent image structure from background noise based on the statistics of local neighborhoods in the image. Processing of solar data limited by simple shot noise or by additive noise reveals image structure not easily visible in the originals, preserves photometry of observable features, and reduces shot noise by a factor of 10 or more with little to no apparent loss of resolution. This reveals faint features that were either not directly discernible or not sufficiently strongly detected for quantitative analysis. The method works best on image sequences containing related subjects, for example movies of solar evolution, but is also applicable to single images provided that there are enough pixels. The adaptive filter uses the statistical properties of noise and of local neighborhoods in the data to discriminate between coherent features and incoherent noise without reference to the specific shape or evolution of those features. The technique can potentially be modified in a straightforward way to exploit additional a priori knowledge about the functional form of the noise.

  14. Integrated WiFi/PDR/Smartphone Using an Adaptive System Noise Extended Kalman Filter Algorithm for Indoor Localization

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Xin Li

    2016-02-01

    Full Text Available Wireless signal strength is susceptible to the phenomena of interference, jumping, and instability, which often appear in the positioning results based on Wi-Fi field strength fingerprint database technology for indoor positioning. Therefore, a Wi-Fi and PDR (pedestrian dead reckoning real-time fusion scheme is proposed in this paper to perform fusing calculation by adaptively determining the dynamic noise of a filtering system according to pedestrian movement (straight or turning, which can effectively restrain the jumping or accumulation phenomena of wireless positioning and the PDR error accumulation problem. Wi-Fi fingerprint matching typically requires a quite high computational burden: To reduce the computational complexity of this step, the affinity propagation clustering algorithm is adopted to cluster the fingerprint database and integrate the information of the position domain and signal domain of respective points. An experiment performed in a fourth-floor corridor at the School of Environment and Spatial Informatics, China University of Mining and Technology, shows that the traverse points of the clustered positioning system decrease by 65%–80%, which greatly improves the time efficiency. In terms of positioning accuracy, the average error is 4.09 m through the Wi-Fi positioning method. However, the positioning error can be reduced to 2.32 m after integration of the PDR algorithm with the adaptive noise extended Kalman filter (EKF.

  15. A Small Leak Detection Method Based on VMD Adaptive De-Noising and Ambiguity Correlation Classification Intended for Natural Gas Pipelines

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Qiyang Xiao

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available In this study, a small leak detection method based on variational mode decomposition (VMD and ambiguity correlation classification (ACC is proposed. The signals acquired from sensors were decomposed using the VMD, and numerous components were obtained. According to the probability density function (PDF, an adaptive de-noising algorithm based on VMD is proposed for noise component processing and de-noised components reconstruction. Furthermore, the ambiguity function image was employed for analysis of the reconstructed signals. Based on the correlation coefficient, ACC is proposed to detect the small leak of pipeline. The analysis of pipeline leakage signals, using 1 mm and 2 mm leaks, has shown that proposed detection method can detect a small leak accurately and effectively. Moreover, the experimental results have shown that the proposed method achieved better performances than support vector machine (SVM and back propagation neural network (BP methods.

  16. An Embedded, Eight Channel, Noise Canceling, Wireless, Wearable sEMG Data Acquisition System With Adaptive Muscle Contraction Detection.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ergeneci, Mert; Gokcesu, Kaan; Ertan, Erhan; Kosmas, Panagiotis

    2018-02-01

    Wearable technology has gained increasing popularity in the applications of healthcare, sports science, and biomedical engineering in recent years. Because of its convenient nature, the wearable technology is particularly useful in the acquisition of the physiological signals. Specifically, the (surface electromyography) sEMG systems, which measure the muscle activation potentials, greatly benefit from this technology in both clinical and industrial applications. However, the current wearable sEMG systems have several drawbacks including inefficient noise cancellation, insufficient measurement quality, and difficult integration to customized applications. Additionally, none of these sEMG data acquisition systems can detect sEMG signals (i.e., contractions), which provides a valuable environment for further studies such as human machine interaction, gesture recognition, and fatigue tracking. To this end, we introduce an embedded, eight channel, noise canceling, wireless, wearable sEMG data acquisition system with adaptive muscle contraction detection. Our design consists of two stages, which are the sEMG sensors and the multichannel data acquisition unit. For the first stage, we propose a low cost, dry, and active sEMG sensor that captures the muscle activation potentials, a data acquisition unit that evaluates these captured multichannel sEMG signals and transmits them to a user interface. In the data acquisition unit, the sEMG signals are processed through embedded, adaptive methods in order to reject the power line noise and detect the muscle contractions. Through extensive experiments, we demonstrate that our sEMG sensor outperforms a widely used commercially available product and our data acquisition system achieves 4.583 dB SNR gain with accuracy in the detection of the contractions.

  17. Estimation of images degraded by film-grain noise.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Naderi, F; Sawchuk, A A

    1978-04-15

    Film-grain noise describes the intrinsic noise produced by a photographic emulsion during the process of image recording and reproduction. In this paper we consider the restoration of images degraded by film-grain noise. First a detailed model for the over-all photographic imaging system is presented. The model includes linear blurring effects and the signal-dependent effect of film-grain noise. The accuracy of this model is tested by simulating images according to it and comparing the results to images of similar targets that were actually recorded on film. The restoration of images degraded by film-grain noise is then considered in the context of estimation theory. A discrete Wiener filer is developed which explicitly allows for the signal dependence of the noise. The filter adaptively alters its characteristics based on the nonstationary first order statistics of an image and is shown to have advantages over the conventional Wiener filter. Experimental results for modeling and the adaptive estimation filter are presented.

  18. Signal noise/interferer combiner unit programmable (SINCUP)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Martinezdepison, Emilio

    1988-12-01

    The Signal Noise Interferer Combiner Unit Programmable (SINCUP) has been developed to facilitate laboratory performance testing of Very Low Frequency (VLF/Low Frequency (LF) receivers. To accomplish this, the unit allows the combining in controlled amounts of various real-world environmental and manmade interference with an information carrying signal. The externally modulated signal is combined with internally/externally generated Gaussian noise and/or with an internally/externally generated interferer. In order to test modern digital processing techniques, such as Adaptive Null Steering, Eigenvector Sorting, and Widrow-Hoff adaptive filters, SINCUP is capable of generating and meeting much higher signal-to-noise plus interference ratios than earlier channel simulators. The present software has been written to accommodate a dynamic signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) range from -60 to +60 dB. Higher dynamic range units could be implemented.

  19. Application of GIS in Urban Traffic Noise Pollution

    OpenAIRE

    Manouchehr Omidvari; Ali Asghar Alesheikh

    2010-01-01

    Large urban areas are facing growing problems of noise pollutions. Geospatial Information Systems (GIS) can conveniently be adapted to gather, analyze and present noise information. GIS can also be extended to answer to user specific problems through deterministic and statistics models. The objectives of this research were to measure urban traffic noise levels, analyze temporal and spatial dynamics of urban traffic-induced noise pollution in the first districted of Tehran estimate the noise f...

  20. Blue-noise remeshing with farthest point optimization

    KAUST Repository

    Yan, Dongming

    2014-08-01

    In this paper, we present a novel method for surface sampling and remeshing with good blue-noise properties. Our approach is based on the farthest point optimization (FPO), a relaxation technique that generates high quality blue-noise point sets in 2D. We propose two important generalizations of the original FPO framework: adaptive sampling and sampling on surfaces. A simple and efficient algorithm for accelerating the FPO framework is also proposed. Experimental results show that the generalized FPO generates point sets with excellent blue-noise properties for adaptive and surface sampling. Furthermore, we demonstrate that our remeshing quality is superior to the current state-of-the art approaches. © 2014 The Eurographics Association and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  1. Blue-noise remeshing with farthest point optimization

    KAUST Repository

    Yan, Dongming; Guo, Jianwei; Jia, Xiaohong; Zhang, Xiaopeng; Wonka, Peter

    2014-01-01

    In this paper, we present a novel method for surface sampling and remeshing with good blue-noise properties. Our approach is based on the farthest point optimization (FPO), a relaxation technique that generates high quality blue-noise point sets in 2D. We propose two important generalizations of the original FPO framework: adaptive sampling and sampling on surfaces. A simple and efficient algorithm for accelerating the FPO framework is also proposed. Experimental results show that the generalized FPO generates point sets with excellent blue-noise properties for adaptive and surface sampling. Furthermore, we demonstrate that our remeshing quality is superior to the current state-of-the art approaches. © 2014 The Eurographics Association and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  2. T2-based temperature monitoring in abdominal fat during HIFU treatment of patients with uterine fibroids

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ozhinsky, Eugene; Kohi, Maureen; Ghanouni, Pejman; Rieke, Viola

    2017-03-01

    In this study, we have implemented T2-based monitoring of near-field heating in patients undergoing HIFU ablation of uterine fibroids using Insightec ExAblate system. In certain areas, near-field heating can reach 18°C and the tissue may experience sustained heating of more than 10°C for the period of 2 hours or more. This indicates a cumulative thermal dose that may cause necrosis. Our results show the feasibility and importance of measuring near-field heating in subcutaneous fat.

  3. An improved probe noise approach for acoustic feedback cancellation

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Guo, Meng; Jensen, Søren Holdt; Jensen, Jesper

    2012-01-01

    The perhaps most challenging problem in acoustic feedback cancellation using adaptive filters is the bias problem. It is well-known that a probe noise approach can effectively prevent this problem. However, when the probe noise must be inaudible and the steady-state error of the adaptive filter...... expressions for its system behavior, and through a simulation experiment in an acoustic feedback cancellation system....

  4. New hybrid technique for impulsive noise suppression in OFDM systems

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Mirza, A.; Zeb, A.; Sheikh, S.A.

    2017-01-01

    In this paper, a new hybrid technique employing RS (Reed Solomon) coding and adaptive filter for impulsive noise suppression in OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) systems is presented. Adaptive filter creates a more accurate estimate of the original OFDM signal after impulsive noise cancellation. The residual impulsive noise is further mitigated by RS decoder in the second stage of proposed technique. Three members of adaptive filters family i.e. NLMS (Normalized Least Mean Square) algorithm, RLS (Recursive Least Square) algorithm and Bhagyashri algorithm are tested with RS decoder in the proposed hybrid technique. Furthermore, the results in terms of steady state MSE (Mean Square Error) reduction, BER (Bit Error Rate) improvement and SNR (Signal to Noise Ratio) enhancement confirm the effectiveness of the proposed dual faceted technique when compared with the recently reported techniques in literature. (author)

  5. A Robust Approach For Acoustic Noise Suppression In Speech Using ANFIS

    Science.gov (United States)

    Martinek, Radek; Kelnar, Michal; Vanus, Jan; Bilik, Petr; Zidek, Jan

    2015-11-01

    The authors of this article deals with the implementation of a combination of techniques of the fuzzy system and artificial intelligence in the application area of non-linear noise and interference suppression. This structure used is called an Adaptive Neuro Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS). This system finds practical use mainly in audio telephone (mobile) communication in a noisy environment (transport, production halls, sports matches, etc). Experimental methods based on the two-input adaptive noise cancellation concept was clearly outlined. Within the experiments carried out, the authors created, based on the ANFIS structure, a comprehensive system for adaptive suppression of unwanted background interference that occurs in audio communication and degrades the audio signal. The system designed has been tested on real voice signals. This article presents the investigation and comparison amongst three distinct approaches to noise cancellation in speech; they are LMS (least mean squares) and RLS (recursive least squares) adaptive filtering and ANFIS. A careful review of literatures indicated the importance of non-linear adaptive algorithms over linear ones in noise cancellation. It was concluded that the ANFIS approach had the overall best performance as it efficiently cancelled noise even in highly noise-degraded speech. Results were drawn from the successful experimentation, subjective-based tests were used to analyse their comparative performance while objective tests were used to validate them. Implementation of algorithms was experimentally carried out in Matlab to justify the claims and determine their relative performances.

  6. Adaptation to Cortical Noise Induced by Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation to the Occipital Lobe

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    David Heslip

    2012-05-01

    Full Text Available Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS is increasingly used as a method to modify and study functional brain activity. However, results from various studies have produced conflicting theories on how TMS of cortical tissue influences ongoing visual processing. To investigate this issue, single pulse TMS was applied over left V1 in five healthy subjects during an orientation discrimination task (vertical vs. horizontal using a Gabor patch (2 c/deg, presented 6° in the right visual field. Stimulus contrast was set to each individual's threshold, measured in the absence of TMS. When TMS was applied over V1 performance decreased in all observers (by 1.2–8.7% compared to accuracy levels obtained during stimulation of a control site (Cz. Crucially, accuracy levels during V1 stimulation gradually improved across blocks of 200 trials in some subjects, whereas performance remained stable during control site stimulation. In contrast, this pattern of recovery was not found in an analogous backward masking paradigm, using a brief visual noise mask instead of a TMS pulse. These results show that that the magnitude of TMS disruption can dissipate with repeated stimulation. This suggests that future studies using this technique should minimise the length of TMS exposure within each session to maximise its effectiveness. Our results show that the visual system can adapt dynamically to increased internal noise levels, minimising the impact of TMS induced cortical activity on sensory judgments.

  7. Total annoyance from an industrial noise source with a main spectral component combined with a background noise.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Alayrac, M; Marquis-Favre, C; Viollon, S

    2011-07-01

    When living close to an industrial plant, people are exposed to a combination of industrial noise sources and a background noise composed of all the other noise sources in the environment. As a first step, noise annoyance indicators in laboratory conditions are proposed for a single exposure to an industrial noise source. The second step detailed in this paper involves determining total annoyance indicators in laboratory conditions for ambient noises composed of an industrial noise source and a background noise. Two types of steady and permanent industrial noise sources are studied: low frequency noises with a main spectral component at 100 Hz, and noises with a main spectral component in middle frequencies. Five background noises are assessed so as to take into account different sound environments which can usually be heard by people living around an industrial plant. One main conclusion of this study is that two different analyses are necessary to determine total annoyance indicators for this type of ambient noise, depending on the industrial noise source composing it. Therefore, two total annoyance indicators adapted to the ambient noises studied are proposed. © 2011 Acoustical Society of America

  8. Effects of secondary loudspeaker properties on broadband feedforward active duct noise control.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chan, Yum-Ji; Huang, Lixi; Lam, James

    2013-07-01

    Dependence of the performance of feedforward active duct noise control on secondary loudspeaker parameters is investigated. Noise reduction performance can be improved if the force factor of the secondary loudspeaker is higher. For example, broadband noise reduction improvement up to 1.6 dB is predicted by increasing the force factor by 50%. In addition, a secondary loudspeaker with a larger force factor was found to have quicker convergence in the adaptive algorithm in experiment. In simulations, noise reduction is improved in using an adaptive algorithm by using a secondary loudspeaker with a heavier moving mass. It is predicted that an extra broadband noise reduction of more than 7 dB can be gained using an adaptive filter if the force factor, moving mass and coil inductance of a commercially available loudspeaker are doubled. Methods to increase the force factor beyond those of commercially available loudspeakers are proposed.

  9. ECG De-noising

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Kærgaard, Kevin; Jensen, Søren Hjøllund; Puthusserypady, Sadasivan

    2015-01-01

    Electrocardiogram (ECG) is a widely used noninvasive method to study the rhythmic activity of the heart and thereby to detect the abnormalities. However, these signals are often obscured by artifacts from various sources and minimization of these artifacts are of paramount important. This paper...... proposes two adaptive techniques, namely the EEMD-BLMS (Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition in conjunction with the Block Least Mean Square algorithm) and DWT-NN (Discrete Wavelet Transform followed by Neural Network) methods in minimizing the artifacts from recorded ECG signals, and compares...... their performance. These methods were first compared on two types of simulated noise corrupted ECG signals: Type-I (desired ECG+noise frequencies outside the ECG frequency band) and Type-II (ECG+noise frequencies both inside and outside the ECG frequency band). Subsequently, they were tested on real ECG recordings...

  10. Numerical study and ex vivo assessment of HIFU treatment time reduction through optimization of focal point trajectory

    Science.gov (United States)

    Grisey, A.; Yon, S.; Pechoux, T.; Letort, V.; Lafitte, P.

    2017-03-01

    Treatment time reduction is a key issue to expand the use of high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) surgery, especially for benign pathologies. This study aims at quantitatively assessing the potential reduction of the treatment time arising from moving the focal point during long pulses. In this context, the optimization of the focal point trajectory is crucial to achieve a uniform thermal dose repartition and avoid boiling. At first, a numerical optimization algorithm was used to generate efficient trajectories. Thermal conduction was simulated in 3D with a finite difference code and damages to the tissue were modeled using the thermal dose formula. Given an initial trajectory, the thermal dose field was first computed, then, making use of Pontryagin's maximum principle, the trajectory was iteratively refined. Several initial trajectories were tested. Then, an ex vivo study was conducted in order to validate the efficicency of the resulting optimized strategies. Single pulses were performed at 3MHz on fresh veal liver samples with an Echopulse and the size of each unitary lesion was assessed by cutting each sample along three orthogonal planes and measuring the dimension of the whitened area based on photographs. We propose a promising approach to significantly shorten HIFU treatment time: the numerical optimization algorithm was shown to provide a reliable insight on trajectories that can improve treatment strategies. The model must now be improved in order to take in vivo conditions into account and extensively validated.

  11. A Third-Generation Adaptive Statistical Iterative Reconstruction Technique: Phantom Study of Image Noise, Spatial Resolution, Lesion Detectability, and Dose Reduction Potential.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Euler, André; Solomon, Justin; Marin, Daniele; Nelson, Rendon C; Samei, Ehsan

    2018-06-01

    The purpose of this study was to assess image noise, spatial resolution, lesion detectability, and the dose reduction potential of a proprietary third-generation adaptive statistical iterative reconstruction (ASIR-V) technique. A phantom representing five different body sizes (12-37 cm) and a contrast-detail phantom containing lesions of five low-contrast levels (5-20 HU) and three sizes (2-6 mm) were deployed. Both phantoms were scanned on a 256-MDCT scanner at six different radiation doses (1.25-10 mGy). Images were reconstructed with filtered back projection (FBP), ASIR-V with 50% blending with FBP (ASIR-V 50%), and ASIR-V without blending (ASIR-V 100%). In the first phantom, noise properties were assessed by noise power spectrum analysis. Spatial resolution properties were measured by use of task transfer functions for objects of different contrasts. Noise magnitude, noise texture, and resolution were compared between the three groups. In the second phantom, low-contrast detectability was assessed by nine human readers independently for each condition. The dose reduction potential of ASIR-V was estimated on the basis of a generalized linear statistical regression model. On average, image noise was reduced 37.3% with ASIR-V 50% and 71.5% with ASIR-V 100% compared with FBP. ASIR-V shifted the noise power spectrum toward lower frequencies compared with FBP. The spatial resolution of ASIR-V was equivalent or slightly superior to that of FBP, except for the low-contrast object, which had lower resolution. Lesion detection significantly increased with both ASIR-V levels (p = 0.001), with an estimated radiation dose reduction potential of 15% ± 5% (SD) for ASIR-V 50% and 31% ± 9% for ASIR-V 100%. ASIR-V reduced image noise and improved lesion detection compared with FBP and had potential for radiation dose reduction while preserving low-contrast detectability.

  12. High level white noise generator

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Borkowski, C.J.; Blalock, T.V.

    1979-01-01

    A wide band, stable, random noise source with a high and well-defined output power spectral density is provided which may be used for accurate calibration of Johnson Noise Power Thermometers (JNPT) and other applications requiring a stable, wide band, well-defined noise power spectral density. The noise source is based on the fact that the open-circuit thermal noise voltage of a feedback resistor, connecting the output to the input of a special inverting amplifier, is available at the amplifier output from an equivalent low output impedance caused by the feedback mechanism. The noise power spectral density level at the noise source output is equivalent to the density of the open-circuit thermal noise or a 100 ohm resistor at a temperature of approximately 64,000 Kelvins. The noise source has an output power spectral density that is flat to within 0.1% (0.0043 db) in the frequency range of from 1 KHz to 100 KHz which brackets typical passbands of the signal-processing channels of JNPT's. Two embodiments, one of higher accuracy that is suitable for use as a standards instrument and another that is particularly adapted for ambient temperature operation, are illustrated in this application

  13. High level white noise generator

    Science.gov (United States)

    Borkowski, Casimer J.; Blalock, Theron V.

    1979-01-01

    A wide band, stable, random noise source with a high and well-defined output power spectral density is provided which may be used for accurate calibration of Johnson Noise Power Thermometers (JNPT) and other applications requiring a stable, wide band, well-defined noise power spectral density. The noise source is based on the fact that the open-circuit thermal noise voltage of a feedback resistor, connecting the output to the input of a special inverting amplifier, is available at the amplifier output from an equivalent low output impedance caused by the feedback mechanism. The noise power spectral density level at the noise source output is equivalent to the density of the open-circuit thermal noise or a 100 ohm resistor at a temperature of approximately 64,000 Kelvins. The noise source has an output power spectral density that is flat to within 0.1% (0.0043 db) in the frequency range of from 1 KHz to 100 KHz which brackets typical passbands of the signal-processing channels of JNPT's. Two embodiments, one of higher accuracy that is suitable for use as a standards instrument and another that is particularly adapted for ambient temperature operation, are illustrated in this application.

  14. Extraction of Overt Verbal Response from the Acoustic Noise in a Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Scan by Use of Segmented Active Noise Cancellation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jung, Kwan-Jin; Prasad, Parikshit; Qin, Yulin; Anderson, John R.

    2013-01-01

    A method to extract the subject's overt verbal response from the obscuring acoustic noise in an fMRI scan is developed by applying active noise cancellation with a conventional MRI microphone. Since the EPI scanning and its accompanying acoustic noise in fMRI are repetitive, the acoustic noise in one time segment was used as a reference noise in suppressing the acoustic noise in subsequent segments. However, the acoustic noise from the scanner was affected by the subject's movements, so the reference noise was adaptively adjusted as the scanner's acoustic properties varied in time. This method was successfully applied to a cognitive fMRI experiment with overt verbal responses. PMID:15723385

  15. Slow cortical evoked potentials after noise exposure

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    von Wedel, H; Opitz, H J

    1979-07-01

    Human cortical evoked potentials under conditions of stimuation are registrated in the post-stimulatory phase of a five minutes lasting equally masking white noise (90 dB HL). Changes of the evoked potentials during adaptation, possible analogy with high tone losses after noise representation and the origin of tinnitus are examined. Stimulation was started 3 sec after the off-effect of the noise. For five minutes periodically tone bursts were represented. Each train of stimulation consists of tone bursts of three frequencies: 2 kcs, 4 kcs, 8 kcs. The 0.5 sec lasting tones were separated by pauses of 2 sec. During the experiment stimulation and analysis were controlled by a computer. Changes in latency and amplitudes of the cortical evoked potentials were registered. Changes of the adaptation patterns as a function of the poststimulatory time are discussed.

  16. Optimal Height Calculation and Modelling of Noise Barrier

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Raimondas Grubliauskas

    2011-04-01

    Full Text Available Transport is one of the main sources of noise having a particularly strong negative impact on the environment. In the city, one of the best methods to reduce the spread of noise in residential areas is a noise barrier. The article presents noise reduction barrier adaptation with empirical formulas calculating and modelling noise distribution. The simulation of noise dispersion has been performed applying the CadnaA program that allows modelling the noise levels of various developments under changing conditions. Calculation and simulation is obtained by assessing the level of noise reduction using the same variables. The investigation results are presented as noise distribution isolines. The selection of a different height of noise barriers are the results calculated at the heights of 1, 4 and 15 meters. The level of noise reduction at the maximum overlap of data, calculation and simulation has reached about 10%.Article in Lithuanian

  17. An Overview of the Adaptive Robust DFT

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Djurović Igor

    2010-01-01

    Full Text Available Abstract This paper overviews basic principles and applications of the robust DFT (RDFT approach, which is used for robust processing of frequency-modulated (FM signals embedded in non-Gaussian heavy-tailed noise. In particular, we concentrate on the spectral analysis and filtering of signals corrupted by impulsive distortions using adaptive and nonadaptive robust estimators. Several adaptive estimators of location parameter are considered, and it is shown that their application is preferable with respect to non-adaptive counterparts. This fact is demonstrated by efficiency comparison of adaptive and nonadaptive RDFT methods for different noise environments.

  18. An MR-compliant phased-array HIFU transducer with augmented steering range, dedicated to abdominal thermotherapy

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Auboiroux, Vincent [Inserm, U556, Lyon, F-69003 (France); Dumont, Erik [Image Guided Therapy, Pessac, Bordeaux (France); Petrusca, Lorena; Salomir, Rares [Faculty of Medicine, University of Geneva (Switzerland); Viallon, Magalie, E-mail: vincent.auboiroux@unige.ch [Radiology Department, University Hospital of Geneva, Geneva (Switzerland)

    2011-06-21

    A novel architecture for a phased-array high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) device was investigated, aiming to increase the capabilities of electronic steering without reducing the size of the elementary emitters. The principal medical application expected to benefit from these developments is the time-effective sonication of large tumours in moving organs. The underlying principle consists of dividing the full array of transducers into multiple sub-arrays of different resonance frequencies, with the reorientation of these individual emitters, such that each sub-array can focus within a given spatial zone. To enable magnetic resonance (MR) compatibility of the device and the number of output channels from the RF generator to be halved, a passive spectral multiplexing technique was used, consisting of parallel wiring of frequency-shifted paired piezoceramic emitters with intrinsic narrow-band response. Two families of 64 emitters (circular, 5 mm diameter) were mounted, with optimum efficiency at 0.96 and 1.03 MHz, respectively. Two different prototypes of the HIFU device were built and tested, each incorporating the same two families of emitters, but differing in the shape of the rapid prototyping plastic support that accommodated the transducers (spherical cap with radius of curvature/aperture of 130 mm/150 mm and, respectively, 80 mm/110 mm). Acoustic measurements, MR-acoustic radiation force imaging (ex vivo) and MR-thermometry (ex vivo and in vivo) were used for the characterization of the prototypes. Experimental results demonstrated an augmentation of the steering range by 80% along one preferentially chosen axis, compared to a classic spherical array of the same total number of elements. The electric power density provided to the piezoceramic transducers exceeded 50 W cm{sup -2} CW, without circulation of coolant water. Another important advantage of the current approach is the versatility of reshaping the array at low cost.

  19. An MR-compliant phased-array HIFU transducer with augmented steering range, dedicated to abdominal thermotherapy

    Science.gov (United States)

    Auboiroux, Vincent; Dumont, Erik; Petrusca, Lorena; Viallon, Magalie; Salomir, Rares

    2011-06-01

    A novel architecture for a phased-array high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) device was investigated, aiming to increase the capabilities of electronic steering without reducing the size of the elementary emitters. The principal medical application expected to benefit from these developments is the time-effective sonication of large tumours in moving organs. The underlying principle consists of dividing the full array of transducers into multiple sub-arrays of different resonance frequencies, with the reorientation of these individual emitters, such that each sub-array can focus within a given spatial zone. To enable magnetic resonance (MR) compatibility of the device and the number of output channels from the RF generator to be halved, a passive spectral multiplexing technique was used, consisting of parallel wiring of frequency-shifted paired piezoceramic emitters with intrinsic narrow-band response. Two families of 64 emitters (circular, 5 mm diameter) were mounted, with optimum efficiency at 0.96 and 1.03 MHz, respectively. Two different prototypes of the HIFU device were built and tested, each incorporating the same two families of emitters, but differing in the shape of the rapid prototyping plastic support that accommodated the transducers (spherical cap with radius of curvature/aperture of 130 mm/150 mm and, respectively, 80 mm/110 mm). Acoustic measurements, MR-acoustic radiation force imaging (ex vivo) and MR-thermometry (ex vivo and in vivo) were used for the characterization of the prototypes. Experimental results demonstrated an augmentation of the steering range by 80% along one preferentially chosen axis, compared to a classic spherical array of the same total number of elements. The electric power density provided to the piezoceramic transducers exceeded 50 W cm-2 CW, without circulation of coolant water. Another important advantage of the current approach is the versatility of reshaping the array at low cost.

  20. Application of adaptive digital signal processing to speech enhancement for the hearing impaired.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chabries, D M; Christiansen, R W; Brey, R H; Robinette, M S; Harris, R W

    1987-01-01

    A major complaint of individuals with normal hearing and hearing impairments is a reduced ability to understand speech in a noisy environment. This paper describes the concept of adaptive noise cancelling for removing noise from corrupted speech signals. Application of adaptive digital signal processing has long been known and is described from a historical as well as technical perspective. The Widrow-Hoff LMS (least mean square) algorithm developed in 1959 forms the introduction to modern adaptive signal processing. This method uses a "primary" input which consists of the desired speech signal corrupted with noise and a second "reference" signal which is used to estimate the primary noise signal. By subtracting the adaptively filtered estimate of the noise, the desired speech signal is obtained. Recent developments in the field as they relate to noise cancellation are described. These developments include more computationally efficient algorithms as well as algorithms that exhibit improved learning performance. A second method for removing noise from speech, for use when no independent reference for the noise exists, is referred to as single channel noise suppression. Both adaptive and spectral subtraction techniques have been applied to this problem--often with the result of decreased speech intelligibility. Current techniques applied to this problem are described, including signal processing techniques that offer promise in the noise suppression application.

  1. Analysis on Influence Factors of Adaptive Filter Acting on ANC

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Xiuqun; Zou, Liang; Ni, Guangkui; Wang, Xiaojun; Han, Tao; Zhao, Quanfu

    The noise problem has become more and more serious in recent years. The adaptive filter theory which is applied in ANC [1] (active noise control) has also attracted more and more attention. In this article, the basic principle and algorithm of adaptive theory are both researched. And then the influence factor that affects its covergence rate and noise reduction is also simulated.

  2. Influence of ASIR (Adaptative Statistical Iterative Reconstruction) variation in the image noise of computerized tomography for high voltage

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Mendes, L.M.M.; Pereira, W.B.R.; Vieira, J.G.; Lamounier, C.S.; Gonçalves, D.A.; Carvalho, G.N.P.; Santana, P.C.; Oliveira, P.M.C.; Reis, L.P.

    2017-01-01

    Computed tomography had great advances in the equipment used in the diagnostic practice, directly influencing the levels of radiation for the patient. It is essential to optimize techniques that must be employed to comply with the ALARA (As Low As Reasonably Achievable) principle of radioprotection. The relationship of ASIR (Adaptive Statistical Iterative Reconstruction) with image noise was studied. Central images of a homogeneous water simulator were obtained in a 20 mm scan using a 64-channel Lightspeed VCT tomograph of General Electric in helical acquisitions with a rotation time of 0.5 seconds, Pitch 0.984: 1, and thickness of cut 0.625 mm. All these constant parameters varying the voltage in two distinct values: 120 and 140 kV with use of the automatic current by the CAE (Automatic Exposure Control), ranging from 50 to 675 mA (120 kV) and from 50 to 610 mA (140kV), minimum and maximum values, respectively allowed for each voltage. Image noise was determined through ImageJ free software. The analysis of the obtained data compared the percentage variation of the noise in the image based on the ASIR value of 10%, concluding that there is a variation of approximately 50% when compared to the values of ASIR (100%) in both tensions. Dose evaluation is required in future studies to better utilize the relationship between dose and image quality

  3. Feature-Selective Attention Adaptively Shifts Noise Correlations in Primary Auditory Cortex.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Downer, Joshua D; Rapone, Brittany; Verhein, Jessica; O'Connor, Kevin N; Sutter, Mitchell L

    2017-05-24

    Sensory environments often contain an overwhelming amount of information, with both relevant and irrelevant information competing for neural resources. Feature attention mediates this competition by selecting the sensory features needed to form a coherent percept. How attention affects the activity of populations of neurons to support this process is poorly understood because population coding is typically studied through simulations in which one sensory feature is encoded without competition. Therefore, to study the effects of feature attention on population-based neural coding, investigations must be extended to include stimuli with both relevant and irrelevant features. We measured noise correlations ( r noise ) within small neural populations in primary auditory cortex while rhesus macaques performed a novel feature-selective attention task. We found that the effect of feature-selective attention on r noise depended not only on the population tuning to the attended feature, but also on the tuning to the distractor feature. To attempt to explain how these observed effects might support enhanced perceptual performance, we propose an extension of a simple and influential model in which shifts in r noise can simultaneously enhance the representation of the attended feature while suppressing the distractor. These findings present a novel mechanism by which attention modulates neural populations to support sensory processing in cluttered environments. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Although feature-selective attention constitutes one of the building blocks of listening in natural environments, its neural bases remain obscure. To address this, we developed a novel auditory feature-selective attention task and measured noise correlations ( r noise ) in rhesus macaque A1 during task performance. Unlike previous studies showing that the effect of attention on r noise depends on population tuning to the attended feature, we show that the effect of attention depends on the tuning

  4. Applications of digital processing for noise removal from plasma diagnostics

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kane, R.J.; Candy, J.V.; Casper, T.A.

    1985-01-01

    The use of digital signal techniques for removal of noise components present in plasma diagnostic signals is discussed, particularly with reference to diamagnetic loop signals. These signals contain noise due to power supply ripple in addition to plasma characteristics. The application of noise canceling techniques, such as adaptive noise canceling and model-based estimation, will be discussed. The use of computer codes such as SIG is described. 19 refs., 5 figs

  5. A Mixed-Methods Trial of Broad Band Noise and Nature Sounds for Tinnitus Therapy: Group and Individual Responses Modeled under the Adaptation Level Theory of Tinnitus.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Durai, Mithila; Searchfield, Grant D

    2017-01-01

    Objectives: A randomized cross-over trial in 18 participants tested the hypothesis that nature sounds, with unpredictable temporal characteristics and high valence would yield greater improvement in tinnitus than constant, emotionally neutral broadband noise. Study Design: The primary outcome measure was the Tinnitus Functional Index (TFI). Secondary measures were: loudness and annoyance ratings, loudness level matches, minimum masking levels, positive and negative emotionality, attention reaction and discrimination time, anxiety, depression and stress. Each sound was administered using MP3 players with earbuds for 8 continuous weeks, with a 3 week wash-out period before crossing over to the other treatment sound. Measurements were undertaken for each arm at sound fitting, 4 and 8 weeks after administration. Qualitative interviews were conducted at each of these appointments. Results: From a baseline TFI score of 41.3, sound therapy resulted in TFI scores at 8 weeks of 35.6; broadband noise resulted in significantly greater reduction (8.2 points) after 8 weeks of sound therapy use than nature sounds (3.2 points). The positive effect of sound on tinnitus was supported by secondary outcome measures of tinnitus, emotion, attention, and psychological state, but not interviews. Tinnitus loudness level match was higher for BBN at 8 weeks; while there was little change in loudness level matches for nature sounds. There was no change in minimum masking levels following sound therapy administration. Self-reported preference for one sound over another did not correlate with changes in tinnitus. Conclusions: Modeled under an adaptation level theory framework of tinnitus perception, the results indicate that the introduction of broadband noise shifts internal adaptation level weighting away from the tinnitus signal, reducing tinnitus magnitude. Nature sounds may modify the affective components of tinnitus via a secondary, residual pathway, but this appears to be less important

  6. An Integrated Real-Time Beamforming and Postfiltering System for Nonstationary Noise Environments

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gannot Sharon

    2003-01-01

    Full Text Available We present a novel approach for real-time multichannel speech enhancement in environments of nonstationary noise and time-varying acoustical transfer functions (ATFs. The proposed system integrates adaptive beamforming, ATF identification, soft signal detection, and multichannel postfiltering. The noise canceller branch of the beamformer and the ATF identification are adaptively updated online, based on hypothesis test results. The noise canceller is updated only during stationary noise frames, and the ATF identification is carried out only when desired source components have been detected. The hypothesis testing is based on the nonstationarity of the signals and the transient power ratio between the beamformer primary output and its reference noise signals. Following the beamforming and the hypothesis testing, estimates for the signal presence probability and for the noise power spectral density are derived. Subsequently, an optimal spectral gain function that minimizes the mean square error of the log-spectral amplitude (LSA is applied. Experimental results demonstrate the usefulness of the proposed system in nonstationary noise environments.

  7. Role of extrinsic noise in the sensitivity of the rod pathway: rapid dark adaptation of nocturnal vision in humans.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Reeves, Adam; Grayhem, Rebecca

    2016-03-01

    Rod-mediated 500 nm test spots were flashed in Maxwellian view at 5 deg eccentricity, both on steady 10.4 deg fields of intensities (I) from 0.00001 to 1.0 scotopic troland (sc td) and from 0.2 s to 1 s after extinguishing the field. On dim fields, thresholds of tiny (5') tests were proportional to √I (Rose-DeVries law), while thresholds after extinction fell within 0.6 s to the fully dark-adapted absolute threshold. Thresholds of large (1.3 deg) tests were proportional to I (Weber law) and extinction thresholds, to √I. rod thresholds are elevated by photon-driven noise from dim fields that disappears at field extinction; large spot thresholds are additionally elevated by neural light adaptation proportional to √I. At night, recovery from dimly lit fields is fast, not slow.

  8. SU-F-I-10: Spatially Local Statistics for Adaptive Image Filtering

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Iliopoulos, AS; Sun, X; Floros, D; Zhang, Y; Yin, FF; Ren, L; Pitsianis, N

    2016-01-01

    Purpose: To facilitate adaptive image filtering operations, addressing spatial variations in both noise and signal. Such issues are prevalent in cone-beam projections, where physical effects such as X-ray scattering result in spatially variant noise, violating common assumptions of homogeneous noise and challenging conventional filtering approaches to signal extraction and noise suppression. Methods: We present a computational mechanism for probing into and quantifying the spatial variance of noise throughout an image. The mechanism builds a pyramid of local statistics at multiple spatial scales; local statistical information at each scale includes (weighted) mean, median, standard deviation, median absolute deviation, as well as histogram or dynamic range after local mean/median shifting. Based on inter-scale differences of local statistics, the spatial scope of distinguishable noise variation is detected in a semi- or un-supervised manner. Additionally, we propose and demonstrate the incorporation of such information in globally parametrized (i.e., non-adaptive) filters, effectively transforming the latter into spatially adaptive filters. The multi-scale mechanism is materialized by efficient algorithms and implemented in parallel CPU/GPU architectures. Results: We demonstrate the impact of local statistics for adaptive image processing and analysis using cone-beam projections of a Catphan phantom, fitted within an annulus to increase X-ray scattering. The effective spatial scope of local statistics calculations is shown to vary throughout the image domain, necessitating multi-scale noise and signal structure analysis. Filtering results with and without spatial filter adaptation are compared visually, illustrating improvements in imaging signal extraction and noise suppression, and in preserving information in low-contrast regions. Conclusion: Local image statistics can be incorporated in filtering operations to equip them with spatial adaptivity to spatial

  9. SU-F-I-10: Spatially Local Statistics for Adaptive Image Filtering

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Iliopoulos, AS; Sun, X [Duke University, Durham, NC (United States); Floros, D [Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece); Zhang, Y; Yin, FF; Ren, L [Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC (United States); Pitsianis, N [Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece); Duke University, Durham, NC (United States)

    2016-06-15

    Purpose: To facilitate adaptive image filtering operations, addressing spatial variations in both noise and signal. Such issues are prevalent in cone-beam projections, where physical effects such as X-ray scattering result in spatially variant noise, violating common assumptions of homogeneous noise and challenging conventional filtering approaches to signal extraction and noise suppression. Methods: We present a computational mechanism for probing into and quantifying the spatial variance of noise throughout an image. The mechanism builds a pyramid of local statistics at multiple spatial scales; local statistical information at each scale includes (weighted) mean, median, standard deviation, median absolute deviation, as well as histogram or dynamic range after local mean/median shifting. Based on inter-scale differences of local statistics, the spatial scope of distinguishable noise variation is detected in a semi- or un-supervised manner. Additionally, we propose and demonstrate the incorporation of such information in globally parametrized (i.e., non-adaptive) filters, effectively transforming the latter into spatially adaptive filters. The multi-scale mechanism is materialized by efficient algorithms and implemented in parallel CPU/GPU architectures. Results: We demonstrate the impact of local statistics for adaptive image processing and analysis using cone-beam projections of a Catphan phantom, fitted within an annulus to increase X-ray scattering. The effective spatial scope of local statistics calculations is shown to vary throughout the image domain, necessitating multi-scale noise and signal structure analysis. Filtering results with and without spatial filter adaptation are compared visually, illustrating improvements in imaging signal extraction and noise suppression, and in preserving information in low-contrast regions. Conclusion: Local image statistics can be incorporated in filtering operations to equip them with spatial adaptivity to spatial

  10. Locally-adaptive Myriad Filters for Processing ECG Signals in Real Time

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nataliya Tulyakova

    2017-03-01

    Full Text Available The locally adaptive myriad filters to suppress noise in electrocardiographic (ECG signals in almost in real time are proposed. Statistical estimates of efficiency according to integral values of such criteria as mean square error (MSE and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR for the test ECG signals sampled at 400 Hz embedded in additive Gaussian noise with different values of variance are obtained. Comparative analysis of adaptive filters is carried out. High efficiency of ECG filtering and high quality of signal preservation are demonstrated. It is shown that locally adaptive myriad filters provide higher degree of suppressing additive Gaussian noise with possibility of real time implementation.

  11. [Transcultural adaptation of an instrument to evaluate hearing handicap in workers with noise-induced hearing loss].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Holanda, Wanessa Tenório Gonçalves; de Lima, Maria Luiza Carvalho; Figueiroa, José Natal

    2011-01-01

    The noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) is a chronic and irreversible disease resulting of the exposure to noise in high levels at work. Even in the beginning, this hearing loss can damage in many degrees the worker's quality of life. Before this study, there wasn't an instrument, in Portuguese, to evaluate the psychosocial disadvantages of workers with NIHL. The aim of this research was to make a transcultural adaptation of an especific instrument to evaluate the hearing handicap from the original language to Portuguese, and check the reliability and legitimacy. The selected instrument passed by a process of semantic equivalence that was conducted in five stages: translation, back translation, critical appraisal of the versions, pre-test and a final review by a multi-professional group to develop a consensual version of the instrument for current use in Brazil. The instrument called "Inabilities Scale and Hearing Handicap" had, in general, acceptable psychometric measures, considering the little size of the sample and the fact that workers' hearing loss weren't too significant. Therefore, the Portuguese version of this instrument needs to be further tested in a representative sample of Brazilian workers with NIHL to ratify its utility in order to evaluate hearing handicap in this population.

  12. Design of an adaptive CubeSat transmitter for achieving optimum signal-to-noise ratio (SNR)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jaswar, F. D.; Rahman, T. A.; Hindia, M. N.; Ahmad, Y. A.

    2017-12-01

    CubeSat technology has opened the opportunity to conduct space-related researches at a relatively low cost. Typical approach to maintain an affordable cubeSat mission is to use a simple communication system, which is based on UHF link with fixed-transmit power and data rate. However, CubeSat in the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) does not have relative motion with the earth rotation, resulting in variable propagation path length that affects the transmission signal. A transmitter with adaptive capability to select multiple sets of data rate and radio frequency (RF) transmit power is proposed to improve and optimise the link. This paper presents the adaptive UHF transmitter design as a solution to overcome the variability of the propagation path. The transmitter output power is adjustable from 0.5W to 2W according to the mode of operations and satellite power limitations. The transmitter is designed to have four selectable modes to achieve the optimum signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and efficient power consumption based on the link budget analysis and satellite requirement. Three prototypes are developed and tested for space-environment conditions such as the radiation test. The Total Ionizing Dose measurements are conducted in the radiation test done at Malaysia Nuclear Agency Laboratory. The results from this test have proven that the adaptive transmitter can perform its operation with estimated more than seven months in orbit. This radiation test using gamma source with 1.5krad exposure is the first one conducted for a satellite program in Malaysia.

  13. Automatic minimization of ocular artifacts fromelectroencephalogram: A novel approach by combining CompleteEEMD with Adaptive Noise and Renyi’s Entropy

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Guarascio, Mario; Puthusserypady, Sadasivan

    2017-01-01

    forminimizing the OAs from corrupted EEG signals. The RE criterion is suggested to automatically select theIntrinsic Mode Functions (IMFs) to reconstruct the artifact minimized EEG signals. The scheme requiresonly a single channel OAs corrupted EEG recording and a reasonable computation time. The methodis first......Ocular artifacts (OAs) are one of the major interferences that obscure electroencephalogram (EEG) signals.In this paper, a novel, completely automatic, adaptive and fast method that combines the CompleteEmpirical Mode Decomposition with Adaptive Noise (CEEMDAN) and Renyi’s Entropy (RE) is proposed....... The method is compared to the one based on the CEEMDAN and manual choice of IMFsfor OAs minimization from EEG. Results from extensive simulation studies clearly indicate the efficacyof the proposed scheme in automatically minimizing the OAs from the corrupted EEG signals....

  14. Effectual switching filter for removing impulse noise using a SCM detector

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yuan, Jin-xia; Zhang, Hong-juan; Ma, Yi-de

    2012-03-01

    An effectual method is proposed to remove impulse noise from corrupted color images. The spiking cortical model (SCM) is adopted as a noise detector to identify noisy pixels in each channel of color images, and detected noise pixels are saved in three marking matrices. According to the three marking matrices, the detected noisy pixels are divided into two types (type I and type II). They are filtered differently: an adaptive median filter is used for type I and an adaptive vector median for type II. Noise-free pixels are left unchanged. Extensive experiments show that the proposed method outperforms most of the other well-known filters in the aspects of both visual and objective quality measures, and this method can also reduce the possibility of generating color artifacts while preserving image details.

  15. Wavelet tree structure based speckle noise removal for optical coherence tomography

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yuan, Xin; Liu, Xuan; Liu, Yang

    2018-02-01

    We report a new speckle noise removal algorithm in optical coherence tomography (OCT). Though wavelet domain thresholding algorithms have demonstrated superior advantages in suppressing noise magnitude and preserving image sharpness in OCT, the wavelet tree structure has not been investigated in previous applications. In this work, we propose an adaptive wavelet thresholding algorithm via exploiting the tree structure in wavelet coefficients to remove the speckle noise in OCT images. The threshold for each wavelet band is adaptively selected following a special rule to retain the structure of the image across different wavelet layers. Our results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm outperforms conventional wavelet thresholding, with significant advantages in preserving image features.

  16. Adaptive weighted anisotropic diffusion for computed tomography denoising

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Yang, Zhi; Silver, Michael D. [Toshiba Medical Research Institute USA, Inc., Vernon Hills, IL (United States); Noshi, Yasuhiro [Toshiba Medical System Corporation, Tokyo (Japan)

    2011-07-01

    With increasing awareness of radiation safety, dose reduction has become an important task of modern CT system development. This paper proposes an adaptive weighted anisotropic diffusion method and an adaptive weighted sharp source anisotropic diffusion method as image domain filters to potentially help dose reduction. Different from existing anisotropic diffusion methods, the proposed methods incorporate an edge-sensitive adaptive source term as part of the diffusion iteration. It provides better edge and detail preservation. Visual evaluation showed that the new methods can reduce noise substantially without apparent edge and detail loss. The quantitative evaluations also showed over 50% of noise reduction in terms of noise standard deviations, which is equivalent to over 75% of dose reduction for a normal dose image quality. (orig.)

  17. Power Adaptive Feedback Communication over an Additive Individual Noise Sequence Channel

    OpenAIRE

    Lomnitz, Yuval; Feder, Meir

    2009-01-01

    We consider a real-valued additive channel with an individual unknown noise sequence. We present a simple sequential communication scheme based on the celebrated Schalkwijk-Kailath scheme, which varies the transmit power according to the power of the sequence, so that asymptotically the relation between the SNR and the rate matches the Gaussian channel capacity 1/2 log(1+SNR)for almost every noise sequence.

  18. Diagnostic analysis of vibration signals using adaptive digital filtering techniques

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jewell, R. E.; Jones, J. H.; Paul, J. E.

    1983-01-01

    Signal enhancement techniques are described using recently developed digital adaptive filtering equipment. Adaptive filtering concepts are not new; however, as a result of recent advances in microprocessor-based electronics, hardware has been developed that has stable characteristics and of a size exceeding 1000th order. Selected data processing examples are presented illustrating spectral line enhancement, adaptive noise cancellation, and transfer function estimation in the presence of corrupting noise.

  19. Least Squares Inference on Integrated Volatility and the Relationship between Efficient Prices and Noise

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Nolte, Ingmar; Voev, Valeri

    The expected value of sums of squared intraday returns (realized variance) gives rise to a least squares regression which adapts itself to the assumptions of the noise process and allows for a joint inference on integrated volatility (IV), noise moments and price-noise relations. In the iid noise...

  20. Noise pollution from wind turbine gears loudness of structural noise sources related to gears

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Crone, A.

    1995-04-01

    The purpose of the project has been to develop a method for determination of the structure-borne noise source strength of the gearbox in a typical modern Danish wind turbine construction, with special reference to the tonal noise emission form the turbines. Through study and evaluation of eight potential methods, a simple method has ben formulated. The method is based on measurements of the free vibration velocity level on the gearbox in a load test bed. The relation between this source strength measure and the gearbox related noise from wind turbines has been documented by measurements made during the project together with earlier measurements. The method is intended as a tool for the wind turbine manufacturer, for control of the gearbox related noise from the wind turbines, due to structure-borne noise from the gearbox. It may be used for preparation of specifications to the gearbox manufacturer on test procedure and acceptable source strength levels. Also, it may be used for evaluation of the transmission and radiation of gearbox related noise, for example in order to uncover weaknesses in a prototype turbine. Suggestions for adaptation and evolution of the method has been given, thereby improving the strength of the method for the individual wind turbine manufacturer. (au) 19 refs

  1. Fast Link Adaptation for MIMO-OFDM

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jensen, Tobias Lindstrøm; Kant, Shashi; Wehinger, Joachim

    2010-01-01

    We investigate link-quality metrics (LQMs) based on raw bit-error-rate, effective signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio, and mutual information (MI) for the purpose of fast link adaptation (LA) in communication systems employing orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing and multiple-input–mult......We investigate link-quality metrics (LQMs) based on raw bit-error-rate, effective signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio, and mutual information (MI) for the purpose of fast link adaptation (LA) in communication systems employing orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing and multiple...

  2. Adaptive anisotropic diffusion filtering of Monte Carlo dose distributions

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Miao Binhe; Jeraj, Robert; Bao Shanglian; Mackie, Thomas R

    2003-01-01

    The Monte Carlo method is the most accurate method for radiotherapy dose calculations, if used correctly. However, any Monte Carlo dose calculation is burdened with statistical noise. In this paper, denoising of Monte Carlo dose distributions with a three-dimensional adaptive anisotropic diffusion method was investigated. The standard anisotropic diffusion method was extended by changing the filtering parameters adaptively according to the local statistical noise. Smoothing of dose distributions with different noise levels in an inhomogeneous phantom, a conventional and an IMRT treatment case is shown. The resultant dose distributions were analysed using several evaluating criteria. It is shown that the adaptive anisotropic diffusion method can reduce statistical noise significantly (two to five times, corresponding to the reduction of simulation time by a factor of up to 20), while preserving important gradients of the dose distribution well. The choice of free parameters of the method was found to be fairly robust

  3. Unscented Kalman filtering in the additive noise case

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    2010-01-01

    The unscented Kalman filter(UKF) has four implementations in the additive noise case,according to whether the state is augmented with noise vectors and whether a new set of sigma points is redrawn from the predicted state(which is so-called resampling) for the observation prediction.This paper concerns the differences of performances for those implementations,such as accuracy,adaptability,computational complexity,etc.The conditionally equivalent relationships between the augmented and non-augmented unscented transforms(UTs) are proved for several sampling strategies that are commonly used.Then,we find that the augmented and non-augmented UKFs have the same filter results with the additive measurement noise,but only have the same state predictions with the additive process noise.Resampling is not believed to be necessary in some researches.However,we find out that resampling can be helpful for an adaptive Kalman gain.This will improve the convergence and accuracy of the filter when the large scale state modeling bias or unknown maneuvers occur.Finally,some universal designing principles for a practical UKF are given as follows:1) for the additive observation noise case,it’s better to use the non-augmented UKF;2) for the additive process noise case,when the small state modeling bias or maneuvers are involved,the non-resampling algorithms with state whether augmented or not are candidates for filters;3) the resampling and non-augmented algorithm is the only choice while the large state modeling bias or maneuvers are latent.

  4. Study of Noise Canceling Performance of Feedforward Fuzzy-Based ANC System under Non-Causal Condition

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Mojallali, Hamed; Izadi-Zamanabadi, Roozbeh; Amini, Rouzbeh

    of noise canceling performance of feed-forward fuzzy-based ANC systems for ducts under non-causal condition is presented. For this purpose, we use fuzzy filtered-x algorithm as an adaptive filter and the results are compared with classical filteredx algorithm which is employed under the same conditions......Feed-forward active noise control (ANC) systems act as adaptive systems to control and cancel undesired signals and noises. If the delay in the noise canceling subsystems increases more than the delays in the primary path, non-causal condition will occur in these systems. In this paper, study....... Analysis shows that ANC systems using fuzzy algorithm has better efficiency for noise cancellation in non-causal condition....

  5. Analysis and Extension of the PCA Method, Estimating a Noise Curve from a Single Image

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Miguel Colom

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available In the article 'Image Noise Level Estimation by Principal Component Analysis', S. Pyatykh, J. Hesser, and L. Zheng propose a new method to estimate the variance of the noise in an image from the eigenvalues of the covariance matrix of the overlapping blocks of the noisy image. Instead of using all the patches of the noisy image, the authors propose an iterative strategy to adaptively choose the optimal set containing the patches with lowest variance. Although the method measures uniform Gaussian noise, it can be easily adapted to deal with signal-dependent noise, which is realistic with the Poisson noise model obtained by a CMOS or CCD device in a digital camera.

  6. Restoration for Noise Removal in Quantum Images

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Kai; Zhang, Yi; Lu, Kai; Wang, Xiaoping

    2017-09-01

    Quantum computation has become increasingly attractive in the past few decades due to its extraordinary performance. As a result, some studies focusing on image representation and processing via quantum mechanics have been done. However, few of them have considered the quantum operations for images restoration. To address this problem, three noise removal algorithms are proposed in this paper based on the novel enhanced quantum representation model, oriented to two kinds of noise pollution (Salt-and-Pepper noise and Gaussian noise). For the first algorithm Q-Mean, it is designed to remove the Salt-and-Pepper noise. The noise points are extracted through comparisons with the adjacent pixel values, after which the restoration operation is finished by mean filtering. As for the second method Q-Gauss, a special mask is applied to weaken the Gaussian noise pollution. The third algorithm Q-Adapt is effective for the source image containing unknown noise. The type of noise can be judged through the quantum statistic operations for the color value of the whole image, and then different noise removal algorithms are used to conduct image restoration respectively. Performance analysis reveals that our methods can offer high restoration quality and achieve significant speedup through inherent parallelism of quantum computation.

  7. Kernel-based noise filtering of neutron detector signals

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Park, Moon Ghu; Shin, Ho Cheol; Lee, Eun Ki

    2007-01-01

    This paper describes recently developed techniques for effective filtering of neutron detector signal noise. In this paper, three kinds of noise filters are proposed and their performance is demonstrated for the estimation of reactivity. The tested filters are based on the unilateral kernel filter, unilateral kernel filter with adaptive bandwidth and bilateral filter to show their effectiveness in edge preservation. Filtering performance is compared with conventional low-pass and wavelet filters. The bilateral filter shows a remarkable improvement compared with unilateral kernel and wavelet filters. The effectiveness and simplicity of the unilateral kernel filter with adaptive bandwidth is also demonstrated by applying it to the reactivity measurement performed during reactor start-up physics tests

  8. CT urography in the urinary bladder: To compare excretory phase images using a low noise index and a high noise index with adaptive noise reduction filter

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Takeyama, Nobuyuki; Hayashi, Takaki; Ohgiya, Yoshimitsu

    2011-01-01

    Background: Although CT urography (CTU) is widely used for the evaluation of the entire urinary tract, the most important drawback is the radiation exposure. Purpose: To evaluate the effect of a noise reduction filter (NRF) using a phantom and to quantitatively and qualitatively compare excretory phase (EP) images using a low noise index (NI) with those using a high NI and postprocessing NRF (pNRF). Material and Methods: Each NI value was defined for a slice thickness of 5 mm, and reconstructed images with a slice thickness of 1.25 mm were assessed. Sixty patients who were at high risk of developing bladder tumors (BT) were divided into two groups according to whether their EP images were obtained using an NI of 9.88 (29 patients; group A) or an NI of 20 and pNRF (31 patients; group B). The CT dose index volume (CTDI vol ) and the contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) of the bladder with respect to the anterior pelvic fat were compared in both groups. Qualitative assessment of the urinary bladder for image noise, sharpness, streak artifacts, homogeneity, and the conspicuity of polypoid or sessile-shaped BTs with a short-axis diameter greater than 10 mm was performed using a 3-point scale. Results: The phantom study showed noise reduction of approximately 40% and 76% dose reduction between group A and group B. CTDI vol demonstrated a 73% reduction in group B (4.6 ± 1.1 mGy) compared with group A (16.9 ± 3.4 mGy). The CNR value was not significantly different (P = 0.60) between group A (16.1 ± 5.1) and group B (16.6 ± 7.6). Although group A was superior (P < 0.01) to group B with regard to image noise, other qualitative analyses did not show significant differences. Conclusion: EP images using a high NI and pNRF were quantitatively and qualitatively comparable to those using a low NI, except with regard to image noise

  9. Slice image pretreatment for cone-beam computed tomography based on adaptive filter

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Huang Kuidong; Zhang Dinghua; Jin Yanfang

    2009-01-01

    According to the noise properties and the serial slice image characteristics in Cone-Beam Computed Tomography (CBCT) system, a slice image pretreatment for CBCT based on adaptive filter was proposed. The judging criterion for the noise is established firstly. All pixels are classified into two classes: adaptive center weighted modified trimmed mean (ACWMTM) filter is used for the pixels corrupted by Gauss noise and adaptive median (AM) filter is used for the pixels corrupted by impulse noise. In ACWMTM filtering algorithm, the estimated Gauss noise standard deviation in the current slice image with offset window is replaced by the estimated standard deviation in the adjacent slice image to the current with the corresponding window, so the filtering accuracy of the serial images is improved. The pretreatment experiment on CBCT slice images of wax model of hollow turbine blade shows that the method makes a good performance both on eliminating noises and on protecting details. (authors)

  10. WHO Environmental Noise Guidelines for the European Region: A Systematic Review on Environmental Noise and Cognition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Clark, Charlotte; Paunovic, Katarina

    2018-02-07

    This systematic review assesses the quality of the evidence across individual studies on the effect of environmental noise (road traffic, aircraft, and train and railway noise) on cognition. Quantitative non-experimental studies of the association between environmental noise exposure on child and adult cognitive performance published up to June 2015 were reviewed: no limit was placed on the start date for the search. A total of 34 papers were identified, all of which were of child populations. 82% of the papers were of cross-sectional design, with fewer studies of longitudinal or intervention design. A range of cognitive outcomes were examined. The quality of the evidence across the studies for each individual noise source and cognitive outcome was assessed using an adaptation of GRADE methodology. This review found, given the predominance of cross-sectional studies, that the quality of the evidence across studies ranged from being of moderate quality for an effect for some outcomes, e.g., aircraft noise effects on reading comprehension and on long-term memory, to no effect for other outcomes such as attention and executive function and for some noise sources such as road traffic noise and railway noise. The GRADE evaluation of low quality evidence across studies for some cognitive domains and for some noise sources does not necessarily mean that there are no effects: rather, that more robust and a greater number of studies are required.

  11. Robust Adaptive Speed Control of Induction Motor Drives

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Bidstrup, N.

    , (LS) identification and generalized predictive control (GPC) has been implemented and tested on the CVC drive. Allthough GPC is a robust control method, it was not possible to maintain specified controller performance in the entire operating range. This was the main reason for investigating truly...... adaptive speed control of the CVC drive. A direct truly adaptive speed controller has been implemented. The adaptive controller is a moving Average Self-Tuning Regulator which is abbreviated MASTR throughout the thesis. Two practical implementations of this controller were proposed. They were denoted MASTR...... and measurement noise in general, were the major reasons for the drifting parameters. Two approaches was proposed to robustify MASTR2 against the output noise. The first approach consists of filtering the output. Output filtering had a significant effect in simulations, but the robustness against the output noise...

  12. Nonlinear Adaptive Descriptor Observer for the Joint States and Parameters Estimation

    KAUST Repository

    2016-08-29

    In this note, the joint state and parameters estimation problem for nonlinear multi-input multi-output descriptor systems is considered. Asymptotic convergence of the adaptive descriptor observer is established by a sufficient set of linear matrix inequalities for the noise-free systems. The noise corrupted systems are also considered and it is shown that the state and parameters estimation errors are bounded for bounded noises. In addition, if the noises are bounded and have zero mean, then the estimation errors asymptotically converge to zero in the mean. The performance of the proposed adaptive observer is illustrated by a numerical example.

  13. Nonlinear Adaptive Descriptor Observer for the Joint States and Parameters Estimation

    KAUST Repository

    Unknown author

    2016-01-01

    In this note, the joint state and parameters estimation problem for nonlinear multi-input multi-output descriptor systems is considered. Asymptotic convergence of the adaptive descriptor observer is established by a sufficient set of linear matrix inequalities for the noise-free systems. The noise corrupted systems are also considered and it is shown that the state and parameters estimation errors are bounded for bounded noises. In addition, if the noises are bounded and have zero mean, then the estimation errors asymptotically converge to zero in the mean. The performance of the proposed adaptive observer is illustrated by a numerical example.

  14. Effect of train noise on sleep for people living in houses bordering the railway line

    CERN Document Server

    Vernet, M

    1979-01-01

    Disturbance of sleep by train and road noises was studied through in situ physiological recordings. For the same value of L/sub eq/ three times as many disturbances due to the noise from road traffic were found as there were due to the train noise. The data on sleep reactions for all the noise events do not show a better train noise adaptation than those for the road noise. (8 refs).

  15. Adaptive transmit selection with interference suppression

    KAUST Repository

    Radaydeh, Redha Mahmoud Mesleh

    2010-01-01

    This paper studies the performance of adaptive transmit channel selection in multipath fading channels. The adaptive selection algorithms are configured for single-antenna bandwidth-efficient or power-efficient transmission with as low transmit channel estimations as possible. Due to the fact that the number of active co-channel interfering signals and their corresponding powers experience random behavior, the adaptation to channels conditions, assuming uniform buffer and traffic loading, is proposed to be jointly based on the transmit channels instantaneous signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) and signal-to- interference-plus- noise ratios (SINRs). Two interference cancelation algorithms, which are the dominant cancelation and the less complex arbitrary cancelation, are considered, for which the receive antenna array is assumed to have small angular spread. Analytical formulation for some performance measures in addition to several processing complexity and numerical comparisons between various adaptation schemes are presented. ©2010 IEEE.

  16. TU-EF-210-01: HIFU, Drug Delivery, and Immunotherapy

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Ferrara, K. [University of California - Davis (United States)

    2015-06-15

    The use of therapeutic ultrasound to provide targeted therapy is an active research area that has a broad application scope. The invited talks in this session will address currently implemented strategies and protocols for both hyperthermia and ablation applications using therapeutic ultrasound. The role of both ultrasound and MRI in the monitoring and assessment of these therapies will be explored in both pre-clinical and clinical applications. Katherine Ferrara: High Intensity Focused Ultrasound, Drug Delivery, and Immunotherapy Rajiv Chopra: Translating Localized Doxorubicin Delivery to Pediatric Oncology using MRI-guided HIFU Elisa Konofagou: Real-time Ablation Monitoring and Lesion Quantification using Harmonic Motion Imaging Keyvan Farahani: AAPM Task Groups in Interventional Ultrasound Imaging and Therapy Learning Objectives: Understand the role of ultrasound in localized drug delivery and the effects of immunotherapy when used in conjunction with ultrasound therapy. Understand potential targeted drug delivery clinical applications including pediatric oncology. Understand the technical requirements for performing targeted drug delivery. Understand how radiation-force approaches can be used to both monitor and assess high intensity focused ultrasound ablation therapy. Understand the role of AAPM task groups in ultrasound imaging and therapies. Chopra: Funding from Cancer Prevention and Research Initiative of Texas (CPRIT), Award R1308 Evelyn and M.R. Hudson Foundation; Research Support from Research Contract with Philips Healthcare; COI are Co-founder of FUS Instruments Inc Ferrara: Supported by NIH, UCDavis and California (CIRM and BHCE) Farahani: In-kind research support from Philips Healthcare.

  17. TU-EF-210-01: HIFU, Drug Delivery, and Immunotherapy

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ferrara, K.

    2015-01-01

    The use of therapeutic ultrasound to provide targeted therapy is an active research area that has a broad application scope. The invited talks in this session will address currently implemented strategies and protocols for both hyperthermia and ablation applications using therapeutic ultrasound. The role of both ultrasound and MRI in the monitoring and assessment of these therapies will be explored in both pre-clinical and clinical applications. Katherine Ferrara: High Intensity Focused Ultrasound, Drug Delivery, and Immunotherapy Rajiv Chopra: Translating Localized Doxorubicin Delivery to Pediatric Oncology using MRI-guided HIFU Elisa Konofagou: Real-time Ablation Monitoring and Lesion Quantification using Harmonic Motion Imaging Keyvan Farahani: AAPM Task Groups in Interventional Ultrasound Imaging and Therapy Learning Objectives: Understand the role of ultrasound in localized drug delivery and the effects of immunotherapy when used in conjunction with ultrasound therapy. Understand potential targeted drug delivery clinical applications including pediatric oncology. Understand the technical requirements for performing targeted drug delivery. Understand how radiation-force approaches can be used to both monitor and assess high intensity focused ultrasound ablation therapy. Understand the role of AAPM task groups in ultrasound imaging and therapies. Chopra: Funding from Cancer Prevention and Research Initiative of Texas (CPRIT), Award R1308 Evelyn and M.R. Hudson Foundation; Research Support from Research Contract with Philips Healthcare; COI are Co-founder of FUS Instruments Inc Ferrara: Supported by NIH, UCDavis and California (CIRM and BHCE) Farahani: In-kind research support from Philips Healthcare

  18. Adaptive aperture for Geiger mode avalanche photodiode flash ladar systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Liang; Han, Shaokun; Xia, Wenze; Lei, Jieyu

    2018-02-01

    Although the Geiger-mode avalanche photodiode (GM-APD) flash ladar system offers the advantages of high sensitivity and simple construction, its detection performance is influenced not only by the incoming signal-to-noise ratio but also by the absolute number of noise photons. In this paper, we deduce a hyperbolic approximation to estimate the noise-photon number from the false-firing percentage in a GM-APD flash ladar system under dark conditions. By using this hyperbolic approximation function, we introduce a method to adapt the aperture to reduce the number of incoming background-noise photons. Finally, the simulation results show that the adaptive-aperture method decreases the false probability in all cases, increases the detection probability provided that the signal exceeds the noise, and decreases the average ranging error per frame.

  19. GPS Signal Offset Detection and Noise Strength Estimation in a Parallel Kalman Filter Algorithm

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    Vanek, Barry

    1999-01-01

    .... The variance of the noise process is estimated and provided to the second algorithm, a parallel Kalman filter structure, which then adapts to changes in the real-world measurement noise strength...

  20. Imaging monitored loosening of dense fibrous tissues using high-intensity pulsed ultrasound

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Yeh, Chia-Lun; Li, Pai-Chi; Kuo, Po-Ling; Shih, Wen-Pin; Huang, Pei-Shin

    2013-01-01

    Pulsed high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) is proposed as a new alternative treatment for contracture of dense fibrous tissue. It is hypothesized that the pulsed-HIFU can release the contracted tissues by attenuating tensile stiffness along the fiber axis, and that the stiffness reduction can be quantitatively monitored by change of B-mode images. Fresh porcine tendons and ligaments were adapted to an ex vivo model and insonated with pulsed-HIFU for durations ranging from 5 to 30 min. The pulse length was 91 µs with a repetition frequency of 500 Hz, and the peak rarefactional pressure was 6.36 MPa. The corresponding average intensities were kept around 1606 W cm −2 for I SPPA and 72.3 W cm −2 for I SPTA . B-mode images of the tissues were acquired before and after pulsed-HIFU exposure, and the changes in speckle intensity and organization were analyzed. The tensile stiffness of the HIFU-exposed tissues along the longitudinal axis was examined using a stretching machine. Histology examinations were performed by optical and transmission electron microscopy. Pulsed-HIFU exposure significantly decreased the tensile stiffness of the ligaments and tendons. The intensity and organization of tissue speckles in the exposed region were also decreased. The speckle changes correlated well with the degree of stiffness alteration. Histology examinations revealed that pulsed-HIFU exposure probably damages tissues via a cavitation-mediated mechanism. Our results suggest that pulsed-HIFU with a low duty factor is a promising tool for developing new treatment strategies for orthopedic disorders. (paper)

  1. Numerical Study for Optimizing Parameters of High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound-Induced Thermal Field during Liver Tumor Ablation: HIFU Simulator

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Somayeh gharloghi

    2017-03-01

    Full Text Available Introduction High intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU is considered a noninvasive and effective technique for tumor ablation. Frequency and acoustic power are the most effective parameters for temperature distribution and the extent of tissue damage. The aim of this study was to optimize the operating transducer parameters such as frequency and input power in order to acquire suitable temperature and thermal dose distribution in the course of a numerical assessment. Materials and Methods To model the sound propagation, the Khokhlov-Zabolotskava-Kuznetsov (KZK nonlinear wave equation was used and simulation was carried out using MATLAB HIFU toolbox. Bioheat equation was applied to calculate the transient temperature in the liver tissue. Frequency ranges of 2, 3, 4, and 5 MHz and power levels of 50 and 100 W were applied using an extracorporeal transducer. Results Using a frequency of 2 MHz, the maximum temperatures reached 53°C and 90°C in the focal point for power levels of 50 W and 100 W, respectively. With the same powers and using a frequency of 3 MHz, the temperature reached to 71°C and 170°C, respectively. In addition, for these power levels at the frequency of 4 MHz, the temperature reached to 72°C and 145°C, respectively. However, at the 5 MHz frequency, the temperature in the focal spot was either 57°C or 79°C. Conclusion Use of frequency of 2 MHz and power of 100 W led to higher thermal dose distribution, and subsequently, reduction of the treatment duration and complications at the same exposure time in ablation of large tumors.

  2. Adaptive cancellation of motion artifact in wearable biosensors.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yousefi, Rasoul; Nourani, Mehrdad; Panahi, Issa

    2012-01-01

    The performance of wearable biosensors is highly influenced by motion artifact. In this paper, a model is proposed for analysis of motion artifact in wearable photoplethysmography (PPG) sensors. Using this model, we proposed a robust real-time technique to estimate fundamental frequency and generate a noise reference signal. A Least Mean Square (LMS) adaptive noise canceler is then designed and validated using our synthetic noise generator. The analysis and results on proposed technique for noise cancellation shows promising performance.

  3. Potential of neuro-fuzzy methodology to estimate noise level of wind turbines

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nikolić, Vlastimir; Petković, Dalibor; Por, Lip Yee; Shamshirband, Shahaboddin; Zamani, Mazdak; Ćojbašić, Žarko; Motamedi, Shervin

    2016-01-01

    Wind turbines noise effect became large problem because of increasing of wind farms numbers since renewable energy becomes the most influential energy sources. However, wind turbine noise generation and propagation is not understandable in all aspects. Mechanical noise of wind turbines can be ignored since aerodynamic noise of wind turbine blades is the main source of the noise generation. Numerical simulations of the noise effects of the wind turbine can be very challenging task. Therefore in this article soft computing method is used to evaluate noise level of wind turbines. The main goal of the study is to estimate wind turbine noise in regard of wind speed at different heights and for different sound frequency. Adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) is used to estimate the wind turbine noise levels.

  4. Eigennoise Speech Recovery in Adverse Environments with Joint Compensation of Additive and Convolutive Noise

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Trung-Nghia Phung

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available The learning-based speech recovery approach using statistical spectral conversion has been used for some kind of distorted speech as alaryngeal speech and body-conducted speech (or bone-conducted speech. This approach attempts to recover clean speech (undistorted speech from noisy speech (distorted speech by converting the statistical models of noisy speech into that of clean speech without the prior knowledge on characteristics and distributions of noise source. Presently, this approach has still not attracted many researchers to apply in general noisy speech enhancement because of some major problems: those are the difficulties of noise adaptation and the lack of noise robust synthesizable features in different noisy environments. In this paper, we adopted the methods of state-of-the-art voice conversions and speaker adaptation in speech recognition to the proposed speech recovery approach applied in different kinds of noisy environment, especially in adverse environments with joint compensation of additive and convolutive noises. We proposed to use the decorrelated wavelet packet coefficients as a low-dimensional robust synthesizable feature under noisy environments. We also proposed a noise adaptation for speech recovery with the eigennoise similar to the eigenvoice in voice conversion. The experimental results showed that the proposed approach highly outperformed traditional nonlearning-based approaches.

  5. A real-time regional adaptive exposure method for saving dose-area product in x-ray fluoroscopy

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Burion, Steve; Funk, Tobias; Speidel, Michael A.

    2013-01-01

    Purpose: Reduction of radiation dose in x-ray imaging has been recognized as a high priority in the medical community. Here the authors show that a regional adaptive exposure method can reduce dose-area product (DAP) in x-ray fluoroscopy. The authors' method is particularly geared toward providing dose savings for the pediatric population. Methods: The scanning beam digital x-ray system uses a large-area x-ray source with 8000 focal spots in combination with a small photon-counting detector. An imaging frame is obtained by acquiring and reconstructing up to 8000 detector images, each viewing only a small portion of the patient. Regional adaptive exposure was implemented by varying the exposure of the detector images depending on the local opacity of the object. A family of phantoms ranging in size from infant to obese adult was imaged in anteroposterior view with and without adaptive exposure. The DAP delivered to each phantom was measured in each case, and noise performance was compared by generating noise arrays to represent regional noise in the images. These noise arrays were generated by dividing the image into regions of about 6 mm 2 , calculating the relative noise in each region, and placing the relative noise value of each region in a one-dimensional array (noise array) sorted from highest to lowest. Dose-area product savings were calculated as the difference between the ratio of DAP with adaptive exposure to DAP without adaptive exposure. The authors modified this value by a correction factor that matches the noise arrays where relative noise is the highest to report a final dose-area product savings. Results: The average dose-area product saving across the phantom family was (42 ± 8)% with the highest dose-area product saving in the child-sized phantom (50%) and the lowest in the phantom mimicking an obese adult (23%). Conclusions: Phantom measurements indicate that a regional adaptive exposure method can produce large DAP savings without compromising

  6. Normalised subband adaptive filtering with extended adaptiveness on degree of subband filters

    Science.gov (United States)

    Samuyelu, Bommu; Rajesh Kumar, Pullakura

    2017-12-01

    This paper proposes an adaptive normalised subband adaptive filtering (NSAF) to accomplish the betterment of NSAF performance. In the proposed NSAF, an extended adaptiveness is introduced from its variants in two ways. In the first way, the step-size is set adaptive, and in the second way, the selection of subbands is set adaptive. Hence, the proposed NSAF is termed here as variable step-size-based NSAF with selected subbands (VS-SNSAF). Experimental investigations are carried out to demonstrate the performance (in terms of convergence) of the VS-SNSAF against the conventional NSAF and its state-of-the-art adaptive variants. The results report the superior performance of VS-SNSAF over the traditional NSAF and its variants. It is also proved for its stability, robustness against noise and substantial computing complexity.

  7. [The century of noise].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pivato, Stefano

    2011-01-01

    When did, actually, "noise pollution" begin to coexist along with our daily life and activities and change our environmental natural sounds, which hadn't changed for centuries? Industrial revolution, first, and the introduction of new technologies later, introduced "noise" as one of the most relevant features that marked the development of progress. Later on, it became the distinctive characteristic of the XX century. The incessant rumble of industrial machinery, of weapons and cannons from the wars, the roar of cars in the streets and aeroplanes from the sky, the deafening sound of XX century music, as well as the shouting out of new political ideas suddenly invaded the new century. They became part of our daily life so much as almost to become a new lay religion of modernity. As the century proceeded towards economic boom, a "new noisy Man" complied with this change, becoming the anthropologic prototype who was able to adapt to the new style of life and even contribute to its expansion. All this finally allows, to day, a definition of the XX century as the "century of noise".

  8. Influence of Internal and External Noise on Spontaneous Visuomotor Synchronization.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Varlet, Manuel; Schmidt, R C; Richardson, Michael J

    2016-01-01

    Historically, movement noise or variability is considered to be an undesirable property of biological motor systems. In particular, noise is typically assumed to degrade the emergence and stability of rhythmic motor synchronization. Recently, however, it has been suggested that small levels of noise might actually improve the functioning of motor systems and facilitate their adaptation to environmental events. Here, the authors investigated whether noise can facilitate spontaneous rhythmic visuomotor synchronization. They examined the influence of internal noise in the rhythmic limb movements of participants and external noise in the movement of an oscillating visual stimulus on the occurrence of spontaneous synchronization. By indexing the natural frequency variability of participants and manipulating the frequency variability of the visual stimulus, the authors demonstrated that both internal and external noise degrade synchronization when the participants' and stimulus movement frequencies are similar, but can actually facilitate synchronization when the frequencies are different. Furthermore, the two kinds of noise interact with each other. Internal noise facilitates synchronization only when external noise is minimal and vice versa. Too much internal and external noise together degrades synchronization. These findings open new perspectives for better understanding the role of noise in human rhythmic coordination.

  9. Adaptive Unscented Kalman Filter using Maximum Likelihood Estimation

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Mahmoudi, Zeinab; Poulsen, Niels Kjølstad; Madsen, Henrik

    2017-01-01

    The purpose of this study is to develop an adaptive unscented Kalman filter (UKF) by tuning the measurement noise covariance. We use the maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) and the covariance matching (CM) method to estimate the noise covariance. The multi-step prediction errors generated...

  10. Modulation of neuronal dynamic range using two different adaptation mechanisms

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lei Wang

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available The capability of neurons to discriminate between intensity of external stimulus is measured by its dynamic range. A larger dynamic range indicates a greater probability of neuronal survival. In this study, the potential roles of adaptation mechanisms (ion currents in modulating neuronal dynamic range were numerically investigated. Based on the adaptive exponential integrate-and-fire model, which includes two different adaptation mechanisms, i.e. subthreshold and suprathreshold (spike-triggered adaptation, our results reveal that the two adaptation mechanisms exhibit rather different roles in regulating neuronal dynamic range. Specifically, subthreshold adaptation acts as a negative factor that observably decreases the neuronal dynamic range, while suprathreshold adaptation has little influence on the neuronal dynamic range. Moreover, when stochastic noise was introduced into the adaptation mechanisms, the dynamic range was apparently enhanced, regardless of what state the neuron was in, e.g. adaptive or non-adaptive. Our model results suggested that the neuronal dynamic range can be differentially modulated by different adaptation mechanisms. Additionally, noise was a non-ignorable factor, which could effectively modulate the neuronal dynamic range.

  11. Application of a Noise Adaptive Contrast Sensitivity Function to Image Data Compression

    Science.gov (United States)

    Daly, Scott J.

    1989-08-01

    The visual contrast sensitivity function (CSF) has found increasing use in image compression as new algorithms optimize the display-observer interface in order to reduce the bit rate and increase the perceived image quality. In most compression algorithms, increasing the quantization intervals reduces the bit rate at the expense of introducing more quantization error, a potential image quality degradation. The CSF can be used to distribute this error as a function of spatial frequency such that it is undetectable by the human observer. Thus, instead of being mathematically lossless, the compression algorithm can be designed to be visually lossless, with the advantage of a significantly reduced bit rate. However, the CSF is strongly affected by image noise, changing in both shape and peak sensitivity. This work describes a model of the CSF that includes these changes as a function of image noise level by using the concepts of internal visual noise, and tests this model in the context of image compression with an observer study.

  12. Effects of ocular aberrations on contrast detection in noise.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liang, Bo; Liu, Rong; Dai, Yun; Zhou, Jiawei; Zhou, Yifeng; Zhang, Yudong

    2012-08-06

    We use adaptive optics (AO) techniques to manipulate the ocular aberrations and elucidate the effects of these ocular aberrations on contrast detection in a noisy background. The detectability of sine wave gratings at frequencies of 4, 8, and 16 circles per degree (cpd) was measured in a standard two-interval force-choice staircase procedure against backgrounds of various levels of white noise. The observer's ocular aberrations were either corrected with AO or left uncorrected. In low levels of external noise, contrast detection thresholds are always lowered by AO correction, whereas in high levels of external noise, they are generally elevated by AO correction. Higher levels of external noise are required to make this threshold elevation observable when signal spatial frequencies increase from 4 to 16 cpd. The linear-amplifier-model fit shows that mostly sampling efficiency and equivalent noise both decrease with AO correction. Our findings indicate that ocular aberrations could be beneficial for contrast detection in high-level noises. The implications of these findings are discussed.

  13. Comparison between hybrid feedforward-feedback, feedforward, and feedback structures for active noise control of fMRI noise.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Reddy, Rajiv M; Panahi, Issa M S

    2008-01-01

    The performance of FIR feedforward, IIR feedforward, FIR feedback, hybrid FIR feedforward--FIR feedback, and hybrid IIR feedforward - FIR feedback structures for active noise control (ANC) are compared for an fMRI noise application. The filtered-input normalized least squares (FxNLMS) algorithm is used to update the coefficients of the adaptive filters in all these structures. Realistic primary and secondary paths of an fMRI bore are used by estimating them on a half cylindrical acrylic bore of 0.76 m (D)x1.52 m (L). Detailed results of the performance of the ANC system are presented in the paper for each of these structures. We find that the IIR feedforward structure produces most of the performance improvement in the hybrid IIR feedforward - FIR feedback structure and adding the feedback structure becomes almost redundant in the case of fMRI noise.

  14. Adaptive Autoregressive Model for Reduction of Noise in SPECT

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Reijo Takalo

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper presents improved autoregressive modelling (AR to reduce noise in SPECT images. An AR filter was applied to prefilter projection images and postfilter ordered subset expectation maximisation (OSEM reconstruction images (AR-OSEM-AR method. The performance of this method was compared with filtered back projection (FBP preceded by Butterworth filtering (BW-FBP method and the OSEM reconstruction method followed by Butterworth filtering (OSEM-BW method. A mathematical cylinder phantom was used for the study. It consisted of hot and cold objects. The tests were performed using three simulated SPECT datasets. Image quality was assessed by means of the percentage contrast resolution (CR% and the full width at half maximum (FWHM of the line spread functions of the cylinders. The BW-FBP method showed the highest CR% values and the AR-OSEM-AR method gave the lowest CR% values for cold stacks. In the analysis of hot stacks, the BW-FBP method had higher CR% values than the OSEM-BW method. The BW-FBP method exhibited the lowest FWHM values for cold stacks and the AR-OSEM-AR method for hot stacks. In conclusion, the AR-OSEM-AR method is a feasible way to remove noise from SPECT images. It has good spatial resolution for hot objects.

  15. Analytical approximations of the firing rate of an adaptive exponential integrate-and-fire neuron in the presence of synaptic noise

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Loreen eHertäg

    2014-09-01

    Full Text Available Computational models offer a unique tool for understanding the network-dynamical mechanisms which mediate between physiological and biophysical properties, and behavioral function. A traditional challenge in computational neuroscience is, however, that simple neuronal models which can be studied analytically fail to reproduce the diversity of electrophysiological behaviors seen in real neurons, while detailed neuronal models which do reproduce such diversity are intractable analytically and computationally expensive. A number of intermediate models have been proposed whose aim is to capture the diversity of firing behaviors and spike times of real neurons while entailing a mathematical description as simple as possible. One such model is the exponential integrate-and-fire neuron with spike rate adaptation (aEIF which consists of two differential equations for the membrane potential (V and an adaptation current (w. Despite its simplicity, it can reproduce a wide variety of physiologically observed spiking patterns, can be fit to physiological recordings quantitatively, and, once done so, is able to predict spike times on traces not used for model fitting. Here we compute the steady-state firing rate of aEIF in the presence of Gaussian synaptic noise, using two approaches. The first approach is based on the 2-dimensional Fokker-Planck equation that describes the (V,w-probability distribution, which is solved using an expansion in the ratio between the time constants of the two variables. The second is based on the firing rate of the EIF model, which is averaged over the distribution of the $w$ variable. These analytically derived closed-form expressions were tested on simulations from a large variety of model cells quantitatively fitted to in vitro electrophysiological recordings from pyramidal cells and interneurons. Theoretical predictions closely agreed with the firing rate of the simulated cells fed with in-vivo-like synaptic noise.

  16. Analytical approximations of the firing rate of an adaptive exponential integrate-and-fire neuron in the presence of synaptic noise.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hertäg, Loreen; Durstewitz, Daniel; Brunel, Nicolas

    2014-01-01

    Computational models offer a unique tool for understanding the network-dynamical mechanisms which mediate between physiological and biophysical properties, and behavioral function. A traditional challenge in computational neuroscience is, however, that simple neuronal models which can be studied analytically fail to reproduce the diversity of electrophysiological behaviors seen in real neurons, while detailed neuronal models which do reproduce such diversity are intractable analytically and computationally expensive. A number of intermediate models have been proposed whose aim is to capture the diversity of firing behaviors and spike times of real neurons while entailing the simplest possible mathematical description. One such model is the exponential integrate-and-fire neuron with spike rate adaptation (aEIF) which consists of two differential equations for the membrane potential (V) and an adaptation current (w). Despite its simplicity, it can reproduce a wide variety of physiologically observed spiking patterns, can be fit to physiological recordings quantitatively, and, once done so, is able to predict spike times on traces not used for model fitting. Here we compute the steady-state firing rate of aEIF in the presence of Gaussian synaptic noise, using two approaches. The first approach is based on the 2-dimensional Fokker-Planck equation that describes the (V,w)-probability distribution, which is solved using an expansion in the ratio between the time constants of the two variables. The second is based on the firing rate of the EIF model, which is averaged over the distribution of the w variable. These analytically derived closed-form expressions were tested on simulations from a large variety of model cells quantitatively fitted to in vitro electrophysiological recordings from pyramidal cells and interneurons. Theoretical predictions closely agreed with the firing rate of the simulated cells fed with in-vivo-like synaptic noise.

  17. Cross-band noise model refinement for transform domain Wyner–Ziv video coding

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Huang, Xin; Forchhammer, Søren

    2012-01-01

    TDWZ video coding trails that of conventional video coding solutions, mainly due to the quality of side information, inaccurate noise modeling and loss in the final coding step. The major goal of this paper is to enhance the accuracy of the noise modeling, which is one of the most important aspects...... influencing the coding performance of DVC. A TDWZ video decoder with a novel cross-band based adaptive noise model is proposed, and a noise residue refinement scheme is introduced to successively update the estimated noise residue for noise modeling after each bit-plane. Experimental results show...... that the proposed noise model and noise residue refinement scheme can improve the rate-distortion (RD) performance of TDWZ video coding significantly. The quality of the side information modeling is also evaluated by a measure of the ideal code length....

  18. Least Squares Inference on Integrated Volatility and the Relationship between Efficient Prices and Noise

    OpenAIRE

    Nolte, Ingmar; Voev, Valeri

    2009-01-01

    The expected value of sums of squared intraday returns (realized variance)gives rise to a least squares regression which adapts itself to the assumptions ofthe noise process and allows for a joint inference on integrated volatility (IV),noise moments and price-noise relations. In the iid noise case we derive theasymptotic variance of the regression parameter estimating the IV, show thatit is consistent and compare its asymptotic efficiency against alternative consistentIV measures. In case of...

  19. [Focused ultrasound therapy: current status and potential applications in neurosurgery].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dervishi, E; Aubry, J-F; Delattre, J-Y; Boch, A-L

    2013-12-01

    High Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU) therapy is an innovative approach for tissue ablation, based on high intensity focused ultrasound beams. At the focus, HIFU induces a temperature elevation and the tissue can be thermally destroyed. In fact, this approach has been tested in a number of clinical studies for the treatment of several tumors, primarily the prostate, uterine, breast, bone, liver, kidney and pancreas. For transcranial brain therapy, the skull bone is a major limitation, however, new adaptive techniques of phase correction for focusing ultrasound through the skull have recently been implemented by research systems, paving the way for HIFU therapy to become an interesting alternative to brain surgery and radiotherapy. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

  20. Effect of noise on humans; Effet du bruit sur l'homme

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Jouhaneau, J. [Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, CNAM, 75 - Paris (France)

    2001-07-01

    Noise remains one of the most badly known pollution source with respect to its effects on mankind and to its economical and social impacts. This bad knowledge is the consequence of the difficulty to measure the real short, average and long-term consequences of the noise aggression on living organisms which can adapt and hide some part of these effects. Also, noise comprises several subjective components and can be felt differently from one person to the other with different reactions sometimes contradictory or ambiguous. Content: 1 - definitions of noise; 2 - auditive effects of noise (discomfort, loss of audition); 3 - non-auditive effects (physiological stress, physiological disturbances); 4 - other disturbances (effects on sleep, effects on performance); 5 - theories about the mechanisms of noise action. (J.S.)

  1. Noise reduction and estimation in multiple micro-electro-mechanical inertial systems

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Waegli, Adrian; Skaloud, Jan; Guerrier, Stéphane; Parés, Maria Eulàlia; Colomina, Ismael

    2010-01-01

    This research studies the reduction and the estimation of the noise level within a redundant configuration of low-cost (MEMS-type) inertial measurement units (IMUs). Firstly, independent observations between units and sensors are assumed and the theoretical decrease in the system noise level is analyzed in an experiment with four MEMS-IMU triads. Then, more complex scenarios are presented in which the noise level can vary in time and for each sensor. A statistical method employed for studying the volatility of financial markets (GARCH) is adapted and tested for the usage with inertial data. This paper demonstrates experimentally and through simulations the benefit of direct noise estimation in redundant IMU setups

  2. Restoration of nuclear medicine images using adaptive Wiener filters

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Meinel, G.

    1989-01-01

    An adaptive Wiener filter implementation for restoration of nuclear medicine images is described. These are considerably disturbed both deterministically (definition) and stochastically (Poisson's quantum noise). After introduction of an image model, description of necessary parameter approximations and information on optimum design methods the implementation is described. The filter operates adaptively as concerns the local signal-to-noise ratio and is based on a filter band concept. To verify the restoration effect size numbers are introduced and the filter is tested against these numbers. (author)

  3. Performance of Traffic Noise Barriers with Varying Cross-Section

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sanja Grubeša

    2011-05-01

    Full Text Available The efficiency of noise barriers largely depends on their geometry. In this paper, the performance of noise barriers was simulated using the numerical Boundary Element Method (BEM. Traffic noise was particularly considered with its standardized noise spectrum adapted to human hearing. The cross-section of the barriers was varied with the goal of finding the optimum shape in comparison to classical rectangular barriers. The barrier performance was calculated at different receiver points for a fixed barrier height and source position. The magnitude of the insertion loss parameter was used to evaluate the performance change, both in one-third octave bands and as the broadband mean insertion loss value. The proposed barriers of varying cross-section were also compared with a typical T-shape barrier of the same height.

  4. Fuzzy Logic-Based Filter for Removing Additive and Impulsive Noise from Color Images

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhu, Yuhong; Li, Hongyang; Jiang, Huageng

    2017-12-01

    This paper presents an efficient filter method based on fuzzy logics for adaptively removing additive and impulsive noise from color images. The proposed filter comprises two parts including noise detection and noise removal filtering. In the detection part, the fuzzy peer group concept is applied to determine what type of noise is added to each pixel of the corrupted image. In the filter part, the impulse noise is deducted by the vector median filter in the CIELAB color space and an optimal fuzzy filter is introduced to reduce the Gaussian noise, while they can work together to remove the mixed Gaussian-impulse noise from color images. Experimental results on several color images proves the efficacy of the proposed fuzzy filter.

  5. SLMRACE: a noise-free RACE implementation with reduced computational time

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chauvin, Juliet; Provenzi, Edoardo

    2017-05-01

    We present a faster and noise-free implementation of the RACE algorithm. RACE has mixed characteristics between the famous Retinex model of Land and McCann and the automatic color equalization (ACE) color-correction algorithm. The original random spray-based RACE implementation suffers from two main problems: its computational time and the presence of noise. Here, we will show that it is possible to adapt two techniques recently proposed by Banić et al. to the RACE framework in order to drastically decrease the computational time and noise generation. The implementation will be called smart-light-memory-RACE (SLMRACE).

  6. Adaptive prediction applied to seismic event detection

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Clark, G.A.; Rodgers, P.W.

    1981-01-01

    Adaptive prediction was applied to the problem of detecting small seismic events in microseismic background noise. The Widrow-Hoff LMS adaptive filter used in a prediction configuration is compared with two standard seismic filters as an onset indicator. Examples demonstrate the technique's usefulness with both synthetic and actual seismic data

  7. Reorganization of auditory map and pitch discrimination in adult rats chronically exposed to low-level ambient noise

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Weimin eZheng

    2012-09-01

    Full Text Available Behavioral adaption to a changing environment is critical for an animal’s survival. How well the brain can modify its functional properties based on experience essentially defines the limits of behavioral adaptation. In adult animals the extent to which experience shapes brain function has not been fully explored. Moreover, the perceptual consequences of experience-induced changes in the brains of adults remain unknown. Here we show that the tonotopic map in the primary auditory cortex of adult rats living with low-level ambient noise underwent a dramatic reorganization. Behaviorally, chronic noise-exposure impaired fine, but not coarse pitch discrimination. When tested in a noisy environment, the noise-exposed rats performed as well as in a quiet environment whereas the control rats performed poorly. This suggests that noise-exposed animals had adapted to living in a noisy environment. Behavioral pattern analyses revealed that stress or distraction engendered by the noisy background could not account for the poor performance of the control rats in a noisy environment. A reorganized auditory map may therefore have served as the neural substrate for the consistent performance of the noise-exposed rats in a noisy environment.

  8. Data-adaptive image-denoising for detecting and quantifying nanoparticle entry in mucosal tissues through intravital 2-photon microscopy

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Torsten Bölke

    2014-11-01

    Full Text Available Intravital 2-photon microscopy of mucosal membranes across which nanoparticles enter the organism typically generates noisy images. Because the noise results from the random statistics of only very few photons detected per pixel, it cannot be avoided by technical means. Fluorescent nanoparticles contained in the tissue may be represented by a few bright pixels which closely resemble the noise structure. We here present a data-adaptive method for digital denoising of datasets obtained by 2-photon microscopy. The algorithm exploits both local and non-local redundancy of the underlying ground-truth signal to reduce noise. Our approach automatically adapts the strength of noise suppression in a data-adaptive way by using a Bayesian network. The results show that the specific adaption to both signal and noise characteristics improves the preservation of fine structures such as nanoparticles while less artefacts were produced as compared to reference algorithms. Our method is applicable to other imaging modalities as well, provided the specific noise characteristics are known and taken into account.

  9. Multichannel active control of random noise in a small reverberant room

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Laugesen, Søren; Elliott, Stephen J.

    1993-01-01

    An algorithm for multichannel adaptive IIR (infinite impulse response) filtering is presented and applied to the active control of broadband random noise in a small reverberant room. Assuming complete knowledge of the primary noise, the theoretically optimal reductions of acoustic energy are init...... with the primary noise field generated by a panel excited by a loudspeaker in an adjoining room. These results show that far better performances are provided by IIR and FIR filters when the primary source has a lightly damped dynamic behavior which the active controller must model...

  10. Adaptive robust Kalman filtering for precise point positioning

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Guo, Fei; Zhang, Xiaohong

    2014-01-01

    The optimality of precise point postioning (PPP) solution using a Kalman filter is closely connected to the quality of the a priori information about the process noise and the updated mesurement noise, which are sometimes difficult to obtain. Also, the estimation enviroment in the case of dynamic or kinematic applications is not always fixed but is subject to change. To overcome these problems, an adaptive robust Kalman filtering algorithm, the main feature of which introduces an equivalent covariance matrix to resist the unexpected outliers and an adaptive factor to balance the contribution of observational information and predicted information from the system dynamic model, is applied for PPP processing. The basic models of PPP including the observation model, dynamic model and stochastic model are provided first. Then an adaptive robust Kalmam filter is developed for PPP. Compared with the conventional robust estimator, only the observation with largest standardized residual will be operated by the IGG III function in each iteration to avoid reducing the contribution of the normal observations or even filter divergence. Finally, tests carried out in both static and kinematic modes have confirmed that the adaptive robust Kalman filter outperforms the classic Kalman filter by turning either the equivalent variance matrix or the adaptive factor or both of them. This becomes evident when analyzing the positioning errors in flight tests at the turns due to the target maneuvering and unknown process/measurement noises. (paper)

  11. Adaptive prediction applied to seismic event detection

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Clark, G.A.; Rodgers, P.W.

    1981-09-01

    Adaptive prediction was applied to the problem of detecting small seismic events in microseismic background noise. The Widrow-Hoff LMS adaptive filter used in a prediction configuration is compared with two standard seismic filters as an onset indicator. Examples demonstrate the technique's usefulness with both synthetic and actual seismic data.

  12. Partially Adaptive STAP Algorithm Approaches to functional MRI

    OpenAIRE

    Huang, Lejian; Thompson, Elizabeth A.; Schmithorst, Vincent; Holland, Scott K.; Talavage, Thomas M.

    2008-01-01

    In this work, the architectures of three partially adaptive STAP algorithms are introduced, one of which is explored in detail, that reduce dimensionality and improve tractability over fully adaptive STAP when used in construction of brain activation maps in fMRI. Computer simulations incorporating actual MRI noise and human data analysis indicate that element space partially adaptive STAP can attain close to the performance of fully adaptive STAP while significantly decreasing processing tim...

  13. Noise suppression by noise

    OpenAIRE

    Vilar, J. M. G. (José M. G.), 1972-; Rubí Capaceti, José Miguel

    2001-01-01

    We have analyzed the interplay between an externally added noise and the intrinsic noise of systems that relax fast towards a stationary state, and found that increasing the intensity of the external noise can reduce the total noise of the system. We have established a general criterion for the appearance of this phenomenon and discussed two examples in detail.

  14. Control of noise - systems for compact HVAC units

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Pedersen, Steffen; Møller, Henrik

    2012-01-01

    systems affect the performance of implementations. The source pressure and the impedance of a centrifugal fan were measured, and a number of configurations for noise control were investigated. The performance of a simple analogue feedback control was tested in a physical prototype. An adaptive digital...

  15. SU-C-207B-02: Maximal Noise Reduction Filter with Anatomical Structures Preservation

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Maitree, R; Guzman, G; Chundury, A; Roach, M; Yang, D [Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO (United States)

    2016-06-15

    Purpose: All medical images contain noise, which can result in an undesirable appearance and can reduce the visibility of anatomical details. There are varieties of techniques utilized to reduce noise such as increasing the image acquisition time and using post-processing noise reduction algorithms. However, these techniques are increasing the imaging time and cost or reducing tissue contrast and effective spatial resolution which are useful diagnosis information. The three main focuses in this study are: 1) to develop a novel approach that can adaptively and maximally reduce noise while preserving valuable details of anatomical structures, 2) to evaluate the effectiveness of available noise reduction algorithms in comparison to the proposed algorithm, and 3) to demonstrate that the proposed noise reduction approach can be used clinically. Methods: To achieve a maximal noise reduction without destroying the anatomical details, the proposed approach automatically estimated the local image noise strength levels and detected the anatomical structures, i.e. tissue boundaries. Such information was used to adaptively adjust strength of the noise reduction filter. The proposed algorithm was tested on 34 repeating swine head datasets and 54 patients MRI and CT images. The performance was quantitatively evaluated by image quality metrics and manually validated for clinical usages by two radiation oncologists and one radiologist. Results: Qualitative measurements on repeated swine head images demonstrated that the proposed algorithm efficiently removed noise while preserving the structures and tissues boundaries. In comparisons, the proposed algorithm obtained competitive noise reduction performance and outperformed other filters in preserving anatomical structures. Assessments from the manual validation indicate that the proposed noise reduction algorithm is quite adequate for some clinical usages. Conclusion: According to both clinical evaluation (human expert ranking) and

  16. SU-C-207B-02: Maximal Noise Reduction Filter with Anatomical Structures Preservation

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Maitree, R; Guzman, G; Chundury, A; Roach, M; Yang, D

    2016-01-01

    Purpose: All medical images contain noise, which can result in an undesirable appearance and can reduce the visibility of anatomical details. There are varieties of techniques utilized to reduce noise such as increasing the image acquisition time and using post-processing noise reduction algorithms. However, these techniques are increasing the imaging time and cost or reducing tissue contrast and effective spatial resolution which are useful diagnosis information. The three main focuses in this study are: 1) to develop a novel approach that can adaptively and maximally reduce noise while preserving valuable details of anatomical structures, 2) to evaluate the effectiveness of available noise reduction algorithms in comparison to the proposed algorithm, and 3) to demonstrate that the proposed noise reduction approach can be used clinically. Methods: To achieve a maximal noise reduction without destroying the anatomical details, the proposed approach automatically estimated the local image noise strength levels and detected the anatomical structures, i.e. tissue boundaries. Such information was used to adaptively adjust strength of the noise reduction filter. The proposed algorithm was tested on 34 repeating swine head datasets and 54 patients MRI and CT images. The performance was quantitatively evaluated by image quality metrics and manually validated for clinical usages by two radiation oncologists and one radiologist. Results: Qualitative measurements on repeated swine head images demonstrated that the proposed algorithm efficiently removed noise while preserving the structures and tissues boundaries. In comparisons, the proposed algorithm obtained competitive noise reduction performance and outperformed other filters in preserving anatomical structures. Assessments from the manual validation indicate that the proposed noise reduction algorithm is quite adequate for some clinical usages. Conclusion: According to both clinical evaluation (human expert ranking) and

  17. Improvement of observer performance during fluoroscopy by local adaptive contrast enhancement

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Gould, R.G.; Demas, B.E.; Maroney, T.P.

    1988-01-01

    The ability of a video processor (FluoroVision FV-1), which performs two-dimensional locally adaptive contrast enhancement, to improve the detection of a low-contrast object was evaluated by means of receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves. Three independent observers viewed a videotape of 50 fluoroscopic images of a varied background, in which a test object was present in 25. Each observer viewed the tape under four conditions: (1) no processing, (2) temporal noise reduction (gaussian weighted time averaging, (3) contrast enhancement, and (4) both noise reduction and contrast enhancement. The results were that detection was significantly improved by the locally adaptive contrast enhancement. Noise reduction did not significantly improve performance, probably because washer detection was limited by background contrast variations as well as noise and because only a small amount of noise reduction was used. The authors conclude that the processing device is potentially valuable in improving the quality of clinical fluoroscopic images

  18. HIFU procedures at moderate intensities-effect of large blood vessels

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hariharan, P; Myers, M R; Banerjee, R K

    2007-01-01

    A three-dimensional computational model is presented for studying the efficacy of high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) procedures targeted near large blood vessels. The analysis applies to procedures performed at intensities below the threshold for cavitation, boiling and highly nonlinear propagation, but high enough to increase tissue temperature a few degrees per second. The model is based upon the linearized KZK equation and the bioheat equation in tissue. In the blood vessel the momentum and energy equations are satisfied. The model is first validated in a tissue phantom, to verify the absence of bubble formation and nonlinear effects. Temperature rise and lesion-volume calculations are then shown for different beam locations and orientations relative to a large vessel. Both single and multiple ablations are considered. Results show that when the vessel is located within about a beam width (few mm) of the ultrasound beam, significant reduction in lesion volume is observed due to blood flow. However, for gaps larger than a beam width, blood flow has no major effect on the lesion formation. Under the clinically representative conditions considered, the lesion volume is reduced about 40% (relative to the no-flow case) when the beam is parallel to the blood vessel, compared to about 20% for a perpendicular orientation. Procedures involving multiple ablation sites are affected less by blood flow than single ablations. The model also suggests that optimally focused transducers can generate lesions that are significantly larger (>2 times) than the ones produced by highly focused beams

  19. HIFU procedures at moderate intensities-effect of large blood vessels

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Hariharan, P [Mechanical, Industrial, and Nuclear Engineering Department, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH (United States); Myers, M R [Division of Solid and Fluid Mechanics, Center for Devices and Radiological Health, US Food and Drug Administration, 10903 New Hampshire Avenue, Building 62, Silver Spring, MD 20993-0002 (United States); Banerjee, R K [Mechanical, Industrial, and Nuclear Engineering Department, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH (United States)

    2007-07-21

    A three-dimensional computational model is presented for studying the efficacy of high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) procedures targeted near large blood vessels. The analysis applies to procedures performed at intensities below the threshold for cavitation, boiling and highly nonlinear propagation, but high enough to increase tissue temperature a few degrees per second. The model is based upon the linearized KZK equation and the bioheat equation in tissue. In the blood vessel the momentum and energy equations are satisfied. The model is first validated in a tissue phantom, to verify the absence of bubble formation and nonlinear effects. Temperature rise and lesion-volume calculations are then shown for different beam locations and orientations relative to a large vessel. Both single and multiple ablations are considered. Results show that when the vessel is located within about a beam width (few mm) of the ultrasound beam, significant reduction in lesion volume is observed due to blood flow. However, for gaps larger than a beam width, blood flow has no major effect on the lesion formation. Under the clinically representative conditions considered, the lesion volume is reduced about 40% (relative to the no-flow case) when the beam is parallel to the blood vessel, compared to about 20% for a perpendicular orientation. Procedures involving multiple ablation sites are affected less by blood flow than single ablations. The model also suggests that optimally focused transducers can generate lesions that are significantly larger (>2 times) than the ones produced by highly focused beams.

  20. Power Adaptation Based on Truncated Channel Inversion for Hybrid FSO/RF Transmission With Adaptive Combining

    KAUST Repository

    Rakia, Tamer

    2015-07-23

    Hybrid free-space optical (FSO)/radio-frequency (RF) systems have emerged as a promising solution for high-data-rate wireless communications. In this paper, we consider power adaptation strategies based on truncated channel inversion for the hybrid FSO/RF system employing adaptive combining. Specifically, we adaptively set the RF link transmission power when FSO link quality is unacceptable to ensure constant combined signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at the receiver. Two adaptation strategies are proposed. One strategy depends on the received RF SNR, whereas the other one depends on the combined SNR of both links. Analytical expressions for the outage probability of the hybrid system with and without power adaptation are obtained. Numerical examples show that the hybrid FSO/RF system with power adaptation achieves a considerable outage performance improvement over the conventional system.

  1. Power Adaptation Based on Truncated Channel Inversion for Hybrid FSO/RF Transmission With Adaptive Combining

    KAUST Repository

    Rakia, Tamer; Hong-Chuan Yang; Gebali, Fayez; Alouini, Mohamed-Slim

    2015-01-01

    Hybrid free-space optical (FSO)/radio-frequency (RF) systems have emerged as a promising solution for high-data-rate wireless communications. In this paper, we consider power adaptation strategies based on truncated channel inversion for the hybrid FSO/RF system employing adaptive combining. Specifically, we adaptively set the RF link transmission power when FSO link quality is unacceptable to ensure constant combined signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at the receiver. Two adaptation strategies are proposed. One strategy depends on the received RF SNR, whereas the other one depends on the combined SNR of both links. Analytical expressions for the outage probability of the hybrid system with and without power adaptation are obtained. Numerical examples show that the hybrid FSO/RF system with power adaptation achieves a considerable outage performance improvement over the conventional system.

  2. Lossless Authentication Watermarking Based on Adaptive Modular Arithmetic

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    H. Yang

    2010-04-01

    Full Text Available Reversible watermarking schemes based on modulo-256 addition may cause annoying salt-and-pepper noise. To avoid the salt-and-pepper noise, a reversible watermarking scheme using human visual perception characteristics and adaptive modular arithmetic is proposed. First, a high-bit residual image is obtained by extracting the most significant bits (MSB of the original image, and a new spatial visual perception model is built according to the high-bit residual image features. Second, the watermark strength and the adaptive divisor of modulo operation for each pixel are determined by the visual perception model. Finally, the watermark is embedded into different least significant bits (LSB of original image with adaptive modulo addition. The original image can be losslessly recovered if the stego-image has not been altered. Extensive experiments show that the proposed algorithm eliminates the salt-and-pepper noise effectively, and the visual quality of the stego-image with the proposed algorithm has been dramatically improved over some existing reversible watermarking algorithms. Especially, the stegoimage of this algorithm has about 9.9864 dB higher PSNR value than that of modulo-256 addition based reversible watermarking scheme.

  3. Thermal and mechanical high-intensity focused ultrasound: perspectives on tumor ablation, immune effects and combination strategies.

    Science.gov (United States)

    van den Bijgaart, Renske J E; Eikelenboom, Dylan C; Hoogenboom, Martijn; Fütterer, Jurgen J; den Brok, Martijn H; Adema, Gosse J

    2017-02-01

    Tumor ablation technologies, such as radiofrequency-, cryo- or high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) ablation will destroy tumor tissue in a minimally invasive manner. Ablation generates large volumes of tumor debris in situ, releasing multiple bio-molecules like tumor antigens and damage-associated molecular patterns. To initiate an adaptive antitumor immune response, antigen-presenting cells need to take up tumor antigens and, following activation, present them to immune effector cells. The impact of the type of tumor ablation on the precise nature, availability and suitability of the tumor debris for immune response induction, however, is poorly understood. In this review, we focus on immune effects after HIFU-mediated ablation and compare these to findings using other ablation technologies. HIFU can be used both for thermal and mechanical destruction of tissue, inducing coagulative necrosis or subcellular fragmentation, respectively. Preclinical and clinical results of HIFU tumor ablation show increased infiltration and activation of CD4 + and CD8 + T cells. As previously observed for other types of tumor ablation technologies, however, this ablation-induced enhanced infiltration alone appears insufficient to generate consistent protective antitumor immunity. Therapies combining ablation with immune stimulation are therefore expected to be key to boost HIFU-induced immune effects and to achieve systemic, long-lasting, antitumor immunity.

  4. On estimation of the noise variance in high-dimensional linear models

    OpenAIRE

    Golubev, Yuri; Krymova, Ekaterina

    2017-01-01

    We consider the problem of recovering the unknown noise variance in the linear regression model. To estimate the nuisance (a vector of regression coefficients) we use a family of spectral regularisers of the maximum likelihood estimator. The noise estimation is based on the adaptive normalisation of the squared error. We derive the upper bound for the concentration of the proposed method around the ideal estimator (the case of zero nuisance).

  5. The hearing of rural workers exposed to noise and pesticides.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sena, Tereza R R; Dourado, Solano S F; Lima, Lucas V; Antoniolli, Ângelo R

    2018-01-01

    n work environments, different physical and chemical agents that may pose a risk to workers' hearing health coexist. In this context, occupational hearing loss stands out. It has mostly been attributed to only noise exposure, although there are other agents, that is, pesticides that might contribute to occupational hearing loss. In this report, two cases will be presented that consider rural workers exposed to pesticides and intense noise generated by an adapted rudimentary vehicle. The noise measured in this vehicle was 88.3 dBA up to 93.4 dBA. Pure-tone audiometry, distortion product otoacoustic emissions, and high-frequency audiometry tests were performed. This report is unusual because of the short time of exposure to noise and pesticides and the hearing loss found, indicating a synergy between those agents.

  6. Spatio-Temporal Audio Enhancement Based on IAA Noise Covariance Matrix Estimates

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Nørholm, Sidsel Marie; Jensen, Jesper Rindom; Christensen, Mads Græsbøll

    2014-01-01

    A method for estimating the noise covariance matrix in a mul- tichannel setup is proposed. The method is based on the iter- ative adaptive approach (IAA), which only needs short seg- ments of data to estimate the covariance matrix. Therefore, the method can be used for fast varying signals....... The method is based on an assumption of the desired signal being harmonic, which is used for estimating the noise covariance matrix from the covariance matrix of the observed signal. The noise co- variance estimate is used in the linearly constrained minimum variance (LCMV) filter and compared...

  7. PHYCAA: Data-driven measurement and removal of physiological noise in BOLD fMRI

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Churchill, Nathan W.; Yourganov, Grigori; Spring, Robyn

    2012-01-01

    , autocorrelated physiological noise sources with reproducible spatial structure, using an adaptation of Canonical Correlation Analysis performed in a split-half resampling framework. The technique is able to identify physiological effects with vascular-linked spatial structure, and an intrinsic dimensionality...... with physiological noise, and real data-driven model prediction and reproducibility, for both block and event-related task designs. This is demonstrated compared to no physiological noise correction, and to the widely used RETROICOR (Glover et al., 2000) physiological denoising algorithm, which uses externally...

  8. Assessment of noise reduction potential and image quality improvement of a new generation adaptive statistical iterative reconstruction (ASIR-V) in chest CT.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tang, Hui; Yu, Nan; Jia, Yongjun; Yu, Yong; Duan, Haifeng; Han, Dong; Ma, Guangming; Ren, Chenglong; He, Taiping

    2018-01-01

    To evaluate the image quality improvement and noise reduction in routine dose, non-enhanced chest CT imaging by using a new generation adaptive statistical iterative reconstruction (ASIR-V) in comparison with ASIR algorithm. 30 patients who underwent routine dose, non-enhanced chest CT using GE Discovery CT750HU (GE Healthcare, Waukesha, WI) were included. The scan parameters included tube voltage of 120 kVp, automatic tube current modulation to obtain a noise index of 14HU, rotation speed of 0.6 s, pitch of 1.375:1 and slice thickness of 5 mm. After scanning, all scans were reconstructed with the recommended level of 40%ASIR for comparison purpose and different percentages of ASIR-V from 10% to 100% in a 10% increment. The CT attenuation values and SD of the subcutaneous fat, back muscle and descending aorta were measured at the level of tracheal carina of all reconstructed images. The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) was calculated with SD representing image noise. The subjective image quality was independently evaluated by two experienced radiologists. For all ASIR-V images, the objective image noise (SD) of fat, muscle and aorta decreased and SNR increased along with increasing ASIR-V percentage. The SD of 30% ASIR-V to 100% ASIR-V was significantly lower than that of 40% ASIR (p ASIR-V reconstructions had good diagnostic acceptability. However, the 50% ASIR-V to 70% ASIR-V series showed significantly superior visibility of small structures when compared with the 40% ASIR and ASIR-V of other percentages (p ASIR-V was the best series of all ASIR-V images, with a highest subjective image quality. The image sharpness was significantly decreased in images reconstructed by 80% ASIR-V and higher. In routine dose, non-enhanced chest CT, ASIR-V shows greater potential in reducing image noise and artefacts and maintaining image sharpness when compared to the recommended level of 40%ASIR algorithm. Combining both the objective and subjective evaluation of images, non

  9. Explicit control of adaptive automation under different levels of environmental stress.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sauer, Jürgen; Kao, Chung-Shan; Wastell, David; Nickel, Peter

    2011-08-01

    This article examines the effectiveness of three different forms of explicit control of adaptive automation under low- and high-stress conditions, operationalised by different levels of noise. In total, 60 participants were assigned to one of three types of automation design (free, prompted and forced choice). They were trained for 4 h on a highly automated simulation of a process control environment, called AutoCAMS. This was followed by a 4-h testing session under noise exposure and quiet conditions. Measures of performance, psychophysiology and subjective reactions were taken. The results showed that all three modes of explicit control of adaptive automation modes were able to attenuate the negative effects of noise. This was partly due to the fact that operators opted for higher levels of automation under noise. It also emerged that forced choice showed marginal advantages over the two other automation modes. Statement of Relevance: This work is relevant to the design of adaptive automation since it emphasises the need to consider the impact of work-related stressors during task completion. During the presence of stressors, different forms of operator support through automation may be required than under more favourable working conditions.

  10. Effects of non-stationary noise on consonant identification

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Zaar, Johannes; Kowalewski, Borys; Dau, Torsten

    2018-01-01

    recognition scores were inversely related to the amount of simultaneous masking. However, even with minimum simultaneous masking, a substantial loss of consonant recognition was observed at low SNRs, suggesting a forward masking effect. The model, which employs adaptive processes in the front end, accounted...... in such conditions. Normal-hearing listeners were presented with 15 Danish CVs in 5-Hz interrupted noise at SNRs of −20, −10, 0, and 10 dB. Five different CV onset times with respect to the noise bursts were considered, differing in the amount of induced simultaneous and forward masking. As expected, the consonant...

  11. Aging and motor variability: a test of the neural noise hypothesis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sosnoff, Jacob J; Newell, Karl M

    2011-07-01

    Experimental tests of the neural noise hypothesis of aging, which holds that aging-related increments in motor variability are due to increases in white noise in the perceptual-motor system, were conducted. Young (20-29 years old) and old (60-69 and 70-79 years old) adults performed several perceptual-motor tasks. Older adults were progressively more variable in their performance outcome, but there was no age-related difference in white noise in the motor output. Older adults had a greater frequency-dependent structure in their motor variability that was associated with performance decrements. The findings challenge the main tenet of the neural noise hypothesis of aging in that the increased variability of older adults was due to a decreased ability to adapt to the constraints of the task rather than an increment of neural noise per se.

  12. A multichannel nonlinear adaptive noise canceller based on generalized FLANN for fetal ECG extraction

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ma, Yaping; Wei, Guo; Sun, Jinwei; Xiao, Yegui

    2016-01-01

    In this paper, a multichannel nonlinear adaptive noise canceller (ANC) based on the generalized functional link artificial neural network (FLANN, GFLANN) is proposed for fetal electrocardiogram (FECG) extraction. A FIR filter and a GFLANN are equipped in parallel in each reference channel to respectively approximate the linearity and nonlinearity between the maternal ECG (MECG) and the composite abdominal ECG (AECG). A fast scheme is also introduced to reduce the computational cost of the FLANN and the GFLANN. Two (2) sets of ECG time sequences, one synthetic and one real, are utilized to demonstrate the improved effectiveness of the proposed nonlinear ANC. The real dataset is derived from the Physionet non-invasive FECG database (PNIFECGDB) including 55 multichannel recordings taken from a pregnant woman. It contains two subdatasets that consist of 14 and 8 recordings, respectively, with each recording being 90 s long. Simulation results based on these two datasets reveal, on the whole, that the proposed ANC does enjoy higher capability to deal with nonlinearity between MECG and AECG as compared with previous ANCs in terms of fetal QRS (FQRS)-related statistics and morphology of the extracted FECG waveforms. In particular, for the second real subdataset, the F1-measure results produced by the PCA-based template subtraction (TS pca ) technique and six (6) single-reference channel ANCs using LMS- and RLS-based FIR filters, Volterra filter, FLANN, GFLANN, and adaptive echo state neural network (ESN a ) are 92.47%, 93.70%, 94.07%, 94.22%, 94.90%, 94.90%, and 95.46%, respectively. The same F1-measure statistical results from five (5) multi-reference channel ANCs (LMS- and RLS-based FIR filters, Volterra filter, FLANN, and GFLANN) for the second real subdataset turn out to be 94.08%, 94.29%, 94.68%, 94.91%, and 94.96%, respectively. These results indicate that the ESN a and GFLANN perform best, with the ESN a being slightly better than the GFLANN but about four times

  13. Robust stability analysis of adaptation algorithms for single perceptron.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hui, S; Zak, S H

    1991-01-01

    The problem of robust stability and convergence of learning parameters of adaptation algorithms in a noisy environment for the single preceptron is addressed. The case in which the same input pattern is presented in the adaptation cycle is analyzed. The algorithm proposed is of the Widrow-Hoff type. It is concluded that this algorithm is robust. However, the weight vectors do not necessarily converge in the presence of measurement noise. A modified version of this algorithm in which the reduction factors are allowed to vary with time is proposed, and it is shown that this algorithm is robust and that the weight vectors converge in the presence of bounded noise. Only deterministic-type arguments are used in the analysis. An ultimate bound on the error in terms of a convex combination of the initial error and the bound on the noise is obtained.

  14. High Dynamic Range adaptive ΔΣ-based Focal Plane Array architecture

    KAUST Repository

    Yao, Shun

    2012-10-16

    In this paper, an Adaptive Delta-Sigma based architecture for High Dynamic Range (HDR) Focal Plane Arrays is presented. The noise shaping effect of the Delta-Sigma modulation in the low end, and the distortion noise induced in the high end of Photo-diode current were analyzed in detail. The proposed architecture can extend the DR for about 20N log2 dB at the high end of Photo-diode current with an N bit Up-Down counter. At the low end, it can compensate for the larger readout noise by employing Extended Counting. The Adaptive Delta-Sigma architecture employing a 4-bit Up-Down counter achieved about 160dB in the DR, with a Peak SNR (PSNR) of 80dB at the high end. Compared to the other HDR architectures, the Adaptive Delta-Sigma based architecture provides the widest DR with the best SNR performance in the extended range.

  15. Initial phantom study comparing image quality in computed tomography using adaptive statistical iterative reconstruction and new adaptive statistical iterative reconstruction v.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lim, Kyungjae; Kwon, Heejin; Cho, Jinhan; Oh, Jongyoung; Yoon, Seongkuk; Kang, Myungjin; Ha, Dongho; Lee, Jinhwa; Kang, Eunju

    2015-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to assess the image quality of a novel advanced iterative reconstruction (IR) method called as "adaptive statistical IR V" (ASIR-V) by comparing the image noise, contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR), and spatial resolution from those of filtered back projection (FBP) and adaptive statistical IR (ASIR) on computed tomography (CT) phantom image. We performed CT scans at 5 different tube currents (50, 70, 100, 150, and 200 mA) using 3 types of CT phantoms. Scanned images were subsequently reconstructed in 7 different scan settings, such as FBP, and 3 levels of ASIR and ASIR-V (30%, 50%, and 70%). The image noise was measured in the first study using body phantom. The CNR was measured in the second study using contrast phantom and the spatial resolutions were measured in the third study using a high-resolution phantom. We compared the image noise, CNR, and spatial resolution among the 7 reconstructed image scan settings to determine whether noise reduction, high CNR, and high spatial resolution could be achieved at ASIR-V. At quantitative analysis of the first and second studies, it showed that the images reconstructed using ASIR-V had reduced image noise and improved CNR compared with those of FBP and ASIR (P ASIR-V had significantly improved spatial resolution than those of FBP and ASIR (P ASIR-V provides a significant reduction in image noise and a significant improvement in CNR as well as spatial resolution. Therefore, this technique has the potential to reduce the radiation dose further without compromising image quality.

  16. Performance of adaptive MS-GSC with co-channel interference

    KAUST Repository

    Daghfous, Mohamed A.

    2011-06-01

    Minimum selection generalized selection combining(MS-GSC) scheme has been proposed as a generalized power-saving variant of the conventional generalized selection combining(GSC) scheme. Previous analysis of the performance of MS-GSC has focused on interference-free environments. This paper aims to investigate the performance of adaptive signal-to-noise ratio (SNR)-based MS-GSC in the presence of co-channel interference over multipath fading channels. The adaptation thresholds are selected to enhance either the spectral efficiency or power efficiency of discrete-time rectangular signaling system. New closed-form expressions for the statistics of combined signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) are presented, which are then used to obtain analytical formulations for various performance measures. Numerical and simulation comparisons for the performance of the adaptation scheme are provided. © 2011 IEEE.

  17. Spectrogram Image Analysis of Error Signals for Minimizing Impulse Noise

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jeakwan Kim

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper presents the theoretical and experimental study on the spectrogram image analysis of error signals for minimizing the impulse input noises in the active suppression of noise. Impulse inputs of some specific wave patterns as primary noises to a one-dimensional duct with the length of 1800 mm are shown. The convergence speed of the adaptive feedforward algorithm based on the least mean square approach was controlled by a normalized step size which was incorporated into the algorithm. The variations of the step size govern the stability as well as the convergence speed. Because of this reason, a normalized step size is introduced as a new method for the control of impulse noise. The spectrogram images which indicate the degree of the attenuation of the impulse input noises are considered to represent the attenuation with the new method. The algorithm is extensively investigated in both simulation and real-time control experiment. It is demonstrated that the suggested algorithm worked with a nice stability and performance against impulse noises. The results in this study can be used for practical active noise control systems.

  18. High Dynamic Range adaptive ΔΣ-based Focal Plane Array architecture

    KAUST Repository

    Yao, Shun; Kavusi, Sam; Salama, Khaled N.

    2012-01-01

    In this paper, an Adaptive Delta-Sigma based architecture for High Dynamic Range (HDR) Focal Plane Arrays is presented. The noise shaping effect of the Delta-Sigma modulation in the low end, and the distortion noise induced in the high end of Photo

  19. dc SQUID electronics based on adaptive noise cancellation and a high open-loop gain controller

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Seppae, H.

    1992-01-01

    A low-noise SQUID readout electronics with a high slew rate and an automatic gain control feature has been developed. Flux noise levels of 5x10 -7 Φ 0 /√Hz at 1 kHz and 2x10 -6 Φ 0 /√Hz at 1 Hz have been measured with this readout scheme. The system tolerates sinusoidal disturbances having amplitudes up to 140 Φ 0 at 1 kHz without loosing lock. The electronics utilizes a cooled GaAs FET to control the cancellation of the voltage noise of the room temperature amplifier, a PI 3/2 controller to provide a high open-loop gain at low frequencies, and a square-wave flux and offset voltage modulation to enable automatic control of the noise reduction. The cutoff frequency of the flux-locked-loop is 300 kHz and the feedback gain is more than 130 dB at 10 Hz. (orig.)

  20. Spatial-temporal three-dimensional ultrasound plane-by-plane active cavitation mapping for high-intensity focused ultrasound in free field and pulsatile flow.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ding, Ting; Hu, Hong; Bai, Chen; Guo, Shifang; Yang, Miao; Wang, Supin; Wan, Mingxi

    2016-07-01

    Cavitation plays important roles in almost all high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) applications. However, current two-dimensional (2D) cavitation mapping could only provide cavitation activity in one plane. This study proposed a three-dimensional (3D) ultrasound plane-by-plane active cavitation mapping (3D-UPACM) for HIFU in free field and pulsatile flow. The acquisition of channel-domain raw radio-frequency (RF) data in 3D space was performed by sequential plane-by-plane 2D ultrafast active cavitation mapping. Between two adjacent unit locations, there was a waiting time to make cavitation nuclei distribution of the liquid back to the original state. The 3D cavitation map equivalent to the one detected at one time and over the entire volume could be reconstructed by Marching Cube algorithm. Minimum variance (MV) adaptive beamforming was combined with coherence factor (CF) weighting (MVCF) or compressive sensing (CS) method (MVCS) to process the raw RF data for improved beamforming or more rapid data processing. The feasibility of 3D-UPACM was demonstrated in tap-water and a phantom vessel with pulsatile flow. The time interval between temporal evolutions of cavitation bubble cloud could be several microseconds. MVCF beamformer had a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at 14.17dB higher, lateral and axial resolution at 2.88times and 1.88times, respectively, which were compared with those of B-mode active cavitation mapping. MVCS beamformer had only 14.94% time penalty of that of MVCF beamformer. This 3D-UPACM technique employs the linear array of a current ultrasound diagnosis system rather than a 2D array transducer to decrease the cost of the instrument. Moreover, although the application is limited by the requirement for a gassy fluid medium or a constant supply of new cavitation nuclei that allows replenishment of nuclei between HIFU exposures, this technique may exhibit a useful tool in 3D cavitation mapping for HIFU with high speed, precision and resolution

  1. Noise pollution mapping approach and accuracy on landscape scales.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Iglesias Merchan, Carlos; Diaz-Balteiro, Luis

    2013-04-01

    Noise mapping allows the characterization of environmental variables, such as noise pollution or soundscape, depending on the task. Strategic noise mapping (as per Directive 2002/49/EC, 2002) is a tool intended for the assessment of noise pollution at the European level every five years. These maps are based on common methods and procedures intended for human exposure assessment in the European Union that could be also be adapted for assessing environmental noise pollution in natural parks. However, given the size of such areas, there could be an alternative approach to soundscape characterization rather than using human noise exposure procedures. It is possible to optimize the size of the mapping grid used for such work by taking into account the attributes of the area to be studied and the desired outcome. This would then optimize the mapping time and the cost. This type of optimization is important in noise assessment as well as in the study of other environmental variables. This study compares 15 models, using different grid sizes, to assess the accuracy of the noise mapping of the road traffic noise at a landscape scale, with respect to noise and landscape indicators. In a study area located in the Manzanares High River Basin Regional Park in Spain, different accuracy levels (Kappa index values from 0.725 to 0.987) were obtained depending on the terrain and noise source properties. The time taken for the calculations and the noise mapping accuracy results reveal the potential for setting the map resolution in line with decision-makers' criteria and budget considerations. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  2. Frequency response function of motors for switching noise energy with a new experimental approach

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kim, Hyunsu; Yoon, Jong-Yun

    2017-01-01

    Switching energy in electrical vehicles can create serious noise from the motors. However, the characteristics of switching noise in vehicle motors are not clear due to the complexity of measuring them. This study proposes a new experimental method to investigate the switching noise energy of a vehicle motor based on frequency response functions. A function generator-amplifier system is used to gen- erate the switching energy instead of the complex battery-inverter system that has previously been used to examine the noise energy characteristics. Even though newly adapted experimental method is simple, the switching noise energy was explicitly investigated under various input signals. Thus, this simple new method can be used to investigate the dynamic characteristics of noise energy in a vehicle motor

  3. Frequency response function of motors for switching noise energy with a new experimental approach

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Kim, Hyunsu [Ensemble Center for Automotive Research, Seoul (Korea, Republic of); Yoon, Jong-Yun [Incheon National University, Incheon (Korea, Republic of)

    2017-06-15

    Switching energy in electrical vehicles can create serious noise from the motors. However, the characteristics of switching noise in vehicle motors are not clear due to the complexity of measuring them. This study proposes a new experimental method to investigate the switching noise energy of a vehicle motor based on frequency response functions. A function generator-amplifier system is used to gen- erate the switching energy instead of the complex battery-inverter system that has previously been used to examine the noise energy characteristics. Even though newly adapted experimental method is simple, the switching noise energy was explicitly investigated under various input signals. Thus, this simple new method can be used to investigate the dynamic characteristics of noise energy in a vehicle motor.

  4. Adaptive single-antenna transmit selection with interference suppression

    KAUST Repository

    Radaydeh, Redha Mahmoud Mesleh

    2011-10-01

    This paper studies the performance of adaptive transmit selection with co-channel interference suppression in multipath fading channels. The adaptive selection algorithms are configured for single-antenna bandwidth-efficient or power-efficient transmission with as low transmit channel estimations as possible. Due to the fact that the number of active co-channel interfering signals and their corresponding powers experience random behavior, the adaptation to channels conditions, assuming uniform buffer and traffic loading, is proposed to be jointly based on the transmit channels instantaneous signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) and signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratios (SINRs). Two interference cancelation algorithms are considered. The first algorithm assumes that the receiver eliminates the impact of the strongest subset of interferers, whereas the second algorithm suggests random cancelation of interferers to further reduce processing complexity. The impact of outdated ordering of interferers powers on the efficiency of interference cancelation, and the effect of imperfect prediction of transmit channels for desired user adaptation are investigated. Analytical formulations for various performance measures and comparisons between the performance and processing complexity of different adaptation schemes are presented. © 2011 IEEE.

  5. Adaptive DSPI phase denoising using mutual information and 2D variational mode decomposition

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xiao, Qiyang; Li, Jian; Wu, Sijin; Li, Weixian; Yang, Lianxiang; Dong, Mingli; Zeng, Zhoumo

    2018-04-01

    In digital speckle pattern interferometry (DSPI), noise interference leads to a low peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) and measurement errors in the phase map. This paper proposes an adaptive DSPI phase denoising method based on two-dimensional variational mode decomposition (2D-VMD) and mutual information. Firstly, the DSPI phase map is subjected to 2D-VMD in order to obtain a series of band-limited intrinsic mode functions (BLIMFs). Then, on the basis of characteristics of the BLIMFs and in combination with mutual information, a self-adaptive denoising method is proposed to obtain noise-free components containing the primary phase information. The noise-free components are reconstructed to obtain the denoising DSPI phase map. Simulation and experimental results show that the proposed method can effectively reduce noise interference, giving a PSNR that is higher than that of two-dimensional empirical mode decomposition methods.

  6. Visibility of wavelet quantization noise

    Science.gov (United States)

    Watson, A. B.; Yang, G. Y.; Solomon, J. A.; Villasenor, J.

    1997-01-01

    The discrete wavelet transform (DWT) decomposes an image into bands that vary in spatial frequency and orientation. It is widely used for image compression. Measures of the visibility of DWT quantization errors are required to achieve optimal compression. Uniform quantization of a single band of coefficients results in an artifact that we call DWT uniform quantization noise; it is the sum of a lattice of random amplitude basis functions of the corresponding DWT synthesis filter. We measured visual detection thresholds for samples of DWT uniform quantization noise in Y, Cb, and Cr color channels. The spatial frequency of a wavelet is r 2-lambda, where r is display visual resolution in pixels/degree, and lambda is the wavelet level. Thresholds increase rapidly with wavelet spatial frequency. Thresholds also increase from Y to Cr to Cb, and with orientation from lowpass to horizontal/vertical to diagonal. We construct a mathematical model for DWT noise detection thresholds that is a function of level, orientation, and display visual resolution. This allows calculation of a "perceptually lossless" quantization matrix for which all errors are in theory below the visual threshold. The model may also be used as the basis for adaptive quantization schemes.

  7. Effects of background noise on total noise annoyance

    Science.gov (United States)

    Willshire, K. F.

    1987-01-01

    Two experiments were conducted to assess the effects of combined community noise sources on annoyance. The first experiment baseline relationships between annoyance and noise level for three community noise sources (jet aircraft flyovers, traffic and air conditioners) presented individually. Forty eight subjects evaluated the annoyance of each noise source presented at four different noise levels. Results indicated the slope of the linear relationship between annoyance and noise level for the traffic noise was significantly different from that of aircraft and of air conditioner noise, which had equal slopes. The second experiment investigated annoyance response to combined noise sources, with aircraft noise defined as the major noise source and traffic and air conditioner noise as background noise sources. Effects on annoyance of noise level differences between aircraft and background noise for three total noise levels and for both background noise sources were determined. A total of 216 subjects were required to make either total or source specific annoyance judgements, or a combination of the two, for a wide range of combined noise conditions.

  8. Partially Adaptive STAP Algorithm Approaches to functional MRI

    Science.gov (United States)

    Huang, Lejian; Thompson, Elizabeth A.; Schmithorst, Vincent; Holland, Scott K.; Talavage, Thomas M.

    2010-01-01

    In this work, the architectures of three partially adaptive STAP algorithms are introduced, one of which is explored in detail, that reduce dimensionality and improve tractability over fully adaptive STAP when used in construction of brain activation maps in fMRI. Computer simulations incorporating actual MRI noise and human data analysis indicate that element space partially adaptive STAP can attain close to the performance of fully adaptive STAP while significantly decreasing processing time and maximum memory requirements, and thus demonstrates potential in fMRI analysis. PMID:19272913

  9. Maximizing noise energy for noise-masking studies.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jules Étienne, Cédric; Arleo, Angelo; Allard, Rémy

    2017-08-01

    Noise-masking experiments are widely used to investigate visual functions. To be useful, noise generally needs to be strong enough to noticeably impair performance, but under some conditions, noise does not impair performance even when its contrast approaches the maximal displayable limit of 100 %. To extend the usefulness of noise-masking paradigms over a wider range of conditions, the present study developed a noise with great masking strength. There are two typical ways of increasing masking strength without exceeding the limited contrast range: use binary noise instead of Gaussian noise or filter out frequencies that are not relevant to the task (i.e., which can be removed without affecting performance). The present study combined these two approaches to further increase masking strength. We show that binarizing the noise after the filtering process substantially increases the energy at frequencies within the pass-band of the filter given equated total contrast ranges. A validation experiment showed that similar performances were obtained using binarized-filtered noise and filtered noise (given equated noise energy at the frequencies within the pass-band) suggesting that the binarization operation, which substantially reduced the contrast range, had no significant impact on performance. We conclude that binarized-filtered noise (and more generally, truncated-filtered noise) can substantially increase the energy of the noise at frequencies within the pass-band. Thus, given a limited contrast range, binarized-filtered noise can display higher energy levels than Gaussian noise and thereby widen the range of conditions over which noise-masking paradigms can be useful.

  10. Contrast adaptation in the Limulus lateral eye.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Valtcheva, Tchoudomira M; Passaglia, Christopher L

    2015-12-01

    Luminance and contrast adaptation are neuronal mechanisms employed by the visual system to adjust our sensitivity to light. They are mediated by an assortment of cellular and network processes distributed across the retina and visual cortex. Both have been demonstrated in the eyes of many vertebrates, but only luminance adaptation has been shown in invertebrate eyes to date. Since the computational benefits of contrast adaptation should apply to all visual systems, we investigated whether this mechanism operates in horseshoe crab eyes, one of the best-understood neural networks in the animal kingdom. The spike trains of optic nerve fibers were recorded in response to light stimuli modulated randomly in time and delivered to single ommatidia or the whole eye. We found that the retina adapts to both the mean luminance and contrast of a white-noise stimulus, that luminance- and contrast-adaptive processes are largely independent, and that they originate within an ommatidium. Network interactions are not involved. A published computer model that simulates existing knowledge of the horseshoe crab eye did not show contrast adaptation, suggesting that a heretofore unknown mechanism may underlie the phenomenon. This mechanism does not appear to reside in photoreceptors because white-noise analysis of electroretinogram recordings did not show contrast adaptation. The likely site of origin is therefore the spike discharge mechanism of optic nerve fibers. The finding of contrast adaption in a retinal network as simple as the horseshoe crab eye underscores the broader importance of this image processing strategy to vision. Copyright © 2015 the American Physiological Society.

  11. Environmental Noise, Genetic Diversity and the Evolution of Evolvability and Robustness in Model Gene Networks

    Science.gov (United States)

    Steiner, Christopher F.

    2012-01-01

    The ability of organisms to adapt and persist in the face of environmental change is accepted as a fundamental feature of natural systems. More contentious is whether the capacity of organisms to adapt (or “evolvability”) can itself evolve and the mechanisms underlying such responses. Using model gene networks, I provide evidence that evolvability emerges more readily when populations experience positively autocorrelated environmental noise (red noise) compared to populations in stable or randomly varying (white noise) environments. Evolvability was correlated with increasing genetic robustness to effects on network viability and decreasing robustness to effects on phenotypic expression; populations whose networks displayed greater viability robustness and lower phenotypic robustness produced more additive genetic variation and adapted more rapidly in novel environments. Patterns of selection for robustness varied antagonistically with epistatic effects of mutations on viability and phenotypic expression, suggesting that trade-offs between these properties may constrain their evolutionary responses. Evolution of evolvability and robustness was stronger in sexual populations compared to asexual populations indicating that enhanced genetic variation under fluctuating selection combined with recombination load is a primary driver of the emergence of evolvability. These results provide insight into the mechanisms potentially underlying rapid adaptation as well as the environmental conditions that drive the evolution of genetic interactions. PMID:23284934

  12. Active Noise Control for Dishwasher noise

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lee, Nokhaeng; Park, Youngjin

    2016-09-01

    The dishwasher is a useful home appliance and continually used for automatically washing dishes. It's commonly placed in the kitchen with built-in style for practicality and better use of space. In this environment, people are easily exposed to dishwasher noise, so it is an important issue for the consumers, especially for the people living in open and narrow space. Recently, the sound power levels of the noise are about 40 - 50 dBA. It could be achieved by removal of noise sources and passive means of insulating acoustical path. For more reduction, such a quiet mode with the lower speed of cycle has been introduced, but this deteriorates the washing capacity. Under this background, we propose active noise control for dishwasher noise. It is observed that the noise is propagating mainly from the lower part of the front side. Control speakers are placed in the part for the collocation. Observation part of estimating sound field distribution and control part of generating the anti-noise are designed for active noise control. Simulation result shows proposed active noise control scheme could have a potential application for dishwasher noise reduction.

  13. Cat Swarm Optimization Based Functional Link Artificial Neural Network Filter for Gaussian Noise Removal from Computed Tomography Images

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    M. Kumar

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Gaussian noise is one of the dominant noises, which degrades the quality of acquired Computed Tomography (CT image data. It creates difficulties in pathological identification or diagnosis of any disease. Gaussian noise elimination is desirable to improve the clarity of a CT image for clinical, diagnostic, and postprocessing applications. This paper proposes an evolutionary nonlinear adaptive filter approach, using Cat Swarm Functional Link Artificial Neural Network (CS-FLANN to remove the unwanted noise. The structure of the proposed filter is based on the Functional Link Artificial Neural Network (FLANN and the Cat Swarm Optimization (CSO is utilized for the selection of optimum weight of the neural network filter. The applied filter has been compared with the existing linear filters, like the mean filter and the adaptive Wiener filter. The performance indices, such as peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR, have been computed for the quantitative analysis of the proposed filter. The experimental evaluation established the superiority of the proposed filtering technique over existing methods.

  14. Adaptively optimizing stochastic resonance in visual system

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yang, Tao

    1998-08-01

    Recent psychophysics experiment has showed that the noise strength could affect the perceived image quality. This work gives an adaptive process for achieving the optimal perceived image quality in a simple image perception array, which is a simple model of an image sensor. A reference image from memory is used for constructing a cost function and defining the optimal noise strength where the cost function gets its minimum point. The reference image is a binary image, which is used to define the background and the object. Finally, an adaptive algorithm is proposed for searching the optimal noise strength. Computer experimental results show that if the reference image is a thresholded version of the sub-threshold input image then the output of the sensor array gives an optimal output, in which the background and the object have the biggest contrast. If the reference image is different from a thresholded version of the sub-threshold input image then the output usually gives a sub-optimal contrast between the object and the background.

  15. Extended Kalman filtering for continuous volumetric MR-temperature imaging.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Denis de Senneville, Baudouin; Roujol, Sébastien; Hey, Silke; Moonen, Chrit; Ries, Mario

    2013-04-01

    Real time magnetic resonance (MR) thermometry has evolved into the method of choice for the guidance of high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) interventions. For this role, MR-thermometry should preferably have a high temporal and spatial resolution and allow observing the temperature over the entire targeted area and its vicinity with a high accuracy. In addition, the precision of real time MR-thermometry for therapy guidance is generally limited by the available signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and the influence of physiological noise. MR-guided HIFU would benefit of the large coverage volumetric temperature maps, including characterization of volumetric heating trajectories as well as near- and far-field heating. In this paper, continuous volumetric MR-temperature monitoring was obtained as follows. The targeted area was continuously scanned during the heating process by a multi-slice sequence. Measured data and a priori knowledge of 3-D data derived from a forecast based on a physical model were combined using an extended Kalman filter (EKF). The proposed reconstruction improved the temperature measurement resolution and precision while maintaining guaranteed output accuracy. The method was evaluated experimentally ex vivo on a phantom, and in vivo on a porcine kidney, using HIFU heating. On the in vivo experiment, it allowed the reconstruction from a spatio-temporally under-sampled data set (with an update rate for each voxel of 1.143 s) to a 3-D dataset covering a field of view of 142.5×285×54 mm(3) with a voxel size of 3×3×6 mm(3) and a temporal resolution of 0.127 s. The method also provided noise reduction, while having a minimal impact on accuracy and latency.

  16. IAE-adaptive Kalman filter for INS/GPS integrated navigation system

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    Bian Hongwei; Jin Zhihua; Tian Weifeng

    2006-01-01

    A marine INS/GPS adaptive navigation system is presented in this paper. GPS with two antenna providing vessel's altitude is selected as the auxiliary system fusing with INS to improve the performance of the hybrid system. The Kalman filter is the most frequently used algorithm in the integrated navigation system, which is capable of estimating INS errors online based on the measured errors between INS and GPS. The standard Kalman filter (SKF) assumes that the statistics of the noise on each sensor are given. As long as the noise distributions do not change, the Kalman filter will give the optimal estimation. However GPS receiver will be disturbed easily and thus temporally changing measurement noise will join into the outputs of GPS, which will lead to performance degradation of the Kalman filter. Many researchers introduce fuzzy logic control method into innovation-based adaptive estimation adaptive Kalman filtering (IAE-AKF) algorithm, and accordingly propose various adaptive Kalman filters. However how to design the fuzzy logic controller is a very complicated problem still without a convincing solution. A novel IAE-AKF is proposed herein, which is based on the maximum likelihood criterion for the proper computation of the filter innovation covariance and hence of the filter gain. The approach is direct and simple without having to establish fuzzy inference rules. After having deduced the proposed IAE-AKF algorithm theoretically in detail, the approach is tested by the simulation based on the system error model of the developed INS/GPS integrated marine navigation system. Simulation results show that the adaptive Kalman filter outperforms the SKF with higher accuracy, robustness and less computation. It is demonstrated that this proposed approach is a valid solution for the unknown changing measurement noise exited in the Kalman filter.

  17. An Application of Reassigned Time-Frequency Representations for Seismic Noise/Signal Decomposition

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mousavi, S. M.; Langston, C. A.

    2016-12-01

    Seismic data recorded by surface arrays are often strongly contaminated by unwanted noise. This background noise makes the detection of small magnitude events difficult. An automatic method for seismic noise/signal decomposition is presented based upon an enhanced time-frequency representation. Synchrosqueezing is a time-frequency reassignment method aimed at sharpening a time-frequency picture. Noise can be distinguished from the signal and suppressed more easily in this reassigned domain. The threshold level is estimated using a general cross validation approach that does not rely on any prior knowledge about the noise level. Efficiency of thresholding has been improved by adding a pre-processing step based on higher order statistics and a post-processing step based on adaptive hard-thresholding. In doing so, both accuracy and speed of the denoising have been improved compared to our previous algorithms (Mousavi and Langston, 2016a, 2016b; Mousavi et al., 2016). The proposed algorithm can either kill the noise (either white or colored) and keep the signal or kill the signal and keep the noise. Hence, It can be used in either normal denoising applications or in ambient noise studies. Application of the proposed method on synthetic and real seismic data shows the effectiveness of the method for denoising/designaling of local microseismic, and ocean bottom seismic data. References: Mousavi, S.M., C. A. Langston., and S. P. Horton (2016), Automatic Microseismic Denoising and Onset Detection Using the Synchrosqueezed-Continuous Wavelet Transform. Geophysics. 81, V341-V355, doi: 10.1190/GEO2015-0598.1. Mousavi, S.M., and C. A. Langston (2016a), Hybrid Seismic Denoising Using Higher-Order Statistics and Improved Wavelet Block Thresholding. Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am., 106, doi: 10.1785/0120150345. Mousavi, S.M., and C.A. Langston (2016b), Adaptive noise estimation and suppression for improving microseismic event detection, Journal of Applied Geophysics., doi: http

  18. Stress response in rat brain after different durations of noise exposure.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Samson, James; Sheeladevi, Rathinasamy; Ravindran, Rajan; Senthilvelan, Manohar

    2007-01-01

    The alteration in the levels of plasma corticosterone, brain norepinephrine (NE), and expression of brain heat shock proteins (Hsp70) after different durations of noise exposure (acute, 1 day; sub-acute, 15 days; chronic, 30 days) has been studied to analyze their role in combating time-dependent stress effects of noise. Broadband white noise (100dB) exposure to male Wistar albino rats significantly increased the levels of plasma corticosterone and NE in all three durations of noise exposure. The sustained increase observed in their levels in the chronic group suggests that animals are not getting adapted to noise even after 30 days of exposure. The important role of Hsp70 in combating noise induced stress is evident from the significant increase in its expression after chronic exposure, while there was a reciprocal decrease in the NE and corticosterone when compared with their levels after acute and sub-acute noise exposure. This clearly indicates that the time-dependent stress response to noise exposure is a complex mechanism involving highly interconnected systems such as hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, heat shock proteins and may have serious implications in vital organs, particularly in the brain when there is a prolonged noise exposure.

  19. Noise Annoyance in Urban Children: A Cross-Sectional Population-Based Study

    Science.gov (United States)

    Grelat, Natacha; Houot, Hélène; Pujol, Sophie; Levain, Jean-Pierre; Defrance, Jérôme; Mariet, Anne-Sophie; Mauny, Frédéric

    2016-01-01

    Acoustical and non-acoustical factors influencing noise annoyance in adults have been well-documented in recent years; however, similar knowledge is lacking in children. The aim of this study was to quantify the annoyance caused by chronic ambient noise at home in children and to assess the relationship between these children′s noise annoyance level and individual and contextual factors in the surrounding urban area. A cross sectional population-based study was conducted including 517 children attending primary school in a European city. Noise annoyance was measured using a self-report questionnaire adapted for children. Six noise exposure level indicators were built at different locations at increasing distances from the child′s bedroom window using a validated strategic noise map. Multilevel logistic models were constructed to investigate factors associated with noise annoyance in children. Noise indicators in front of the child′s bedroom (p ≤ 0.01), family residential satisfaction (p ≤ 0.03) and socioeconomic characteristics of the individuals and their neighbourhood (p ≤ 0.05) remained associated with child annoyance. These findings illustrate the complex relationships between our environment, how we may perceive it, social factors and health. Better understanding of these relationships will undoubtedly allow us to more effectively quantify the actual effect of noise on human health. PMID:27801858

  20. Active Control Of Structure-Borne Noise

    Science.gov (United States)

    Elliott, S. J.

    1994-11-01

    The successful practical application of active noise control requires an understanding of both its acoustic limitations and the limitations of the electrical control strategy used. This paper is concerned with the active control of sound in enclosures. First, a review is presented of the fundamental physical limitations of using loudspeakers to achieve either global or local control. Both approaches are seen to have a high frequency limit, due to either the acoustic modal overlap, or the spatial correlation function of the pressure field. These physical performance limits could, in principle, be achieved with either a feedback or a feedforward control strategy. These strategies are reviewed and the use of adaptive digital filters is discussed for both approaches. The application of adaptive feedforward control in the control of engine and road noise in cars is described. Finally, an indirect approach to the active control of sound is discussed, in which the vibration is suppressed in the structural paths connecting the source of vibration to the enclosure. Two specific examples of this strategy are described, using an active automotive engine mount and the incorporation of actuators into helicopter struts to control gear-meshing tones. In both cases good passive design can minimize the complexity of the active controller.

  1. Edge enhancement and noise suppression for infrared image based on feature analysis

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jiang, Meng

    2018-06-01

    Infrared images are often suffering from background noise, blurred edges, few details and low signal-to-noise ratios. To improve infrared image quality, it is essential to suppress noise and enhance edges simultaneously. To realize it in this paper, we propose a novel algorithm based on feature analysis in shearlet domain. Firstly, as one of multi-scale geometric analysis (MGA), we introduce the theory and superiority of shearlet transform. Secondly, after analyzing the defects of traditional thresholding technique to suppress noise, we propose a novel feature extraction distinguishing image structures from noise well and use it to improve the traditional thresholding technique. Thirdly, with computing the correlations between neighboring shearlet coefficients, the feature attribute maps identifying the weak detail and strong edges are completed to improve the generalized unsharped masking (GUM). At last, experiment results with infrared images captured in different scenes demonstrate that the proposed algorithm suppresses noise efficiently and enhances image edges adaptively.

  2. Adaptive histogram equalization and its variations

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Pizer, S.M.; Amburn, E.P.; Austin, J.D.; Cromartie, R.; Geselowitz, A.; Greer, Trey; Haar Romenij, ter B.M.; Zimmerman, J.B.; Zuiderveld, K.J.

    1987-01-01

    Adaptive histogram equalization (ahe) is a contrast enhancement method designed to be broadly applicable and having demonstrated effectiveness. However, slow speed and the overenhancement of noise it produces in relatively homogeneous regions are two problems. We report algorithms designed to

  3. Thermal ablation of a confluent lesion in the porcine kidney with a clinically available MR-HIFU system

    Science.gov (United States)

    van Breugel, J. M. M.; de Greef, M.; Wijlemans, J. W.; Schubert, G.; van den Bosch, M. A. A. J.; Moonen, C. T. W.; Ries, M. G.

    2017-07-01

    The incidence of small renal masses (SRMs) sized  weighted MR (T 1 w) imaging. Cell viability staining was performed to visualize the extent of necrosis. Results: a median NPV of 0.62 ml was observed on CE-T 1 w images (IQR 0.58-1.57 ml, range 0.33-2.75 ml). Cell viability staining showed a median damaged volume of 0.59 ml (IQR 0.24-1.35 ml, range 0-4.1 ml). Overlooking of the false rib, shivering of the pig, and too large depth combined with a large heat-sink effect resulted in insufficient heating in 4 cases. The NPV and necrosed volume were confluent in all cases in which an ablated volume could be observed. Our results demonstrated the feasibility of creating a confluent volume of ablated kidney cortical tissue in vivo with MR-HIFU on a clinically available system using respiratory gating and near-field cooling and showed its reproducibility.

  4. Cortical microcircuit dynamics mediating Binocular Rivalry: The role of adaptation in inhibition

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Panagiota eTheodoni

    2011-11-01

    Full Text Available Perceptual bistability arises when two conflicting interpretations of an ambiguous stimulus or images in binocular rivalry (BR compete for perceptual dominance. From a computational point of view competition models based on cross-inhibition and adaptation have shown that noise is a crucial force for rivalry and operates in balance with adaptation in order to explain the observed alternations in perception. In particular, noise-driven transitions and adaptation-driven oscillations define two dynamical regimes and the system operates near its boundary. In order to gain insights into the microcircuit dynamics mediating spontaneous perceptual alternations we used a reduced recurrent attractor-based biophysically realistic spiking network well known for working memory, attention and decision-making, where a spike-frequency adaptation mechanism is implemented to account for perceptual bistability. We, thus, derived a consistently reduced four-variable population rate model using mean-field techniques and tested it on BR data collected from human subjects. Our model accounts for experimental data parameters such as time dominance, coefficient of variation and gamma distribution. In addition, we show that our model also operates on the boundary between noise and adaptation and agrees with Levelt’s second revised and fourth propositions. These results show for the first time that a consistent reduction of a biophysically realistic spiking network of integrate and fire neurons with spike frequency adaptation could account for BR. Moreover, we demonstrate that BR can be explained only through the dynamics of the competing neuronal pools, without taking into account the adaptation of inhibitory interneurons..However, adaptation of interneurons affects the optimal parametric space of the system, by decreasing the overall adaptation necessary for the bifurcation to occur.

  5. Working memory training to improve speech perception in noise across languages.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ingvalson, Erin M; Dhar, Sumitrajit; Wong, Patrick C M; Liu, Hanjun

    2015-06-01

    Working memory capacity has been linked to performance on many higher cognitive tasks, including the ability to perceive speech in noise. Current efforts to train working memory have demonstrated that working memory performance can be improved, suggesting that working memory training may lead to improved speech perception in noise. A further advantage of working memory training to improve speech perception in noise is that working memory training materials are often simple, such as letters or digits, making them easily translatable across languages. The current effort tested the hypothesis that working memory training would be associated with improved speech perception in noise and that materials would easily translate across languages. Native Mandarin Chinese and native English speakers completed ten days of reversed digit span training. Reading span and speech perception in noise both significantly improved following training, whereas untrained controls showed no gains. These data suggest that working memory training may be used to improve listeners' speech perception in noise and that the materials may be quickly adapted to a wide variety of listeners.

  6. Research on neutron noise analysis stochastic simulation method for α calculation

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Zhong Bin; Shen Huayun; She Ruogu; Zhu Shengdong; Xiao Gang

    2014-01-01

    The prompt decay constant α has significant application on the physical design and safety analysis in nuclear facilities. To overcome the difficulty of a value calculation with Monte-Carlo method, and improve the precision, a new method based on the neutron noise analysis technology was presented. This method employs the stochastic simulation and the theory of neutron noise analysis technology. Firstly, the evolution of stochastic neutron was simulated by discrete-events Monte-Carlo method based on the theory of generalized Semi-Markov process, then the neutron noise in detectors was solved from neutron signal. Secondly, the neutron noise analysis methods such as Rossia method, Feynman-α method, zero-probability method, and cross-correlation method were used to calculate a value. All of the parameters used in neutron noise analysis method were calculated based on auto-adaptive arithmetic. The a value from these methods accords with each other, the largest relative deviation is 7.9%, which proves the feasibility of a calculation method based on neutron noise analysis stochastic simulation. (authors)

  7. A critical review of principal traffic noise models: Strategies and implications

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Garg, Naveen, E-mail: ngarg@mail.nplindia.ernet.in [Apex Level Standards and Industrial Metrology Division, CSIR-National Physical Laboratory, New Delhi 110012 (India); Department of Mechanical, Production and Industrial Engineering, Delhi Technological University, Delhi 110042 (India); Maji, Sagar [Department of Mechanical, Production and Industrial Engineering, Delhi Technological University, Delhi 110042 (India)

    2014-04-01

    The paper presents an exhaustive comparison of principal traffic noise models adopted in recent years in developed nations. The comparison is drawn on the basis of technical attributes including source modelling and sound propagation algorithms. Although the characterization of source in terms of rolling and propulsion noise in conjunction with advanced numerical methods for sound propagation has significantly reduced the uncertainty in traffic noise predictions, the approach followed is quite complex and requires specialized mathematical skills for predictions which is sometimes quite cumbersome for town planners. Also, it is sometimes difficult to follow the best approach when a variety of solutions have been proposed. This paper critically reviews all these aspects pertaining to the recent models developed and adapted in some countries and also discusses the strategies followed and implications of these models. - Highlights: • Principal traffic noise models developed are reviewed. • Sound propagation algorithms used in traffic noise models are compared. • Implications of models are discussed.

  8. ARMA modelling of neutron stochastic processes with large measurement noise

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Zavaljevski, N.; Kostic, Lj.; Pesic, M.

    1994-01-01

    An autoregressive moving average (ARMA) model of the neutron fluctuations with large measurement noise is derived from langevin stochastic equations and validated using time series data obtained during prompt neutron decay constant measurements at the zero power reactor RB in Vinca. Model parameters are estimated using the maximum likelihood (ML) off-line algorithm and an adaptive pole estimation algorithm based on the recursive prediction error method (RPE). The results show that subcriticality can be determined from real data with high measurement noise using much shorter statistical sample than in standard methods. (author)

  9. Performance of adaptive MS-GSC in the presence of cochannel interference

    KAUST Repository

    Daghfous, Mohamed A.

    2011-07-01

    Minimum-selection generalized selection combining (MS-GSC) has been proposed as a power-saving variant of conventional generalized selection combining (GSC). Existing performance results of this scheme are limited to interference-free environments under multipath fading. This paper addresses the scenario when the received desired signal on each diversity branch is corrupted by multiple interfering signals and background noise, wherein desired and undesired signals undergo mutually independent Rayleigh fading. In the absence of perfect tracking of the instantaneous interference power on diversity branches, the adaptation thresholds that are set on the combined signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) to enhance either the spectral efficiency or power efficiency in noise-limited environments may not guarantee the target performance. This paper aims to study the effect of cochannel interference on the performance of bandwidth- and power-efficient SNR-based MS-GSC. Through the analysis, new analytical results for some important performance measures of adaptive MS-GSC schemes are presented. Numerical comparisons to clarify the impact of cochannel interference on the achieved performance of the adaptation schemes under consideration are provided. © 2011 IEEE.

  10. Effect of Scoparia dulcis on noise stress induced adaptive immunity and cytokine response in immunized Wistar rats.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sundareswaran, Loganathan; Srinivasan, Sakthivel; Wankhar, Wankupar; Sheeladevi, Rathinasamy

    Noise acts as a stressor and is reported to have impact on individual health depending on nature, type, intensity and perception. Modern medicine has no effective drugs or cure to prevent its consequences. Being an environmental stressor noise cannot be avoided; instead minimizing its exposure or consuming anti-stressor and adaptogens from plants can be considered. The present study was carried out to evaluate the anti-stressor, adaptogen and immunostimulatory activity of Scoparia dulcis against noise-induced stress in Wistar rat models. Noise stress in rats was created by broadband white noise generator, 100 dB A/4 h daily/15 days and S. dulcis (200 mg/kg b.w.) was administered orally. 8 groups of rats were used consisting of 6 animals each; 4 groups for unimmunized and 4 groups for immunized. For immunization, sheep red blood cells (5 × 10 9  cells/ml) were injected intraperitoneally. Sub-acute noise exposed rats showed a significant increase in corticosterone and IL-4 levels in both immunized and unimmunized rats whereas lymphocytes, antibody titration, soluble immune complex, IL-4 showed a marked increase with a significant decrease in IL-2, TNF-α, IFN-γ cytokines only in unimmunized rats. Immunized noise exposed rats presented increased leukocyte migration index and decreased foot pad thickness, IL-2, TNF-α, IFN-γ with no changes in the lymphocytes. S. dulcis (SD) has normalized and prevented the noise induced changes in cell-mediated and humoral immunity and it could be the presence of anti-stressor and immuno stimulant activity of the plant. Copyright © 2016 Transdisciplinary University, Bangalore and World Ayurveda Foundation. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  11. Hard decoding algorithm for optimizing thresholds under general Markovian noise

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chamberland, Christopher; Wallman, Joel; Beale, Stefanie; Laflamme, Raymond

    2017-04-01

    Quantum error correction is instrumental in protecting quantum systems from noise in quantum computing and communication settings. Pauli channels can be efficiently simulated and threshold values for Pauli error rates under a variety of error-correcting codes have been obtained. However, realistic quantum systems can undergo noise processes that differ significantly from Pauli noise. In this paper, we present an efficient hard decoding algorithm for optimizing thresholds and lowering failure rates of an error-correcting code under general completely positive and trace-preserving (i.e., Markovian) noise. We use our hard decoding algorithm to study the performance of several error-correcting codes under various non-Pauli noise models by computing threshold values and failure rates for these codes. We compare the performance of our hard decoding algorithm to decoders optimized for depolarizing noise and show improvements in thresholds and reductions in failure rates by several orders of magnitude. Our hard decoding algorithm can also be adapted to take advantage of a code's non-Pauli transversal gates to further suppress noise. For example, we show that using the transversal gates of the 5-qubit code allows arbitrary rotations around certain axes to be perfectly corrected. Furthermore, we show that Pauli twirling can increase or decrease the threshold depending upon the code properties. Lastly, we show that even if the physical noise model differs slightly from the hypothesized noise model used to determine an optimized decoder, failure rates can still be reduced by applying our hard decoding algorithm.

  12. Spatial compression impairs prism-adaptation in healthy individuals

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rachel J Scriven

    2013-05-01

    Full Text Available Neglect patients typically present with gross inattention to one side of space following damage to the contralateral hemisphere. While prism-adaptation is effective in ameliorating some neglect behaviours, the mechanisms involved and their relationship to neglect remain unclear. Recent studies have shown that conscious strategic control processes in prism-adaptation may be impaired in neglect patients, who are also reported to show extraordinarily long aftereffects compared to healthy participants. Determining the underlying cause of these effects may be the key to understanding therapeutic benefits. Alternative accounts suggest that reduced strategic control might result from a failure to detect prism-induced reaching errors properly either because a the size of the error is underestimated in compressed visual space or b pathologically increased error detection thresholds reduce the requirement for error correction. The purpose of this study was to model these two alternatives in healthy participants and to examine whether strategic control and subsequent aftereffects were abnormal compared to standard prism adaptation. Each participant completed three prism-adaptation procedures within a MIRAGE mediated reality environment with direction errors recorded before, during and after adaptation. During prism-adaptation, visual-feedback of the reach could be compressed, perturbed by noise or represented veridically. Compressed visual space significantly reduced strategic control and aftereffects compared to control and noise conditions. These results support recent observations in neglect patients, suggesting that a distortion of spatial representation may successfully model neglect and explain neglect performance while adapting to prisms.

  13. Strong tracking adaptive Kalman filters for underwater vehicle dead reckoning

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    XIAO Kun; FANG Shao-ji; PANG Yong-jie

    2007-01-01

    To improve underwater vehicle dead reckoning, a developed strong tracking adaptive kalman filter is proposed. The filter is improved with an additional adaptive factor and an estimator of measurement noise covariance. Since the magnitude of fading factor is changed adaptively, the tracking ability of the filter is still enhanced in low velocity condition of underwater vehicles. The results of simulation tests prove the presented filter effective.

  14. Planetary gearbox fault feature enhancement based on combined adaptive filter method

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Shuangshu Tian

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available The reliability of vibration signals acquired from a planetary gear system (the indispensable part of wind turbine gearbox is directly related to the accuracy of fault diagnosis. The complex operation environment leads to lots of interference signals which are included in the vibration signals. Furthermore, both multiple gears meshing with each other and the differences in transmission rout produce strong nonlinearity in the vibration signals, which makes it difficult to eliminate the noise. This article presents a combined adaptive filter method by taking a delayed signal as reference signal, the Self-Adaptive Noise Cancellation method is adopted to eliminate the white noise. In the meanwhile, by applying Gaussian function to transform the input signal into high-dimension feature-space signal, the kernel least mean square algorithm is used to cancel the nonlinear interference. Effectiveness of the method has been verified by simulation signals and test rig signals. By dealing with simulation signal, the signal-to-noise ratio can be improved around 30 dB (white noise and the amplitude of nonlinear interference signal can be depressed up to 50%. Experimental results show remarkable improvements and enhance gear fault features.

  15. An adaptive state of charge estimation approach for lithium-ion series-connected battery system

    Science.gov (United States)

    Peng, Simin; Zhu, Xuelai; Xing, Yinjiao; Shi, Hongbing; Cai, Xu; Pecht, Michael

    2018-07-01

    Due to the incorrect or unknown noise statistics of a battery system and its cell-to-cell variations, state of charge (SOC) estimation of a lithium-ion series-connected battery system is usually inaccurate or even divergent using model-based methods, such as extended Kalman filter (EKF) and unscented Kalman filter (UKF). To resolve this problem, an adaptive unscented Kalman filter (AUKF) based on a noise statistics estimator and a model parameter regulator is developed to accurately estimate the SOC of a series-connected battery system. An equivalent circuit model is first built based on the model parameter regulator that illustrates the influence of cell-to-cell variation on the battery system. A noise statistics estimator is then used to attain adaptively the estimated noise statistics for the AUKF when its prior noise statistics are not accurate or exactly Gaussian. The accuracy and effectiveness of the SOC estimation method is validated by comparing the developed AUKF and UKF when model and measurement statistics noises are inaccurate, respectively. Compared with the UKF and EKF, the developed method shows the highest SOC estimation accuracy.

  16. Practical Ranges of Loudness Levels of Various Types of Environmental Noise, Including Traffic Noise, Aircraft Noise, and Industrial Noise

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sabine A. Janssen

    2011-05-01

    Full Text Available In environmental noise control one commonly employs the A-weighted sound level as an approximate measure of the effect of noise on people. A measure that is more closely related to direct human perception of noise is the loudness level. At constant A-weighted sound level, the loudness level of a noise signal varies considerably with the shape of the frequency spectrum of the noise signal. In particular the bandwidth of the spectrum has a large effect on the loudness level, due to the effect of critical bands in the human hearing system. The low-frequency content of the spectrum also has an effect on the loudness level. In this note the relation between loudness level and A-weighted sound level is analyzed for various environmental noise spectra, including spectra of traffic noise, aircraft noise, and industrial noise. From loudness levels calculated for these environmental noise spectra, diagrams are constructed that show the relation between loudness level, A‑weighted sound level, and shape of the spectrum. The diagrams show that the upper limits of the loudness level for broadband environmental noise spectra are about 20 to 40 phon higher than the lower limits for narrowband spectra, which correspond to the loudness levels of pure tones. The diagrams are useful for assessing limitations and potential improvements of environmental noise control methods and policy based on A-weighted sound levels.

  17. Weberized Mumford-Shah Model with Bose-Einstein Photon Noise

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Shen Jianhong; Jung, Yoon-Mo

    2006-01-01

    Human vision works equally well in a large dynamic range of light intensities, from only a few photons to typical midday sunlight. Contributing to such remarkable flexibility is a famous law in perceptual (both visual and aural) psychology and psychophysics known as Weber's Law. The current paper develops a new segmentation model based on the integration of Weber's Law and the celebrated Mumford-Shah segmentation model (Comm. Pure Appl. Math., vol. 42, pp. 577-685, 1989). Explained in detail are issues concerning why the classical Mumford-Shah model lacks light adaptivity, and why its 'weberized' version can more faithfully reflect human vision's superior segmentation capability in a variety of illuminance conditions from dawn to dusk. It is also argued that the popular Gaussian noise model is physically inappropriate for the weberization procedure. As a result, the intrinsic thermal noise of photon ensembles is introduced based on Bose and Einstein's distributions in quantum statistics, which turns out to be compatible with weberization both analytically and computationally. The current paper focuses on both the theory and computation of the weberized Mumford-Shah model with Bose-Einstein noise. In particular, Ambrosio-Tortorelli's Γ-convergence approximation theory is adapted (Boll. Un. Mat. Ital. B, vol. 6, pp. 105-123, 1992), and stable numerical algorithms are developed for the associated pair ofnonlinear Euler-Lagrange PDEs

  18. Analytical investigation of adaptive control of radiated inlet noise from turbofan engines

    Science.gov (United States)

    Risi, John D.; Burdisso, Ricardo A.

    1994-01-01

    An analytical model has been developed to predict the resulting far field radiation from a turbofan engine inlet. A feedforward control algorithm was simulated to predict the controlled far field radiation from the destructive combination of fan noise and secondary control sources. Numerical results were developed for two system configurations, with the resulting controlled far field radiation patterns showing varying degrees of attenuation and spillover. With one axial station of twelve control sources and error sensors with equal relative angular positions, nearly global attenuation is achieved. Shifting the angular position of one error sensor resulted in an increase of spillover to the extreme sidelines. The complex control inputs for each configuration was investigated to identify the structure of the wave pattern created by the control sources, giving an indication of performance of the system configuration. It is deduced that the locations of the error sensors and the control source configuration are equally critical to the operation of the active noise control system.

  19. Frogs Call at a Higher Pitch in Traffic Noise

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kirsten M. Parris

    2009-06-01

    Full Text Available Male frogs call to attract females for mating and to defend territories from rival males. Female frogs of some species prefer lower-pitched calls, which indicate larger, more experienced males. Acoustic interference occurs when background noise reduces the active distance or the distance over which an acoustic signal can be detected. Birds are known to call at a higher pitch or frequency in urban noise, decreasing acoustic interference from low-frequency noise. Using Bayesian linear regression, we investigated the effect of traffic noise on the pitch of advertisement calls in two species of frogs, the southern brown tree frog (Litoria ewingii and the common eastern froglet (Crinia signifera. We found evidence that L. ewingii calls at a higher pitch in traffic noise, with an average increase in dominant frequency of 4.1 Hz/dB of traffic noise, and a total effect size of 123 Hz. This frequency shift is smaller than that observed in birds, but is still large enough to be detected by conspecific frogs and confer a significant benefit to the caller. Mathematical modelling predicted a 24% increase in the active distance of a L. ewingii call in traffic noise with a frequency shift of this size. Crinia signifera may also call at a higher pitch in traffic noise, but more data are required to be confident of this effect. Because frog calls are innate rather than learned, the frequency shift demonstrated by L. ewingii may represent an evolutionary adaptation to noisy conditions. The phenomenon of frogs calling at a higher pitch in traffic noise could therefore constitute an intriguing trade-off between audibility and attractiveness to potential mates.

  20. Partial update least-square adaptive filtering

    CERN Document Server

    Xie, Bei

    2014-01-01

    Adaptive filters play an important role in the fields related to digital signal processing and communication, such as system identification, noise cancellation, channel equalization, and beamforming. In practical applications, the computational complexity of an adaptive filter is an important consideration. The Least Mean Square (LMS) algorithm is widely used because of its low computational complexity (O(N)) and simplicity in implementation. The least squares algorithms, such as Recursive Least Squares (RLS), Conjugate Gradient (CG), and Euclidean Direction Search (EDS), can converge faster a

  1. Road traffic noise: self-reported noise annoyance versus GIS modelled road traffic noise exposure.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Birk, Matthias; Ivina, Olga; von Klot, Stephanie; Babisch, Wolfgang; Heinrich, Joachim

    2011-11-01

    self-reported road traffic noise annoyance is commonly used in epidemiological studies for assessment of potential health effects. Alternatively, some studies have used geographic information system (GIS) modelled exposure to road traffic noise as an objective parameter. The aim of this study was to analyse the association between noise exposure due to neighbouring road traffic and the noise annoyance of adults, taking other determinants into consideration. parents of 951 Munich children from the two German birth cohorts GINIplus and LISAplus reported their annoyance due to road traffic noise at home. GIS modelled road traffic noise exposure (L(den), maximum within a 50 m buffer) from the noise map of the city of Munich was available for all families. GIS-based calculated distance to the closest major road (≥10,000 vehicles per day) and questionnaire based-information about family income, parental education and the type of the street of residence were explored for their potential influence. An ordered logit regression model was applied. The noise levels (L(den)) and the reported noise annoyance were compared with an established exposure-response function. the correlation between noise annoyance and noise exposure (L(den)) was fair (Spearman correlation r(s) = 0.37). The distance to a major road and the type of street were strong predictors for the noise annoyance. The annoyance modelled by the established exposure-response function and that estimated by the ordered logit model were moderately associated (Pearson's correlation r(p) = 0.50). road traffic noise annoyance was associated with GIS modelled neighbouring road traffic noise exposure (L(den)). The distance to a major road and the type of street were additional explanatory factors of the noise annoyance appraisal.

  2. The persistent signature of tropical cyclones in ambient seismic noise

    KAUST Repository

    Gualtieri, Lucia; Camargo, Suzana J.; Pascale, Salvatore; Pons, Flavio M.E.; Ekströ m, Gö ran

    2017-01-01

    The spectrum of ambient seismic noise shows strong signals associated with tropical cyclones, yet a detailed understanding of these signals and the relationship between them and the storms is currently lacking. Through the analysis of more than a decade of seismic data recorded at several stations located in and adjacent to the northwest Pacific Ocean, here we show that there is a persistent and frequency-dependent signature of tropical cyclones in ambient seismic noise that depends on characteristics of the storm and on the detailed location of the station relative to the storm. An adaptive statistical model shows that the spectral amplitude of ambient seismic noise, and notably of the short-period secondary microseisms, has a strong relationship with tropical cyclone intensity and can be employed to extract information on the tropical cyclones.

  3. The persistent signature of tropical cyclones in ambient seismic noise

    KAUST Repository

    Gualtieri, Lucia

    2017-12-28

    The spectrum of ambient seismic noise shows strong signals associated with tropical cyclones, yet a detailed understanding of these signals and the relationship between them and the storms is currently lacking. Through the analysis of more than a decade of seismic data recorded at several stations located in and adjacent to the northwest Pacific Ocean, here we show that there is a persistent and frequency-dependent signature of tropical cyclones in ambient seismic noise that depends on characteristics of the storm and on the detailed location of the station relative to the storm. An adaptive statistical model shows that the spectral amplitude of ambient seismic noise, and notably of the short-period secondary microseisms, has a strong relationship with tropical cyclone intensity and can be employed to extract information on the tropical cyclones.

  4. Judgments of aircraft noise in a traffic noise background

    Science.gov (United States)

    Powell, C. A.; Rice, C. G.

    1975-01-01

    An investigation was conducted to determine subjective response to aircraft noise in different road traffic backgrounds. In addition, two laboratory techniques for presenting the aircraft noise with the background noise were evaluated. For one technique, the background noise was continuous over an entire test session; for the other, the background noise level was changed with each aircraft noise during a session. Subjective response to aircraft noise was found to decrease with increasing background noise level, for a range of typical indoor noise levels. Subjective response was found to be highly correlated with the Noise Pollution Level (NPL) measurement scale.

  5. An Adaptive Filtering Algorithm Based on Genetic Algorithm-Backpropagation Network

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kai Hu

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available A new image filtering algorithm is proposed. GA-BPN algorithm uses genetic algorithm (GA to decide weights in a back propagation neural network (BPN. It has better global optimal characteristics than traditional optimal algorithm. In this paper, we used GA-BPN to do image noise filter researching work. Firstly, this paper uses training samples to train GA-BPN as the noise detector. Then, we utilize the well-trained GA-BPN to recognize noise pixels in target image. And at last, an adaptive weighted average algorithm is used to recover noise pixels recognized by GA-BPN. Experiment data shows that this algorithm has better performance than other filters.

  6. Adaptive Kalman Filter of Transfer Alignment with Un-modeled Wing Flexure of Aircraft

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    2008-01-01

    The alignment accuracy of the strap-down inertial navigation system (SINS) of airborne weapon is greatly degraded by the dynamic wing flexure of the aircraft. An adaptive Kalman filter uses innovation sequences based on the maximum likelihood estimated criterion to adapt the system noise covariance matrix and the measurement noise covariance matrix on line, which is used to estimate the misalignment if the model of wing flexure of the aircraft is unknown. From a number of simulations, it is shown that the accuracy of the adaptive Kalman filter is better than the conventional Kalman filter, and the erroneous misalignment models of the wing flexure of aircraft will cause bad estimation results of Kalman filter using attitude match method.

  7. Gold nanoparticle nucleated cavitation for enhanced high intensity focused ultrasound therapy

    Science.gov (United States)

    McLaughlan, J. R.; Cowell, D. M. J.; Freear, S.

    2018-01-01

    High intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) or focused ultrasound surgery is a non-invasive technique for the treatment of cancerous tissue, which is limited by difficulties in getting real-time feedback on treatment progress and long treatment durations. The formation and activity of acoustic cavitation, specifically inertial cavitation, during HIFU exposures has been demonstrated to enhance heating rates. However, without the introduction of external nuclei its formation an activity can be unpredictable, and potentially counter-productive. In this study, a combination of pulse laser illumination (839 nm), HIFU exposures (3.3 MHz) and plasmonic gold nanorods (AuNR) was demonstrated as a new approach for the guidance and enhancement of HIFU treatments. For imaging, short duration HIFU pulses (10 μs) demonstrated broadband acoustic emissions from AuNR nucleated cavitation with a signal-to-noise ranging from 5-35 dB for peak negative pressures between 1.19-3.19  ±  0.01 MPa. In the absence of either AuNR or laser illumination these emissions were either not present or lower in magnitude (e.g. 5 dB for 3.19 MPa). Continuous wave (CW) HIFU exposures for 15 s, were then used to generate thermal lesions for peak negative pressures from 0.2-2.71  ±  0.01 MPa at a fluence of 3.4 mJ cm-2 . Inertial cavitation dose (ICD) was monitored during all CW exposures, where exposures combined with both laser illumination and AuNRs resulted in the highest level of detectable emissions. This parameter was integrated over the entire exposure to give a metric to compare with measured thermal lesion area, where it was found that a minimum total ICD of 1.5 × 103 a.u. was correlated with the formation of thermal lesions in gel phantoms. Furthermore, lesion area (mm2) was increased for equivalent exposures without either AuNRs or laser illumination. Once combined with cancer targeting AuNRs this approach could allow for the future theranostic use of HIFU, such as

  8. Adaptive Response Surface Techniques in Reliability Estimation

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Enevoldsen, I.; Faber, M. H.; Sørensen, John Dalsgaard

    1993-01-01

    Problems in connection with estimation of the reliability of a component modelled by a limit state function including noise or first order discontinuitics are considered. A gradient free adaptive response surface algorithm is developed. The algorithm applies second order polynomial surfaces...

  9. Daily Peak Load Forecasting Based on Complete Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition with Adaptive Noise and Support Vector Machine Optimized by Modified Grey Wolf Optimization Algorithm

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Shuyu Dai

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available Daily peak load forecasting is an important part of power load forecasting. The accuracy of its prediction has great influence on the formulation of power generation plan, power grid dispatching, power grid operation and power supply reliability of power system. Therefore, it is of great significance to construct a suitable model to realize the accurate prediction of the daily peak load. A novel daily peak load forecasting model, CEEMDAN-MGWO-SVM (Complete Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition with Adaptive Noise and Support Vector Machine Optimized by Modified Grey Wolf Optimization Algorithm, is proposed in this paper. Firstly, the model uses the complete ensemble empirical mode decomposition with adaptive noise (CEEMDAN algorithm to decompose the daily peak load sequence into multiple sub sequences. Then, the model of modified grey wolf optimization and support vector machine (MGWO-SVM is adopted to forecast the sub sequences. Finally, the forecasting sequence is reconstructed and the forecasting result is obtained. Using CEEMDAN can realize noise reduction for non-stationary daily peak load sequence, which makes the daily peak load sequence more regular. The model adopts the grey wolf optimization algorithm improved by introducing the population dynamic evolution operator and the nonlinear convergence factor to enhance the global search ability and avoid falling into the local optimum, which can better optimize the parameters of the SVM algorithm for improving the forecasting accuracy of daily peak load. In this paper, three cases are used to test the forecasting accuracy of the CEEMDAN-MGWO-SVM model. We choose the models EEMD-MGWO-SVM (Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition and Support Vector Machine Optimized by Modified Grey Wolf Optimization Algorithm, MGWO-SVM (Support Vector Machine Optimized by Modified Grey Wolf Optimization Algorithm, GWO-SVM (Support Vector Machine Optimized by Grey Wolf Optimization Algorithm, SVM (Support Vector

  10. Frequency tracking and variable bandwidth for line noise filtering without a reference.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kelly, John W; Collinger, Jennifer L; Degenhart, Alan D; Siewiorek, Daniel P; Smailagic, Asim; Wang, Wei

    2011-01-01

    This paper presents a method for filtering line noise using an adaptive noise canceling (ANC) technique. This method effectively eliminates the sinusoidal contamination while achieving a narrower bandwidth than typical notch filters and without relying on the availability of a noise reference signal as ANC methods normally do. A sinusoidal reference is instead digitally generated and the filter efficiently tracks the power line frequency, which drifts around a known value. The filter's learning rate is also automatically adjusted to achieve faster and more accurate convergence and to control the filter's bandwidth. In this paper the focus of the discussion and the data will be electrocorticographic (ECoG) neural signals, but the presented technique is applicable to other recordings.

  11. In vivo evaluation of mastication noise reduction for dual channel implantable microphone.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Woo, SeongTak; Jung, EuiSung; Lim, HyungGyu; Lee, Jang Woo; Seong, Ki Woong; Won, Chul Ho; Kim, Myoung Nam; Cho, Jin Ho; Lee, Jyung Hyun

    2014-01-01

    Input for fully implantable hearing devices (FIHDs) is provided by an implantable microphone under the skin of the temporal bone. However, the implanted microphone can be affected when the FIHDs user chews. In this paper, a dual implantable microphone was designed that can filter out the noise from mastication. For the in vivo experiment, a fabricated microphone was implanted in a rabbit. Pure-tone sounds of 1 kHz through a standard speaker were applied to the rabbit, which was given food simultaneously. To evaluate noise reduction, the measured signals were processed using a MATLAB program based adaptive filter. To verify the proposed method, the correlation coefficients and signal to-noise ratio before and after signal processing were calculated. By comparing the results, signal-to-noise ratio and correlation coefficients are enhanced by 6.07dB and 0.529 respectively.

  12. Thresholds and noise limitations of colour vision in dim light.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kelber, Almut; Yovanovich, Carola; Olsson, Peter

    2017-04-05

    Colour discrimination is based on opponent photoreceptor interactions, and limited by receptor noise. In dim light, photon shot noise impairs colour vision, and in vertebrates, the absolute threshold of colour vision is set by dark noise in cones. Nocturnal insects (e.g. moths and nocturnal bees) and vertebrates lacking rods (geckos) have adaptations to reduce receptor noise and use chromatic vision even in very dim light. In contrast, vertebrates with duplex retinae use colour-blind rod vision when noisy cone signals become unreliable, and their transition from cone- to rod-based vision is marked by the Purkinje shift. Rod-cone interactions have not been shown to improve colour vision in dim light, but may contribute to colour vision in mesopic light intensities. Frogs and toads that have two types of rods use opponent signals from these rods to control phototaxis even at their visual threshold. However, for tasks such as prey or mate choice, their colour discrimination abilities fail at brighter light intensities, similar to other vertebrates, probably limited by the dark noise in cones.This article is part of the themed issue 'Vision in dim light'. © 2017 The Author(s).

  13. Noise-based frequency offset modulation in wideband frequency-selective fading channels

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Meijerink, Arjan; Cotton, S.L.; Bentum, Marinus Jan; Scanlon, W.G.

    2009-01-01

    A frequency offset modulation scheme using wideband noise carriers is considered. The main advantage of such a scheme is that it enables fast receiver synchronization without channel adaptation, while providing robustness to multipath fading and in-band interference. This is important for low-power

  14. Quantum Transduction with Adaptive Control

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Mengzhen; Zou, Chang-Ling; Jiang, Liang

    2018-01-01

    Quantum transducers play a crucial role in hybrid quantum networks. A good quantum transducer can faithfully convert quantum signals from one mode to another with minimum decoherence. Most investigations of quantum transduction are based on the protocol of direct mode conversion. However, the direct protocol requires the matching condition, which in practice is not always feasible. Here we propose an adaptive protocol for quantum transducers, which can convert quantum signals without requiring the matching condition. The adaptive protocol only consists of Gaussian operations, feasible in various physical platforms. Moreover, we show that the adaptive protocol can be robust against imperfections associated with finite squeezing, thermal noise, and homodyne detection, and it can be implemented to realize quantum state transfer between microwave and optical modes.

  15. Quantum Transduction with Adaptive Control.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Mengzhen; Zou, Chang-Ling; Jiang, Liang

    2018-01-12

    Quantum transducers play a crucial role in hybrid quantum networks. A good quantum transducer can faithfully convert quantum signals from one mode to another with minimum decoherence. Most investigations of quantum transduction are based on the protocol of direct mode conversion. However, the direct protocol requires the matching condition, which in practice is not always feasible. Here we propose an adaptive protocol for quantum transducers, which can convert quantum signals without requiring the matching condition. The adaptive protocol only consists of Gaussian operations, feasible in various physical platforms. Moreover, we show that the adaptive protocol can be robust against imperfections associated with finite squeezing, thermal noise, and homodyne detection, and it can be implemented to realize quantum state transfer between microwave and optical modes.

  16. Hardware implementation of adaptive filtering using charge-coupled devices. [For perimeter security sensors

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Donohoe, G.W.

    1977-01-01

    Sandia Laboratories' Digital Systems Division/1734, as part of its work on the Base and Installation Security Systems (BISS) program has been making use of adaptive digital filters to improve the signal-to-noise ratio of perimeter sensor signals. In particular, the Widrow-Hoff least-mean-squares algorithm has been used extensively. This non-recursive linear predictor has been successful in extracting aperiodic signals from periodic noise. The adaptive filter generates a predictor signal which is subtracted from the input signal to produce an error signal. The value of this error is fed back to the filter to improve the quality of the next prediction. Implementation of the Widrow adaptive filter using a Charge-Coupled Device tapped analog delay line, analog voltage multipliers and operational amplifiers is described. The resulting filter adapts to signals with frequency components as high as several megahertz.

  17. Noise reduction and image enhancement using a hardware implementation of artificial neural networks

    Science.gov (United States)

    David, Robert; Williams, Erin; de Tremiolles, Ghislain; Tannhof, Pascal

    1999-03-01

    In this paper, we present a neural based solution developed for noise reduction and image enhancement using the ZISC, an IBM hardware processor which implements the Restricted Coulomb Energy algorithm and the K-Nearest Neighbor algorithm. Artificial neural networks present the advantages of processing time reduction in comparison with classical models, adaptability, and the weighted property of pattern learning. The goal of the developed application is image enhancement in order to restore old movies (noise reduction, focus correction, etc.), to improve digital television images, or to treat images which require adaptive processing (medical images, spatial images, special effects, etc.). Image results show a quantitative improvement over the noisy image as well as the efficiency of this system. Further enhancements are being examined to improve the output of the system.

  18. Denoising of Mechanical Vibration Signals Using Quantum-Inspired Adaptive Wavelet Shrinkage

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yan-long Chen

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available The potential application of a quantum-inspired adaptive wavelet shrinkage (QAWS technique to mechanical vibration signals with a focus on noise reduction is studied in this paper. This quantum-inspired shrinkage algorithm combines three elements: an adaptive non-Gaussian statistical model of dual-tree complex wavelet transform (DTCWT coefficients proposed to improve practicability of prior information, the quantum superposition introduced to describe the interscale dependencies of DTCWT coefficients, and the quantum-inspired probability of noise defined to shrink wavelet coefficients in a Bayesian framework. By combining all these elements, this signal processing scheme incorporating the DTCWT with quantum theory can both reduce noise and preserve signal details. A practical vibration signal measured from a power-shift steering transmission is utilized to evaluate the denoising ability of QAWS. Application results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. Moreover, it achieves better performance than hard and soft thresholding.

  19. A Shearlet-based algorithm for quantum noise removal in low-dose CT images

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Aguan; Jiang, Huiqin; Ma, Ling; Liu, Yumin; Yang, Xiaopeng

    2016-03-01

    Low-dose CT (LDCT) scanning is a potential way to reduce the radiation exposure of X-ray in the population. It is necessary to improve the quality of low-dose CT images. In this paper, we propose an effective algorithm for quantum noise removal in LDCT images using shearlet transform. Because the quantum noise can be simulated by Poisson process, we first transform the quantum noise by using anscombe variance stabilizing transform (VST), producing an approximately Gaussian noise with unitary variance. Second, the non-noise shearlet coefficients are obtained by adaptive hard-threshold processing in shearlet domain. Third, we reconstruct the de-noised image using the inverse shearlet transform. Finally, an anscombe inverse transform is applied to the de-noised image, which can produce the improved image. The main contribution is to combine the anscombe VST with the shearlet transform. By this way, edge coefficients and noise coefficients can be separated from high frequency sub-bands effectively. A number of experiments are performed over some LDCT images by using the proposed method. Both quantitative and visual results show that the proposed method can effectively reduce the quantum noise while enhancing the subtle details. It has certain value in clinical application.

  20. Adaptive Statistical Iterative Reconstruction-V Versus Adaptive Statistical Iterative Reconstruction: Impact on Dose Reduction and Image Quality in Body Computed Tomography.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gatti, Marco; Marchisio, Filippo; Fronda, Marco; Rampado, Osvaldo; Faletti, Riccardo; Bergamasco, Laura; Ropolo, Roberto; Fonio, Paolo

    The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact on dose reduction and image quality of the new iterative reconstruction technique: adaptive statistical iterative reconstruction (ASIR-V). Fifty consecutive oncologic patients acted as case controls undergoing during their follow-up a computed tomography scan both with ASIR and ASIR-V. Each study was analyzed in a double-blinded fashion by 2 radiologists. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses of image quality were conducted. Computed tomography scanner radiation output was 38% (29%-45%) lower (P ASIR-V examinations than for the ASIR ones. The quantitative image noise was significantly lower (P ASIR-V. Adaptive statistical iterative reconstruction-V had a higher performance for the subjective image noise (P = 0.01 for 5 mm and P = 0.009 for 1.25 mm), the other parameters (image sharpness, diagnostic acceptability, and overall image quality) being similar (P > 0.05). Adaptive statistical iterative reconstruction-V is a new iterative reconstruction technique that has the potential to provide image quality equal to or greater than ASIR, with a dose reduction around 40%.

  1. Shape adaptive, robust iris feature extraction from noisy iris images.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ghodrati, Hamed; Dehghani, Mohammad Javad; Danyali, Habibolah

    2013-10-01

    In the current iris recognition systems, noise removing step is only used to detect noisy parts of the iris region and features extracted from there will be excluded in matching step. Whereas depending on the filter structure used in feature extraction, the noisy parts may influence relevant features. To the best of our knowledge, the effect of noise factors on feature extraction has not been considered in the previous works. This paper investigates the effect of shape adaptive wavelet transform and shape adaptive Gabor-wavelet for feature extraction on the iris recognition performance. In addition, an effective noise-removing approach is proposed in this paper. The contribution is to detect eyelashes and reflections by calculating appropriate thresholds by a procedure called statistical decision making. The eyelids are segmented by parabolic Hough transform in normalized iris image to decrease computational burden through omitting rotation term. The iris is localized by an accurate and fast algorithm based on coarse-to-fine strategy. The principle of mask code generation is to assign the noisy bits in an iris code in order to exclude them in matching step is presented in details. An experimental result shows that by using the shape adaptive Gabor-wavelet technique there is an improvement on the accuracy of recognition rate.

  2. Contribution to tyre noise measurement adapted to human ears to future optimisation of tyre/road noise; Was kann die gehoergerechte Schallmesstechnik zur zukunftsorientierten Gestaltung des Reifen-/Fahrbahngeraeusches beitragen?

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Genuit, K. [HEAD acoustics, Herzogenrath-Kohlscheid (Germany); Poggenburg, J.

    1998-12-31

    The share of tyre noise in the total motor car noise has increased constantly in the past years. Today, legal regulations governing car noise and the car industry`s increasing demands on driving comfort are forcing car tyre producers to reduce tyre noise. This is made more difficult by the high and varied demands on tyres. The authors therefore suggest that rolling noise design should be given more attention supplementary to the current noise level measurements. This would result in a product-specific type of noise and also enhance the social acceptance of motor cars. The limits of conventional measuring techniques are pointed out, as are the possibilities of binaural measurement and analysis. Exemplary applications are listed, and an outlook to the future is attempted. [Deutsch] Der prozentuale Anteil der Reifen am Gesamtgeraeusch eines Fahrzeuges ist in der Vergangenheit stetig angestiegen. Bestehende gesetzliche Vorschriften fuer das Fahrzeug-Aussengeraeusch sowie hohe Ansprueche der Kunden, d.h. primaer der Automobilindustrie, zwingen die Reifenhersteller generell, das Rollgeraeusch zu reduzieren. Die an einen Fahrzeugreifen gestellten vielfaeltigen Anforderungen bedingen hierbei im allgemeinen einen hohen Aufwand. Im Beitrag wird daher fuer eine Vorgehensweise plaediert, die in Ergaenzung zum begrenzt aussagekraeftigen A-bewerteten Schalldruckpegel eine Gestaltung des Rollgeraeusches in den Mittelpunkt stellt. Hiermit kann nicht nur die Realisierung eines produktbezogenen Aussengeraeusches unterstuetzt werden, sondern es sichert darueber hinaus die gesellschaftliche Akzeptanz des Autos. Es werden die Grenzen konventioneller Messverfahren kurz aufgezeigt und die mittels binauraler Mess- und Analysetechnik bestehenden Moeglichkeiten dargestellt. Sinnvolle Vorgehensweisen werden anhand verschiedener Anwendungsbeispiele erlaeutert. Ein abschliessender Ausblick beschreibt das Potential zur Reduzierung der Belaestigungswirkung von Reifengeraeuschen durch

  3. Variational Bayesian labeled multi-Bernoulli filter with unknown sensor noise statistics

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Qiu Hao

    2016-10-01

    Full Text Available It is difficult to build accurate model for measurement noise covariance in complex backgrounds. For the scenarios of unknown sensor noise variances, an adaptive multi-target tracking algorithm based on labeled random finite set and variational Bayesian (VB approximation is proposed. The variational approximation technique is introduced to the labeled multi-Bernoulli (LMB filter to jointly estimate the states of targets and sensor noise variances. Simulation results show that the proposed method can give unbiased estimation of cardinality and has better performance than the VB probability hypothesis density (VB-PHD filter and the VB cardinality balanced multi-target multi-Bernoulli (VB-CBMeMBer filter in harsh situations. The simulations also confirm the robustness of the proposed method against the time-varying noise variances. The computational complexity of proposed method is higher than the VB-PHD and VB-CBMeMBer in extreme cases, while the mean execution times of the three methods are close when targets are well separated.

  4. TU-G-210-01: Modeling for Breast and Brain HIFU Treatment Planning

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Christensen, D.

    2015-01-01

    Modeling can play a vital role in predicting, optimizing and analyzing the results of therapeutic ultrasound treatments. Simulating the propagating acoustic beam in various targeted regions of the body allows for the prediction of the resulting power deposition and temperature profiles. In this session we will apply various modeling approaches to breast, abdominal organ and brain treatments. Of particular interest is the effectiveness of procedures for correcting for phase aberrations caused by intervening irregular tissues, such as the skull in transcranial applications or inhomogeneous breast tissues. Also described are methods to compensate for motion in targeted abdominal organs such as the liver or kidney. Douglas Christensen – Modeling for Breast and Brain HIFU Treatment Planning Tobias Preusser – TRANS-FUSIMO – An Integrative Approach to Model-Based Treatment Planning of Liver FUS Tobias Preusser – TRANS-FUSIMO – An Integrative Approach to Model-Based Treatment Planning of Liver FUS Learning Objectives: Understand the role of acoustic beam modeling for predicting the effectiveness of therapeutic ultrasound treatments. Apply acoustic modeling to specific breast, liver, kidney and transcranial anatomies. Determine how to obtain appropriate acoustic modeling parameters from clinical images. Understand the separate role of absorption and scattering in energy delivery to tissues. See how organ motion can be compensated for in ultrasound therapies. Compare simulated data with clinical temperature measurements in transcranial applications. Supported by NIH R01 HL172787 and R01 EB013433 (DC); EU Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under 270186 (FUSIMO) and 611889 (TRANS-FUSIMO)(TP); and P01 CA159992, GE, FUSF and InSightec (UV)

  5. TU-G-210-01: Modeling for Breast and Brain HIFU Treatment Planning

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Christensen, D. [University of Utah (United States)

    2015-06-15

    Modeling can play a vital role in predicting, optimizing and analyzing the results of therapeutic ultrasound treatments. Simulating the propagating acoustic beam in various targeted regions of the body allows for the prediction of the resulting power deposition and temperature profiles. In this session we will apply various modeling approaches to breast, abdominal organ and brain treatments. Of particular interest is the effectiveness of procedures for correcting for phase aberrations caused by intervening irregular tissues, such as the skull in transcranial applications or inhomogeneous breast tissues. Also described are methods to compensate for motion in targeted abdominal organs such as the liver or kidney. Douglas Christensen – Modeling for Breast and Brain HIFU Treatment Planning Tobias Preusser – TRANS-FUSIMO – An Integrative Approach to Model-Based Treatment Planning of Liver FUS Tobias Preusser – TRANS-FUSIMO – An Integrative Approach to Model-Based Treatment Planning of Liver FUS Learning Objectives: Understand the role of acoustic beam modeling for predicting the effectiveness of therapeutic ultrasound treatments. Apply acoustic modeling to specific breast, liver, kidney and transcranial anatomies. Determine how to obtain appropriate acoustic modeling parameters from clinical images. Understand the separate role of absorption and scattering in energy delivery to tissues. See how organ motion can be compensated for in ultrasound therapies. Compare simulated data with clinical temperature measurements in transcranial applications. Supported by NIH R01 HL172787 and R01 EB013433 (DC); EU Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under 270186 (FUSIMO) and 611889 (TRANS-FUSIMO)(TP); and P01 CA159992, GE, FUSF and InSightec (UV)

  6. Statistical-uncertainty-based adaptive filtering of lidar signals

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Fuehrer, P. L.; Friehe, C. A.; Hristov, T. S.; Cooper, D. I.; Eichinger, W. E.

    2000-01-01

    An adaptive filter signal processing technique is developed to overcome the problem of Raman lidar water-vapor mixing ratio (the ratio of the water-vapor density to the dry-air density) with a highly variable statistical uncertainty that increases with decreasing photomultiplier-tube signal strength and masks the true desired water-vapor structure. The technique, applied to horizontal scans, assumes only statistical horizontal homogeneity. The result is a variable spatial resolution water-vapor signal with a constant variance out to a range limit set by a specified signal-to-noise ratio. The technique was applied to Raman water-vapor lidar data obtained at a coastal pier site together with in situ instruments located 320 m from the lidar. The micrometerological humidity data were used to calibrate the ratio of the lidar gains of the H 2 O and the N 2 photomultiplier tubes and set the water-vapor mixing ratio variance for the adaptive filter. For the coastal experiment the effective limit of the lidar range was found to be approximately 200 m for a maximum noise-to-signal variance ratio of 0.1 with the implemented data-reduction procedure. The technique can be adapted to off-horizontal scans with a small reduction in the constraints and is also applicable to other remote-sensing devices that exhibit the same inherent range-dependent signal-to-noise ratio problem. (c) 2000 Optical Society of America

  7. Direct-reading dial for noise temperature and noise resistance

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Diamond, J.M.

    1967-01-01

    An attenuator arrangement for a noise generator is described. The scheme permits direct reading of both noise resistance and noise temperature¿the latter with a choice of source resistance.......An attenuator arrangement for a noise generator is described. The scheme permits direct reading of both noise resistance and noise temperature¿the latter with a choice of source resistance....

  8. Noise frame duration, masking potency and whiteness of temporal noise.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kukkonen, Heljä; Rovamo, Jyrki; Donner, Kristian; Tammikallio, Marja; Raninen, Antti

    2002-09-01

    Because of the limited contrast range, increasing the duration of the noise frame is often the only option for increasing the masking potency of external, white temporal noise. This, however, reduces the high-frequency cutoff beyond which noise is no longer white. This study was conducted to determine the longest noise frame duration that produces the strongest masking effect and still mimics white noise on the detection of sinusoidal flicker. Contrast energy thresholds (E(th)) were measured for flicker at 1.25 to 20 Hz in strong, purely temporal (spatially uniform), additive, external noise. The masking power of white external noise, characterized by its spectral density at zero frequency N0, increases with the duration of the noise frame. For short noise frame durations, E(th) increased in direct proportion to N0, keeping the nominal signal-to-noise ratio [SNR = (E(th)/N0)(0.5)] constant at threshold. The masking effect thus increased with the duration of the noise frame and the noise mimicked white noise. When noise frame duration and N0 increased further, the nominal SNR at threshold started to decrease, indicating that noise no longer mimicked white noise. The minimum number of noise frames per flicker cycle needed to mimic white noise decreased with increasing flicker frequency from 8.3 at 1.25 Hz to 1.6 at 20 Hz. The critical high-frequency cutoff of detection-limiting temporal noise in terms of noise frames per signal cycle depends on the temporal frequency of the signal. This is opposite to the situation in the spatial domain and must be taken into consideration when temporal signals are masked with temporal noise.

  9. Kalman-Takens filtering in the presence of dynamical noise

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hamilton, Franz; Berry, Tyrus; Sauer, Timothy

    2017-12-01

    The use of data assimilation for the merging of observed data with dynamical models is becoming standard in modern physics. If a parametric model is known, methods such as Kalman filtering have been developed for this purpose. If no model is known, a hybrid Kalman-Takens method has been recently introduced, in order to exploit the advantages of optimal filtering in a nonparametric setting. This procedure replaces the parametric model with dynamics reconstructed from delay coordinates, while using the Kalman update formulation to assimilate new observations. In this article, we study the efficacy of this method for identifying underlying dynamics in the presence of dynamical noise. Furthermore, by combining the Kalman-Takens method with an adaptive filtering procedure we are able to estimate the statistics of the observational and dynamical noise. This solves a long-standing problem of separating dynamical and observational noise in time series data, which is especially challenging when no dynamical model is specified.

  10. Active noise control in a duct to cancel broadband noise

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Kuan-Chun; Chang, Cheng-Yuan; Kuo, Sen M.

    2017-09-01

    The paper presents cancelling duct noises by using the active noise control (ANC) techniques. We use the single channel feed forward algorithm with feedback neutralization to realize ANC. Several kinds of ducts noises including tonal noises, sweep tonal signals, and white noise had investigated. Experimental results show that the proposed ANC system can cancel these noises in a PVC duct very well. The noise reduction of white noise can be up to 20 dB.

  11. The Joint Adaptive Kalman Filter (JAKF) for Vehicle Motion State Estimation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gao, Siwei; Liu, Yanheng; Wang, Jian; Deng, Weiwen; Oh, Heekuck

    2016-07-16

    This paper proposes a multi-sensory Joint Adaptive Kalman Filter (JAKF) through extending innovation-based adaptive estimation (IAE) to estimate the motion state of the moving vehicles ahead. JAKF views Lidar and Radar data as the source of the local filters, which aims to adaptively adjust the measurement noise variance-covariance (V-C) matrix 'R' and the system noise V-C matrix 'Q'. Then, the global filter uses R to calculate the information allocation factor 'β' for data fusion. Finally, the global filter completes optimal data fusion and feeds back to the local filters to improve the measurement accuracy of the local filters. Extensive simulation and experimental results show that the JAKF has better adaptive ability and fault tolerance. JAKF enables one to bridge the gap of the accuracy difference of various sensors to improve the integral filtering effectivity. If any sensor breaks down, the filtered results of JAKF still can maintain a stable convergence rate. Moreover, the JAKF outperforms the conventional Kalman filter (CKF) and the innovation-based adaptive Kalman filter (IAKF) with respect to the accuracy of displacement, velocity, and acceleration, respectively.

  12. Noise factor of a high-speed cinematography system

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Secroun, A.

    2000-01-01

    Inertial confinement fusion simulates in a laboratory the thermodynamic state of the center of stars, thus leading to the determination of stellar parameters. In order to reach that aim, high-speed cinematography brings up instruments specifically adapted to picosecond measurement, for which it is necessary to know the final precision. A model of the noise factor of the instruments under study is introduced and confronted to the experimental results obtained. (authors)

  13. The importance of invertebrates when considering the impacts of anthropogenic noise.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Morley, Erica L; Jones, Gareth; Radford, Andrew N

    2014-02-07

    Anthropogenic noise is now recognized as a major global pollutant. Rapidly burgeoning research has identified impacts on individual behaviour and physiology through to community disruption. To date, however, there has been an almost exclusive focus on vertebrates. Not only does their central role in food webs and in fulfilling ecosystem services make imperative our understanding of how invertebrates are impacted by all aspects of environmental change, but also many of their inherent characteristics provide opportunities to overcome common issues with the current anthropogenic noise literature. Here, we begin by explaining why invertebrates are likely to be affected by anthropogenic noise, briefly reviewing their capacity for hearing and providing evidence that they are capable of evolutionary adaptation and behavioural plasticity in response to natural noise sources. We then discuss the importance of quantifying accurately and fully both auditory ability and noise content, emphasizing considerations of direct relevance to how invertebrates detect sounds. We showcase how studying invertebrates can help with the behavioural bias in the literature, the difficulties in drawing strong, ecologically valid conclusions and the need for studies on fitness impacts. Finally, we suggest avenues of future research using invertebrates that would advance our understanding of the impact of anthropogenic noise.

  14. Development of Adaptive Acoustic Impedance Control Technologies of Acoustic Duct Liner

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hiroshi Kobayashi

    2011-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper describes the development of adaptive acoustic impedance control (AAC technologies to achieve a larger fan noise reduction, by adaptively adjusting reactance and resistance of the acoustic liner impedance. For the actual proof of the AAC technology III performance, the advanced fan noise absorption control duct liner II was made on trial basis, with the simple control system and the plain device. And, then, the duct liner II was examined for the AAC technology I, II, and III models, using the high speed fan test facility. The test results made clear that the duct liner II of the AAC technology III model could achieve the fan noise reduction higher than O.A. SPL 10 dB (A at the maximum fan speed 6000 rpm, containing the reduction of fundamental BPF tone of 18 dB and 2nd BPF tone of 10 dB in response to the fan peed change from 3000 to 6000 rpm.

  15. Robust adaptive subspace detection in impulsive noise

    KAUST Repository

    Ben Atitallah, Ismail

    2016-09-13

    This paper addresses the design of the Adaptive Subspace Matched Filter (ASMF) detector in the presence of compound Gaussian clutters and a mismatch in the steering vector. In particular, we consider the case wherein the ASMF uses the regularized Tyler estimator (RTE) to estimate the clutter covariance matrix. Under this setting, a major question that needs to be addressed concerns the setting of the threshold and the regularization parameter. To answer this question, we consider the regime in which the number of observations used to estimate the RTE and their dimensions grow large together. Recent results from random matrix theory are then used in order to approximate the false alarm and detection probabilities by deterministic quantities. The latter are optimized in order to maximize an upper bound on the asymptotic detection probability while keeping the asymptotic false alarm probability at a fixed rate. © 2016 IEEE.

  16. Robust adaptive subspace detection in impulsive noise

    KAUST Repository

    Ben Atitallah, Ismail; Kammoun, Abla; Alouini, Mohamed-Slim; Al-Naffouri, Tareq Y.

    2016-01-01

    This paper addresses the design of the Adaptive Subspace Matched Filter (ASMF) detector in the presence of compound Gaussian clutters and a mismatch in the steering vector. In particular, we consider the case wherein the ASMF uses the regularized Tyler estimator (RTE) to estimate the clutter covariance matrix. Under this setting, a major question that needs to be addressed concerns the setting of the threshold and the regularization parameter. To answer this question, we consider the regime in which the number of observations used to estimate the RTE and their dimensions grow large together. Recent results from random matrix theory are then used in order to approximate the false alarm and detection probabilities by deterministic quantities. The latter are optimized in order to maximize an upper bound on the asymptotic detection probability while keeping the asymptotic false alarm probability at a fixed rate. © 2016 IEEE.

  17. Sounds and Noises. A Position Paper on Noise Pollution.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chapman, Thomas L.

    This position paper focuses on noise pollution and the problems and solutions associated with this form of pollution. The paper is divided into the following five sections: Noise and the Ear, Noise Measurement, III Effects of Noise, Acoustics and Action, and Programs and Activities. The first section identifies noise and sound, the beginnings of…

  18. Is rosuvastatin protective against on noise-induced oxidative stress in rat serum?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Emine Rabia Koc

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available Noise, one of the main components of modern society, has become an important environmental problem. Noise is not only an irritating sound, but also a stress factor leading to serious health problems. In this study, we have investigated possible effects of rosuvastatin, a 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-coenzyme A reductase inhibitor, thought to have an antioxidant effect, on noise-induced oxidative stress in the serum of rat models. Thirty-two male Wistar albino rats were used. In order to ease their adaptation, 2 weeks before the experiment, the rats were divided into four groups (with eight rats per each group: Noise exposure plus rosuvastatin usage, only noise exposure, only rosuvastatin usage and control. After the data had been collected, oxidant (Malondialdehyde, nitric oxide [NO], protein carbonyl [PC] and antioxidant (superoxide dismutase [SOD], glutathione peroxidase [GSH-PX], catalase [CAT] parameters were analyzed in the serum. Results indicated that SOD values were found to be significantly lower, while PC values in serum were remarkably higher in the group that was exposed to only noise. GSH-Px values in serum dramatically increased in the group on which only rosuvastatin was used. During noise exposure, the use of rosuvastatin caused significantly increased CAT values, whereas it resulted in reduced PC and NO values in serum. In conclusion, our data show that noise exposure leads to oxidative stress in rat serum; however, rosuvastatin therapy decreases the oxidative stress caused by noise exposure.

  19. Numerically modeling Brownian thermal noise in amorphous and crystalline thin coatings

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lovelace, Geoffrey; Demos, Nicholas; Khan, Haroon

    2018-01-01

    Thermal noise is expected to be one of the noise sources limiting the astrophysical reach of Advanced LIGO (once commissioning is complete) and third-generation detectors. Adopting crystalline materials for thin, reflecting mirror coatings, rather than the amorphous coatings used in current-generation detectors, could potentially reduce thermal noise. Understanding and reducing thermal noise requires accurate theoretical models, but modeling thermal noise analytically is especially challenging with crystalline materials. Thermal noise models typically rely on the fluctuation-dissipation theorem, which relates the power spectral density of the thermal noise to an auxiliary elastic problem. In this paper, we present results from a new, open-source tool that numerically solves the auxiliary elastic problem to compute the Brownian thermal noise for both amorphous and crystalline coatings. We employ the open-source deal.ii and PETSc frameworks to solve the auxiliary elastic problem using a finite-element method, adaptive mesh refinement, and parallel processing that enables us to use high resolutions capable of resolving the thin reflective coating. We verify numerical convergence, and by running on up to hundreds of compute cores, we resolve the coating elastic energy in the auxiliary problem to approximately 0.1%. We compare with approximate analytic solutions for amorphous materials, and we verify that our solutions scale as expected with changing beam size, mirror dimensions, and coating thickness. Finally, we model the crystalline coating thermal noise in an experiment reported by Cole et al (2013 Nat. Photon. 7 644–50), comparing our results to a simpler numerical calculation that treats the coating as an ‘effectively amorphous’ material. We find that treating the coating as a cubic crystal instead of as an effectively amorphous material increases the thermal noise by about 3%. Our results are a step toward better understanding and reducing thermal noise to

  20. In vivo immunoprotective role of Indigofera tinctoria and Scoparia dulcis aqueous extracts against chronic noise stress induced immune abnormalities in Wistar albino rats

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Boothapandi Madakkannu

    Full Text Available Indigofera tinctoria and Scoparia dulcis are being widely used in Indian folk medicine for the treatment of various disorders. Environmental noise pollution is thought to be an important factor for many health problems and it causes immune abnormalities. In the present study immune-regulating potential of I. tinctoria and S. dulcis aqueous extracts on innate and adaptive immune system of wistar albino rats was evaluated during normal and chronic noise induced stress conditions. The results demonstrated that both I. tinctoria and S. dulcis aqueous extracts (200 mg/kg b.w showed immunostimulant effect on both innate and adaptive immune response of wistar albino rat compared to control group under normal condition. The noise stress (100 dB for 1 h, 20 days induced animals showed suppressive effects on immune response by decreasing macrophage phagocytosis, antibody secretion by spleen cells, humoral immune response, proliferation of lymphocytes, cytotoxicity, TNF α expression, granzyme B and perforin expression in splenic NK cells. Similarly, noise stress also caused DNA damage in tissues. However, the suppressed effects induced by noise stress on rat immune system were significantly prevented by oral administration of both I. tinctoria and S. dulcis aqueous extracts. Considering all these results it is suggested that the selected medicinal plant’s aqueous extracts have the potential to prevent the effects of noise stress induced rat immune system and explore a strong immunostimulant potential applicable to clinical practices. Keywords: Indigofera tinctoria, Scoparia dulcis, Chronic noise stress, Immunomodulatory, Innate immunity, Adaptive immunity

  1. Adaptive measurement selection for progressive damage estimation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhou, Wenfan; Kovvali, Narayan; Papandreou-Suppappola, Antonia; Chattopadhyay, Aditi; Peralta, Pedro

    2011-04-01

    Noise and interference in sensor measurements degrade the quality of data and have a negative impact on the performance of structural damage diagnosis systems. In this paper, a novel adaptive measurement screening approach is presented to automatically select the most informative measurements and use them intelligently for structural damage estimation. The method is implemented efficiently in a sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) setting using particle filtering. The noise suppression and improved damage estimation capability of the proposed method is demonstrated by an application to the problem of estimating progressive fatigue damage in an aluminum compact-tension (CT) sample using noisy PZT sensor measurements.

  2. Image denoising via adaptive eigenvectors of graph Laplacian

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Ying; Tang, Yibin; Xu, Ning; Zhou, Lin; Zhao, Li

    2016-07-01

    An image denoising method via adaptive eigenvectors of graph Laplacian (EGL) is proposed. Unlike the trivial parameter setting of the used eigenvectors in the traditional EGL method, in our method, the eigenvectors are adaptively selected in the whole denoising procedure. In detail, a rough image is first built with the eigenvectors from the noisy image, where the eigenvectors are selected by using the deviation estimation of the clean image. Subsequently, a guided image is effectively restored with a weighted average of the noisy and rough images. In this operation, the average coefficient is adaptively obtained to set the deviation of the guided image to approximately that of the clean image. Finally, the denoised image is achieved by a group-sparse model with the pattern from the guided image, where the eigenvectors are chosen in the error control of the noise deviation. Moreover, a modified group orthogonal matching pursuit algorithm is developed to efficiently solve the above group sparse model. The experiments show that our method not only improves the practicality of the EGL methods with the dependence reduction of the parameter setting, but also can outperform some well-developed denoising methods, especially for noise with large deviations.

  3. Noise-induced hearing loss: a recreational noise perspective.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ivory, Robert; Kane, Rebecca; Diaz, Rodney C

    2014-10-01

    This review will discuss the real-world risk factors involved in noise-induced hearing loss as a result of common and popular recreational activities prone to mid and high levels of noise exposure. Although there are currently no interventional measures available to reverse or mitigate preexisting hearing loss from noise, we discuss the vital importance of hearing loss prevention from noise exposure avoidance and reduction. Despite a seeming understanding of the effects of noise exposure from various recreational activities and devices, a large percentage of the general public who is at risk of such noise-induced hearing loss still chooses to refrain from using hearing protection instruments. While occupational exposures pose the greatest traditional risk to hearing conservation in selected workers, recreational risk factors for noise-induced hearing loss may be more insidious in overall effect given the indifferent attitude of much of the general public and particularly our youths toward hearing protection during recreational activities. Active counseling regarding the consequences of excessive noise exposure and the potential benefits to hearing from usage of hearing protection instruments is critical to providing best possible care in the hearing health professions.

  4. Optimal region of latching activity in an adaptive Potts model for networks of neurons

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Abdollah-nia, Mohammad-Farshad; Saeedghalati, Mohammadkarim; Abbassian, Abdolhossein

    2012-01-01

    In statistical mechanics, the Potts model is a model for interacting spins with more than two discrete states. Neural networks which exhibit features of learning and associative memory can also be modeled by a system of Potts spins. A spontaneous behavior of hopping from one discrete attractor state to another (referred to as latching) has been proposed to be associated with higher cognitive functions. Here we propose a model in which both the stochastic dynamics of Potts models and an adaptive potential function are present. A latching dynamics is observed in a limited region of the noise(temperature)–adaptation parameter space. We hence suggest noise as a fundamental factor in such alternations alongside adaptation. From a dynamical systems point of view, the noise–adaptation alternations may be the underlying mechanism for multi-stability in attractor-based models. An optimality criterion for realistic models is finally inferred

  5. Broadband low-frequency sound isolation by lightweight adaptive metamaterials

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liao, Yunhong; Chen, Yangyang; Huang, Guoliang; Zhou, Xiaoming

    2018-03-01

    Blocking broadband low-frequency airborne noises is highly desirable in lots of engineering applications, while it is extremely difficult to be realized with lightweight materials and/or structures. Recently, a new class of lightweight adaptive metamaterials with hybrid shunting circuits has been proposed, demonstrating super broadband structure-borne bandgaps. In this study, we aim at examining their potentials in broadband sound isolation by establishing an analytical model that rigorously combines the piezoelectric dynamic couplings between adaptive metamaterials and acoustics. Sound transmission loss of the adaptive metamaterial is investigated with respect to both the frequency and angular spectrum to demonstrate their sound-insulation effects. We find that efficient sound isolation can indeed be pursued in the broadband bi-spectrum for not only the case of the small resonator's periodicity where only one mode relevant to the mass-spring resonance exists, but also for the large-periodicity scenario, so that the total weight can be even lighter, in which the multiple plate-resonator coupling modes appear. In the latter case, the negative spring stiffness provided by the piezoelectric stack has been utilized to suppress the resonance-induced high acoustic transmission. Such kinds of adaptive metamaterials could open a new approach for broadband noise isolation with extremely lightweight structures.

  6. Auto-adaptive averaging: Detecting artifacts in event-related potential data using a fully automated procedure

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Talsma, D.

    2008-01-01

    The auto-adaptive averaging procedure proposed here classifies artifacts in event-related potential data by optimizing the signal-to-noise ratio. This method rank orders single trials according to the impact of each trial on the ERP average. Then, the minimum residual background noise level in the

  7. Auto-adaptive averaging: Detecting artifacts in event-related potential data using a fully automated procedure.

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Talsma, D.

    2008-01-01

    The auto-adaptive averaging procedure proposed here classifies artifacts in event-related potential data by optimizing the signal-to-noise ratio. This method rank orders single trials according to the impact of each trial on the ERP average. Then, the minimum residual background noise level in the

  8. Novel effect of interplay of internal and external noise on the dynamics of calcium oscillations

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Li Hongying; Ma Juan

    2010-01-01

    Graphical abstract: When the external noise is small (D ≤ 0.8), R goes through a maximum at an optimal system size V, indicating the occurring of internal-noise stochastic resonance (INSR), and the curves become higher with the increases of D, which shows that INSR can be enhanced by the external noise in a certain range of external noise intensity ((D ≤ 0.8). If D > 0.8, R monotonically increases and the peak disappears. When D increases further, the R curve becomes lower. Research highlights: → External noise coherence resonance (ENCR) can be suppressed by internal noise. → Internal noise stochastic resonance (INSR) can be enhanced by external noise. → When INSR occurs, the optimal system size can be regulated by the external noise. - Abstract: Using a mesoscopic stochastic model, the effect of interplay of external and internal noise on the dynamics of calcium oscillations was studied. When the system was tuned near a Hopf bifurcation point and driven by external noise or internal noise only, the existence of external noise coherence resonance (ENCR) or internal-noise stochastic resonance (INSR) was found, respectively. When both of the noises were considered, it was found that ENCR could be suppressed by internal noise, while INSR could be enhanced by external noise in a certain range of external noise intensity. It was also interesting to note that the optimal system size can be regulated by the external noise when the INSR occurs. The cell system may adapt to adjust the optimal size according to the external noise, indicating some kind of self-tuning mechanism involved in stochastic calcium dynamics.

  9. Investigation of signal models and methods for evaluating structures of processing telecommunication information exchange systems under acoustic noise conditions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kropotov, Y. A.; Belov, A. A.; Proskuryakov, A. Y.; Kolpakov, A. A.

    2018-05-01

    The paper considers models and methods for estimating signals during the transmission of information messages in telecommunication systems of audio exchange. One-dimensional probability distribution functions that can be used to isolate useful signals, and acoustic noise interference are presented. An approach to the estimation of the correlation and spectral functions of the parameters of acoustic signals is proposed, based on the parametric representation of acoustic signals and the components of the noise components. The paper suggests an approach to improving the efficiency of interference cancellation and highlighting the necessary information when processing signals from telecommunications systems. In this case, the suppression of acoustic noise is based on the methods of adaptive filtering and adaptive compensation. The work also describes the models of echo signals and the structure of subscriber devices in operational command telecommunications systems.

  10. Practical ranges of loudness levels of various types of environmental noise, including traffic noise, aircraft noise, and industrial noise

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Salomons, E.M.; Janssen, S.A.

    2011-01-01

    In environmental noise control one commonly employs the A-weighted sound level as an approximate measure of the effect of noise on people. A measure that is more closely related to direct human perception of noise is the loudness level. At constant A-weighted sound level, the loudness level of a

  11. A novel perceptually adaptive image watermarking scheme by ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Threshold and modification value were selected adaptively for each image block, which improved robustness and transparency. The proposed algorithm was able to withstand a variety of attacks and image processing operations like rotation, cropping, noise addition, resizing, lossy compression and etc. The experimental ...

  12. Fuzzy Adaptive Cubature Kalman Filter for Integrated Navigation Systems.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tseng, Chien-Hao; Lin, Sheng-Fuu; Jwo, Dah-Jing

    2016-07-26

    This paper presents a sensor fusion method based on the combination of cubature Kalman filter (CKF) and fuzzy logic adaptive system (FLAS) for the integrated navigation systems, such as the GPS/INS (Global Positioning System/inertial navigation system) integration. The third-degree spherical-radial cubature rule applied in the CKF has been employed to avoid the numerically instability in the system model. In processing navigation integration, the performance of nonlinear filter based estimation of the position and velocity states may severely degrade caused by modeling errors due to dynamics uncertainties of the vehicle. In order to resolve the shortcoming for selecting the process noise covariance through personal experience or numerical simulation, a scheme called the fuzzy adaptive cubature Kalman filter (FACKF) is presented by introducing the FLAS to adjust the weighting factor of the process noise covariance matrix. The FLAS is incorporated into the CKF framework as a mechanism for timely implementing the tuning of process noise covariance matrix based on the information of degree of divergence (DOD) parameter. The proposed FACKF algorithm shows promising accuracy improvement as compared to the extended Kalman filter (EKF), unscented Kalman filter (UKF), and CKF approaches.

  13. Fuzzy Adaptive Cubature Kalman Filter for Integrated Navigation Systems

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chien-Hao Tseng

    2016-07-01

    Full Text Available This paper presents a sensor fusion method based on the combination of cubature Kalman filter (CKF and fuzzy logic adaptive system (FLAS for the integrated navigation systems, such as the GPS/INS (Global Positioning System/inertial navigation system integration. The third-degree spherical-radial cubature rule applied in the CKF has been employed to avoid the numerically instability in the system model. In processing navigation integration, the performance of nonlinear filter based estimation of the position and velocity states may severely degrade caused by modeling errors due to dynamics uncertainties of the vehicle. In order to resolve the shortcoming for selecting the process noise covariance through personal experience or numerical simulation, a scheme called the fuzzy adaptive cubature Kalman filter (FACKF is presented by introducing the FLAS to adjust the weighting factor of the process noise covariance matrix. The FLAS is incorporated into the CKF framework as a mechanism for timely implementing the tuning of process noise covariance matrix based on the information of degree of divergence (DOD parameter. The proposed FACKF algorithm shows promising accuracy improvement as compared to the extended Kalman filter (EKF, unscented Kalman filter (UKF, and CKF approaches.

  14. The effect of multimicrophone noise reduction systems on sound source localization by users of binaural hearing aids.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Van den Bogaert, Tim; Doclo, Simon; Wouters, Jan; Moonen, Marc

    2008-07-01

    This paper evaluates the influence of three multimicrophone noise reduction algorithms on the ability to localize sound sources. Two recently developed noise reduction techniques for binaural hearing aids were evaluated, namely, the binaural multichannel Wiener filter (MWF) and the binaural multichannel Wiener filter with partial noise estimate (MWF-N), together with a dual-monaural adaptive directional microphone (ADM), which is a widely used noise reduction approach in commercial hearing aids. The influence of the different algorithms on perceived sound source localization and their noise reduction performance was evaluated. It is shown that noise reduction algorithms can have a large influence on localization and that (a) the ADM only preserves localization in the forward direction over azimuths where limited or no noise reduction is obtained; (b) the MWF preserves localization of the target speech component but may distort localization of the noise component. The latter is dependent on signal-to-noise ratio and masking effects; (c) the MWF-N enables correct localization of both the speech and the noise components; (d) the statistical Wiener filter approach introduces a better combination of sound source localization and noise reduction performance than the ADM approach.

  15. The effect of noise correlations in populations of diversely tuned neurons.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ecker, Alexander S; Berens, Philipp; Tolias, Andreas S; Bethge, Matthias

    2011-10-05

    The amount of information encoded by networks of neurons critically depends on the correlation structure of their activity. Neurons with similar stimulus preferences tend to have higher noise correlations than others. In homogeneous populations of neurons, this limited range correlation structure is highly detrimental to the accuracy of a population code. Therefore, reduced spike count correlations under attention, after adaptation, or after learning have been interpreted as evidence for a more efficient population code. Here, we analyze the role of limited range correlations in more realistic, heterogeneous population models. We use Fisher information and maximum-likelihood decoding to show that reduced correlations do not necessarily improve encoding accuracy. In fact, in populations with more than a few hundred neurons, increasing the level of limited range correlations can substantially improve encoding accuracy. We found that this improvement results from a decrease in noise entropy that is associated with increasing correlations if the marginal distributions are unchanged. Surprisingly, for constant noise entropy and in the limit of large populations, the encoding accuracy is independent of both structure and magnitude of noise correlations.

  16. Effects of a traffic noise background on judgements of aircraft noise

    Science.gov (United States)

    Powell, C. A.; Rice, C. G.

    1974-01-01

    A study was conducted in which subjects judged aircraft noises in the presence of road traffic background noise. Two different techniques for presenting the background noises were evaluated. For one technique, the background noise was continuous over the whole of a test session. For the other, the background noise was changed with each aircraft noise. A range of aircraft noise levels and traffic noise levels were presented to simulate typical indoor levels.

  17. Evaluation of noise pollution in oil extracting region of Lavan and the effect of noise enclosure on noise abatement

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    F. Golbabaei

    2007-09-01

    Full Text Available Background and aims   Overexposure to industrial noise pollution induce hearing loss workers. Occupational hearing loss may cause interference whit oral communication, so it may  increase the risk of occupational accidents in workplace as well as affects whit social activities.  This study was conducted on Lavan Island, are of oil extracting regions in the south of Iran. The  object of this study was to evaluate noise pollution and determining the effect of noise enclosure  on noise abatement.   Methods   The noise sources were recognized and noise pressure level was measured by CEL- 440. Noise dose of the exposed workers in high level noise area were measured by CEL 272.   Results   Major noise sources were gas turbines, diesel generators, compressors, fans and gas containing pips, noise contour map revealers that noise level were higher than the recommended national exposure limit. The results of workers noise dose show that their noise exposure were  higher than the recommended value, (p<0.001. Finally, by using the results of noise frequency  analysis of different noise sources, the noise pressure level of each sources was determined in   terms of enclosing them.   Conclusion   By enclosing the noise sources, noise pressure levels can be lowered douse to  acceptable levels but limitation of applying enclosure should be regarded.  

  18. Noise cancellation properties of displacement noise free interferometer

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Sato, Shuichi; Kawamura, Seiji; Nishizawa, Atsushi; Chen Yanbei

    2010-01-01

    We have demonstrated the practical feasibility of a displacement- and frequency-noise-free laser interferometer (DFI) by partially implementing a recently proposed optical configuration using bi-directional Mach-Zehnder interferometers (MZIs). The noise cancellation efficiency was evaluated by comparing the displacement noise spectrum of the MZIs and the DFI, demonstrating up to 50 dB of noise cancellation. In addition, the possible extension of DFI as QND device is explored.

  19. Listening to Sentences in Noise: Revealing Binaural Hearing Challenges in Patients with Schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Abdul Wahab, Noor Alaudin; Zakaria, Mohd Normani; Abdul Rahman, Abdul Hamid; Sidek, Dinsuhaimi; Wahab, Suzaily

    2017-11-01

    The present, case-control, study investigates binaural hearing performance in schizophrenia patients towards sentences presented in quiet and noise. Participants were twenty-one healthy controls and sixteen schizophrenia patients with normal peripheral auditory functions. The binaural hearing was examined in four listening conditions by using the Malay version of hearing in noise test. The syntactically and semantically correct sentences were presented via headphones to the randomly selected subjects. In each condition, the adaptively obtained reception thresholds for speech (RTS) were used to determine RTS noise composite and spatial release from masking. Schizophrenia patients demonstrated significantly higher mean RTS value relative to healthy controls (p=0.018). The large effect size found in three listening conditions, i.e., in quiet (d=1.07), noise right (d=0.88) and noise composite (d=0.90) indicates statistically significant difference between the groups. However, noise front and noise left conditions show medium (d=0.61) and small (d=0.50) effect size respectively. No statistical difference between groups was noted in regards to spatial release from masking on right (p=0.305) and left (p=0.970) ear. The present findings suggest an abnormal unilateral auditory processing in central auditory pathway in schizophrenia patients. Future studies to explore the role of binaural and spatial auditory processing were recommended.

  20. Adaptive endpoint detection of seismic signal based on auto-correlated function

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Fan Wanchun; Shi Ren

    2001-01-01

    Based on the analysis of auto-correlation function, the notion of the distance between auto-correlation function was quoted, and the characterization of the noise and the signal with noise were discussed by using the distance. Then, the method of auto- adaptable endpoint detection of seismic signal based on auto-correlated similarity was summed up. The steps of implementation and determining of the thresholds were presented in detail. The experimental results that were compared with the methods based on artificial detecting show that this method has higher sensitivity even in a low signal with noise ratio circumstance

  1. Hardware design and implementation of a wavelet de-noising procedure for medical signal preprocessing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Szi-Wen; Chen, Yuan-Ho

    2015-10-16

    In this paper, a discrete wavelet transform (DWT) based de-noising with its applications into the noise reduction for medical signal preprocessing is introduced. This work focuses on the hardware realization of a real-time wavelet de-noising procedure. The proposed de-noising circuit mainly consists of three modules: a DWT, a thresholding, and an inverse DWT (IDWT) modular circuits. We also proposed a novel adaptive thresholding scheme and incorporated it into our wavelet de-noising procedure. Performance was then evaluated on both the architectural designs of the software and. In addition, the de-noising circuit was also implemented by downloading the Verilog codes to a field programmable gate array (FPGA) based platform so that its ability in noise reduction may be further validated in actual practice. Simulation experiment results produced by applying a set of simulated noise-contaminated electrocardiogram (ECG) signals into the de-noising circuit showed that the circuit could not only desirably meet the requirement of real-time processing, but also achieve satisfactory performance for noise reduction, while the sharp features of the ECG signals can be well preserved. The proposed de-noising circuit was further synthesized using the Synopsys Design Compiler with an Artisan Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC, Hsinchu, Taiwan) 40 nm standard cell library. The integrated circuit (IC) synthesis simulation results showed that the proposed design can achieve a clock frequency of 200 MHz and the power consumption was only 17.4 mW, when operated at 200 MHz.

  2. User's manual for the Noise 1 area computer program for transportation noise prediction : report under project entitled "area computer model for transportation noise prediction : phase 1 : adaptation of MICNOISE".

    Science.gov (United States)

    1975-01-01

    It was found that the coordinates of the highways required for Noise 1 could be supplied on punched cards by the Photogrammetry Section of the Department. In preparing data for contour plotting, it was found advisable to divide the area into sectors,...

  3. Working Memory Training and Speech in Noise Comprehension in Older Adults

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rachel V. Wayne

    2016-03-01

    Full Text Available Understanding speech in the presence of background sound can be challenging for older adults. Speech comprehension in noise appears to depend on working memory and executive-control processes (e.g., Heald & Nusbaum, 2014, and their augmentation through training may have rehabilitative potential for age-related hearing loss. We examined the efficacy of adaptive working-memory training (Cogmed; Klingberg, Forssberg & Westerberg, 2002 in 24 older adults, assessing generalization to other working-memory tasks (near-transfer and to other cognitive domains (far-transfer using a cognitive test battery, including the Reading Span test, sensitive to working memory (e.g., Daneman and Carpenter 1980. We also assessed far transfer to speech-in-noise performance, including a closed-set sentence task (Kidd, Best & Mason 2005. To examine the effect of cognitive training on benefit obtained from semantic context, we also assessed transfer to open-set sentences; half were semantically coherent (high-context and half were semantically anomalous (low-context. Subjects completed 25 sessions (0.5-1 hour each; 5 sessions/week of both adaptive working memory training and placebo training over 10 weeks in a crossover design. Subjects’ scores on the adaptive working-memory training tasks improved as a result of training. However, training did not transfer to other working memory tasks, nor to tasks recruiting other cognitive domains. We did not observe any training-related improvement in speech-in-noise performance. Measures of working memory correlated with the intelligibility of low-context, but not high-context, sentences, suggesting that sentence context may reduce the load on working memory. The Reading Span test significantly correlated only with a test of visual episodic memory, suggesting that the Reading Span test is not a pure-test of working memory, as is commonly assumed.

  4. Working Memory Training and Speech in Noise Comprehension in Older Adults.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wayne, Rachel V; Hamilton, Cheryl; Jones Huyck, Julia; Johnsrude, Ingrid S

    2016-01-01

    Understanding speech in the presence of background sound can be challenging for older adults. Speech comprehension in noise appears to depend on working memory and executive-control processes (e.g., Heald and Nusbaum, 2014), and their augmentation through training may have rehabilitative potential for age-related hearing loss. We examined the efficacy of adaptive working-memory training (Cogmed; Klingberg et al., 2002) in 24 older adults, assessing generalization to other working-memory tasks (near-transfer) and to other cognitive domains (far-transfer) using a cognitive test battery, including the Reading Span test, sensitive to working memory (e.g., Daneman and Carpenter, 1980). We also assessed far transfer to speech-in-noise performance, including a closed-set sentence task (Kidd et al., 2008). To examine the effect of cognitive training on benefit obtained from semantic context, we also assessed transfer to open-set sentences; half were semantically coherent (high-context) and half were semantically anomalous (low-context). Subjects completed 25 sessions (0.5-1 h each; 5 sessions/week) of both adaptive working memory training and placebo training over 10 weeks in a crossover design. Subjects' scores on the adaptive working-memory training tasks improved as a result of training. However, training did not transfer to other working memory tasks, nor to tasks recruiting other cognitive domains. We did not observe any training-related improvement in speech-in-noise performance. Measures of working memory correlated with the intelligibility of low-context, but not high-context, sentences, suggesting that sentence context may reduce the load on working memory. The Reading Span test significantly correlated only with a test of visual episodic memory, suggesting that the Reading Span test is not a pure-test of working memory, as is commonly assumed.

  5. Masking potency and whiteness of noise at various noise check sizes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kukkonen, H; Rovamo, J; Näsänen, R

    1995-02-01

    The masking effect of spatial noise can be increased by increasing either the rms contrast or check size of noise. In this study, the authors investigated the largest noise check size that still mimics the effect of white noise in grating detection and how it depends on the bandwidth and spatial frequency of a grating. The authors measured contrast energy thresholds, E, for vertical cosine gratings at various spatial frequencies and bandwidths. Gratings were embedded in two-dimensional spatial noise. The side length of the square noise checks was varied in the experiments. The spectral density, N(0,0), of white spatial noise at zero frequency was calculated by multiplying the noise check area by the rms contrast of noise squared. The physical signal-to-noise ratio at threshold [E/N(0,0)]0.5 was initially constant but then started to decrease. The largest noise check that still produced a constant physical signal-to-noise ratio at threshold was directly proportional to the spatial frequency. When expressed as a fraction of grating cycle, the largest noise check size depended only on stimulus bandwidth. The smallest number of noise checks per grating cycle needed to mimic the effect of white noise decreased from 4.2 to 2.6 when the number of grating cycles increased from 1 to 64. Spatial noise can be regarded as white in grating detection if there are at least four square noise checks per grating cycle at all spatial frequencies.

  6. Improved liver R2* mapping by pixel-wise curve fitting with adaptive neighborhood regularization.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Changqing; Zhang, Xinyuan; Liu, Xiaoyun; He, Taigang; Chen, Wufan; Feng, Qianjin; Feng, Yanqiu

    2018-08-01

    To improve liver R2* mapping by incorporating adaptive neighborhood regularization into pixel-wise curve fitting. Magnetic resonance imaging R2* mapping remains challenging because of the serial images with low signal-to-noise ratio. In this study, we proposed to exploit the neighboring pixels as regularization terms and adaptively determine the regularization parameters according to the interpixel signal similarity. The proposed algorithm, called the pixel-wise curve fitting with adaptive neighborhood regularization (PCANR), was compared with the conventional nonlinear least squares (NLS) and nonlocal means filter-based NLS algorithms on simulated, phantom, and in vivo data. Visually, the PCANR algorithm generates R2* maps with significantly reduced noise and well-preserved tiny structures. Quantitatively, the PCANR algorithm produces R2* maps with lower root mean square errors at varying R2* values and signal-to-noise-ratio levels compared with the NLS and nonlocal means filter-based NLS algorithms. For the high R2* values under low signal-to-noise-ratio levels, the PCANR algorithm outperforms the NLS and nonlocal means filter-based NLS algorithms in the accuracy and precision, in terms of mean and standard deviation of R2* measurements in selected region of interests, respectively. The PCANR algorithm can reduce the effect of noise on liver R2* mapping, and the improved measurement precision will benefit the assessment of hepatic iron in clinical practice. Magn Reson Med 80:792-801, 2018. © 2018 International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. © 2018 International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine.

  7. Non-Markovian noise

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Fulinski, A.

    1994-01-01

    The properties of non-Markovian noises with exponentially correlated memory are discussed. Considered are dichotomic noise, white shot noise, Gaussian white noise, and Gaussian colored noise. The stationary correlation functions of the non-Markovian versions of these noises are given by linear combinations of two or three exponential functions (colored noises) or of the δ function and exponential function (white noises). The non-Markovian white noises are well defined only when the kernel of the non-Markovian master equation contains a nonzero admixture of a Markovian term. Approximate equations governing the probability densities for processes driven by such non-Markovian noises are derived, including non-Markovian versions of the Fokker-Planck equation and the telegrapher's equation. As an example, it is shown how the non-Markovian nature changes the behavior of the driven linear process

  8. Turning Fiction Into Non-fiction for Signal-to-Noise Ratio Estimation -- The Time-Multiplexed and Adaptive Split-Symbol Moments Estimator

    Science.gov (United States)

    Simon, M.; Dolinar, S.

    2005-08-01

    A means is proposed for realizing the generalized split-symbol moments estimator (SSME) of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), i.e., one whose implementation on the average allows for a number of subdivisions (observables), 2L, per symbol beyond the conventional value of two, with other than an integer value of L. In theory, the generalized SSME was previously shown to yield optimum performance for a given true SNR, R, when L=R/sqrt(2) and thus, in general, the resulting estimator was referred to as the fictitious SSME. Here we present a time-multiplexed version of the SSME that allows it to achieve its optimum value of L as above (to the extent that it can be computed as the average of a sum of integers) at each value of SNR and as such turns fiction into non-fiction. Also proposed is an adaptive algorithm that allows the SSME to rapidly converge to its optimum value of L when in fact one has no a priori information about the true value of SNR.

  9. Low Delay Noise Reduction and Dereverberation for Hearing Aids

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Heinrich W. Löllmann

    2009-01-01

    Full Text Available A new system for single-channel speech enhancement is proposed which achieves a joint suppression of late reverberant speech and background noise with a low signal delay and low computational complexity. It is based on a generalized spectral subtraction rule which depends on the variances of the late reverberant speech and background noise. The calculation of the spectral variances of the late reverberant speech requires an estimate of the reverberation time (RT which is accomplished by a maximum likelihood (ML approach. The enhancement with this blind RT estimation achieves almost the same speech quality as by using the actual RT. In comparison to commonly used post-filters in hearing aids which only perform a noise reduction, a significantly better objective and subjective speech quality is achieved. The proposed system performs time-domain filtering with coefficients adapted in the non-uniform (Bark-scaled frequency-domain. This allows to achieve a high speech quality with low signal delay which is important for speech enhancement in hearing aids or related applications such as hands-free communication systems.

  10. Embedded pitch adapters: A high-yield interconnection solution for strip sensors

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Ullán, M., E-mail: miguel.ullan@imb-cnm.csic.es [Centro Nacional de Microelectronica (IMB-CNM, CSIC), Campus UAB-Bellaterra, 08193 Barcelona (Spain); Allport, P.P.; Baca, M.; Broughton, J.; Chisholm, A.; Nikolopoulos, K.; Pyatt, S.; Thomas, J.P.; Wilson, J.A. [School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT (United Kingdom); Kierstead, J.; Kuczewski, P.; Lynn, D. [Brookhaven National Laboratory, Physics Department and Instrumentation Division, Upton, NY 11973-5000 (United States); Hommels, L.B.A. [Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, JJ Thomson Avenue, Cambridge CB3 0HE (United Kingdom); Fleta, C.; Fernandez-Tejero, J.; Quirion, D. [Centro Nacional de Microelectronica (IMB-CNM, CSIC), Campus UAB-Bellaterra, 08193 Barcelona (Spain); Bloch, I.; Díez, S.; Gregor, I.M.; Lohwasser, K. [DESY, Notkestrasse 85, 22607 Hamburg (Germany); and others

    2016-09-21

    A proposal to fabricate large area strip sensors with integrated, or embedded, pitch adapters is presented for the End-cap part of the Inner Tracker in the ATLAS experiment. To implement the embedded pitch adapters, a second metal layer is used in the sensor fabrication, for signal routing to the ASICs. Sensors with different embedded pitch adapters have been fabricated in order to optimize the design and technology. Inter-strip capacitance, noise, pick-up, cross-talk, signal efficiency, and fabrication yield have been taken into account in their design and fabrication. Inter-strip capacitance tests taking into account all channel neighbors reveal the important differences between the various designs considered. These tests have been correlated with noise figures obtained in full assembled modules, showing that the tests performed on the bare sensors are a valid tool to estimate the final noise in the full module. The full modules have been subjected to test beam experiments in order to evaluate the incidence of cross-talk, pick-up, and signal loss. The detailed analysis shows no indication of cross-talk or pick-up as no additional hits can be observed in any channel not being hit by the beam above 170 mV threshold, and the signal in those channels is always below 1% of the signal recorded in the channel being hit, above 100 mV threshold. First results on irradiated mini-sensors with embedded pitch adapters do not show any change in the interstrip capacitance measurements with only the first neighbors connected.

  11. Intelligent Mechanical Fault Diagnosis Based on Multiwavelet Adaptive Threshold Denoising and MPSO

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hao Sun

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available The condition diagnosis of rotating machinery depends largely on the feature analysis of vibration signals measured for the condition diagnosis. However, the signals measured from rotating machinery usually are nonstationary and nonlinear and contain noise. The useful fault features are hidden in the heavy background noise. In this paper, a novel fault diagnosis method for rotating machinery based on multiwavelet adaptive threshold denoising and mutation particle swarm optimization (MPSO is proposed. Geronimo, Hardin, and Massopust (GHM multiwavelet is employed for extracting weak fault features under background noise, and the method of adaptively selecting appropriate threshold for multiwavelet with energy ratio of multiwavelet coefficient is presented. The six nondimensional symptom parameters (SPs in the frequency domain are defined to reflect the features of the vibration signals measured in each state. Detection index (DI using statistical theory has been also defined to evaluate the sensitiveness of SP for condition diagnosis. MPSO algorithm with adaptive inertia weight adjustment and particle mutation is proposed for condition identification. MPSO algorithm effectively solves local optimum and premature convergence problems of conventional particle swarm optimization (PSO algorithm. It can provide a more accurate estimate on fault diagnosis. Practical examples of fault diagnosis for rolling element bearings are given to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.

  12. Noise-induced annoyance from transportation noise: short-term responses to a single noise source in a laboratory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kim, Jaehwan; Lim, Changwoo; Hong, Jiyoung; Lee, Soogab

    2010-02-01

    An experimental study was performed to compare the annoyances from civil-aircraft noise, military-aircraft noise, railway noise, and road-traffic noise. Two-way within-subjects designs were applied in this research. Fifty-two subjects, who were naive listeners, were given various stimuli with varying levels through a headphone in an anechoic chamber. Regardless of the frequency weighting network, even under the same average energy level, civil-aircraft noise was the most annoying, followed by military-aircraft noise, railway noise, and road-traffic noise. In particular, penalties in the time-averaged, A-weighted sound level (TAL) of about 8, 5, and 5 dB, respectively, were found in the civil-aircraft, military-aircraft, and railway noises. The reason could be clarified through the high-frequency component and the variability in the level. When people were exposed to sounds with the same maximum A-weighted level, a railway bonus of about 3 dB was found. However, transportation noise has been evaluated by the time-averaged A-weighted level in most countries. Therefore, in the present situation, the railway bonus is not acceptable for railway vehicles with diesel-electric engines.

  13. Environmental noise and noise modelling-some aspects in Malaysian development

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Leong, Mohd Salman; Mohd Shafiek bin Hj Yaacob

    1994-01-01

    Environmental noise is of growing concern in Malaysia with the increasing awareness of the need for an environmental quality consistent with improved quality of life. While noise is one of the several elements in an Environmental Impact Assessment report, the degree of emphasis in the assessment is not as thorough as other aspects in the EIA study. The measurements, prediction (if at all any), and evaluation tended to be superficial. The paper presents a summary of correct noise descriptors and annoyance assessment parameters appropriate for the evaluation of environmental noise. The paper further highlights current inadequacies in the Environmental Quality Act for noise pollution, and annoyance assessment. Some examples of local noise pollution are presented. A discussion on environmental noise modelling is presented. Examples illustrating environmental noise modelling for a mining operation and a power station are given. It is the authors' recommendation that environmental noise modelling be made mandatory in all EIA studies such that a more definitive assessment could be realised

  14. Evaluation of non-linear adaptive smoothing filter by digital phantom

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Sato, Kazuhiro; Ishiya, Hiroki; Oshita, Ryosuke; Yanagawa, Isao; Goto, Mitsunori; Mori, Issei

    2008-01-01

    As a result of the development of multi-slice CT, diagnoses based on three-dimensional reconstruction images and multi-planar reconstruction have spread. For these applications, which require high z-resolution, thin slice imaging is essential. However, because z-resolution is always based on a trade-off with image noise, thin slice imaging is necessarily accompanied by an increase in noise level. To improve the quality of thin slice images, a non-linear adaptive smoothing filter has been developed, and is being widely applied to clinical use. We developed a digital bar pattern phantom for the purpose of evaluating the effect of this filter and attempted evaluation from an addition image of the bar pattern phantom and the image of the water phantom. The effect of this filter was changed in a complex manner by the contrast and spatial frequency of the original image. We have confirmed the reduced effect of image noise in the low frequency component of the image, but decreased contrast or increased quantity of noise in the image of the high frequency component. This result represents the effect of change in the adaptation of this filter. The digital phantom was useful for this evaluation, but to understand the total effect of filtering, much improvement of the shape of the digital phantom is required. (author)

  15. Annoyance of low frequency noise and traffic noise

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Mortensen, F.R.; Poulsen, Torben

    2001-01-01

    The annoyance of different low frequency noise sources was determined and compared to the annoyance from traffic noise. Twenty-two subjects participated in laboratory listening tests. The sounds were presented by loudspeakers in a listening room and the spectra of the low frequency noises were...

  16. An innovative information fusion method with adaptive Kalman filter for integrated INS/GPS navigation of autonomous vehicles

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Yahui; Fan, Xiaoqian; Lv, Chen; Wu, Jian; Li, Liang; Ding, Dawei

    2018-02-01

    Information fusion method of INS/GPS navigation system based on filtering technology is a research focus at present. In order to improve the precision of navigation information, a navigation technology based on Adaptive Kalman Filter with attenuation factor is proposed to restrain noise in this paper. The algorithm continuously updates the measurement noise variance and processes noise variance of the system by collecting the estimated and measured values, and this method can suppress white noise. Because a measured value closer to the current time would more accurately reflect the characteristics of the noise, an attenuation factor is introduced to increase the weight of the current value, in order to deal with the noise variance caused by environment disturbance. To validate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm, a series of road tests are carried out in urban environment. The GPS and IMU data of the experiments were collected and processed by dSPACE and MATLAB/Simulink. Based on the test results, the accuracy of the proposed algorithm is 20% higher than that of a traditional Adaptive Kalman Filter. It also shows that the precision of the integrated navigation can be improved due to the reduction of the influence of environment noise.

  17. Reference-shaping adaptive control by using gradient descent optimizers.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Baris Baykant Alagoz

    Full Text Available This study presents a model reference adaptive control scheme based on reference-shaping approach. The proposed adaptive control structure includes two optimizer processes that perform gradient descent optimization. The first process is the control optimizer that generates appropriate control signal for tracking of the controlled system output to a reference model output. The second process is the adaptation optimizer that performs for estimation of a time-varying adaptation gain, and it contributes to improvement of control signal generation. Numerical update equations derived for adaptation gain and control signal perform gradient descent optimization in order to decrease the model mismatch errors. To reduce noise sensitivity of the system, a dead zone rule is applied to the adaptation process. Simulation examples show the performance of the proposed Reference-Shaping Adaptive Control (RSAC method for several test scenarios. An experimental study demonstrates application of method for rotor control.

  18. Behavior observation of major noise sources in critical care wards.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xie, Hui; Kang, Jian; Mills, Gary H

    2013-12-01

    This study aimed to investigate the behavior patterns of typical noise sources in critical care wards and relate their patterns to health care environment in which the sources adapt themselves in several different forms. An effective observation approach was designed for noise behavior in the critical care environment. Five descriptors have been identified for the behavior observations, namely, interval, frequency, duration, perceived loudness, and location. Both the single-bed and the multiple-bed wards at the selected Critical Care Department were randomly observed for 3 inconsecutive nights, from 11:30 pm to 7:00 am the following morning. The Matlab distribution fitting tool was applied afterward to plot several types of distributions and estimate the corresponding parameters. The lognormal distribution was considered the most appropriate statistical distribution for noise behaviors in terms of the interval and duration patterns. The turning of patients by staff was closely related to the increasing occurrences of noises. Among the observed noises, talking was identified with the highest frequency, shortest intervals, and the longest durations, followed by monitor alarms. The perceived loudness of talking in the nighttime wards was classified into 3 levels (raised, normal, and low). Most people engaged in verbal communication in the single-bed wards that occurred around the Entrance Zone, whereas talking in the multiple-bed wards was more likely to be situated in the Staff Work Zone. As expected, more occurrences of noises along with longer duration were observed in multiple-bed wards rather than single-bed wards. "Monitor plus ventilator alarms" was the most commonly observed combination of multiple noises. © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  19. Evaluating noise abatement measures using strategic noise maps

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Borst, H.C.; Miedema, H.M.E.; Laan, W.P.N. van der; Lohman, W.J.A.

    2006-01-01

    Noise annoyance due to transportation is widespread in industrialized countries and in urban areas in the developing countries. The European Noise Directive (END) requires an assessment of the noise situation as well as the formulation of action plans for the reduction of the number of people

  20. Benefit of the UltraZoom beamforming technology in noise in cochlear implant users.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mosnier, Isabelle; Mathias, Nathalie; Flament, Jonathan; Amar, Dorith; Liagre-Callies, Amelie; Borel, Stephanie; Ambert-Dahan, Emmanuèle; Sterkers, Olivier; Bernardeschi, Daniele

    2017-09-01

    The objectives of the study were to demonstrate the audiological and subjective benefits of the adaptive UltraZoom beamforming technology available in the Naída CI Q70 sound processor, in cochlear-implanted adults upgraded from a previous generation sound processor. Thirty-four adults aged between 21 and 89 years (mean 53 ± 19) were prospectively included. Nine subjects were unilaterally implanted, 11 bilaterally and 14 were bimodal users. The mean duration of cochlear implant use was 7 years (range 5-15 years). Subjects were tested in quiet with monosyllabic words and in noise with the adaptive French Matrix test in the best-aided conditions. The test setup contained a signal source in front of the subject and three noise sources at +/-90° and 180°. The noise was presented at a fixed level of 65 dB SPL and the level of speech signal was varied to obtain the speech reception threshold (SRT). During the upgrade visit, subjects were tested with the Harmony and with the Naída CI sound processors in omnidirectional microphone configuration. After a take-home phase of 2 months, tests were repeated with the Naída CI processor with and without UltraZoom. Subjective assessment of the sound quality in daily environments was recorded using the APHAB questionnaire. No difference in performance was observed in quiet between the two processors. The Matrix test in noise was possible in the 21 subjects with the better performance. No difference was observed between the two processors for performance in noise when using the omnidirectional microphone. At the follow-up session, the median SRT with the Naída CI processor with UltraZoom was -4 dB compared to -0.45 dB without UltraZoom. The use of UltraZoom improved the median SRT by 3.6 dB (p noise and for speech understanding in noise (p noise. The use of UltraZoom beamforming technology, available on the new sound processor Naída CI, improves speech performance in difficult and realistic noisy conditions when the

  1. A Hybrid Semi-Digital Transimpedance Amplifier With Noise Cancellation Technique for Nanopore-Based DNA Sequencing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hsu, Chung-Lun; Jiang, Haowei; Venkatesh, A G; Hall, Drew A

    2015-10-01

    Over the past two decades, nanopores have been a promising technology for next generation deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) sequencing. Here, we present a hybrid semi-digital transimpedance amplifier (HSD-TIA) to sense the minute current signatures introduced by single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) translocating through a nanopore, while discharging the baseline current using a semi-digital feedback loop. The amplifier achieves fast settling by adaptively tuning a DC compensation current when a step input is detected. A noise cancellation technique reduces the total input-referred current noise caused by the parasitic input capacitance. Measurement results show the performance of the amplifier with 31.6 M Ω mid-band gain, 950 kHz bandwidth, and 8.5 fA/ √Hz input-referred current noise, a 2× noise reduction due to the noise cancellation technique. The settling response is demonstrated by observing the insertion of a protein nanopore in a lipid bilayer. Using the nanopore, the HSD-TIA was able to measure ssDNA translocation events.

  2. Noise annoys: effects of noise on breeding great tits depend on personality but not on noise characteristics

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Naguib, M.; Van Oers, K.; Braakhuis, A.; Griffioen, M.; De Goede, P.; Waas, J.R.

    2013-01-01

    Anthropogenic noise can have serious implications for animals, especially when they communicate acoustically. Yet, the impacts of noise may depend not only on noise characteristics but also on an individual's coping style or personality. We tested whether noise is more disturbing if it masks

  3. How does stochastic resonance work within the human brain? - Psychophysics of internal and external noise

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Aihara, Takatsugu; Kitajo, Keiichi; Nozaki, Daichi; Yamamoto, Yoshiharu

    2010-01-01

    We review how research on stochastic resonance (SR) in neuroscience has evolved and point out that the previous studies have overlooked the interaction between internal and external noise. We propose a new psychometric function incorporating SR effects, and show that a Bayesian adaptive method applied to the function efficiently estimates the parameters of the function. Using this procedure in visual detection experiments, we provide significant insight into the relationship between internal and external noise in SR within the human brain.

  4. Effects of acoustic noise on the auditory nerve compound action potentials evoked by electric pulse trains.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nourski, Kirill V; Abbas, Paul J; Miller, Charles A; Robinson, Barbara K; Jeng, Fuh-Cherng

    2005-04-01

    This study investigated the effects of acoustic noise on the auditory nerve compound action potentials in response to electric pulse trains. Subjects were adult guinea pigs, implanted with a minimally invasive electrode to preserve acoustic sensitivity. Electrically evoked compound action potentials (ECAP) were recorded from the auditory nerve trunk in response to electric pulse trains both during and after the presentation of acoustic white noise. Simultaneously presented acoustic noise produced a decrease in ECAP amplitude. The effect of the acoustic masker on the electric probe was greatest at the onset of the acoustic stimulus and it was followed by a partial recovery of the ECAP amplitude. Following cessation of the acoustic noise, ECAP amplitude recovered over a period of approximately 100-200 ms. The effects of the acoustic noise were more prominent at lower electric pulse rates (interpulse intervals of 3 ms and higher). At higher pulse rates, the ECAP adaptation to the electric pulse train alone was larger and the acoustic noise, when presented, produced little additional effect. The observed effects of noise on ECAP were the greatest at high electric stimulus levels and, for a particular electric stimulus level, at high acoustic noise levels.

  5. A generalized leaky FxLMS algorithm for tuning the waterbed effect of feedback active noise control systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wu, Lifu; Qiu, Xiaojun; Guo, Yecai

    2018-06-01

    To tune the noise amplification in the feedback system caused by the waterbed effect effectively, an adaptive algorithm is proposed in this paper by replacing the scalar leaky factor of the leaky FxLMS algorithm with a real symmetric Toeplitz matrix. The elements in the matrix are calculated explicitly according to the noise amplification constraints, which are defined based on a simple but efficient method. Simulations in an ANC headphone application demonstrate that the proposed algorithm can adjust the frequency band of noise amplification more effectively than the FxLMS algorithm and the leaky FxLMS algorithm.

  6. Natural and anthropogenic ocean noise recorded at long-term and temporary observatories

    Science.gov (United States)

    Grevemeyer, Ingo; Metz, Dirk; Watts, Anthony B.; Geissler, Wolfram

    2017-04-01

    Most people worldwide would assume that the oceans are silent. However, a number of natural phenomenon's like ocean waves, wind, lightening, ice noise, earthquakes, and submarine volcanic activity contributes to the ambient ocean noise. During their evolution, marine animals like fish and mammals have adopted in many ways to the acoustic properties of the sea. Yet in recent decades, anthropogenic and hence manmade ocean noise level has risen profoundly. Due to extreme reliance of fish and mammals on underwater sounds for basic life functions, including searching for food or mate and the absence of any mechanism to safeguard them against it, underwater noise pollution may disrupt marine life. The primary sources of low-frequency anthropogenic noise include sounds associated with shipping, military operations, oil and gas exploration and production, and even research activities. Some scientists suggest that today virtually no marine environment is without any noise pollution. Thus, all marine life forms that rely heavily on the integrity of their acoustic habitat may have to adapt to new conditions. Of greatest concern for whales are low-frequency sounds that travel long distances in the ocean. Ship propellers and motors, for instance, produce sound at low frequencies, as do natural and manmade seismic activity. These profound, loud noises reverberate in the deep ocean and can effectively mask or block vital whale communication. However, in general very little is known about the world-wide distribution of ambient ocean noise. Thus, on a global scale and considering the vast areas of the world's oceans, we know virtually nothing about noise levels in different parts of the oceans and how anthropogenic noise contributes to ambient noise. Here, we use hydrophone recordings from the UN's Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty organization (CTBTO) and ocean-bottom seismometers to provide an assessment of noise in all major basins, including the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian

  7. CT colonography at low tube potential: using iterative reconstruction to decrease noise

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Chang, K.J.; Heisler, M.A.; Mahesh, M.; Baird, G.L.; Mayo-Smith, W.W.

    2015-01-01

    Aim: To determine the level of iterative reconstruction required to reduce increased image noise associated with low tube potential computed tomography (CT). Materials and methods: Fifty patients underwent CT colonography with a supine scan at 120 kVp and a prone scan at 100 kVp with other scan parameters unchanged. Both scans were reconstructed with filtered back projection (FBP) and increasing levels of adaptive statistical iterative reconstruction (ASiR) at 30%, 60%, and 90%. Mean noise, soft tissue and tagged fluid attenuation, contrast, and contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) were collected from reconstructions at both 120 and 100 kVp and compared using a generalised linear mixed model. Results: Decreasing tube potential from 120 to 100 kVp significantly increased image noise by 30–34% and tagged fluid attenuation by 120 HU at all ASiR levels (p<0.0001, all measures). Increasing ASiR from 0% (FBP) to 30%, 60%, and 90% resulted in significant decreases in noise and increases in CNR at both tube potentials (p<0.001, all comparisons). Compared to 120 kVp FBP, ASiR greater than 30% at 100 kVp yielded similar or lower image noise. Conclusions: Iterative reconstruction adequately compensates for increased image noise associated with low tube potential imaging while improving CNR. An ASiR level of approximately 50% at 100 kVp yields similar noise to 120 kVp without ASiR. -- Highlights: •Peak kilovoltage (kVp) can be reduced to decrease radiation dose and increase contrast attenuation at a cost of increased image noise. •Utilizing iterative reconstruction can decrease image noise and increase contrast to noise ratio (CNR) independent of kVp. •Iterative reconstruction adequately compensates for increased image noise associated with low dose low kVp imaging while improving CNR. •An ASiR level of approximately 50% at 100 kVp yields similar noise to 120 kVp without ASiR

  8. Hardware Design and Implementation of a Wavelet De-Noising Procedure for Medical Signal Preprocessing

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Szi-Wen Chen

    2015-10-01

    Full Text Available In this paper, a discrete wavelet transform (DWT based de-noising with its applications into the noise reduction for medical signal preprocessing is introduced. This work focuses on the hardware realization of a real-time wavelet de-noising procedure. The proposed de-noising circuit mainly consists of three modules: a DWT, a thresholding, and an inverse DWT (IDWT modular circuits. We also proposed a novel adaptive thresholding scheme and incorporated it into our wavelet de-noising procedure. Performance was then evaluated on both the architectural designs of the software and. In addition, the de-noising circuit was also implemented by downloading the Verilog codes to a field programmable gate array (FPGA based platform so that its ability in noise reduction may be further validated in actual practice. Simulation experiment results produced by applying a set of simulated noise-contaminated electrocardiogram (ECG signals into the de-noising circuit showed that the circuit could not only desirably meet the requirement of real-time processing, but also achieve satisfactory performance for noise reduction, while the sharp features of the ECG signals can be well preserved. The proposed de-noising circuit was further synthesized using the Synopsys Design Compiler with an Artisan Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC, Hsinchu, Taiwan 40 nm standard cell library. The integrated circuit (IC synthesis simulation results showed that the proposed design can achieve a clock frequency of 200 MHz and the power consumption was only 17.4 mW, when operated at 200 MHz.

  9. Influence of ASIR (Adaptative Statistical Iterative Reconstruction) variation in the image noise of computerized tomography for high voltage; Influência da variação do ASIR (Adaptative Statistical Iterative Reconstruction) no ruído da imagem de tomografia computadorizada para altas tensões

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Mendes, L.M.M.; Pereira, W.B.R.; Vieira, J.G.; Lamounier, C.S.; Gonçalves, D.A.; Carvalho, G.N.P.; Santana, P.C., E-mail: lucasmoacir2010@hotmail.com [Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), Belo Horizonte, MG (Brazil); Oliveira, P.M.C.; Reis, L.P., E-mail: paulomarcio2000@gmail.com [Centro de Desenvolvimento de Tecnologia Nuclear (CDTN/CNEN-MG), Belo Horizonte, MG (Brazil)

    2017-07-01

    Computed tomography had great advances in the equipment used in the diagnostic practice, directly influencing the levels of radiation for the patient. It is essential to optimize techniques that must be employed to comply with the ALARA (As Low As Reasonably Achievable) principle of radioprotection. The relationship of ASIR (Adaptive Statistical Iterative Reconstruction) with image noise was studied. Central images of a homogeneous water simulator were obtained in a 20 mm scan using a 64-channel Lightspeed VCT tomograph of General Electric in helical acquisitions with a rotation time of 0.5 seconds, Pitch 0.984: 1, and thickness of cut 0.625 mm. All these constant parameters varying the voltage in two distinct values: 120 and 140 kV with use of the automatic current by the CAE (Automatic Exposure Control), ranging from 50 to 675 mA (120 kV) and from 50 to 610 mA (140kV), minimum and maximum values, respectively allowed for each voltage. Image noise was determined through ImageJ free software. The analysis of the obtained data compared the percentage variation of the noise in the image based on the ASIR value of 10%, concluding that there is a variation of approximately 50% when compared to the values of ASIR (100%) in both tensions. Dose evaluation is required in future studies to better utilize the relationship between dose and image quality.

  10. Adaptive logical stochastic resonance in time-delayed synthetic genetic networks

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Lei; Zheng, Wenbin; Song, Aiguo

    2018-04-01

    In the paper, the concept of logical stochastic resonance is applied to implement logic operation and latch operation in time-delayed synthetic genetic networks derived from a bacteriophage λ. Clear logic operation and latch operation can be obtained when the network is tuned by modulated periodic force and time-delay. In contrast with the previous synthetic genetic networks based on logical stochastic resonance, the proposed system has two advantages. On one hand, adding modulated periodic force to the background noise can increase the length of the optimal noise plateau of obtaining desired logic response and make the system adapt to varying noise intensity. On the other hand, tuning time-delay can extend the optimal noise plateau to larger range. The result provides possible help for designing new genetic regulatory networks paradigm based on logical stochastic resonance.

  11. The effects of noise reduction technologies on the acceptance of background noise.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lowery, Kristy Jones; Plyler, Patrick N

    2013-09-01

    Directional microphones (D-Mics) and digital noise reduction (DNR) algorithms are used in hearing aids to reduce the negative effects of background noise on performance. Directional microphones attenuate sounds arriving from anywhere other than the front of the listener while DNR attenuates sounds with physical characteristics of noise. Although both noise reduction technologies are currently available in hearing aids, it is unclear if the use of these technologies in isolation or together affects acceptance of noise and/or preference for the end user when used in various types of background noise. The purpose of the research was to determine the effects of D-Mic, DNR, or the combination of D-Mic and DNR on acceptance of noise and preference when listening in various types of background noise. An experimental study in which subjects were exposed to a repeated measures design was utilized. Thirty adult listeners with mild sloping to moderately severe sensorineural hearing loss participated (mean age 67 yr). Acceptable noise levels (ANLs) were obtained using no noise reduction technologies, D-Mic only, DNR only, and the combination of the two technologies (Combo) for three different background noises (single-talker speech, speech-shaped noise, and multitalker babble) for each listener. In addition, preference rankings of the noise reduction technologies were obtained within each background noise (1 = best, 3 = worst). ANL values were significantly better for each noise reduction technology than baseline; and benefit increased significantly from DNR to D-Mic to Combo. Listeners with higher (worse) baseline ANLs received more benefit from noise reduction technologies than listeners with lower (better) baseline ANLs. Neither ANL values nor ANL benefit values were significantly affected by background noise type; however, ANL benefit with D-Mic and Combo was similar when speech-like noise was present while ANL benefit was greatest for Combo when speech spectrum noise was

  12. Community noise

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bragdon, C. R.

    Airport and community land use planning as they relate to airport noise reduction are discussed. Legislation, community relations, and the physiological effect of airport noise are considered. Noise at the Logan, Los Angeles, and Minneapolis/St. Paul airports is discussed.

  13. Research into Noise Generated by Domestic Appliances in the Anechoic Chamber

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Agnė Žukauskienė

    2012-12-01

    Full Text Available Loud noise has a negative impact on the entire body, especially on listening. We can hear daily noise everywhere – in the street, at work or at home. The Department of Environmental Protection of Vilnius Gediminas Technical University has adjusted an anechoic chamber adapted for suppressing sound. Under the above introduced conditions, 15 appliances (5 vacuum cleaners, 5 hair dryers and 5 shaving machines have been tested. Equivalent sound pressure level of the vacuum cleaner has varied from 66 dBA to 83 dBA, that of the hair dryer has made from 64 dBA to 70 dBA and for the shaving machine – from 39 to 56 dBA.Article in Lithuanian

  14. Detection threshold for sound distortion resulting from noise reduction in normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brons, Inge; Dreschler, Wouter A; Houben, Rolph

    2014-09-01

    Hearing-aid noise reduction should reduce background noise, but not disturb the target speech. This objective is difficult because noise reduction suffers from a trade-off between the amount of noise removed and signal distortion. It is unknown if this important trade-off differs between normal-hearing (NH) and hearing-impaired (HI) listeners. This study separated the negative effect of noise reduction (distortion) from the positive effect (reduction of noise) to allow the measurement of the detection threshold for noise-reduction (NR) distortion. Twelve NH subjects and 12 subjects with mild to moderate sensorineural hearing loss participated in this study. The detection thresholds for distortion were determined using an adaptive procedure with a three-interval, two-alternative forced-choice paradigm. Different levels of distortion were obtained by changing the maximum amount of noise reduction. Participants were also asked to indicate their preferred NR strength. The detection threshold for overall distortion was higher for HI subjects than for NH subjects, suggesting that stronger noise reduction can be applied for HI listeners without affecting the perceived sound quality. However, the preferred NR strength of HI listeners was closer to their individual detection threshold for distortion than in NH listeners. This implies that HI listeners tolerate fewer audible distortions than NH listeners.

  15. Optimizing CT technique to reduce radiation dose: effect of changes in kVp, iterative reconstruction, and noise index on dose and noise in a human cadaver.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chang, Kevin J; Collins, Scott; Li, Baojun; Mayo-Smith, William W

    2017-06-01

    For assessment of the effect of varying the peak kilovoltage (kVp), the adaptive statistical iterative reconstruction technique (ASiR), and automatic dose modulation on radiation dose and image noise in a human cadaver, a cadaver torso underwent CT scanning at 80, 100, 120 and 140 kVp, each at ASiR settings of 0, 30 and 50 %, and noise indices (NIs) of 5.5, 11 and 22. The volume CT dose index (CTDI vol ), image noise, and attenuation values of liver and fat were analyzed for 20 data sets. Size-specific dose estimates (SSDEs) and liver-to-fat contrast-to-noise ratios (CNRs) were calculated. Values for different combinations of kVp, ASiR, and NI were compared. The CTDI vol varied by a power of 2 with kVp values between 80 and 140 without ASiR. Increasing ASiR levels allowed a larger decrease in CTDI vol and SSDE at higher kVp than at lower kVp while image noise was held constant. In addition, CTDI vol and SSDE decreased with increasing NI at each kVp, but the decrease was greater at higher kVp than at lower kVp. Image noise increased with decreasing kVp despite a fixed NI; however, this noise could be offset with the use of ASiR. The CT number of the liver remained unchanged whereas that of fat decreased as the kVp decreased. Image noise and dose vary in a complicated manner when the kVp, ASiR, and NI are varied in a human cadaver. Optimization of CT protocols will require balancing of the effects of each of these parameters to maximize image quality while minimizing dose.

  16. Noise Estimation and Quality Assessment of Gaussian Noise Corrupted Images

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kamble, V. M.; Bhurchandi, K.

    2018-03-01

    Evaluating the exact quantity of noise present in an image and quality of an image in the absence of reference image is a challenging task. We propose a near perfect noise estimation method and a no reference image quality assessment method for images corrupted by Gaussian noise. The proposed methods obtain initial estimate of noise standard deviation present in an image using the median of wavelet transform coefficients and then obtains a near to exact estimate using curve fitting. The proposed noise estimation method provides the estimate of noise within average error of +/-4%. For quality assessment, this noise estimate is mapped to fit the Differential Mean Opinion Score (DMOS) using a nonlinear function. The proposed methods require minimum training and yields the noise estimate and image quality score. Images from Laboratory for image and Video Processing (LIVE) database and Computational Perception and Image Quality (CSIQ) database are used for validation of the proposed quality assessment method. Experimental results show that the performance of proposed quality assessment method is at par with the existing no reference image quality assessment metric for Gaussian noise corrupted images.

  17. Report on inter-noise 99; Inter-noise 99 sanka hokok

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Koike, H. [Japan Automobile Research Institute Inc., Tsukuba (Japan)

    2000-04-01

    Inter-Noise (International Congress on Noise Control Engineering) is a society on noise/vibration and the control technology. Inter-Noise 99 was held on December 6, 7 and 8, 1999, at Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the U.S. The theme was Noise Control in the New Millennium. The number of the participants registered was 555 (151 from the U.S., 89 from Japan, 248 from European countries, and 69 from Asian/other countries). Dr. Harold Marshall gave a keynote lecture titled Noise Control by Design in the 21st Century - An Architectural Acoustic Perspective. From a standpoint of architectural acoustics, he stated the perspective, subjects, and course of the technical development pertaining to technologies needed in the 21st century. The papers read are mostly from the following fields: measuring technology, military exercise noise, modeling, forecast and simulation, aerodynamic/underwater sound, etc. In the session on the tire noise where the author read a paper, 14 papers were read. The number of the papers read was more than that in 1998, probably influenced by the tire noise regulation in Europe and Japan. (translated by NEDO)

  18. Noise frame duration, masking potency and whiteness of temporal noise

    OpenAIRE

    Kukkonen, Helja; Rovamo, Jyrki; Donner, Kristian; Tammikallio, Marja; Raninen, Antii

    2002-01-01

    PURPOSE. Because of the limited contrast range, increasing the duration of the noise frame is often the only option for increasing the masking potency of external, white temporal noise. This, however, reduces the high-frequency cutoff beyond which noise is no longer white. This study was conducted to determine the longest noise frame duration that produces the strongest masking effect and still mimics white noise on the detection of sinusoidal flicker. \\ud \\ud METHODS. Contrast energy thresho...

  19. Reconfigurable origami sonic barriers with tunable bandgaps for traffic noise mitigation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Thota, M.; Wang, K. W.

    2017-10-01

    An origami sonic barrier composed of cylindrical inclusions attached onto an origami sheet is proposed. The idea allows for tunable sound blocking properties for application in attenuating complex traffic noise spectra. Folding of the underlying origami sheet transforms the periodicity of the inclusions between different Bravais lattices, viz. between a square and a hexagonal lattice, and such significant lattice re-configuration leads to drastic tuning of dispersion characteristics. The wave tuning capabilities are corroborated via performing theoretical and numerical investigations using a plane wave expansion method and an acoustic simulation package of COMSOL, while experiments are performed on a one-seventh scaled-down model of origami sonic barrier to demonstrate the lattice re-configuration between different Bravais lattices and the associated bandgap adaptability. Good sound blocking performance in the frequency range of traffic noise spectra combined with less efforts, required for actuating one-degree of freedom folding mechanism, makes the origami sonic barrier a potential candidate for mitigating complex traffic noise.

  20. Effective data-domain noise and streak reduction for X-ray CT

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Yang, Zhi; Zamyatin, Alexander A. [Toshiba Medical Research Institute USA, Inc., Vernon Hills, IL (United States); Akino, Naruomi [Toshiba Medical System Corporation, Tokyo (Japan)

    2011-07-01

    Streaks and noise caused by photon starvation can seriously impair the diagnostic value of the CT imaging. Existing processing methods often have several parameters to tune. The parameters can be ad hoc to the data sets. Iterative methods can achieve better results, however, at the cost of more hardware resources or longer processing time. This paper reports a new scheme of adaptive Gaussian filtering, which is based on the diffusion-derived scale-space concept. In scale-space view, filtering by Gaussians of different sizes is similar to decompose the data into a sequence of scales. The scale measure, which is the variance of the filter, should be linearly related to the noise standard deviation instead of the variance of the noise. This is a fundamental deviation in the way of using filters. The new filter has only one parameter that remains stable once tuned. Singlepass processing can usually reach the desired results. (orig.)

  1. Noise

    Science.gov (United States)

    Noise is all around you, from televisions and radios to lawn mowers and washing machines. Normally, you ... sensitive structures of the inner ear and cause noise-induced hearing loss. More than 30 million Americans ...

  2. Histogram Equalization to Model Adaptation for Robust Speech Recognition

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Suh Youngjoo

    2010-01-01

    Full Text Available We propose a new model adaptation method based on the histogram equalization technique for providing robustness in noisy environments. The trained acoustic mean models of a speech recognizer are adapted into environmentally matched conditions by using the histogram equalization algorithm on a single utterance basis. For more robust speech recognition in the heavily noisy conditions, trained acoustic covariance models are efficiently adapted by the signal-to-noise ratio-dependent linear interpolation between trained covariance models and utterance-level sample covariance models. Speech recognition experiments on both the digit-based Aurora2 task and the large vocabulary-based task showed that the proposed model adaptation approach provides significant performance improvements compared to the baseline speech recognizer trained on the clean speech data.

  3. Filtered-X Affine Projection Algorithms for Active Noise Control Using Volterra Filters

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sicuranza Giovanni L

    2004-01-01

    Full Text Available We consider the use of adaptive Volterra filters, implemented in the form of multichannel filter banks, as nonlinear active noise controllers. In particular, we discuss the derivation of filtered-X affine projection algorithms for homogeneous quadratic filters. According to the multichannel approach, it is then easy to pass from these algorithms to those of a generic Volterra filter. It is shown in the paper that the AP technique offers better convergence and tracking capabilities than the classical LMS and NLMS algorithms usually applied in nonlinear active noise controllers, with a limited complexity increase. This paper extends in two ways the content of a previous contribution published in Proc. IEEE-EURASIP Workshop on Nonlinear Signal and Image Processing (NSIP '03, Grado, Italy, June 2003. First of all, a general adaptation algorithm valid for any order of affine projections is presented. Secondly, a more complete set of experiments is reported. In particular, the effects of using multichannel filter banks with a reduced number of channels are investigated and relevant results are shown.

  4. The role of Urbis' noise and noise effects maps in local policy

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Borst, H.C.

    2001-01-01

    An important aspect of the EU noise policy is mapping of noise and noise effects and the formulation of noise action plans. In the Netherlands, due to the new policy on noise (MIG), the municipalities will be responsible for the formulation of a local noise policy. An instrument for the assessment

  5. Real-Time Measurements for Adaptive and Cognitive Radio Systems

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hüseyin Arslan

    2009-01-01

    Full Text Available Adaptive and cognitive radios (CR have been becoming popular for optimizing mobile radio system transmission and reception. One of the most important elements of the adaptive radio and CR concepts is the ability to measure, sense, learn about, and be aware of parameters related to the radio channel characteristics, availability of spectrum and power, interference and noise temperature, operational environment of radio, user requirements and applications, available networks and infrastructures, local policies, other operating restrictions, and so on. This paper discusses some of the important measurement parameters for enabling adaptive radio and CR systems along with their relationships and impacts on the performance including relevant challenges.

  6. A Kullback-Leibler approach for 3D reconstruction of spectral CT data corrupted by Poisson noise

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hohweiller, Tom; Ducros, Nicolas; Peyrin, Françoise; Sixou, Bruno

    2017-09-01

    While standard computed tomography (CT) data do not depend on energy, spectral computed tomography (SPCT) acquire energy-resolved data, which allows material decomposition of the object of interest. Decompo- sitions in the projection domain allow creating projection mass density (PMD) per materials. From decomposed projections, a tomographic reconstruction creates 3D material density volume. The decomposition is made pos- sible by minimizing a cost function. The variational approach is preferred since this is an ill-posed non-linear inverse problem. Moreover, noise plays a critical role when decomposing data. That is why in this paper, a new data fidelity term is used to take into account of the photonic noise. In this work two data fidelity terms were investigated: a weighted least squares (WLS) term, adapted to Gaussian noise, and the Kullback-Leibler distance (KL), adapted to Poisson noise. A regularized Gauss-Newton algorithm minimizes the cost function iteratively. Both methods decompose materials from a numerical phantom of a mouse. Soft tissues and bones are decomposed in the projection domain; then a tomographic reconstruction creates a 3D material density volume for each material. Comparing relative errors, KL is shown to outperform WLS for low photon counts, in 2D and 3D. This new method could be of particular interest when low-dose acquisitions are performed.

  7. Noise in Optical Amplifiers

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jeppesen, Palle

    1997-01-01

    Noise in optical amplifiers is discussed on the basis of photons and electromagntic fields. Formulas for quantum noise from spontaneous emission, signal-spontaneous beat noise and spontaneous-spontaneous beat noise are derived.......Noise in optical amplifiers is discussed on the basis of photons and electromagntic fields. Formulas for quantum noise from spontaneous emission, signal-spontaneous beat noise and spontaneous-spontaneous beat noise are derived....

  8. Evaluation of noise pollution in urban traffic hubs—Noise maps and measurements

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Fiedler, Paulo Eduardo Kirrian; Zannin, Paulo Henrique Trombetta

    2015-01-01

    A study was made of some of the main traffic hubs in a Latin American metropolis, in order to determine the presence or absence of noise by means of noise measurements and acoustic mapping. To characterize noise in the evaluated road stretches, 232 measurements were taken at different points. The Predictor software package was used for the noise mapping calculations. Noise sensitive areas, e.g., hospitals, were identified in the evaluated road stretches. Noise maps were calculated for two hospitals, showing the current levels of noise that reach their facades. Hypothetical scenarios were simulated by making changes in the composition of traffic and total number of vehicles, and an assessment was made of the potential influence of these modifications in reducing the noise levels reaching the facades of the buildings in question. The simulations indicated that a 50% reduction in total traffic flow, or a 50% reduction in heavy vehicle traffic flow, would reduce the noise levels by about 3 dB(A). - Highlights: • Evaluation of noise pollution in urban traffic hubs • Street systems • Environmental noise impacts • Noise mapping

  9. Evaluation of noise pollution in urban traffic hubs—Noise maps and measurements

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Fiedler, Paulo Eduardo Kirrian; Zannin, Paulo Henrique Trombetta, E-mail: paulo.zannin@pesquisador.cnpq.br

    2015-02-15

    A study was made of some of the main traffic hubs in a Latin American metropolis, in order to determine the presence or absence of noise by means of noise measurements and acoustic mapping. To characterize noise in the evaluated road stretches, 232 measurements were taken at different points. The Predictor software package was used for the noise mapping calculations. Noise sensitive areas, e.g., hospitals, were identified in the evaluated road stretches. Noise maps were calculated for two hospitals, showing the current levels of noise that reach their facades. Hypothetical scenarios were simulated by making changes in the composition of traffic and total number of vehicles, and an assessment was made of the potential influence of these modifications in reducing the noise levels reaching the facades of the buildings in question. The simulations indicated that a 50% reduction in total traffic flow, or a 50% reduction in heavy vehicle traffic flow, would reduce the noise levels by about 3 dB(A). - Highlights: • Evaluation of noise pollution in urban traffic hubs • Street systems • Environmental noise impacts • Noise mapping.

  10. Developmental Mechanisms Underlying Improved Contrast Thresholds for Discriminations of Orientation Signals Embedded in Noise

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Seong Taek eJeon

    2014-09-01

    Full Text Available We combined an external noise paradigm with an efficient procedure for obtaining contrast thresholds (Lesmes et al., 2006 in order to model developmental changes during childhood. Specifically, we measured the contrast thresholds of 5-, 7-, 9-year-olds and adults (n = 20/age in a two alternative forced-choice orientation discrimination task over a wide range of external noise levels and at three levels of accuracy. Overall, as age increased, contrast thresholds decreased over the entire range of external noise levels tested. The decrease was greatest between 5 and 7 years of age. The reduction in threshold after age 5 was greater in the high than the low external noise region, a pattern implying greater tolerance to the irrelevant background noise as children became older. To model the mechanisms underlying these developmental changes in terms of internal noise components, we adapted the original perceptual template model (Lu and Dosher, 1998 and normalized the magnitude of performance changes against the performance of 5-year-olds. The resulting model provided an excellent fit (r2 = 0.985 to the contrast thresholds at multiple levels of accuracy (60, 75, and 90% across a wide range of external noise levels. The improvements in contrast thresholds with age were best modelled by a combination of reductions in internal additive noise, reductions in internal multiplicative noise, and improvements in excluding external noise by template retuning. In line with the data, the improvement was greatest between 5 and 7 years of age, accompanied by a 39% reduction in additive noise, 71% reduction in multiplicative noise, and 45% improvement in external noise exclusion. The modelled improvements likely reflect developmental changes at the cortical level, rather than changes in front-end structural properties (Kiorpes et al., 2003.

  11. A MIT-Based Nonlinear Adaptive Set-Membership Filter for the Ellipsoidal Estimation of Mobile Robots' States

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dalei Song

    2012-10-01

    Full Text Available The adaptive extended set-membership filter (AESMF for nonlinear ellipsoidal estimation suffers a mismatch between real process noise and its set boundaries, which may result in unstable estimation. In this paper, a MIT method-based adaptive set-membership filter, for the optimization of the set boundaries of process noise, is developed and applied to the nonlinear joint estimation of both time-varying states and parameters. As a result of using the proposed MIT-AESMF, the estimation effectiveness and boundary accuracy of traditional AESMF are substantially improved. Simulation results have shown the efficiency and robustness of the proposed method.

  12. Impact of environmental colored noise in single-species population dynamics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Spanio, Tommaso; Hidalgo, Jorge; Muñoz, Miguel A.

    2017-10-01

    Variability on external conditions has important consequences for the dynamics and the organization of biological systems. In many cases, the characteristic timescale of environmental changes as well as their correlations play a fundamental role in the way living systems adapt and respond to it. A proper mathematical approach to understand population dynamics, thus, requires approaches more refined than, e.g., simple white-noise approximations. To shed further light onto this problem, in this paper we propose a unifying framework based on different analytical and numerical tools available to deal with "colored" environmental noise. In particular, we employ a "unified colored noise approximation" to map the original problem into an effective one with white noise, and then we apply a standard path integral approach to gain analytical understanding. For the sake of specificity, we present our approach using as a guideline a variation of the contact process—which can also be seen as a birth-death process of the Malthus-Verhulst class—where the propagation or birth rate varies stochastically in time. Our approach allows us to tackle in a systematic manner some of the relevant questions concerning population dynamics under environmental variability, such as determining the stationary population density, establishing the conditions under which a population may become extinct, and estimating extinction times. We focus on the emerging phase diagram and its possible phase transitions, underlying how these are affected by the presence of environmental noise time-correlations.

  13. Quantitative analysis of LISA pathfinder test-mass noise

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ferraioli, Luigi; Congedo, Giuseppe; Hueller, Mauro; Vitale, Stefano; Hewitson, Martin; Nofrarias, Miquel; Armano, Michele

    2011-01-01

    LISA Pathfinder (LPF) is a mission aiming to test the critical technology for the forthcoming space-based gravitational-wave detectors. The main scientific objective of the LPF mission is to demonstrate test masses free falling with residual accelerations below 3x10 -14 m s -2 /√(Hz) at 1 mHz. Reaching such an ambitious target will require a significant amount of system optimization and characterization, which will in turn require accurate and quantitative noise analysis procedures. In this paper, we discuss two main problems associated with the analysis of the data from LPF: i) excess noise detection and ii) noise parameter identification. The mission is focused on the low-frequency region ([0.1, 10] mHz) of the available signal spectrum. In such a region, the signal is dominated by the force noise acting on test masses. At the same time, the mission duration is limited to 90 days and typical data segments will be 24 hours in length. Considering those constraints, noise analysis is expected to deal with a limited amount of non-Gaussian data, since the spectrum statistics will be far from Gaussian and the lowest available frequency is limited by the data length. In this paper, we analyze the details of the expected statistics for spectral data and develop two suitable excess noise estimators. One is based on the statistical properties of the integrated spectrum, the other is based on the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. The sensitivity of the estimators is discussed theoretically for independent data, then the algorithms are tested on LPF synthetic data. The test on realistic LPF data allows the effect of spectral data correlations on the efficiency of the different noise excess estimators to be highlighted. It also reveals the versatility of the Kolmogorov-Smirnov approach, which can be adapted to provide reasonable results on correlated data from a modified version of the standard equations for the inversion of the test statistic. Closely related to excess noise

  14. Chemotactic response and adaptation dynamics in Escherichia coli.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Diana Clausznitzer

    2010-05-01

    Full Text Available Adaptation of the chemotaxis sensory pathway of the bacterium Escherichia coli is integral for detecting chemicals over a wide range of background concentrations, ultimately allowing cells to swim towards sources of attractant and away from repellents. Its biochemical mechanism based on methylation and demethylation of chemoreceptors has long been known. Despite the importance of adaptation for cell memory and behavior, the dynamics of adaptation are difficult to reconcile with current models of precise adaptation. Here, we follow time courses of signaling in response to concentration step changes of attractant using in vivo fluorescence resonance energy transfer measurements. Specifically, we use a condensed representation of adaptation time courses for efficient evaluation of different adaptation models. To quantitatively explain the data, we finally develop a dynamic model for signaling and adaptation based on the attractant flow in the experiment, signaling by cooperative receptor complexes, and multiple layers of feedback regulation for adaptation. We experimentally confirm the predicted effects of changing the enzyme-expression level and bypassing the negative feedback for demethylation. Our data analysis suggests significant imprecision in adaptation for large additions. Furthermore, our model predicts highly regulated, ultrafast adaptation in response to removal of attractant, which may be useful for fast reorientation of the cell and noise reduction in adaptation.

  15. The Assessment of Noise Exposure and Noise Annoyance at a Petrochemical Company

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    S. Farhang Dehghan

    2013-12-01

    .Conclusion: Based on the obtained results of investigating the noise level (objective exposure as well as the noise annoyance (subjective exposure at the studied company, it is necessary to adopt the management –technical noise reduction measures at manufacturing sectors as the personal noise exposure and environmental noise exposure and also noise personal exposure of administrative staff can be decreased.

  16. Noise pollution resources compendium

    Science.gov (United States)

    1973-01-01

    Abstracts of reports concerning noise pollution are presented. The abstracts are grouped in the following areas of activity: (1) sources of noise, (2) noise detection and measurement, (3) noise abatement and control, (4) physical effects of noise and (5) social effects of noise.

  17. Solar noise storms

    CERN Document Server

    Elgaroy, E O

    2013-01-01

    Solar Noise Storms examines the properties and features of solar noise storm phenomenon. The book also presents some theories that can be used to gain a better understanding of the phenomenon. The coverage of the text includes topics that cover the features and behavior of noise storms, such as the observable features of noise storms; the relationship between noise storms and the observable features on the sun; and ordered behavior of storm bursts in the time-frequency plane. The book also covers the spectrum, polarization, and directivity of noise storms. The text will be of great use to astr

  18. The relative effects of cavitation and nonlinear ultrasound propagation on HIFU lesion dynamics in a tissue phantom

    Science.gov (United States)

    Khokhlova, Vera A.; Bailey, Michael R.; Reed, Justin; Kaczkowski, Peter J.

    2004-05-01

    The relative importance of the effects of acoustic nonlinearity and cavitation in HIFU lesion production is studied experimentally and theoretically in a polyacrylamide gel. A 2-MHz transducer of 40-mm diameter and 45-mm focal length was operated at different regimes of power, and in cw or duty-cycle regimes with equal mean intensity. Elevated static pressure was applied to suppress bubbles, increase boiling temperature, and thus to isolate the effect of acoustic nonlinearity in the enhancement of lesion production. Experimental data were compared with the results of simulations performed using a KZK acoustic model combined with the bioheat equation and thermal dose formulation. Boiling and the typical tadpole-shaped lesion shifting towards the transducer were observed under standard atmospheric pressure. No boiling was detected and a symmetric thermal lesion formed in the case of overpressure. A delay in lesion inception time was registered with overpressure, which was hypothesized to be due to suppressed microbubble dynamics. The effect of acoustic nonlinearity was revealed as a substantial decrease in the lesion inception time and an increase in the lesion size for high-amplitude waves under both standard and overpressure conditions. [Work supported by ONRIFO, NASA/NSBRI, NIH Fogarty, and CRDF grants.

  19. Low noise constant current source for bias dependent noise measurements

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Talukdar, D.; Bose, Suvendu; Bardhan, K. K.; Chakraborty, R. K.

    2011-01-01

    A low noise constant current source used for measuring the 1/f noise in disordered systems in ohmic as well as nonohmic regime is described. The source can supply low noise constant current starting from as low as 1 μA to a few tens of milliampere with a high voltage compliance limit of around 20 V. The constant current source has several stages, which can work in a standalone manner or together to supply the desired value of load current. The noise contributed by the current source is very low in the entire current range. The fabrication of a low noise voltage preamplifier modified for bias dependent noise measurements and based on the existing design available in the MAT04 data sheet is also described.

  20. Classification of Clouds in Satellite Imagery Using Adaptive Fuzzy Sparse Representation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Wei Jin

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available Automatic cloud detection and classification using satellite cloud imagery have various meteorological applications such as weather forecasting and climate monitoring. Cloud pattern analysis is one of the research hotspots recently. Since satellites sense the clouds remotely from space, and different cloud types often overlap and convert into each other, there must be some fuzziness and uncertainty in satellite cloud imagery. Satellite observation is susceptible to noises, while traditional cloud classification methods are sensitive to noises and outliers; it is hard for traditional cloud classification methods to achieve reliable results. To deal with these problems, a satellite cloud classification method using adaptive fuzzy sparse representation-based classification (AFSRC is proposed. Firstly, by defining adaptive parameters related to attenuation rate and critical membership, an improved fuzzy membership is introduced to accommodate the fuzziness and uncertainty of satellite cloud imagery; secondly, by effective combination of the improved fuzzy membership function and sparse representation-based classification (SRC, atoms in training dictionary are optimized; finally, an adaptive fuzzy sparse representation classifier for cloud classification is proposed. Experiment results on FY-2G satellite cloud image show that, the proposed method not only improves the accuracy of cloud classification, but also has strong stability and adaptability with high computational efficiency.