Search

We have developed a multiscale algorithm for elastic registration of images. Rigid registration has many applications but it is often limited by distortions in the images. For example, different views of the same object produce distortions. Common examples of slightly different views producing a distortion can be found in medical imaging, such as matching a current mammogram or chest radiograph with one from a previous year, and in remote sensing, such as matching images taken from different satellite positions. We have developed two methods of elastic registration. Both are multiscale but one used an iterative minimization of the local error and the other uses a windowed correlation. We present preliminary results of the elastic registration method used on windowed correlations.

We have introduced a new method of removing noise from images that identifies significant extrema and forces the pixel intensities between any two extrema to change monotonicly. The method has some similarities to wavelet denoising methods we worked with several years ago but is generally more stable and is effective on images with lower SNR's. In this paper the method of monotonic filtering is used to increase the sensitivity in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies. We have used the increased sensitivity to improve the temporal resolution in fMRI studies by roughly a factor of six. A motor activation study was acquired with single slice 256 x 256 pixel T2* weighted images; six cycles of finger tapping were acquired. Each cycle consisted of five images of rest followed by five images of right hand finger tapping followed by five images of left hand finger tapping. The z-scores were calculated and used as the activation map. The left and right activations were both clearly visible when all six cycles were used in the analysis. However, no definitive activation was seen for any one cycle. When the original 256 x 256 images were averaged down to 64 x 64 pixel images before calculation of the z-scores, the activations were partially identified. When the original images were filtered using the monotonic noise reduction algorithm, the left activation was clearly visible in three of the six cycles and partially visible in two others. The right activation was partially visible in 4 out of 6 cycles. Optimized noise reduction should improve the results significantly. The ability to use a single cycles is very important in fMRI studies because many stimuli are more difficult to maintain over many cycles and because complex processes such as in cognitive or memory activity do not have simple responses.

As the COVID-19 pandemic has sadly shown, the decision against vaccination is often linked to political ideologies and populist messages among specific segments of the population: People do not only have concerns about a potential health risk associated with vaccination but seem to have also adopted more populist attitudes towards science. In this study, the relationship between science-related populism and individuals' attitudes towards vaccination was examined, presuming that scientific-related populism also influences individual responses towards different vaccinations. As different types of diseases and their vaccines might be perceived rather distinctively by the public, different vaccinations were considered. The survey is based on responses from 870 people from Germany and Austria. Results indicate that science-related populism influences responses towards some vaccination types, especially for those that receive extensive media coverage such as COVID-19 and measles (MMR). There was no significant impact of science-related populism on individuals' vaccination intentions for other vaccines like seasonal influenza, human papillomavirus, or tick-borne encephalitis. In conclusion, limitations and directions for future research are addressed., Author(s): Sarah Kohler [sup.1] , Isabell Koinig [sup.2] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.411327.2, 0000 0001 2176 9917, Communication and Media Science, Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf, , Universitätsstraße 1, 40225, Düsseldorf, Germany (2) grid.7520.0, [...]