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In this chapter we present a numerical model for the simulation of blood flow inside cerebral aneurysms. We illustrate the process of predicting flow and forces that arise in vessels and aneurysms starting from patient-specific data obtained using medical imaging techniques. Once the three-dimensional geometry is reconstructed, we discuss fluid properties of blood which allows to compute the flow. The flow of an incompressible Newtonian fluid in the human brain is simulated by using a volume penalizing immersed boundary method, in which the aneurysm geometries are represented by the so-called masking function. We impose pulsatile flow forcing, based on the direct measurement of the mean flow velocity in a vessel during a cardiac cycle and focus on effects due to changes in the flow regimes. In slow or very viscous flows the pulsatile forcing dominates the fluid dynamical response, while at faster or less viscous flows the intrinsic unsteadiness of natural incompressible flow is dominant over the pulsatile flow forcing effect. We consider a full range of physiologically relevant conditions and show high frequencies to emerge in the pulsatile response. The strong qualitative transitions in flow behavior and shear stress levels inside an aneurysm cavity at increased flow rates may contribute to the long-term risk of aneurysm rupture.

Wi-Fi technology, plays a major role in society thanks to its widespread availability, ease of use and low cost. To assure its long term viability in terms of capacity and ability to share the spectrum ef﬿ciently, it is of paramount to study the spectrum utilization and congestion mechanisms in live environments. In this paper the service level in the 2.4 GHz ISM band is investigated with focus on todays IEEE 802.11 WLAN systems with support for the 802.11e extension. Here service level means the overall Quality of Service (QoS), i.e. can all devices ful﬿ll their communication needs? A crosslayer approach is used, since the service level can be measured at several levels of the protocol stack. The focus is on monitoring at both the Physical (PHY) and the Medium Access Control (MAC) link layer simultaneously by performing respectively power measurements with a spectrum analyzer to assess spectrum utilization and packet snif﬿ng to measure the congestion. Compared to traditional QoS analysis in 802.11 networks, packet snif﬿ng allows to study the occurring congestion mechanisms more thoroughly. The monitoring is applied for the following two cases. First the influence of interference between WLAN networks sharing the same radio channel is investigated in a controlled environment. It turns out that retry rate, Clear-ToSend (CTS), Request-To-Send (RTS) and (Block) Acknowledgment (ACK) frames can be used to identify congestion, whereas the spectrum analyzer is employed to identify the source of interference. Secondly, live measurements are performed at three locations to identify this type of interference in real-live situations. Results show inef﬿cient use of the wireless medium in certain scenarios, due to a large portion of management and control frames compared to data content frames (i.e. only 21% of the frames is identi﬿ed as data frames).

We present a novel decoding scheme for product codes that combat 2D intersymbol interference in bit patterned media. The new scheme is up to 42% faster and allows for 22% more jitter compared to the traditional iterative decoding scheme.

Osteoarthritis is one of the leading causes of pain and disability worldwide and a major health problem in developed countries due to the gradually aging population. Though the symptoms are easily recognized and described by a patient, it is difficult to assess the level of damage or loss of articular cartilage quantitatively. We present a novel method for fully automated knee cartilage thickness measurement and subsequent assessment of the knee joint. First, the point correspondence between a pre-segmented training bone model is obtained with use of Shape Context based non-rigid surface registration. Then, a single Active Shape Model (ASM) is used to segment both Femur and Tibia bone. The surfaces obtained are processed to extract the Bone-Cartilage Interface (BCI) points, where the proper segmentation of cartilage begins. For this purpose, the cartilage ASM is trained with cartilage edge positions expressed in 1D coordinates at the normals in the BCI points. The whole cartilage model is then constructed from the segmentations obtained in the previous step. An absolute thickness of the segmented cartilage is measured and compared to the mean of all training datasets, giving as a result the relative thickness value. The resulting cartilage structure is visualized and related to the segmented bone. In this way the condition of the cartilage is assessed over the surface. The quality of bone and cartilage segmentation is validated and the Dice's coefficients 0.92 and 0.86 for Femur and Tibia bones and 0.45 and 0.34 for respective cartilages are obtained. The clinical diagnostic relevance of the obtained thickness mapping is being evaluated retrospectively. We hope to validate it prospectively for prediction of clinical outcome the methods require improvements in accuracy and robustness.

In most photoacoustic (PA) measurements, variations in speed-of-sound (SOS) of the subject are neglected under the assumption of acoustic homogeneity. Biological tissue with spatially heterogeneous SOS cannot be accurately reconstructed under this assumption. We present experimental and image reconstruction methods with which 2-D SOS distributions can be accurately acquired and reconstructed, and with which the SOS map can be used subsequently to reconstruct highly accurate PA tomograms. We begin with a 2-D iterative reconstruction approach in an ultrasound transmission tomography (UTT) setting, which uses ray refracted paths instead of straight ray paths to recover accurate SOS images of the subject. Subsequently, we use the SOS distribution in a new 2-D iterative approach, where refraction of rays originating from PA sources are accounted for in accurately retrieving the distribution of these sources. Both the SOS reconstruction and SOS-compensated PA reconstruction methods utilize the Eikonal equation to model acoustic wavefront propagation, which is solved using a high accuracy fast marching method (HAFMM). We validate the new reconstruction algorithms using numerical phantoms. For experiments we use the PER-PACT method which can be used to simultaneously acquire SOS and PA data from subjects. We test the reconstruction algorithms using experimental data acquired with the PER-PACT setup from challenging physical phantoms. The results show that it is important to take SOS inhomogeneities into account. The iterative reconstruction algorithms, that model acoustic refractive effects, yield artifact-free highly accurate images. Our approach of using the hybrid measurement method and the new reconstruction algorithms, is successful in substantially improving the quality of PA images with a minimization of blurring and artefacts., Accepted Medical Physics (American Association of Physicists in Medicine). Date of submission 28 May 2012; date of acceptance 15 October 2012

White matter hyperintensities are known to play a role in the cognitive decline experienced by patients suffering from neurological diseases. Therefore, accurately detecting and monitoring these lesions is of importance. Automatic methods for segmenting white matter lesions typically use multimodal MRI data. Furthermore, many methods use a training set to perform a classi﬿cation task or to determine necessary parameters. In this work, we describe and evaluate an unsupervised segmentation method that is based solely on the histogram of FLAIR images. It approximates the histogram by a mixture of three Gaussians in order to ﬿nd an appropriate threshold for white matter hyperintensities. We use a context-sensitive Expectation-Maximization method to determine the Gaussian mixture parameters. The segmentation is subsequently corrected for false positives using the knowledge of the location of typical FLAIR artifacts. A preliminary validation with the ground truth on 6 patients revealed a Similarity Index of 0.73 ± 0.10, indicating that the method is comparable to others in the literature which require multimodal MRI and/or a preliminary training step.

Endovascular aortic repair (EVAR) is a technique which uses stent grafts to treat aortic aneurysms in patients at risk of aneurysm rupture. Although this technique has been shown to be very successful on the short term, the long term results are less optimistic due to failure of the stent graft. The pulsating blood flow applies stresses and forces to the stent graft, which can cause problems such as breakage, leakage, and migration. Therefore it is of importance to gain more insight into the in vivo motion behavior of these devices. If we know more about the motion patterns in well-behaved stent graft as well as ill-behaving devices, we shall be better able to distinguish between these type of behaviors These insights will enable us to detect stent-related problems and might even be used to predict problems beforehand. Further, these insights will help in designing the next generation stent grafts. Firstly, this work discusses the applicability of ECG-gated CT for measuring the motions of stent grafts in AAA. Secondly, multiple methods to segment the stent graft from these data are discussed. Thirdly, this work proposes a method that uses image registration to apply motion to the segmented stent model

The perfusion of the brain is essential to maintain brain function. Stroke is an example of a decrease in blood flow and reduced perfusion. During ischemic stroke the blood flow to tissue is hampered due to a clot inside a vessel. To investigate the recovery of stroke patients, follow up studies are necessary. MRI is the preferred imaging modality for follow up because of the absence of radiation dose concerns, contrary to CT. Dynamic Susceptibility Contrast (DSC) MRI is an imaging technique used for measuring perfusion of the brain, however, is not standard applied in the clinical routine due to lack of immediate patient benefit. Several post processing algorithms are described in the literature to obtain cerebral blood flow (CBF). The quantification of CBF relies on the deconvolution of a tracer concentration-time curve in an arterial and a tissue voxel. There are several methods to obtain this deconvolution based on singular-value decomposition (SVD). This contribution describes a comparison between the different approaches as currently there is no best practice for (all) clinical relevant situations. We investigate the influence of tracer delay, dispersion and recirculation on the performance of the methods. In the presence of negative delays, the truncated SVD approach overestimates the CBF. Block-circulant and reformulated SVD are delay-independent. Due to its delay dependent behavior, the truncated SVD approach performs worse in the presence of dispersion as well. However all SVD approaches are dependent on the amount of dispersion. Moreover, we observe that the optimal truncation parameter varies when recirculation is added to noisy data, suggesting that, in practice, these methods are not immune to tracer recirculation. Finally, applying the methods to clinical data resulted in a large variability of the CBF estimates. Block-circulant SVD will work in all situations and is the method with the highest potential.

Multi modal image registration enables images from different modalities to be analyzed in the same coordinate system. The class of B-spline-based methods that maximize the Mutual Information between images produce satisfactory result in general, but are often complex and can converge slowly. The popular Demons algorithm, while being fast and easy to implement, produces unrealistic deformation fields and is sensitive to illumination differences between the two images, which makes it unsuitable for multi-modal registration in its original form. We propose a registration algorithm that combines a B-spline grid with deformations driven by image forces. The algorithm is easy to implement and is robust against large differences in the appearance between the images to register. The deformation is driven by attraction-forces between the edges in both images, and a B-spline grid is used to regularize the sparse deformation field. The grid is updated using an original approach by weighting the deformation forces for each pixel individually with the edge strengths. This approach makes the algorithm perform well even if not all corresponding edges are present. We report preliminary results by applying the proposed algorithm to a set of (multi-modal) test images. The results show that the proposed method performs well, but is less accurate than state of the art registration methods based on Mutual Information. In addition, the algorithm is used to register test images to manually drawn line images in order to demonstrate the algorithm's robustness.

In dit rapport wordt een antwoord gegeven op de vraag onder welke voorwaarden vergunningshouders op een zo technisch efficiënt mogelijke manier verschillende mobiele communicatietechnologieën kunnen toepassen binnen de aan hun vergunde frequentieruimte in de 800, 900, en 1800 MHz band.

The start of use of mobile applications in the 800 MHz band, which forms part of the ‘Digital Dividend’, will cause interference to TV signals under certain conditions. The new mobile applications (called LTE, Long Term Evolution) use frequencies also used in cable TV networks. This report examines how much interference may occur when providing digital television over cable networks.

De introductie van het gebruik van mobiele toepassingen in de 800 MHz band, die onderdeel vormt van het zogenaamde digitaal dividend, leidt onder bepaalde omstandigheden tot een verstoring van tv-signalen. De nieuwe (LTE) mobiele toepassingen gebruiken frequenties die ook worden toegepast in kabel-tv-netwerken. Dit rapport gaat in op de mate waarin deze storing kan plaatsvinden in het (digitale) televisie aanbod van de kabel.

The positron emitters 18F, 68Ga, 124I, and 89Zr are all relevant in small-animal PET. Each of these radionuclides has different positron energies and ranges and a different fraction of single photons emitted. Average positron ranges larger than the intrinsic spatial resolution of the scanner (for 124I and 68Ga) will deteriorate the effective spatial resolution and activity recovery coefficient (RC) for small lesions or phantom structures. The presence of single photons (for 124I and 89Zr) could increase image noise and spillover ratios (SORs).

Dynamic Spectrum Access (DSA) is an exciting new technology, which introduced a paradigm shift in spectrum access. As a result it also changes the role of the regulator. On one hand the scarce radio spectrum should be used in an optimal way, so that the society is best served. On the other hand interference between users and networks should be avoided. For that reason rules have to be defined for spectrum use. This topic is called spectrum governance. For evaluation and to check whether devices obey the rules, a monitoring network is needed. In this paper, we propose to use a fleet of mobile monitoring vehicles for this purpose.

Cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) is an important image modality for dental surgery planning, with high resolution images at a relative low radiation dose. In these scans the mandibular canal is hardly visible, this is a problem for implant surgery planning. We use anisotropic diffusion filtering to remove noise and enhance the mandibular canal in CBCT scans. For the diffusion tensor we use hybrid diffusion with a continuous switch (HDCS), suitable for filtering both tubular as planar image structures. We focus in this paper on the diffusion discretization schemes. The standard scheme shows good isotropic filtering behavior but is not rotational invariant, the diffusion scheme of Weickert is rotational invariant but suffers from checkerboard artifacts. We introduce a new scheme, in which we numerically optimize the image derivatives. This scheme is rotational invariant and shows good isotropic filtering properties on both synthetic as real CBCT data.

In this paper a Raptor code is developed and applied in an opportunistic error correction (OEC) layer for Coded OFDM systems. Opportunistic error correction [3] tries to recover information when it is available with the least effort. This is achieved by using Fountain codes in a COFDM system, which means that each subcarrier contains a Fountain coded packet. The property of a Fountain code that any missing packet can be replaced by any other packet allows the receiver to discard packets with low SNR. As a result ADC resolution and therefore energy consumption can be reduced. In this paper the possibilities of using Raptor codes in an OEC system are investigated. Raptor codes are a type of Fountain codes with an efficient encoding and decoding algorithm. By simulating an OEC system on a wireless indoor channel model, it is shown that Raptor codes can save up to 70% in energy consumption with respect to a traditional system. Furthermore it is found that a feedback channel can reduce energy consumption even more. In this setting 85% of energy consumption can be saved.

For the purpose of obtaining a geometrical model of the wire frame of stent grafts, we propose three tracking methods to segment the stent's wire, and compare them in an experiment. A 2D test image was created by obtaining a projection of a 3D volume containing a stent. The image was modified to connect the parts of the stent's frame and thus create a single path. Ten versions of this image were obtained by adding different noise realizations. Each algorithm was started at the start of each of the ten images, after which the traveled paths were compared to the known correct path to determine the performance. Additionally, the algorithms were applied to 3D clinical data and visually inspected. The method based on the minimum cost path algorithm scored excellent in the experiment and showed good results on the 3D data. Future research will focus on establishing a geometrical model by determining the corner points and the crossings from the results of this method.

In coronary angiography the coronary blood flow velocity can be assessed by tracking a contrast agent in an image sequence. The contrast agent flow velocity is used to estimate the functional behavior of the coronary arteries using TIMI frame count (TFC). In this paper we descibe the 3D reconstruction algorithm used in our method towards the automation of TFC. The method creates a two dimensional map of the contrast agent in which the opacification of the vessel centerline is plotted against time. This map is used to find the velocity of the contrast agent and subsequently the TFC. The vessel centerline is obtained using the Fast Marching Method to find the minimum cost path between the catheter point and the end of the vessel. The determination of the start and endpoint is estimated using a 3D model reconstructed from bi-plane 2D image data. The final reconstructed coronary model only includes the segments matching our error criterion.

Purpose: ECG-gated CT enables the visualization of motions caused by the beating of the heart. Although ECG gating is frequently used in cardiac CT imaging, this technique is also very promising for evaluating vessel wall motion of the aortic artery and the motions of (stent grafts inside) abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA). Late stent graft failure is a serious complication in endovascular repair of aortic aneurysms. Better understanding of the motion characteristics of stent grafts will be beneficial for designing future devices. In addition, these data can be valuable in predicting stent graft failure in patients. To be able to reliably quantify the motion, however, it is of importance to know the performance and limitations of ECG gating, especially when the motions are small, as is the case in AAA. Since the details of the reconstruction algorithms are proprietary information on the CT manufacturers and not in the public domain, empirical experiments are required. The goal of this study is to investigate as to what extent the motions in AAA can be measured using ECG-gated CT. The authors quantitatively investigate four aspects of motion in ECG-gated CT: The detectability of the motion of objects at different amplitudes and different periodic motions, the temporal resolution, and the volume gaps that occur as a function of heart rate. Methods: They designed an experiment on a standard static phantom to empirically determine temporal resolution. To investigate motion amplitude and frequency, as well as patient heart rate, they designed dynamic experiments in which a home-made phantom driven by a motion unit moves in a predetermined pattern. Results: The duration of each ECG-gated phase was found to be 185 ms, which corresponds to half of the rotation time and is thus in accordance with half scan reconstruction applied by the scanner. By using subpixel localization, motions become detectable from amplitudes of as small as 0.4 mm in the x direction and 0.7 mm in the z direction. With the rotation time used in this study, motions up to 2.7 Hz can be reliably detected. The reconstruction algorithm fills volume gaps with noisy data using interpolation, but objects within these gaps remain hidden. Conclusions: This study gives insight into the possibilities and limitations for measuring small motions using ECG-gated CT. Application of the experimental method is not restricted to the CT scanner of a single manufacturer. From the results, they conclude that ECG-gated CTA is a suitable technique for studying the expected motions of the stent graft and vessel wall in AAA. (C) 2009 American Association of Physicists in Medicine. [DOI: 10.1118/1.3213530]

Photoacoustic imaging is a relatively new medical imaging modality. In principle it can be used to image the optical absorption distribution of an object by measurements of optically induced acoustic signals. Recently we have developed a modified photoacoustic measurement system which can be used to simultaneously image the ultrasound propagation parameters as well. By proper placement of a passive element we obtain isolated measurements of the object's ultrasound propagation parameters, independent of the optical absorption inside the object. This passive element acts as a photoacoustic source and measurements are obtained by allowing the generated ultrasound signal to propagate through the object. Images of the ultrasound propagation parameters, being the attenuation and speed of sound, can then be reconstructed by inversion of a measurement model. This measurement model relates the projections non-linearly to the unknown images, due to ray refraction effects. After estimating the speed of sound and attenuation distribution, the optical absorption distribution is reconstructed. In this reconstruction problem we take into account the previously estimated speed of sound distribution. So far, the reconstruction algorithms have been tested using computer simulations. The method has been compared with existing algorithms and good results have been obtained.

Purpose: ECG-gated CTA allows visualization of the aneurysm and stentgraft during the different phases of the cardiac cycle, although with a lower SNR per cardiac phase than without ECG gating using the same dose. In our institution, abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) is evaluated using non-ECG-gated CTA. Some common CT scanners cannot reconstruct a non-gated volume from ECG-gated acquired data. In order to obtain the same diagnostic image quality, we propose off-line temporal averaging of the ECG-gated data. This process, though straightforward, is fundamentally different from taking a non-gated scan, and its result will certainly differ as well. The purpose of this study is to quantitatively investigate how good off-line averaging approximates a non-gated scan. Method: Non-gated and ECG-gated CT scans have been performed on a phantom (Catphan 500). Afterwards the phases of the ECG-gated CTA data were averaged to create a third dataset. The three sets are compared with respect to noise prop-erties (NPS) and frequency response (MTF). To study motion artifacts identical scans were acquired on a programmable dynamic phantom. Results and Conclusions: The experiments show that the spatial frequency content is not affected by the averaging process. The minor differences observed for the noise properties and motion artifacts are in favor of the averaged data. Therefore the averaged ECG-gated phases can be used for diagnosis. This enables the use of ECG-gating for research on stentgrafts in AAA, without impairing clinical patient care.

Coronary stenosis is often assessed using planar X-ray angiography while injecting contrast agent. The data obtained during the intervention can be used to assess coronary flow velocity by tracking the contrast agent. The contrast flow can be used to estimate the functional behavior of the coronary arteries using TIMI frame count (TFC). In this paper we propose and evaluate a method towards the automation of TFC. The method creates a two dimensional map of the contrast agent in which the opacification of the vessel centerline is plotted against time. This map is used to find the velocity of the contrast agent and subsequently the TFC. The vessel centerline is found using the Fast Marching Method to find the lowest cost path between the catheter point and the manually selected endpoint of the vessel. Results from 22 patients show that the algorithm is able to estimate TFC correctly in 13 of 22 cases within the intra observer error range of 5 frames compared to manual TFC.

Segmenting the mandibular canal from cone beam CT data, is difficult due to low edge contrast and high image noise. We introduce 3D coherence filtering as a method to close the interrupted edges and denoise the structure of the mandibular canal. Coherence Filtering is an anisotropic non-linear tensor based diffusion algorithm for edge enhancing image filtering. We test different numerical schemes of the tensor diffusion equation, non-negative, standard discretization and also a rotation invariant scheme of Weickert [1]. Only the scheme of Weickert did not blur the high spherical images frequencies on the image diagonals of our test volume. Thus this scheme is chosen to enhance the small curved mandibular canal structure. The best choice of the diffusion equation parameters c1 and c2, depends on the image noise. Coherence filtering on the CBCT-scan works well, the noise in the mandibular canal is gone and the edges are connected. Because the algorithm is tensor based it cannot deal with edge joints or splits, thus is less fit for more complex image structures.

There is a rat race in wireless communication to achieve higher spectral efficiency. One technique to achieve this is the use of multiple antenna systems i.e. MIMO systems. In this paper we describe a wireless 4x4 Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) testbed in the 2.2 GHz band including results from live experiments. MIMO systems have several advantages compared to SISO (Single Input Single Output) systems. The most important ones are higher reliability and/or higher throughput per Herz. In this testbed we used the 802.11a OFDM Wireless LAN standard as a basis for the MIMO system. The experiments have been conducted at 2.2 GHz carrier using 5 MHz bandwidth. These can be divided into several subjects: antenna spacing experiments, effects for increasing antennas, AD accuracy and performance for different antenna topologies. Moreover, the performance of the Zero Forcing (ZF), Minimum Mean Square Error (MMSE) and Vertical Bell labs LAyered Space Time (VBLAST) have been evaluated.

This paper presents a local feature vector based method for automated Multiple Sclerosis (MS) lesion segmentation of multi spectral MRI data. Twenty datasets from MS patients with FLAIR, T1,T2, MD and FA data with expert annotations are available as training set from the MICCAI 2008 challenge on MS, and 24 test datasets. Our local feature vector method contains neighbourhood voxel intensities, histogram and MS probability atlas information. Principal Component Analysis(PCA) with log-likelihood ratio is used to classify each voxel. MRI suffers from intensity inhomogenities. We try to correct this ‘’bias field’’ with 3 methods: a genetic algorithm, edge preserving filtering and atlas based correction. A large observer variability exist between expert classifications, but the similarity scores between model and expert classifications are often lower. Our model gives the best classification results with raw data, because bias correction gives artifacts at the edges and flatten large MS lesions.

The advantage of using orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) over the single-carrier modulation is its ability to mitigate interference and fading without complex equalization filters in the receiver. OFDM systems have a high peak-to-average ratio (PAPR) which results in a high requirement for the resolution of AD converters. High-resolution AD converters are therefore widely used in OFDM receivers. However, the power consumption is proportional to the resolution of the AD converters. In this paper we investigate the quantization effects in OFDM systems. Quantization is a nonlinear function which happens in the time domain, so the quantization effect in the frequency domain (important for OFDM) is not simple. Here, we derive a model for the quantization effect in the frequency domain. Further, we investigate whether it is possible to apply low-resolution AD converters in reliable communications based on OFDM. Simulations with an AWGN channel reveal that the proposed model predicts the quantization noise in the frequency domain very well. Difference in $\sigma_\mathrm{q}^2$ between simulation outcomes and our model is less than 0.6\%. Also, simulations show that 5-bits AD resolution is required for OFDM communication over an AWGN channel.

Photoacoustic imaging is used to obtain a range of three-dimensional images representing tumor neovascularization over a 10-day period after subcutaneous inoculation of pancreatic tumor cells in a rat. The images are reconstructed from data measured with a double-ring photoacoustic detector. The ultrasound data originates from the optical absorption by hemoglobin of 14 ns laser pulses at a wavelength of 1064 nm. Three-dimensional data is obtained by using two dimensional linear scanning. Scanning and motion artifacts are reduced using a correction method. The data is used to visualize the development of the individual blood vessels around the growing tumor, blood concentration changes inside the tumor and growth in depth of the neovascularized region. The three-dimensional vasculature reconstruction is created using VTK, which enables us to create a composition of the vasculature on day seven, eight and ten and to interactively measure tumor growth in the near future.

Endovascular aortic replacement (EVAR) is an established technique, which uses stentgrafts to treat aortic aneurysms in patients at risk of aneurysm rupture. The long-term durability of a stentgraft is affected by the stresses and hemodynamic forces applied to it, and may be reflected by the movements of the stentgraft itself during the cardiac cycle. A conventional CT scan (which results in a 3D volume) is not able to visualize these movements. However, applying ECG-gating does provide insight in the motion of the stentgraft caused by hemodynamic forces at different phases of the cardiac cycle. The amount of data obtained is a factor of ten larger compared to conventional CT, but the radiation dose is kept similar for patient safety. This causes the data to be noisy, and streak artifacts are more common. Algorithms for automatic stentgraft detection must be able to cope with this. Segmentation of the stentgraft is performed by examining slices perpendicular to the centreline. Regions with high CT-values exist at the locations where the metallic frame penetrates the slice. These regions are well suited for detection and sub-pixel localization. Spurious points can be removed by means of a clustering algorithm, leaving only points on the contour of the stent. We compare the performance of several different point detection methods and clustering algorithms. The position of the stent’s centreline is calculated by fitting a circle through these points. The proposed method can detect several stentgraft types, and is robust against noise and streak artifacts.

Photoacoustic imaging is an upcoming medical imaging modality with the potential of imaging both optical and acoustic properties of objects. We present a measurement system and outline reconstruction methods to image both speed of sound and acoustic attenuation distributions of an object using only pulsed light excitation. These acoustic properties can be used in a subsequent step to improve the image quality of the optical absorption distribution. A passive element, which is a high absorbing material with a small cross-section such as a carbon fiber, is introduced between the light beam and the object. This passive element acts as a photoacoustic source and measurements are obtained by allowing the generated acoustic signal to propagate through the object. From these measurements we can extract measures of line integrals over the acoustic property distribution for both the speed of sound and the acoustic attenuation. Reconstruction of the acoustic property distributions then comes down to the inversion of a linear system relating the obtained projection measurements to the acoustic property distributions. We show the results of applying our approach on phantom objects. Satisfactory results are obtained for both the reconstruction of speed of sound and the acoustic attenuation.

Coronary angiography is the primary technique for diagnosing coronary abnormalities as it is able to locate precisely the coronary artery lesions. However, the clinical relevance of an appearing stenosis is not that easy to assess. In previous work we have analyzed the myocardial perfusion by comparing basal and hyperemic coronary flow. This comparison is the basis of a Relative Coronary Flow Reserve (RCFR) measure. In a Region-of-Interest (ROI) on the angiogram the contrast is measured as a function of time (the so-called time-density curve). The required hyperemic state of exercise is induced artificially by the injection of a vasodilator drug e.g. papaverine. In previous work we have presented the results of a small study of 20 patients. In this paper we present an analysis of the sensitivity of the method for variations in Xray exposure between the two runs due to the Automatic Exposure Control (AEC) unit. The AEC is a system unit with the task to ensure a constant dose rate at the entrance of the detector by making the appropriate adaptations in X-ray factor settings for patients which range from slim to more obese. We have setup a phantom study to reveal the expected exposure variations. We present several of the developed phantoms together with a compensation strategy.

Wireless networks in adjacent frequency channels can interfere each other. In this report it has been investigated how this interference can be minimized for the 2.6 GHz frequency band. The Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs intends to issue begin 2008 spectrum licenses for this band. A good method to minimize interference is a Block Edge Mask (BEM). A BEM dictates the maximum transmit power in the awarded frequency spectrum. In practical systems it is nearly impossible to transmit only in the awarded spectrum. A small part of the transmit power is transmitted in adjacent frequency channels and also receivers have limited channel selectivity. For this reason, a BEM not only dictates the maximum in-band transmit power, but also defines the maximum transmit power outside the awarded frequency spectrum. An important parameter for constructing the BEM is frequency efficiency. The 3GPP standards and the proposals of other countries have been used as a starting point. There are two frequency bands where spectrum licenses will be issued, 2010 to 2019.7 MHz and 2500 – 2690 MHz.

DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting) is the European successor of FM radio. Besides audio services, other services such as traffic information can be provided. An important parameter for data services is the probability of non-recognized or undetected errors in the system. To derive this probability, we propose a bound for the undetected error probability in CRC codes. In addition, results from measurements of a Single Frequency Network (SFN) in Amsterdam were used, where the University of Twente conducted a DAB field trial. The proposed error bound is compared with other error bounds from literature and the results are validated by simulations. Although the proposed bound is less tight than existing bounds, it requires no additional information about the CRC code such as the weight distribution. Moreover, the DAB standard has been extended last year by an Enhanced Packet Mode (EPM) which provides extra protection for data services. An undetected error probability for this mode is also derived. In a realistic user scenario of 10 million users, a 8 kbit/s EPM sub channel can be considered as a system without any undetected errors (Pud = 6 · 10−40). On the other hand, in a normal data sub channel, only 110 packets with undetected errors are received on average each year in the whole system (Pud = 5 · 10−13).

In the Adaptive Ad-hoc Free band Wireless communications (AAF) project, a radio system is investigated that senses its environment to detect un-utilised radio spectrum and use it for ad-hoc networking. In this paper the performance in terms of Quality of Detection (QoD) of a simple energy detection system is studied. It is shown that noise-level uncertainty poses a hard limit on the detectability of signals. In the case that sub-noise signal detection is required, a noise-level measurement function may have to be included in the system architecture.

This paper addresses the problem of aligning the images of feet taken at different instances in time. We propose to use SIFT keypoints to find the geometric deformation between two photo’s. We then have a set of landmarks for each image. By finding the corresponding landmarks (i.e. matching the keypoints), we know the deformation in a sparse set of points. Using these points, we calculate a B-spline deformation model, which allows us to describe the deformation in every point in the image. The algorithm that we have developed matches the keypoints, and updates the deformation model iteratively from coarse to fine. This significantly increases the performance in terms of speed and robustness. In order to obtain enough reliable keypoints, we propose a debayering algorithm to realize a relatively high resolution in the green channel. In addition we apply processing to the image to enhance its local contrast.

Bone damage assessment is frequently applied to monitor the activity of bone degenerative diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis. For an effective treatment it is important that small changes over time can be measured. Radiographs of hands and feet are often used for such measurements. Several scoring methods exist to measure bone and joint damage [1], but they are subjected to inter-observer and intra-observer variability. We present a method for comparing radiographs that have been taken at different moments in time. Using the segmentation algorithm presented in earlier work [2] we select corresponding regions of interest surrounding the bone to be analyzed. Both image selections taken at different time-points are aligned to each other with a registration algorithm [3]. After aligning the images, we visualize the difference by image subtraction. Since there is generally no information available about the setup of the radiographic system during both acquisitions, we compensate for differences in lighting. We do this by estimating an intensity transformation function based on the joint density function of both images. Experimental results with several follow-up radiographs show that we are able to visualize small erosions and changes in bone mineral density. To further improve the estimation of the intensity transformation function, we plan to use a calibration object in future research.

Our purpose is in the automated evaluation of the physiological relevance of lesions in coronary angiograms. We aim to extract as much as possible quantitative information about the physiological condition of the heart from standard angiographic image sequences. Coronary angiography is still the gold standard for evaluating and diagnosing coronary abnormalities as it is able to locate precisely the coronary artery lesions. The dimensions of the stenosis can be assessed nowadays successfully with image processing based Quantitative Coronary Angiography (QCA) techniques. Our purpose is to assess the clinical relevance of the pertinent stenosis. We therefore analyze the myocardial perfusion as revealed in standard angiographic image sequences. In a Region-of-Interest (ROI) on the angiogram (without an overlaying major blood vessel) the contrast is measured as a function of time (the so-called time-density curve). The required hyperemic state of exercise is induced artificially by the injection of a vasodilator drug e.g. papaverine. In order to minimize motion artifacts we select based on the recorded ECG signal end-diastolic images in both a basal and a hyperemic run in the same projection to position the ROI. We present the development of the algorithms together with results of a small study of 20 patients which have been catheterized following the standard protocol.

The effects of an inappropriately chosen speed-of-sound in photoacoustic imaging reconstructions are to cause blurring of images and impairment of contrast. Here we outline a new methodology to measure the speed-of-sound in a photoacoustic imager with little or no additional cost and without the need to perform extra measurements. The method uses a strong absorber of light which is placed in the path of the light illuminating the sample. This acts as a source of ultrasound whose interaction with the sample can be measured at the far-end of the sample using the same ultrasound detector used for photoacoustics. This yields time-of-arrival measurements of the ultrasound transient at the multi-element detector. Such measurements are made at various angles around the sample in a computerized tomography approach. Reconstruction of the time-of-arrival or speed-of-sound tomogram of the object can be made by implementing a fan-beam projection reconstruction algorithm. We present the concept and validate the method on a speed-of-sound phantom.

Photoacoustic (PA) imaging is a relatively new noninvasive medical imaging modality. It is a tech- nique which is harmless for the human body and uses pulsed optical energy. The process is based on the ab- sorption of the pulse of optical energy by an object leading to local temperature increases. This temperature distri- bution leads to the generation of pressure waves, which in term can be measured outside of the object. The measured acoustical signals at the boundary of the object can be used to reconstruct the original energy absorption distribution. Reconstruction of the absorption distribution involves back projecting of the ultrasound measurements in some spatial map. Unexpected movements of the object can dis- tort this reconstruction and result in blurred images. The aim of this work is to research a technique that corrects for these unexpected and a priori unknown movements. The approach is based on tracking known landmarks in the received signal. By assuming rigidness of the object under consideration, the tracking of landmarks in the PA signal can be used to estimate small translations of the object during the signal acquisition.

This paper presents a low-complexity adaptive feed- forward I/Q imbalance compensation algorithm. The feed-forward so- lution has guaranteed stability. Due to its blind nature the algorithm is easily incorporated into an existing receiver design. The algorithm uses three estimators to obtain the necessary parameters for the I/Q imbal- ance compensation structure. The algorithm complexity is low due to 1-bit quantization in the estimators. Simulations show that the compen- sation algorithm is able to attain an image-rejection ratio (IRR) of up to 65 [dB] under various imbalance conditions.