David E. Pitts

Texture analysis of digitized prostate pathologic cross section

Abstract Understanding the texture attributes of prostate cancer lesions and identifying corresponding features on the ultrasound images (transrectal ultrasound images of the prostate) has been the aim ofpresent investigation. Prostate glands,surgically removed through prostatectomy, are pmvided as serial whole mount cross-sections at 4 mm intervals from base to apex of the gland. Digitized images of these whole mount cross-sections are obtained using a photographic capture procedure for the present study. Texture analyses of these digitized image planes have been conducted for classification of each cross-section into benign and cancer regions through a supervised classification scheme. Preliminary results of supervised maximum likelihood classification of these 512 x 5 12 images in a 9 x 9 pixel window size are presented. 1. Background Spectral, textural, and contextual characteristics are the fundamental pattern elements used in human interpretation of an image scene Spectral features (bnghtness contrast and color) descnbe the changes in emission absorption or

Astronaut observations of the Persian (Arabian) Gulf during STS-45

Abstract As a result of the 1991 Persian Gulf war, between mid‐January and June 1991, the Persian Gulf was contaminated with an estimated 4 to 6 million barrels of crude oil, released directly into the Gulf from refinement facilities, transhipment terminals, and moored tankers along the coast of Kuwait, and precipitated from oil fire smoke plumes. To assess the environmental impact of the oil, an international team of marine scientists representing 14 nations was assembled under the auspices of the United Nations International Oceanic Commission and the Regional Organization for Protection of the Marine Environment to conduct detailed surveys of the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz, and the Gulf of Oman, including hydrographic, chemical, and biological measurements. To supplement the field surveys and to serve as an aid in data interpretation, astronauts aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis photographed water features and coastal habitats in the Persian Gulf during mission STS‐45 (24 March to 02 April 1992...

Earth observations during space shuttle mission STS‐45 mission to planet earth March 24—April 2, 1992

A description is presented of the activities and results of the Space Shuttle mission STS-45, known as the Mission to Planet Earth. Observations of Mount St. Helens, Manila Bay and Mt. Pinatubo, the Great Salt Lake, the Aral Sea, and the Siberian cities of Troitsk and Kuybyshev are examined. The geological features and effects of human activity seen in photographs of these areas are pointed out.

Real-time digital disk applications

Software and image processing techniques have been developed which make use of a real-time digital disk to capture video frames at video rates and which allow either the transfer of these data to standard speed disk drives or to conduct analysis directly from the real-time digital disk. This capability can be extremely useful in a number of applications which have their original data in a video format. An overview of this general capability, along with three specific application examples are presented here.

Lightning flash mensuration using video from the Space Shuttle Columbia (STS-32)

Using the payload bay television cameras from various Space Shuttle missions, a study was performed to investigate the relationship between the size and duration of lightning flashes, though separated by 1-100 km, that appeared to be flashing in synchronization. The area, duration, and rate of propagation of the lightning in these storms was also studied. By employing the analytical methods described, the use of deinterlaced video of lightning observed from STS-32 provides the highest sampling rate ever utilized for this purpose from space (1 image each 16.7 m/sec).

Space Shuttle Earth observations digital data base

The Space Shuttle Earth Observations Project (SSEOP) collects photographs of the Earth taken by Space Shuttle astronauts and maintains a public digital data base describing each Earth-looking photograph taken in the U.S. piloted space program. The number of photographs cataloged in the SSEOP data base is over 200,000 and is projected to increase by more than 30,000 per year. The data base allows Internet access by educators, the scientific community, and the general public to critical information about the photographs. The data base provides two primary functions: (1) allowing geographic searches, (2) allowing a selected set of the best photographs to be down loaded. Because the coverage is global with highest concentrations in the fast-changing tropics, and the length of record is more than 30 years, this data set is well suited to understanding global environmental change.<<ETX>>

Earth observations during space shuttle flight sts 50: Columbia's mission to planet earth, June 25‐July 9,1992

A review of the imagery acquired during the STS 50 mission of the Space Shuttle is presented. The earth viewing photography from this flight includes photos of dust plumes over several portions of the Red Sea, Arabian Sea, Persian Gulf, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Atlantic Ocean. Over land, prominent dust plumes were seen over Iraq, North Africa, Sudan, and West Africa. The color infrared photography includes images of the tropical rain forests of South America and South and Southeast Asia. Other examples include photographs of floods in Argentina, photos of Lake Chad in Africa, Coastal Madagascar, the Aswan dam and the Nile, geologic features of North Africa, the center pivot irrigation land areas of Saudi Arabia, flooding in Asian rivers, and sediment plumes of South American and South and Southeast Asian coasts.

Statistical approach for detecting cancer lesions from prostate ultrasound images

Sequential digitized cross-sectional ultrasound image planes of several prostates have been studied at the pixel level during the past year. The statistical distribution of gray scale values in terms of simple statistics, sample means and sample standard deviations, have been considered for estimating the differences between cross-sectional image planes of the gland due to the presence of cancer lesions. Based on a variability measure, the results for identifying the presence of cancer lesions in the peripheral zone of the gland for 25 blind test cases were found to be 64% accurate. This accuracy is higher than that obtained by visual photo interpretation of the image data, though not as high as our earlier results were indicating. Axial-view ultrasound image planes of prostate glands were obtained from the apex to the base of the gland at 2 mm intervals. Results for the 25 different prostate glands, which include pathologically confirmed benign and cancer cases, are presented.

Space Shuttle Photographic/television Analysis Project an Overview of Image Analysis Techniques

The Space Shuttle photographic and television analysis project (SSPTAP) at the Johnson Space Center (JSC) is described. The films and videos of every Space Shuttle launch and landing are scrutinized for information on the vehicles condition and performance which can only be obtained by photographic means when necessary. On-orbit video is used to assess problems. The photographic information is used with various other data sources to develop feasible scenarios for particular events. The data and methods used to analyze the state of the Shuttle launch vehicle are analyzed, and examples are given of some of the studies that have been conducted.

Analysis of Lightning Flash Videos from the Space Shuttle Using Blob and Morphological Techniques

Flash rates measured from the Space Shuttle range from 27.8 flashes per minute to 77 flashes per minute. The cloud is an optically thick medium which effectively scatters the energy from a lightning discharge and thereby broadens the risetime and duration of each lightning pulse. Because of the small size, spacecraft sensors with resolutions of 1 km or more are unlikely to detect the individual lightning channels. Instead, the energy from the lightning channel is scattered within the cloud, thereby broadening the apparent area. All of these measurements of lightning flash area and flash rate have involved manual manipulation and analysis of the video or film data. Only a small percentage of the Space Shuttle lightning video has been analyzed. An attempt is made to combine the use of real-time digital disk system and an automated analysis routine in order to overcome this limitation and make processing of a sequence of video frames a much less labor-intensive task.