Xinling Shi

The Removal of Wall Components in Doppler Ultrasound Signals by Using the Empirical Mode Decomposition Algorithm

Doppler ultrasound systems, used for the noninvasive detection of the vascular diseases, normally employ a high-pass filter (HPF) to remove the large, low-frequency components from the vessel wall from the blood flow signal. Unfortunately, the filter also removes the low-frequency Doppler signals arising from slow-moving blood. In this paper, we propose to use a novel technique, called the empirical mode decomposition (EMD), to remove the wall components from the mixed signals. The EMD is firstly to decompose a signal into a finite and usually small number of individual components named intrinsic mode functions (IMFs). Then a strategy based on the ratios between two adjacent values of the wall-to-blood signal ratio (WBSR) has been developed to automatically identify and remove the relevant IMFs that contribute to the wall components. This method is applied to process the simulated and clinical Doppler ultrasound signals. Compared with the results based on the traditional high-pass filter, the new approach obtains improved performance for wall components removal from the mixed signals effectively and objectively, and provides us with more accurate low blood flow.

A computer-aided Cobb angle measurement method and its reliability.

Study Design Development of a computer-aided Cobb measurement method and evaluation of its reliability. Objectives To reduce the variability of Cobb angle measurement by developing the computer-aided method and to investigate if the developed method is sensitive to observer skill levels or experiences. Summary of Background Data Therapeutic decisions for scoliosis heavily rely on the Cobb angle measured from consecutive radiographs. The manual Cobb measurement is subject to human errors. The observer error is 3 to 10 degrees resulted from different end-vertebrae selection and/or manually drawing variable best-fit lines to the endplates of the end-vertebrae. Methods A fussy Hough transform technique was used to develop a computer-aided method to detect the vertebral endplates. The Cobb angle, upper end-vertebra, and lower end-vertebra were then measured automatically. The computer-aided method was tested twice by each of 3 observers in 84 posteroanterior radiographs from patients with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis. The intraobserver and interobserver errors were analyzed. Results Both the intraobserver and interobserver reliability analyses resulted in the intraclass correlation coefficients higher than 0.9 for the Cobb angle. The average intraobserver and interobserver errors were less than 3 degree for the Cobb angle, and less than 0.3 levels for both the upper and lower end-vertebral identification. There were no significant differences in the measurement variability between groups of curve location (thoracic, thoracolumbar, and lumbar), curve direction (right and left), curve magnitude (curves less than 25 degree, between 25 and 45 degrees, and more than 45 degree), and observer experience (experienced observer and inexperienced observers). Conclusions Compared with the documented results, variability of the Cobb measurement is reduced by using the developed computer-aided method. This method can help orthopedic surgeons measure the Cobb angle more reliably during scoliosis clinics.

Image coding based on wavelet transform and uniform scalar dead zone quantizer

In this paper, a new wavelet transform image coding algorithm is presented. The discrete wavelet transform (DWT) is applied to the original image. The DWT coefficients are firstly quantized with a uniform scalar dead zone quantizer. Then the quantized coefficients are decomposed into four symbol streams: a binary significance map symbol stream, a binary sign stream, a position of the most significant bit (PMSB) symbol stream and a residual bit stream. An adaptive arithmetic coder with different context models is employed for the entropy coding of these symbol streams. Experimental results show that the compression performance of the proposed coding algorithm is competitive to other wavelet-based image coding algorithms reported in the literature.

3-D Reconstruction of the Spine From Biplanar Radiographs Based on Contour Matching Using the Hough Transform

The purpose of this study was to develop and evaluate a method for three-dimensional (3-D) reconstruction of the spine from biplanar radiographs. The approach was based on vertebral contour matching for estimating vertebral orientations and locations. Vertebral primitives were initially positioned under constraint of the 3-D spine midline, which was estimated from manually identified control points. Vertebral orientations and locations were automatically adjusted by matching projections of 3-D primitives with vertebral edges on biplanar radiographs based on the generalized Hough transform technique with a deformation tolerant matching strategy. We used graphics processing unit to accelerate reconstruction. Accuracy and precision were evaluated using radiographs from 15 scoliotic patients and a spine model in 24 poses. On in vivo radiographs, accuracy was within 2.8° for orientation and 2.4 mm for location; precision was within 2.3° for orientation and 2.1 mm for location. results were slightly better on model radiographs than on in vivo radiographs but without significance (p > 0.05). The duration for user intervention was less than 2 min, and the computation time was within 3 min. Results indicated the methods reliability. It is a promising tool to determine 3-D spinal geometry with acceptable user interaction.

A computer simulation model for Doppler ultrasound signals from pulsatile blood flow in stenosed vessels

A computer simulation model based on an analytic flow velocity distribution is proposed to generate Doppler ultrasound signals from pulsatile blood flow in the vessels with various stenosis degrees. The model takes into account the velocity field from pulsatile blood flow in the stenosed vessels, sample volume shape and acoustic factors that affect the Doppler signals. By analytically solving the Navier-Stokes equations, the velocity distributions of pulsatile blood flow in the vessels with various stenosis degrees are firstly calculated according to the velocity at the axis of the circular tube. Secondly, power spectral density (PSD) of the Doppler signals is estimated by summing the contribution of all scatterers passing through the sample volume grouped into elemental volumes. Finally, Doppler signals are generated using cosine-superposed components that are modulated by the PSD functions that vary over the cardiac cycle. The results show that the model generates Doppler blood flow signals with characteristics similar to those found in practice. It could be concluded that the proposed approach offers the advantages of computational simplicity and practicality for simulating Doppler ultrasound signals from pulsatile blood flow in stenosed vessels.

A Modified Particle Swarm Optimizer with Dynamical Inertia Weight

To increase the convergence speed and prevent the prematurity of the particle swarm optimizer (PSO), a novel strategy for inertia weight was proposed, which was different from the traditional linearly decreasing weight (LDW). The inertia weight was dynamically updated by two factors (the dispersion degree and advance degree factors) which have significant impact on the evolutionary state of the PSO. Comparison studies were done for three PSOs (the proposed algorithm and other two improved methods). The experimental results for eight test functions demonstrated good performance of the proposed method in both the optimization speed and computational accuracy.

ECG Compression by Optimized Quantization of Wavelet Coefficients

The optimization of the parameters of a uniform scalar dead zone quantizer used in a wavelet-based ECG data compression scheme is presented. Two quantization parameters: a threshold T and a step size Δ are optimized for a target bit rate through the particle swarm optimization algorithm. Experiment results on several records from the MIT-BIH arrhythmia database show that the optimized quantizer produces improved compression performance.

Application of Computer-Aided Diagnosis to the Sonographic Evaluation of Cervical Lymph Nodes

We initiated an observer study to evaluate a computerized system developed in our previous study for automatic extraction of 10 features and estimation of the malignancy probability of cervical nodes in sonograms. In the present study, five expert radiologists and five resident radiologists interpreted the sonograms of 178 nodes. The malignancy rating and patient management recommendation (biopsy or follow-up) were made without and then with the computer aid. Under these two reading conditions, the performances of radiologists and agreement among a group of radiologists were evaluated by using the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis and the κ statistic, respectively. With the computer aid, the performances of radiologists improved significantly, as indicated by the increase in the area under the ROC curve (Az) from 0.843 to 0.896 (p = 0.031) and from 0.705 to 0.822 (p < 0.001), for the expert and resident groups, respectively. Agreement among all 10 radiologists improved from slight to moderate as indicated by an increase in the κ value from 0.195 to 0.421 (p < 0.001). The average performance of residents with aid (Az = 0.822) was close to that of experts without aid (Az = 0.843). Results indicate that computer-aided diagnosis is useful to improve radiologist performance (especially that of inexperienced radiologists) in the ultrasonographic evaluation of cervical nodes and to reduce variability among radiologists.

A Computer-aided Method for Improving the Reliability of Lenke Classification for Scoliosis

Classification of the spinal curve pattern is crucial for assessment and treatment of scoliosis. We developed a computer-aided system to improve the reliability of three components of the Lenke classification. The system semi-automatically measured the Cobb angles and identified the apical lumbar vertebra and its pedicles on digitized radiographs. The system then classified the curve type, lumbar modifier, and thoracic sagittal modifier of the Lenke classification based on the computerized measurements and identifications. The system was tested by five operators for 62 scoliotic cases. The kappa statistic was used to assess the reliability. With the aid of computer, the average intra- and interobserver kappa values were improved to 0.89 and 0.81 for the curve type, to 0.83 and 0.81 for the lumbar modifier, and to 0.94 and 0.92 for the sagittal modifier of the Lenke classification, respectively, relative to the classification by two of the operators without the aid of computer. Results indicate that the computerized system can improve reliability for all three components of the Lenke classification.

A Study on the Internal Structure of Family Particle Swarm Optimization

For the discretization of particles in particle swarm optimization (PSO), we have proposed the family PSO (FPSO) previously. To further study the internal structure of FPSO, this paper defined two kinds of relationships between particles: equal relationship (ER) and generational relationship (GR). FPSO of equal relationship (ER-FPSO) and FPSO of generational relationship (GR-FPSO) were proposed. Simulations for seven benchmark functions demonstrated that the advantage and the effectiveness of ER-FPSO and GR-FPSO. In the experiments, the performances of ER-FPSO and GR-FPSO were also compared. Results indicate GR-FPSO has stronger judgment ability and intelligence. This conceptualization has a great of academic and realistic meaning.