• The Journal of Engineering Research
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.49-56
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• 1997

In emission computed tomography, statistical reconstruction methods in the context of a Bayesian framework have been a topic of interest over the last decade. This was mainly due to the fact that Bayesian approaches can incorporate a priori information into the reconstruction algorithm. Although these approaches can exhibit good performance, their applications to the clinic is hindered mainly by their high computational cost. On the other hand, the speed and simplicity of the filtered backprojection (FBP) algorithm have led to its widespread use in most clinical applications. In this work, we use spline models, which have been quite useful in Bayesian reconstruction, as regularizers for high-frequency apodization in FBP algorithm and show that the effects of using spline models as priors in Bayesian reconstruction can also be achieved in FBP reconstruction.

• Proceedings of the KOSOMBE Conference
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• v.1997 no.05
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• pp.279-282
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• 1997

Bayesian reconstruction methods for emission computed tomography have been a topic of interest in recent years, partly because they allow for the introduction of prior information into the reconstruction problem. Early formulations incorporated priors that imposed simple spatial smoothness constraints on the underlying object using Gibbs priors in the form of four-nearest or eight-nearest neighbors. While these types of priors, known as "membrane" priors, are useful as stabilizers in otherwise unstable ML-EM reconstructions, more sophisticated prior models are needed to model underlying source distributions more accurately. In this work, we investigate whether the "thin plate" model has advantages over the simple Gibbs smoothing priors mentioned above. To test and compare quantitative performance of the reconstruction algorithms, we use Monte Carlo noise trials and calculate bias and variance images of reconstruction estimates. The conclusion is that the thin plate prior outperforms the membrane prior in terms of bias and variance.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.8 no.12
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• pp.1565-1571
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• 2005

Images reconstructed with Maximum-Likelihood Expectation-Maximization (MLEM) algorithm have been observed to have checkerboard effects and have noise artifacts near edges as iterations proceed. To compensate this ill-posed nature, numerous penalized maximum-likelihood methods have been proposed. We suggest a simple algorithm of applying edge detecting process to the MLEM and Bayesian Expectation-Maximization (BEM) to reduce the noise artifacts near edges and remove checkerboard effects. We have shown by simulation that this algorithm removes checkerboard effects and improves the clarity of the reconstructed image and has good properties based on root mean square error (RMS).

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.311-319
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• 2001

Statistical reconstruction methods in the context of a Bayesian framework have played an important role in emission tomography since they allow to incorporate a priori information into the reconstruction algorithm. Given the ill-posed nature of tomographic inversion and the poor quality of projection data, the Bayesian approach uses regularizers to stabilize solutions by incorporating suitable prior models. In this work we show that, while the quantitative performance of the standard filtered backprojection (FBP) algorithm is not as good as that of Bayesian methods, the application of spline-regularized smoothing to the sinogram space can make the FBP algorithm improve its performance by inheriting the advantages of using the spline priors in Bayesian methods. We first show how to implement the spline-regularized smoothing filter by deriving mathematical relationship between the regularization and the lowpass filtering. We then compare quantitative performance of our new FBP algorithms using the quantitation of bias/variance and the total squared error (TSE) measured over noise trials. Our numerical results show that the second-order spline filter applied to FBP yields the best results in terms of TSE among the three different spline orders considered in our experiments.

• Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging
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• v.42 no.2
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• pp.118-126
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• 2008

Statistical image reconstruction methods have played an important role in emission computed tomography (ECT) since they accurately model the statistical noise associated with gamma-ray projection data. Although the use of statistical methods in clinical practice in early days was of a difficult problem due to high per-iteration costs and large numbers of iterations, with the development of fast algorithms and dramatically improved speed of computers, it is now inevitably becoming more practical. Some statistical methods are indeed commonly available from nuclear medicine equipment suppliers. In this paper, we first describe a mathematical background for statistical reconstruction methods, which includes assumptions underlying the Poisson statistical model, maximum likelihood and maximum a posteriori approaches, and prior models in the context of a Bayesian framework. We then review a recent progress in developing fast iterative algorithms.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.133-142
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• 1998

In Bayesian SPECT reconstruction, the incorporation of elaborate forms of priors can lead to improved quantitative performance in various statistical terms, such as bias and variance. In particular, the use of higher-order smoothing priors, such as the thin-plate prior, is known to exhibit improved bias behavior compared to the conventional smoothing priors such as the membrane prior. However, the bias advantage of the higher-order priors is effective only when the hyperparameters involved in the reconstruction algorithm are properly chosen. In this work, we further investigate the quantitative performance of the two representative smoothing priors-the thin plate and the membrane-by observing the behavior of the associated hyperparameters of the prior distributions. In our experiments we use Monte Carlo noise trials to calculate bias and variance of reconstruction estimates, and compare the performance of ML-EM estimates to that of regularized EM using both membrane and thin-plate priors, and also to that of filtered backprojection, where the membrane and thin plate models become simple apodizing filters of specified form. We finally show that the use of higher-order models yields excellent "robustness" in quantitative performance by demonstrating that the thin plate leads to very low bias error over a large range of hyperparameters, while keeping a reasonable variance. variance.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.51-62
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• 2008

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2007.04a
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• pp.35-37
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• 2007

Super resolution using stochastic approach which based on the Bayesian approach is to easy modeling for a priori knowledge. Generally, the Bayesian estimation is used when the posterior probability density function of the original image can be established. In this paper, we introduced the improved MAP algorithm based on Bayesian which is stochastic approach in spatial domain. And we presented the observation model between the HR images and LR images applied with MAP reconstruction method which is one of the major in the SR grid construction. Its test results, which are operation speed, chip size and output high resolution image Quality. are significantly improved.

• Journal of the Korean Geophysical Society
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.175-182
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• 2001

We consider the problem of determining smoothing parameters of Gibbs priors for Bayesian methods used in the medical imaging application of emission tomographic reconstruction. We address a simple smoothing prior (membrane) whose global hyperparameter (the smoothing parameter) controls the bias/variance tradeoff of the solution. We base our maximum-likelihood (ML) estimates of hyperparameters on observed training data, and argue the motivation for this approach. Good results are obtained with a simple ML estimate of the smoothing parameter for the membrane prior.

• The Journal of Engineering Research
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.47-54
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• 2002

We consider the problem of determining smoothing parameters of Gibbs priors for Bayesian methods used in the medical imaging application of emission tomographic reconstruction. We address a simple smoothing prior (membrane) whose global hyperparameter (the smoothing parameter) controls the bias/variance tradeoff of the solution. We base our maximum-likelihood(ML) estimates of hyperparameters on observed training data, and argue the motivation for this approach. Good results are obtained with a simple ML estimate of the smoothing parameter for the membrane prior.