Artifact-free black-blood cine cardiac imaging in a single breath-hold

Fast imaging using the STimulated Echo Acquisition Mode (STEAM) sequence can produce cine images of the heart with black-blood contrast. Nevertheless, correction of deformation-related artifacts is required in order to maintain myocardial signal throughout the cardiac cycle. Recent work by our group has eliminated this artifact by combining two STEAM sequences acquired with two different demodulation gradients. Unfortunately, these two STEAM sequences were acquired on two separate breath-holds; thus, scan time doubled. In this work, we present a technique to reduce the total scan time by one half, without sacrificing image quality. The technique is based on interleaving two demodulations within one acquisition in order to obtain quality cine images of the heart in a single breath-hold. The technique was tested on animal models and human subjects, and the impact of interleaved acquisition on image quality was studied using quantitative and qualitative measures.     

基于成像差分吸收光谱技术和压缩感知理论的烟囱烟羽断层重建研究

烟羽断层重建质量受两方面条件限制：其中一个限制条件是遥感设备的时间分辨率。以往的研究多使用多轴差分吸收光谱仪（MAX-DOAS）进行CT重建,受采集数据速度的限制,重建图像的时间分辨率较低。另一个限制条件是,采集到的数据量有限,是典型的不完全角度重建。过去多使用代数迭代重建算法或统计迭代重建算法,重建图像受测量误差的影响比较大,分辨率较低且伪影较多。构造了基于成像差分吸收光谱技术（IDOAS）的光谱数据采集系统,与多轴差分吸收光谱仪构造的系统相比,数据采集的时间分辨率提高了160多倍,基本解决了时间分辨率的问题。提出了一种基于压缩感知理论和低三阶导数模型的烟羽断层重建算法--投影凸函数集低三阶导数法,简称为POCS-LTD。在投影的过程中,使用代数重建算法使重建图像符合投影方程;在全变分迭代的过程中使用了优化算法,将低三阶导数模型的全变分归一化值作为优化算法的迭代方向,前次迭代运算结果与本次投影运算的差值的模作为迭代步长。对重建算法进行了数值模拟,并以重建图像的接近度和一致性相关因子为指标,对重建结果进行了分析。数值模拟表明,算法具有良好的抗误差能力,与传统的低三阶导数法相比,本文提出的算法将重建接近度减小了80%以上。使用烟羽数据采集系统进行了外场实验,用POCS-LTD算法对外场实验的数据进行了烟羽重建,重建图像显示烟羽图像清晰,伪影得到了较好的抑制。介绍的烟羽断层数据采集系统和烟羽断层重建算法,提高了烟羽断层重建图像的时间分辨率,减少了重建图像的伪影,扩大了光谱测量技术的应用范围。     

双树小波变换与小波树稀疏联合的低场CS-MRI算法

压缩感知理论常用在磁共振快速成像上,仅采样少量的K空间数据即可重建出高质量的磁共振图像.压缩感知磁共振成像技术的原理是将磁共振图像重建问题建模成一个包含数据保真项、稀疏先验项和全变分项的线性组合最小化问题,显著减少磁共振扫描时间.稀疏表示是压缩感知理论的一个关键假设,重建结果很大程度上依赖于稀疏变换.本文将双树复小波变换和小波树稀疏联合作为压缩感知磁共振成像中的稀疏变换,提出了基于双树小波变换和小波树稀疏的压缩感知低场磁共振图像重建算法.实验表明,本文所提算法可以在某些磁共振图像客观评价指标中表现出一定的优势.     

Deep learning for radial SMS myocardial perfusion reconstruction using the 3D residual booster U-net

PurposeTo develop an end-to-end deep learning solution for quickly reconstructing radial simultaneous multi-slice (SMS) myocardial perfusion datasets with comparable quality to the pixel tracking spatiotemporal constrained reconstruction (PT-STCR) method.MethodsDynamic contrast enhanced (DCE) radial SMS myocardial perfusion data were obtained from 20 subjects who were scanned at rest and/or stress with or without ECG gating using a saturation recovery radial CAIPI turboFLASH sequence. Input to the networks consisted of complex coil combined images reconstructed using the inverse Fourier transform of undersampled radial SMS k-space data. Ground truth images were reconstructed using the PT-STCR pipeline. The performance of the residual booster 3D U-Net was tested by comparing it to state-of-the-art network architectures including MoDL, CRNN-MRI, and other U-Net variants.ResultsResults demonstrate significant improvements in speed requiring approximately 8 seconds to reconstruct one radial SMS dataset which is approximately 200 times faster than the PT-STCR method. Images reconstructed with the residual booster 3D U-Net retain quality of ground truth PT-STCR images (0.963 SSIM/40.238 PSNR/0.147 NRMSE). The residual booster 3D U-Net has superior performance compared to existing network architectures in terms of image quality, temporal dynamics, and reconstruction time.ConclusionResidual and booster learning combined with the 3D U-Net architecture was shown to be an effective network for reconstructing high-quality images from undersampled radial SMS datasets while bypassing the reconstruction time of the PT-STCR method.     

Progressive EPR imaging with adaptive projection acquisition

Continuous wave electron paramagnetic resonance imaging (EPRI) of living biological systems requires rapid acquisition and visualization of free radical images. In the commonly used multiple-stage back-projection image reconstruction algorithm, the EPR image cannot be reconstructed until a complete set of projections is collected. If the data acquisition is incomplete, the previously acquired incomplete data set is no longer useful. In this work, a 3-dimensional progressive EPRI technique was implemented based on inverse Radon transform in which a 3-dimensional EPR image is acquired and reconstructed gradually from low resolution to high resolution. An adaptive data acquisition strategy is proposed to determine the significance of projections and acquire them in an order from the most significant to the least significant. The image acquisition can be terminated at any time if further collection of projections does not improve the image resolution distinctly, providing flexibility to trade image quality with imaging time. The progressive imaging technique was validated using computer simulations as well as imaging experiments. The adaptive acquisition uses 50-70% less projections as compared to the regular acquisition. In conclusion, adaptive data acquisition with progressive image reconstruction should be very useful for the accelerated acquisition and visualization of free radical distribution.     

稀疏阈值的超分辨率图像重建

为了解决基于字典学习的超分辨重构算法耗时过长的问题,提出了基于稀疏阈值模型的图像超分辨率重建方法。首先,将联合字典理论与图像块稀疏阈值方法相结合,训练得到高、低分辨率过完备图像字典对。接着,通过稀疏阈值OMP算法对图像特征块进行稀疏表示。然后,通过高分辨率字典重构出初始的超分辨图像。最后,通过改进迭代反投影算法对初始的超分辨图像进行全局优化,从而进一步提高图像重构质量。实验结果表明,超分辨图像重构平均峰值信噪比(PSNR)为30.1 d B,平均结构自相似度(SSIM)为0.937 9,平均计算时间为10.2 s。有效提高了超分辨重构的速度,改善了重构高分辨图像的质量。     

四光束剪切相干成像目标重构算法研究

针对传统剪切光束成像技术的准实时性问题,提出用口字形排布的四束光代替传统L形三束剪切光照射目标,研究了四光束剪切相干成像目标重构算法.只需单次测量就能同时重构出四幅目标图像,减少了用于降低散斑噪声、获取高质量图像所需的测量次数,同时大大减少了多组发射时的光束切换次数,提高了成像效率.在算法实现中,通过最小二乘法恢复出四组波前相位,利用散斑幅值的简单代数运算恢复波前幅值,从而重构出目标图像.仿真结果表明,与传统方法相比,在图像质量相同的前提下,本文方法所需的数据采集时间减少了至少1/2,不但提高了目标重构效率,还可为远程运动目标的成像识别提供更好的手段.     

Joint Reconstruction of Multi-contrast Images and Multi-channel Coil Sensitivities

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has an important feature that it provides multiple images with different contrasts for complementary diagnostic information. However, a large amount of data is needed for multi-contrast images depiction, and thus, the scan is time-consuming. Many methods based on parallel magnetic resonance imaging (pMRI) and compressed sensing (CS) are applied to accelerate multi-contrast MR imaging. Nevertheless, the image reconstructed by sophisticated pMRI methods contains residual aliasing artifact that degrades the quality of the image when the acceleration factor is high. Other methods based on CS always suffer the regularization parameter-selecting problem. To address these issues, a new method is presented for joint multi-contrast image reconstruction and coil sensitivity estimation. The coil sensitivities can be shared during the reconstruction due to the identity of coil sensitivity profiles of different contrast images for imaging stationary tissues. The proposed method uses the coil sensitivities as sharable information during the reconstruction to improve the reconstruction quality. As a result, the residual aliasing artifact can be effectively removed in the reconstructed multi-contrast images even if the acceleration factor is high. Besides, as there is no regularization term in the proposed method, the troublesome regularization parameter selection in the CS can also be avoided. Results from multi-contrast in vivo experiments demonstrated that multi-contrast images can be jointly reconstructed by the proposed method with effective removal of the residual aliasing artifact at a high acceleration factor.     

显微热成像系统自适应位置标定方法

利用光学微扫描技术,可在不改变探测器结构的情况下,提高显微热成像系统空间分辨率。但为了获得高质量过采样重构图像,微扫描位置需要标定。基于零点定标,提出一种各点自适应定标的微扫描位置标定方法。模拟实际系统在定标前后的欠采样图像,采用不同重构方法进行仿真对比验证;完成了实际采集的欠采样显微热图像序列的重构对比实验。实验结果表明该方法明显改善了显微热成像系统的过采样重构图像质量,提高了系统空间分辨率。此方法还可以应用在其他光电成像系统中。     

A multi-scale variational neural network for accelerating motion-compensated whole-heart 3D coronary MR angiography

PurposeTo enable fast reconstruction of undersampled motion-compensated whole-heart 3D coronary magnetic resonance angiography (CMRA) by learning a multi-scale variational neural network (MS-VNN) which allows the acquisition of high-quality 1.2 × 1.2 × 1.2 mm isotropic volumes in a short and predictable scan time.MethodsEighteen healthy subjects and one patient underwent free-breathing 3D CMRA acquisition with variable density spiral-like Cartesian sampling, combined with 2D image navigators for translational motion estimation/compensation. The proposed MS-VNN learns two sets of kernels and activation functions for the magnitude and phase images of the complex-valued data. For the magnitude, a multi-scale approach is applied to better capture the small calibre of the coronaries. Ten subjects were considered for training and validation. Prospectively undersampled motion-compensated data with 5-fold and 9-fold accelerations, from the remaining 9 subjects, were used to evaluate the framework. The proposed approach was compared to Wavelet-based compressed-sensing (CS), conventional VNN, and to an additional fully-sampled (FS) scan.ResultsThe average acquisition time (m:s) was 4:11 for 5-fold, 2:34 for 9-fold acceleration and 18:55 for fully-sampled. Reconstruction time with the proposed MS-VNN was ~14 s. The proposed MS-VNN achieves higher image quality than CS and VNN reconstructions, with quantitative right coronary artery sharpness (CS:43.0%, VNN:43.9%, MS-VNN:47.0%, FS:50.67%) and vessel length (CS:7.4 cm, VNN:7.7 cm, MS-VNN:8.8 cm, FS:9.1 cm) comparable to the FS scan.ConclusionThe proposed MS-VNN enables 5-fold and 9-fold undersampled CMRA acquisitions with comparable image quality that the corresponding fully-sampled scan. The proposed framework achieves extremely fast reconstruction time and does not require tuning of regularization parameters, offering easy integration into clinical workflow.     

Optimization of hyperparameters for SMS reconstruction

PurposeSimultaneous multi-slice (SMS) imaging accelerates MRI data acquisition by exciting multiple image slices with a single radiofrequency pulse. Overlapping slices encoded in acquired signal are separated using a mathematical model, which requires estimation of image reconstruction kernels using calibration data. Several parameters used in SMS reconstruction impact the quality and fidelity of final images. Therefore, finding an optimal set of reconstruction parameters is critical to ensure that accelerated acquisition does not significantly degrade resulting image quality.MethodsGradient-echo echo planar imaging data were acquired with a range of SMS acceleration factors from a cohort of five volunteers with no known neurological pathology. Images were collected using two available phased-array head coils (a 48-channel array and a reduced diameter 32-channel array) that support SMS. Data from these coils were identically reconstructed offline using a range of coil compression factors and reconstruction kernel parameters. A hybrid space (k-x), externally-calibrated coil-by-coil slice unaliasing approach was used for image reconstruction. The image quality of the resulting reconstructed SMS images was assessed by evaluating correlations with identical echo-planar reference data acquired without SMS. A finger tapping functional MRI (fMRI) experiment was also performed and group analysis results were compared between data sets reconstructed with different coil compression levels.ResultsBetween the two RF coils tested in this study, the 32-channel coil with smaller dimensions clearly outperformed the larger 48-channel coil in our experiments. Generally, a large calibration region (144–192 samples) and small kernel sizes (2–4 samples) in k_y direction improved image quality. Use of regularization in the kernel fitting procedure had a notable impact on the fidelity of reconstructed images and a regularization value 0.0001 provided good image quality. With optimal selection of other hyperparameters in the hybrid space SMS unaliasing algorithm, coil compression caused small reduction in correlation between single-band and SMS unaliased images. Similarly, group analysis of fMRI results did not show a significant influence of coil compression on resulting image quality.ConclusionsThis study demonstrated that the hyperparameters used in SMS reconstruction need to be fine-tuned once the experimental factors such as the RF receive coil and SMS factor have been determined. A cursory evaluation of SMS reconstruction hyperparameter values is therefore recommended before conducting a full-scale quantitative study using SMS technologies.     

K-space trajectory mapping and its application for ultrashort Echo time imaging

MR images are affected by system delays and gradient field imperfections which induce discrepancies between prescribed and actual k-space trajectories. This could be even more critical for non-Cartesian data acquisitions where even a small deviation from the assumed k-space trajectory results in severe image degradation and artifacts. Knowledge of the actual k-space trajectories is therefore crucial and can be incorporated in the reconstruction of high quality non-Cartesian images. A novel MR method for the calibration of actual gradient waveforms was developed using a combination of phase encoding increments and subsequent detection of the exact time point at which the corresponding trajectory is crossing the k-space origin. The measured sets of points were fitted to a parametrical model to calculate the complete actual acquisition trajectory. Measurements performed on phantoms and volunteers, positioned both in- and off-isocenter of the magnet, clearly demonstrate the improvement in reconstructed ultrashort echo time (UTE) images, when information from calibration of k-space sampling trajectories is employed in the MR image reconstruction procedure. The unique feature of the proposed method is its robustness and simple experimental setup, making it suitable for quick acquisition trajectory calibration procedures e.g. for non-Cartesian radial fast imaging.     

Digital color holographic recording and reconstruction using synthetic aperture and multiple reference waves

This paper presents a method for recording and reconstructing high-quality digital color holographic images. The synthetic aperture technique is used to improve the resolution of the reconstructed image and also reduce the speckle size in the reconstruction plane. Subsequently, the multiple reference wave technique is used to suppress speckle noise in the reconstructed color holographic image by superposing speckle fields with different distributions. The final high-quality color holographic image is obtained due to the resolution improvement and speckle noise reduction achieved by the two techniques. Our method has potential applications in the digital color holographic displays.     

Light energy matching method in high-resolution image reconstruction

Many approaches for high-resolution image reconstruction have been proposed in some literatures. One of the most commonly ways is to reconstruct a high-resolution image from a number of rotated and translated images with low resolution. In this process, the exposure difference among original images will decrease the quality of the reconstructed image. In order to remove the influence of the exposure difference, a light energy matching method is proposed in this paper. The theoretical analysis is illustrated in details. Experimental results show that the theoretical analysis is correct and the proposed method is valid.     

利用匹配区域的纹理特征改善重构三维图像的视觉质量

研究了计算机重构三维图像时分辨率低的问题,提出一种改善3D计算机全景重构图像的视觉质量的方法,该方法利用3D空间的物体部分在每个元素图像中形成的匹配区域的纹理特征,从两个相邻的元素图像中的匹配区域提取出多个像素,经过加权计算重构出相应的图像区域.该方法与传统的计算机重构方法相比,提高了图像分辨率,同时也消除了从每个元素图像中提取多个像素直接重构图像时存在的"像素块"效应,改善了重构图像的视觉质量.     

Parallel variable-density spiral imaging using nonlocal total variation reconstruction

The relatively long scan time is still a bottleneck for both clinical applications and research of magnetic resonance imaging. To reduce the data acquisition time, we propose a novel fast magnetic resonance imaging method based on parallel variable-density spiral acquisition, which combines undersampling optimization and nonlocal total variation reconstruction.The undersampling optimization promotes the incoherence of resultant aliasing artifact via the "worst-case" residual error metric, and thus accelerates the data acquisition. Moreover, nonlocal total variation reconstruction is utilized to remove such an incoherent aliasing artifact and so improve image quality. The feasibility of the proposed method is demonstrated by both numerical phantom simulation and in vivo experiment. The experimental results show that the proposed method can achieve high acceleration factor and effectively remove an aliasing artifact from data undersampling with well-preserved image details. The image quality is better than that achieved with the total variation method.     

动态测量的高光谱图像压缩感知

针对高光谱图像相邻波段之间具有强光谱相关性的特点,为了提高高光谱图像压缩感知的重构效果,本文提出一种利用边缘信息设计动态测量率的压缩感知算法。首先,通过随机投影的分块压缩感知方法对每个图像块以固定测量率采样,重构出单波段图像作为其他波段的先验信息,并对其提取出图像边缘区域;然后,根据每个图像块边缘信息的丰富程度来自适应分配测量值。在固定总测量数的前提下,对不同图像块分配不同的测量次数。最后,利用分配好的测量次数对其余波段进行采集和重构。仿真结果表明,在相同总测量数情况下,本文提出的动态测量算法重构出的高光谱图像质量（PSNR）与传统固定测量压缩感知策略相比提高了1~4 dB,相比较下的重构时间也减少,在成功重构高光谱图像的基础上更增强了细节处的图像质量。     

In situ investigation on rapid microstructure evolution in extreme complex environment by developing a new AFBP-TVM sparse tomography algorithm from original CS-XPCMT

A new sparse tomography method for observing the rapid internal microstructure evolution of material, called the Algebraic Filtered-Back-Projection and Total Variation Minimization (AFBP-TVM) iteration sparse reconstruction algorithm, was proposed in this paper. The new algorithm was developed by combining the two techniques of the Algebraic Reconstruction Technique (ART) and the Filtered-Back-Projection (FBP) on the basis of analysis in linear space. A series of numerical reconstruction experiments were conducted to validate the new algorithm. The results indicated the new algorithm can obtain satisfactory reconstruction images from 1/6 of the projections that were used in traditional algorithms. So the time spent on projection acquisition process can be reduced to 1/6 of that in traditional tomography method. The quality of images reconstructed by new algorithm was better than other algorithms, which was evaluated by three quantitative parameters. The normalized average absolute distance criterion and the normalized mean square criterion, which were used to evaluate the relative error of the reconstruction results (smaller value means better quality of reconstruction), decreased from 0.3758 to 0.1272 and from 0.1832 to 0.0894 respectively. The standardized covariance criterion, which was used to evaluate the similarity level (greater value means higher accuracy of reconstruction), increased from 92.72% to 99.30%. Finally, the new algorithm was validated under actual experimental conditions. The results indicated that the AFBP-TVM algorithm obtained better reconstruction quality than other algorithms. It meant that the AFBP-TVM algorithm may be a suitable method for in situ investigation on material's rapid internal microstructure evolution in extreme complex environment.     

Optimizing Image Reconstruction in SENSE Using GPU

Parallel magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) (pMRI) uses multiple receiver coils to reduce the MRI scan time. To accelerate the data acquisition process in MRI, less amount of data is acquired from the scanner which leads to artifacts in the reconstructed images. SENSitivity Encoding (SENSE) is a reconstruction algorithm in pMRI to remove aliasing artifacts from the undersampled multi coil data and recovers fully sampled images. The main limitation of SENSE is computing inverse of the encoding matrix. This work proposes the inversion of encoding matrix using Jacobi singular value decomposition (SVD) algorithm for image reconstruction on GPUs to accelerate the reconstruction process. The performance of Jacobi SVD is compared with Gauss–Jordan algorithm. The simulations are performed on two datasets (brain and cardiac) with acceleration factors 2, 4, 6 and 8. The results show that the graphics processing unit (GPU) provides a speed up to 21.6 times as compared to CPU reconstruction. Jacobi SVD algorithm performs better in terms of acceleration in reconstructions on GPUs as compared to Gauss–Jordan method. The proposed algorithm is suitable for any number of coils and acceleration factors for SENSE reconstruction on real time processing systems.