Laplacian based non-local means denoising of MR images with Rician noise

Magnetic Resonance (MR) image is often corrupted with a complex white Gaussian noise (Rician noise) which is signal dependent. Considering the special characteristics of Rician noise, we carry out nonlocal means denoising on squared magnitude images and compensate the introduced bias. In this paper, we propose an algorithm which not only preserves the edges and fine structures but also performs efficient denoising. For this purpose we have used a Laplacian of Gaussian (LoG) filter in conjunction with a nonlocal means filter (NLM). Further, to enhance the edges and to accelerate the filtering process, only a few similar patches have been preselected on the basis of closeness in edge and inverted mean values. Experiments have been conducted on both simulated and clinical data sets. The qualitative and quantitative measures demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed method.     

Wavelet domain de-noising of time-courses in MR image sequences

Magnetic resonance images acquired with high temporal resolution often exhibit large noise artifacts, which arise from physiological sources as well as from the acquisition hardware. These artifacts can be detrimental to the quality and interpretation of the time-course data in functional MRI studies. A class of wavelet-domain de-noising algorithms estimates the underlying, noise-free signal by thresholding (or 'shrinking') the wavelet coefficients, assuming the underlying temporal noise of each pixel is uncorrelated and Gaussian. A Wiener-type shrinkage algorithm is developed in this paper, for de-noising either complex- or magnitude-valued image data sequences. Using the de-correlation properties of the wavelet transform, as elucidated by Johnstone and Silverman, the assumption of i.i.d. Gaussian noise can be abandoned, opening up the possibility of removing colored noise. Both wavelet- and wavelet-packet based algorithms are developed, and the Wiener method is compared to the traditional Hard and Soft wavelet thresholding methods of Donoho and Johnstone. The methods are applied to two types of data sets. In the first, an artificial set of complex-valued images was constructed, in which each pixel has a simulated bimodal time-course. Gaussian noise was added to each of the real and imaginary channels, and the noise removed from the complex image sequence as well as the magnitude image sequence (where the noise is Rician). The bias and variance between the original and restored paradigms was estimated for each method. It was found that the Wiener method gives better balance in bias and variance than either Hard or Soft methods. Furthermore, de-noising magnitude data provides comparable accuracy of the restored images to that obtained from de-noising complex data. In the second data set, an actual in vivo complex image sequence containing unknown physiological and instrumental noise was used. The same bimodal paradigm as in the first data set was added to pixels in a small localized region of interest. For the paradigm investigated here, the smooth Daubechies wavelets provide better de-noising characteristics than the discontinuous Haar wavelets. Also, it was found that wavelet packet de-noising offers no significant improvement over the computationally more efficient wavelet de-noising methods. For the in vivo data, it is desirable that the groups of "activated" time-courses are homogeneous. It was found that the internal homogeneity of the group of time-courses increases when de-noising is applied. This suggests using de-noising as a pre-processing tool for both exploratory and inferential data analysis methods in fMRI.     

Multi-exponential analysis of magnitude MR images using a quantitative multispectral edge-preserving filter

A solution for discrete multi-exponential analysis of T(2) relaxation decay curves obtained in current multi-echo imaging protocol conditions is described. We propose a preprocessing step to improve the signal-to-noise ratio and thus lower the signal-to-noise ratio threshold from which a high percentage of true multi-exponential detection is detected. It consists of a multispectral nonlinear edge-preserving filter that takes into account the signal-dependent Rician distribution of noise affecting magnitude MR images. Discrete multi-exponential decomposition, which requires no a priori knowledge, is performed by a non-linear least-squares procedure initialized with estimates obtained from a total least-squares linear prediction algorithm. This approach was validated and optimized experimentally on simulated data sets of normal human brains.     

Implications of the Rician distribution for fMRI generalized likelihood ratio tests

In functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), the general linear model test (GLMT) is widely used for brain activation detection. However, the GLMT relies on the assumption that the noise corrupting the data is Gaussian distributed. Because the majority of fMRI studies employ magnitude image reconstructions, which are Rician distributed, this assumption is invalid and has significant consequences in case the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is low. In this study, we show that the GLMT should not be used at low SNR. Furthermore, we propose a generalized likelihood ratio test for magnitude MR data that has the same performance compared to the GLMT for high SNR, but performs significantly better than the GLMT for low SNR.     

激光主动探测中回波信号的小波去噪方法

在分析激光主动探测中回波信号的噪声特性和小波变换去噪原理的基础上，提出了一种基于最大信噪比准则的小渡阈值去噪方法。首先用最大信噪比准则对小波变换系数进行阈值选取，然后采用软阂值方法对小波系数进行量化处理后再重构。仿真结果表明最大信噪比准则小波去噪方法改善信噪比效果十分显著，检测下限达到-16．2dB。证明了该方法在激光主动探测系统回波信号检测中的有效性。     

EEMD在土壤剖面反射光谱消噪中的应用

实测光谱常含有大量干扰信息,消噪在光谱数据处理和分析中极为重要,它直接影响后续的定量分析和信息挖掘。因此,选择适当的消噪方法是改善光谱分析精度,提升光谱分析能力的一个关键性突破。集合经验模态分解(EEMD)方法是一个以信号固有特征尺度为度量的时空滤波过程,能充分保留信号本身的非线性和非平稳特征,在信号的滤波和消噪中具有较大的优势。结合EEMD的多尺度滤波特性,提出了一种新的EEMD阈值光谱消噪方法,并应用于新疆塔里木河中游典型绿洲33个土壤剖面反射光谱数据的预处理。为探讨EEMD阈值法在土壤剖面反射光谱消噪中的效用,对EEMD阈值法和小波阈值法的消噪结果进行了对比分析。结果表明：与传统的小波阈值法相比,EEMD阈值法消噪结果的信噪比从14.836 6 dB提高到34.275 7 dB,均方根误差由6.786 1×10-5降到7.240 6×10-6,相关系数从0.982 5提高到0.999 8,EEMD阈值法的三个消噪效果衡量指标均优于小波阈值法。证明了EEMD阈值法可有效地去除土壤剖面光谱噪声,较好地保留了光谱的细节信息,提高了光谱的定量分析精度,且与小波阈值消噪方法相比具有较强的可靠性和自适应优势,作为光谱数据预处理的一种新方法,其应用前景良好。     

Comparative study of fast MR imaging: quantitative analysis on image quality and efficiency among various time frames and contrast behaviors

The purpose of this study is to quantitatively compare the image quality and efficiency provided by widely available fast MR imaging pulse sequences. A composite phantom with various T1 and T2 values and subjected to periodic motion was imaged at 1.5 T. The fast MRI sequences evaluated included fast spin-echo (FSE), single shot fast spin-echo (SSFSE), echo-planar imaging (EPI), multi-slice gradient recalled (MPGR), fast MPGR (FMPGR), and fast multi-slice spoiled gradient echo (FMPSPGR). T1-weighted (T1WI), T2-weighted (T2WI), proton-density-weighted (PDWI), and T2*-weighted (T2*WI) images were evaluated in breath-hold and non-breath-hold time frames. Analysis included measurement of image signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR), nonuniformity, ghosting ratio, SNR per unit time and CNR per unit time. Among fast T2WI sequences, FSE with breath-hold time frame resulted in the highest image quality and in superior SNR and CNR efficiency by a factor of 5 or 6 as compared with conventional spin echo sequence. Among fast T1WI sequences, FMPGR and FMPSPGR both with non-breath-hold time frame produced the highest image quality and SNR and CNR efficiency by a factor of greater than 5 as compared with conventional spin echo. Among fast PDWI and T2*WI sequences, FSE produced the highest SNR and CNR, and was maximally efficient with a factors of greater than 6 as compared with conventional spin echo.     

Rician noise reduction in magnetic resonance images using adaptive non-local mean and guided image filtering

This paper proposes a Rician noise reduction method for magnetic resonance (MR) images. The proposed method is based on adaptive non-local mean and guided image filtering techniques. In the first phase, a guidance image is obtained from the noisy image through an adaptive non-local mean filter. Sobel operators are applied to compute the strength of edges which is further used to control the spread of the kernel in non-local mean filtering. In the second phase, the noisy and the guidance images are provided to the guided image filter as input to restore the noise-free image. The improved performance of the proposed method is investigated using the simulated and real data sets of MR images. Its performance is also compared with the previously proposed state-of-the art methods. Comparative analysis demonstrates the superiority of the proposed scheme over the existing approaches.     

Preoperative fast MRI of brain tumors using three-dimensional segmented echo planar imaging compared to three-dimensional gradient echo technique

The purpose of this study was to compare the diagnostic efficacy of a newly developed T(1)-weighted three-dimensional segmented echo planar imaging (3D EPI) sequence versus a conventional T(1)-weighted three dimensional spoiled gradient echo (3D GRE) sequence in the evaluation of brain tumors. Forty-four patients with cerebral tumors and infections were examined on a 1.0 T MR unit with 23 mT/m gradient strength. The total scan time for the T(1) 3D EPI sequence was 2 min 12 s, and for a conventional 3D GRE sequence it was 4 min 59 s. Both sequences were performed after administration of a contrast agent. The images were analyzed by three radiologists. Image assessment criteria included lesion conspicuity, contrast between different types of normal tissue, and image artifacts. In addition, signal-to-noise and contrast-to-noise-ratio (C/N) were calculated. The gray-white differentiation and C/N ratio of 3D EPI were found to be inferior to conventional 3D GRE images, but the difference was not statistically significant. In the qualitative comparison, lesion detection and conspicuity of 3D EPI images and conventional 3D GRE images were similar, but a tow-fold reduction of the scanning time was obtained. With the 3D EPI technique, a 50% scan time reduction could be achieved with acceptable image quality compared to conventional 3D GRE. Thus, the 3D EPI technique could replace conventional 3D GRE in the preoperative imaging of brain.     

Denoising 3D MR images by the enhanced non-local means filter for Rician noise

The non-local means (NLM) filter removes noise by calculating the weighted average of the pixels in the global area and shows superiority over existing local filter methods that only consider local neighbor pixels. This filter has been successfully extended from 2D images to 3D images and has been applied to denoising 3D magnetic resonance (MR) images. In this article, a novel filter based on the NLM filter is proposed to improve the denoising effect. Considering the characteristics of Rician noise in the MR images, denoising by the NLM filter is first performed on the squared magnitude images. Then, unbiased correcting is carried out to eliminate the biased deviation. When performing the NLM filter, the weight is calculated based on the Gaussian-filtered image to reduce the disturbance of the noise. The performance of this filter is evaluated by carrying out a qualitative and quantitative comparison of this method with three other filters, namely, the original NLM filter, the unbiased NLM (UNLM) filter and the Rician NLM (RNLM) filter. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed filter achieves better denoising performance over the other filters being compared.     

基于小波变换和非负支撑域递归逆滤波算法的盲目图像复原

提出了一种将自适应正则化方法与非负支撑域递归逆滤波(NAS-RIF)算法相结合用于小波域的盲图像复原算法.该算法先对降质图像进行小波分解,得到了图像在不同子频段的信息.在各个子频段采用NAS-RIF算法进行复原.针对各个子频段内图像的频率和方向特性,分别引入了不同的正则化约束项.在各个子频段估计出噪声方差,提出了根据噪声方差和图像局部方差来选取正则化参数.分别对两幅模糊图像进行了仿真实验,复原结果取得的信噪比分别为19.66 dB和23.86 dB.实验结果表明,复原效果相对于空间自适应正则化方法有一定的提高.     

基于改进中值滤波和提升小波变换的阈值去噪方法研究

对于实际拍摄的一些图像信噪比低,噪声密度大,且含有混合噪声,而现有算法大多只能去除单一噪声的问题。针对混合噪声中含有的脉冲噪声和高斯噪声,提出基于改进中值滤波和提升小波变换去噪相结合的方法。去噪过程中,使用中值滤波器提取脉冲噪声并采用中值滤波算法滤波后,构造提升小波,采用改进阈值函数提升小波阈值去噪方法去除高斯噪声。实验结果表明,当噪声值(,)=(0.4, 20)时,采用本文去噪方法,峰值信噪比（PSNR）为34.002 1,平均绝对误差（MAE）为2.365 3。     

基于混沌粒子群优化的图像Contourlet阈值去噪

提出了基于混沌粒子群优化的图像Contourlet阈值去噪方法.该方法在Contourlet变换域内利用混沌粒子群算法来确定最优阈值,再通过软阈值函数去噪,且不需要噪音方差等先验信息.实验结果表明：该方法与小波Bayeshrink阈值、基于粒子群的小波阈值、Contourlet自适应阈值等去噪方法相比,能有效地去除高斯白噪音和椒盐噪音的混合噪音,提高峰值信噪比,并较好地保留图像的细节和纹理,从而明显地改善了图像的视觉效果.     

MRI denoising using progressively distribution-based neural network

Magnetic Resonance (MR) images often suffer from noise pollution during image acquisition and transmission, which limits the accuracy of quantitative measurements from the data. Noise in magnitude MR images is usually governed by Rician distribution, due to the existence of uncorrelated Gaussian noise with zero-mean and equal variance in both the real and imaginary parts of the complex K-space data. Different from the existing MRI denoising methods that utilizing the spatial neighbor information around the pixels or patches, this work turns to capture the pixel-level distribution information by means of supervised network learning. A progressive network learning strategy is proposed via fitting the distribution of pixel-level and feature-level intensities. The proposed network consists of two residual blocks, one is used for fitting pixel domain without batch normalization layer and another one is applied for matching feature domain with batch normalization layer. Experimental results under synthetic, complex-valued and clinical MR brain images demonstrate great potential of the proposed network with substantially improved quantitative measures and visual inspections.     

互相关自适应加权的医学超声成像算法研究

根据超声成像系统的超声回波信号互相关性,提出互相关自适应加权超声成像算法.该算法根据散射点回波信号之间的空间相关性设置加权系数,对不同位置的散射点进行自适应加权成像,从而降低了成像系统的旁瓣,抑制了相关性较差的噪声.通过Field II仿真的点目标和吸声斑目标处理结果表明该方法成像的横向和纵向分辨率高,成像速度快.相对于延时叠加(DAS)算法,该算法对散射点成像可提高对比度16 dB,对于吸声斑成像可提高对比度0.85 dB.最后采用完备数据集进行实验,结果表明该算法成像分辨率优于DAS算法,对比度提高了17 dB.     

Complex denoising of MR data via wavelet analysis: application for functional MRI

A fast post-processing method for noise reduction of MR images, termed complex-denoising, is presented. The method is based on shrinking noisy discrete wavelet transform coefficients via thresholding, and it can be used for any MRI data-set with no need for high power computers. Unlike previous wavelet application to MR images, the denoising algorithm is applied, separately, to the two orthogonal sets of the complex MR image. The norm of the combined data are used to construct the image. With this method, signal-noise decoupling and Gaussian white noise assumptions used in the wavelet noise suppression scheme, are better fulfilled. The performance of the method is tested by carrying out a qualitative and quantitative comparison of a single-average image, complex-denoised image, multiple-average images, and a magnitude-denoised image, of a standard phantom. The comparison shows that the complex-denoising scheme improves the signal-to-noise and contrast-to-noise ratios more than the magnitude-denoising scheme, particularly in low SNR regions. To demonstrate the method strength, it is applied to fMRI data of somatosensory rat stimulation. It is shown that the activation area in a cross-correlation analysis is approximately 63% larger in the complex-denoised versus original data sets when equal threshold value is used. Application of the method of Principal Component Analysis to the complex-denoised, magnitude-denoised, and original data sets results in a similar but higher variance of the first few principal components obtained from the former data set as compared to those obtained from the later two sets.     

Evaluation of the inner ear by 3D fast asymmetric spin echo (FASE) MR imaging: phantom and volunteer studies

The 3D fast asymmetric spin echo (FASE) method combines the half-Fourier technique and 3D fast spin echo (FSE) sequence. The advantage of this method is that it maintains the same spatial resolution as FSE while markedly reducing the imaging time. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the usefulness of the 3D FASE technique in displaying the inner ear structure using phantom and volunteer studies. 3D FSE sequence images were obtained for comparison, and the optimum 3D FASE sequence was investigated on a 1.5T MR scanner. The results of phantom experiments showed increased signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) with prolonging repetition time (TR) on both 3D FASE and 3D FSE sequences. Although the SNR of 3D FASE images was 20-25% lower than that of 3D FSE images with the same TR, the SNR per minute with 3D FASE was about twice that with 3D FSE. On 3D FASE images, a higher spatial resolution was obtained with 2- or 4-shot images than with single-shot images. However, no significant difference was observed between 2-shot and 4-shot images. In the volunteer study, 3D FASE images using a TR of 5000 ms and an effective echo time (TEeff) of 250 ms showed a high SNR and spatial resolution and provided excellent contrast between cerebrospinal fluid and nerves in the internal auditory canal. The highest contrast was achieved in the 2-shot/2 number of excitations sequence. 3D FASE provides the same image quality as 3D FSE with a significant reducing in imaging time, and gives strong T2-weighted images. This method enables detailed visualization of the tiny structures of the inner ear.     

激光相干场成像散斑噪声复合去噪方法

噪声是影响激光相干场高分辨成像系统像质的重要因素,激光相干场成像系统既受背景光加性噪声影响,又受激光乘性散斑噪声影响.为解决激光相干场成像系统受激光乘性散斑噪声和背景光加性噪声叠加引起的成像像质退化效应问题,从噪声抑制角度提高激光相干场系统高分辨成像像质,研究建立了激光散斑乘性噪声和背景光加性噪声对大气下行链路激光回波场信号影响干扰模型,并基于该模型提出了一种基于同态滤波和稀疏基追踪级联复合去噪算法.首先基于同态滤波理论将激光乘性散斑噪声转化为加性噪声,再由高通滤波器滤除散斑噪声,最后采用基追踪稀疏理论方法抑制背景光等加性噪声对像质的影响.研究表明,较现有单一去噪方法,该级联复合去噪方法可一次性消除激光乘性散斑噪声和背景加性噪声两种不同性质的噪声,有效改善了激光相干场成像质量.     

小波包自适应阈值语音降噪新算法

为了克服低信噪比输入下,语音增强造成语音清音中的弱分量损失,造成重构信号包络失真的问题。论文提出了一种新的语音增强方法。该方法根据语音感知模型,采用不完全小波包分解拟合语音临界频带,并对语音按子带能量进行清浊音区分处理,在阈值计算上,提出了一种清浊音分离,基于子带信号能量的小波包自适应阈值算法。通过仿真实验,客观评测和听音测试表明,该算法在低信噪比输入时较传统算法,能够更加有效地减少重构信号包络失真,在不损伤语音清晰度和自然度的前提下,使输出信噪比明显提高。将该算法与能量谱减法结合,进行二次增强能进一步提高降噪输出的语音质量。     

大随机相位误差下条带模式合成孔径激光雷达成像实验

为了探索大随机相位误差条件下合成孔径雷达(SAL)成像特点和规律,本文采用波长为1 550 nm的线性调频激光器建立了能够产生大的共模随机相位误差的条带模式SAL成像实验装置。利用此装置获得了不同目标回波强度下条带模式SAL成像实验数据,结合条带模式相位梯度自聚焦(PGA)多次迭代处理,获得了高分辨率SAL图像。实验发现在[-6. 45π,6. 45π]范围的大随机相位误差下,通过简单的距离压缩和方位匹配滤波,无法实现SAL图像聚焦,图像信噪比仅为3 dB。进一步采用PGA处理,就能很好地校正相位误差,得到聚焦良好的SAL图像,图像信噪比达到43 dB。实验还发现,当存在大共模随机相位误差时,PGA处理展现出非常强的鲁棒性,在回波弱到10-15W的情况下依然有效。在大相位误差存在的SAL系统(如机载SAL)中,PGA处理能有效消除相位误差,实现图像聚焦;另外,增大探测激光功率以提高成像数据信噪比,将有助于提升PGA处理效果。