Showing papers on "Artifact (error) published in 2019"

Removal of Artifacts from EEG Signals: A Review.

Abstract: Electroencephalogram (EEG) plays an important role in identifying brain activity and behavior. However, the recorded electrical activity always be contaminated with artifacts and then affect the analysis of EEG signal. Hence, it is essential to develop methods to effectively detect and extract the clean EEG data during encephalogram recordings. Several methods have been proposed to remove artifacts, but the research on artifact removal continues to be an open problem. This paper tends to review the current artifact removal of various contaminations. We first discuss the characteristics of EEG data and the types of different artifacts. Then, a general overview of the state-of-the-art methods and their detail analysis are presented. Lastly, a comparative analysis is provided for choosing a suitable methods according to particular application.

DuDoNet: Dual Domain Network for CT Metal Artifact Reduction

Abstract: Computed tomography (CT) is an imaging modality widely used for medical diagnosis and treatment. CT images are often corrupted by undesirable artifacts when metallic implants are carried by patients, which creates the problem of metal artifact reduction (MAR). Existing methods for reducing the artifacts due to metallic implants are inadequate for two main reasons. First, metal artifacts are structured and non-local so that simple image domain enhancement approaches would not suffice. Second, the MAR approaches which attempt to reduce metal artifacts in the X-ray projection (sinogram) domain inevitably lead to severe secondary artifact due to sinogram inconsistency. To overcome these difficulties, we propose an end-to-end trainable Dual Domain Network (DuDoNet) to simultaneously restore sinogram consistency and enhance CT images. The linkage between the sigogram and image domains is a novel Radon inversion layer that allows the gradients to back-propagate from the image domain to the sinogram domain during training. Extensive experiments show that our method achieves significant improvements over other single domain MAR approaches. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first end-to-end dual-domain network for MAR.

A Riemannian Modification of Artifact Subspace Reconstruction for EEG Artifact Handling

Abstract: Artifact Subspace Reconstruction (ASR) is an adaptive method for the online or offline correction of artifacts comprising multichannel electroencephalography (EEG) recordings. It repeatedly computes a principal component analysis (PCA) on covariance matrices to detect artifacts based on their statistical properties in the component subspace. We adapted the existing ASR implementation by using Riemannian geometry for covariance matrix processing. EEG data that were recorded on smartphone in both outdoors and indoors conditions were used for evaluation (N = 27). A direct comparison between the original ASR and Riemannian ASR (rASR) was conducted for three performance measures: reduction of eye-blinks (sensitivity), improvement of visual-evoked potentials (VEPs) (specificity), and computation time (efficiency). Compared to ASR, our rASR algorithm performed favorably on all three measures. We conclude that rASR is suitable for the offline and online correction of multichannel EEG data acquired in laboratory and in field conditions.

Artifact correction in low-dose dental CT imaging using Wasserstein generative adversarial networks.

Abstract: Purpose In recent years, health risks concerning high-dose x-ray radiation have become a major concern in dental computed tomography (CT) examinations. Therefore, adopting low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) technology has become a major focus in the CT imaging field. One of these LDCT technologies is downsampling data acquisition during low-dose x-ray imaging processes. However, reducing the radiation dose can adversely affect CT image quality by introducing noise and artifacts in the resultant image that can compromise diagnostic information. In this paper, we propose an artifact correction method for downsampling CT reconstruction based on deep learning. Method We used clinical dental CT data with low-dose artifacts reconstructed by conventional filtered back projection (FBP) as inputs to a deep neural network and corresponding high-quality labeled normal-dose CT data during training. We trained a generative adversarial network (GAN) with Wasserstein distance (WGAN) and mean squared error (MSE) loss, called m-WGAN, to remove artifacts and obtain high-quality CT dental images in a clinical dental CT examination environment. Results The experimental results confirmed that the proposed algorithm effectively removes low-dose artifacts from dental CT scans. In addition, we showed that the proposed method is efficient for removing noise from low-dose CT scan images compared to existing approaches. We compared the performances of the general GAN, convolutional neural networks, and m-WGAN. Through quantitative and qualitative analysis of the results, we concluded that the proposed m-WGAN method resulted in better artifact correction performance preserving the texture in dental CT scanning. Conclusions The image quality evaluation metrics indicated that the proposed method effectively improves image quality when used as a postprocessing technique for dental CT images. To the best of our knowledge, this work is the first deep learning architecture used with a commercial cone-beam dental CT scanner. The artifact correction performance was rigorously evaluated and demonstrated to be effective. Therefore, we believe that the proposed algorithm represents a new direction in the research area of low-dose dental CT artifact correction.

A Novel EEMD-CCA Approach to Removing Muscle Artifacts for Pervasive EEG

Abstract: Future electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings in body sensor networks are prone to be contaminated by muscle activity due to the mobile, long-term, and pervasive monitoring needs. In this paper, a novel approach for muscle artifact removal in EEG is proposed by combining ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD) with canonical correlation analysis (CCA), termed as EEMD-CCA. This approach can make good use of inter-channel information. We tested the approach on simulated, semi-simulated, and real-life data sets, respectively. The approach outperformed state-of-the-art techniques, including independent component analysis, CCA, and EEMD-ICA. Statistical tests demonstrate the significance ( $p ) in (semi)-simulated studies. The relative root-mean-squared error can be reduced to around 0.3 and the average correlation coefficient can be kept above 0.9 even when the contamination is quite heavy (SNR < 2). Besides, we also tested the approach on few-channel EEG randomly selected from multichannel EEG, and obtained competitive results. The computational cost satisfies the real-time requirement. This indicates that the proposed EEMD-CCA approach is applicable under both multichannel and few-channel settings. It is an effective and efficient signal processing tool for enhancing the signal of interest in both hospital and home healthcare body sensor networks.

Evaluation of confound regression strategies for the mitigation of micromovement artifact in studies of dynamic resting-state functional connectivity and multilayer network modularity.

Abstract: Dynamic functional connectivity reflects the spatiotemporal organization of spontaneous brain activity in health and disease. Dynamic functional connectivity may be susceptible to artifacts induced...

Intracerebral EEG Artifact Identification Using Convolutional Neural Networks

Abstract: Manual and semi-automatic identification of artifacts and unwanted physiological signals in large intracerebral electroencephalographic (iEEG) recordings is time consuming and inaccurate. To date, unsupervised methods to accurately detect iEEG artifacts are not available. This study introduces a novel machine-learning approach for detection of artifacts in iEEG signals in clinically controlled conditions using convolutional neural networks (CNN) and benchmarks the method's performance against expert annotations. The method was trained and tested on data obtained from St Anne's University Hospital (Brno, Czech Republic) and validated on data from Mayo Clinic (Rochester, Minnesota, U.S.A). We show that the proposed technique can be used as a generalized model for iEEG artifact detection. Moreover, a transfer learning process might be used for retraining of the generalized version to form a data-specific model. The generalized model can be efficiently retrained for use with different EEG acquisition systems and noise environments. The generalized and specialized model F1 scores on the testing dataset were 0.81 and 0.96, respectively. The CNN model provides faster, more objective, and more reproducible iEEG artifact detection compared to manual approaches.

DuDoNet: Dual Domain Network for CT Metal Artifact Reduction

Abstract: Computed tomography (CT) is an imaging modality widely used for medical diagnosis and treatment. CT images are often corrupted by undesirable artifacts when metallic implants are carried by patients, which creates the problem of metal artifact reduction (MAR). Existing methods for reducing the artifacts due to metallic implants are inadequate for two main reasons. First, metal artifacts are structured and non-local so that simple image domain enhancement approaches would not suffice. Second, the MAR approaches which attempt to reduce metal artifacts in the X-ray projection (sinogram) domain inevitably lead to severe secondary artifact due to sinogram inconsistency. To overcome these difficulties, we propose an end-to-end trainable Dual Domain Network (DuDoNet) to simultaneously restore sinogram consistency and enhance CT images. The linkage between the sigogram and image domains is a novel Radon inversion layer that allows the gradients to back-propagate from the image domain to the sinogram domain during training. Extensive experiments show that our method achieves significant improvements over other single domain MAR approaches. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first end-to-end dual-domain network for MAR.

Adaptive Motion Artifact Reduction Based on Empirical Wavelet Transform and Wavelet Thresholding for the Non-Contact ECG Monitoring Systems

Abstract: Electrocardiogram (ECG) signals are crucial for determining the health status of the human heart. A clean ECG signal is critical in analysis and diagnosis of heart diseases. However, ECG signals are often contaminated by motion artifact noise in the non-contact ECG monitoring systems. In this paper, an ECG motion artifact removal approach based on empirical wavelet transform (EWT) and wavelet thresholding (WT) is proposed. This method consists of five steps, namely, spectrum preprocessing, spectrum segmentation, EWT decomposition, wavelet threshold denoising, and EWT reconstruction. The proposed approach was used to process real ECG signals collected by the non-contact ECG monitoring equipment. The results of quantitative study and analysis indicate that this approach produces a better performance in terms of restorage of QRS complexes of the original ECG with reduced distortion, retaining useful information in ECG signals, and improvement of the signal to noise ratio (SNR) value of the signal. The output results of the practical ECG signal test show that motion artifact in the real recorded ECG is effectively filtered out. The proposed method is feasible for reducing motion artifacts from ECG signals, whether from simulation ECG signals or practical non-contact ECG monitoring systems.

Improved EOG Artifact Removal Using Wavelet Enhanced Independent Component Analysis.

Abstract: Electroencephalography (EEG) signals are frequently contaminated with unwanted electrooculographic (EOG) artifacts. Blinks and eye movements generate large amplitude peaks that corrupt EEG measurements. Independent component analysis (ICA) has been used extensively in manual and automatic methods to remove artifacts. By decomposing the signals into neural and artifactual components and artifact components can be eliminated before signal reconstruction. Unfortunately, removing entire components may result in losing important neural information present in the component and eventually may distort the spectral characteristics of the reconstructed signals. An alternative approach is to correct artifacts within the independent components instead of rejecting the entire component, for which wavelet transform based decomposition methods have been used with good results. An improved, fully automatic wavelet-based component correction method is presented for EOG artifact removal that corrects EOG components selectively, i.e., within EOG activity regions only, leaving other parts of the component untouched. In addition, the method does not rely on reference EOG channels. The results show that the proposed method outperforms other component rejection and wavelet-based EOG removal methods in its accuracy both in the time and the spectral domain. The proposed new method represents an important step towards the development of accurate, reliable and automatic EOG artifact removal methods.

Novel Approaches for the Removal of Motion Artifact From EEG Recordings

Abstract: The electroencephalogram (EEG) signal is contaminated with various noises or artifacts during recording. For the automated detection of neurological disorders, it is a vital task to filter out these artifacts from the EEG signal. In this paper, we propose two novel approaches for the removal of motion artifact from the single channel EEG signal. These methods are based on the multiresolution total variation (MTV) and multiresolution weighted total variation (MWTV) filtering schemes. The multiresolution analysis using the discrete wavelet transform (DWT) helps to segregate the EEG signal into various subband signals. The total variation (TV) and weighted TV (WTV) are applied to the approximation subband signal. The filtered approximation subband signal is evaluated based on the difference between the noisy approximation subband signal and the output of the TV or WTV filter. The processed EEG signal is obtained using the multiresolution wavelet-based reconstruction. The difference in the signal to noise ratio ( $\Delta $ SNR) and the percentage of reduction in correlation coefficients ( $\eta $ ) is used for evaluating the diagnostic quality of the processed EEG signal. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed MTV and MWTV approaches have better denoising performance with (average $\Delta $ SNR, and average $\eta $ ) values of (29.12 dB and 68.56%) and (29.29 dB and 67.51%), respectively, as compared to the existing techniques.

Removal of Gross Artifacts of Transcranial Alternating Current Stimulation in Simultaneous EEG Monitoring.

Abstract: Transcranial electrical stimulation is a widely used non-invasive brain stimulation approach. To date, EEG has been used to evaluate the effect of transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) and transcranial Alternating Current Stimulation (tACS), but most studies have been limited to exploring changes in EEG before and after stimulation due to the presence of stimulation artifacts in the EEG data. This paper presents two different algorithms for removing the gross tACS artifact from simultaneous EEG recordings. These give different trade-offs in removal performance, in the amount of data required, and in their suitability for closed loop systems. Superposition of Moving Averages and Adaptive Filtering techniques are investigated, with significant emphasis on verification. We present head phantom testing results for controlled analysis, together with on-person EEG recordings in the time domain, frequency domain, and Event Related Potential (ERP) domain. The results show that EEG during tACS can be recovered free of large scale stimulation artifacts. Previous studies have not quantified the performance of the tACS artifact removal procedures, instead focusing on the removal of second order artifacts such as respiration related oscillations. We focus on the unresolved challenge of removing the first order stimulation artifact, presented with a new multi-stage validation strategy.

Correction of Scanning Electron Microscope Imaging Artifacts in a Novel Digital Image Correlation Framework

Abstract: The combination of digital image correlation (DIC) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) enables to extract high resolution full field displacement data, based on the high spatial resolution of SEM and the sub-pixel accuracy of DIC. However, SEM images may exhibit a considerable amount of imaging artifacts, which may seriously compromise the accuracy of the displacements and strains measured from these images. The current study proposes a unified general framework to correct for the three dominant types of SEM artifacts, i.e. spatial distortion, drift distortion and scan line shifts. The artifact fields are measured alongside the mechanical deformations to minimize the artifact induced errors in the latter. To this purpose, Integrated DIC (IDIC) is extended with a series of hierarchical mapping functions that describe the interaction of the imaging process with the mechanics. A new IDIC formulation based on these mapping functions is derived and the potential of the framework is tested by a number of virtual experiments. The effect of noise in the images and different regularization options for the artifact fields are studied. The error in the mechanical displacement fields measured for noise levels up to 5% is within the usual DIC accuracy range for all the cases studied, while it is more than 4 pixels if artifacts are ignored. A validation on real SEM images at three different magnifications confirms that all three distortion fields are accurately captured. The results of all virtual and real experiments demonstrate the accuracy of the methodology proposed, as well as its robustness in terms of convergence.

Motion Artifact Removal in Ambulatory ECG Signal for Heart Rate Variability Analysis

Abstract: This work presents an efficient method for motion artifact removal from ambulatory electrocardiogram (ECG) signal for heart rate variability (HRV) in wearable/portable healthcare devices. HRV is the fluctuation in the time interval between the adjacent heartbeats. Motion artifacts affect HRV analysis by creating some outliers. A two-phase method using stationary wavelet transform with level thresholding (SWT-LT) is used to remove motion artifact from the ECG signal. Multi-channel system prototype is used for ambulatory ECG signal recording which is developed using commercial integrated circuit components. Motion artifact affected ECG signals are recorded by emulating daily activity movements. Recorded ECG database (60 signals) and Motion Artifact Contaminated ECG Database (27 signals) are used for validation of the proposed SWT-LT method. Implemented results show that the proposed SWT-LT method removes various in-band motion artifacts efficiently with an average correlation coefficient of 0.9337 and an average normalized mean square error of 0.012 which are better than the other reported methods. The proposed method has shown improvement in features of HRV analysis by removing outliers due to motion artifact from the ECG signal which is verified using MATLAB app HRVTool 1.03 developed by Marcus Vollmer.

Metal artifacts in patients with large dental implants and bridges: combination of metal artifact reduction algorithms and virtual monoenergetic images provides an approach to handle even strongest artifacts.

Abstract: This study compares reduction of strong metal artifacts from large dental implants/bridges using spectral detector CT-derived virtual monoenergetic images (VMI), metal artifact reduction algorithms/reconstructions (MAR), and a combination of both methods (VMIMAR) to conventional CT images (CI). Forty-one spectral detector CT (SDCT) datasets of patients that obtained additional MAR reconstructions due to strongest artifacts from large oral implants were included. CI, VMI, MAR, and VMIMAR ranging from 70 to 200 keV (10 keV increment) were reconstructed. Objective image analyses were performed ROI-based by measurement of attenuation (HU) and standard deviation in most pronounced hypo-/hyperdense artifacts as well as artifact impaired soft tissue (mouth floor/soft palate). Extent of artifact reduction, diagnostic assessment of soft tissue, and appearance of new artifacts were rated visually by two radiologists. The hypo-/hyperattenuating artifacts showed an increase and decrease of HU values in MAR and VMIMAR (CI/MAR/VMIMAR-200keV: − 369.8 ± 239.6/− 37.3 ± 109.6/− 46.2 ± 71.0 HU, p < 0.001 and 274.8 ± 170.2/51.3 ± 150.8/36.6 ± 56.0, p < 0.001, respectively). Higher keV values in hyperdense artifacts allowed for additional artifact reduction; however, this trend was not significant. Artifacts in soft tissue were reduced significantly by MAR and VMIMAR. Visually, high-keV VMI, MAR, and VMIMAR reduced artifacts and improved diagnostic assessment of soft tissue. Overcorrection/new artifacts were reported that mostly did not hamper diagnostic assessment. Overall interrater agreement was excellent (ICC = 0.85). In the presence of strong artifacts due to large oral implants, MAR is a powerful mean for artifact reduction. For hyperdense artifacts, MAR should be supplemented by VMI ranging from 140 to 200 keV. This combination yields optimal artifact reduction and improves the diagnostic image assessment in imaging of the head and neck. • Large oral implants can cause strong artifacts. • MAR is a powerful tool for artifact reduction considering such strong artifacts. • Hyperdense artifact reduction is supplemented by VMI of 140–200 keV from SDCT.

A Wearable Pulse Oximeter With Wireless Communication and Motion Artifact Tailoring for Continuous Use

Abstract: Advances in several engineering fields have led to a trend toward miniaturization and portability of wearable biosensing devices, which used to be confined to large tools and clinical settings. Various systems to continuously measure electrophysiological activity through electrical and optical methods are one category of such devices. Being wearable and intended for prolonged use, the amount of noise introduced on sensors by movement remains a challenge and requires further optimization. User movement causes motion artifacts that alter the overall quality of the signals obtained, hence corrupting the resulting measurements. This paper introduces a fully wearable optical biosensing system to continuously measure pulse oximetry and heart rate, utilizing a reflectance-based probe. Furthermore, a novel data-dependent motion artifact tailoring algorithm is implemented to eliminate noisy data due to the motion artifact and measure oxygenation level with high accuracy in real time. By taking advantages of current wireless transmission and signal processing technologies, the developed wearable photoplethysmography device successfully captures the measured signals and sends them wirelessly to a mobile device for signal processing in real time. After applying motion artifact tailoring, evaluating accuracy with a continuous clinical device, the blood oxygenation measurements obtained from our system yielded an accuracy of at least 98%, when compared to a range of 93.6%–96.7% observed before from the same initial data. Additionally, heart rate accuracy above 97% was achieved. Motion artifact tailoring and removal in real time, continuous systems will allow wearable devices to be truly wearable and a reliable electrophysiological monitoring and diagnostics tool for everyday use.

Diffusion geometry approach to efficiently remove electrical stimulation artifacts in intracranial electroencephalography

Abstract: Objective Cortical oscillations, electrophysiological activity patterns, associated with cognitive functions and impaired in many psychiatric disorders can be observed in intracranial electroencephalography (iEEG). Direct cortical stimulation (DCS) may directly target these oscillations and may serve as therapeutic approaches to restore functional impairments. However, the presence of electrical stimulation artifacts in neurophysiological data limits the analysis of the effects of stimulation. Currently available methods suffer in performance in the presence of nonstationarity inherent in biological data. Approach Our algorithm, shape adaptive nonlocal artifact removal (SANAR) is based on unsupervised manifold learning. By estimating the Euclidean median of k-nearest neighbors of each artifact in a nonlocal fashion, we obtain a faithful representation of the artifact which is then subtracted. This approach overcomes the challenges presented by nonstationarity. Main results SANAR is effective in removing stimulation artifacts in the time domain while preserving the spectral content of the endogenous neurophysiological signal. We demonstrate the performance in a simulated dataset as well as in human iEEG data. Using two quantitative measures, that capture how much of information from endogenous activity is retained, we demonstrate that SANAR's performance exceeds that of one of the widely used approaches, independent component analysis, in the time domain as well as the frequency domain. Significance This approach allows for the analysis of iEEG data, single channel or multiple channels, during DCS, a crucial step in advancing our understanding of the effects of periodic stimulation and developing new therapies.

MRI Gibbs-ringing artifact reduction by means of machine learning using convolutional neural networks.

Abstract: Purpose To develop a machine learning approach using convolutional neural network for reducing MRI Gibbs-ringing artifact. Theory and methods Gibbs-ringing artifact in MR images is caused by insufficient sampling of the high frequency data. Existing methods exploit smooth constraints to reduce intensity oscillations near sharp edges at the cost of blurring details. In this work, we developed a machine learning approach for removing the Gibbs-ringing artifact from MR images. The ringing artifact was extracted from the original image using a deep convolutional neural network and then subtracted from the original image to obtain the artifact-free image. Finally, its low-frequency k-space data were replaced with measured counterparts to enforce data fidelity further. We trained the convolutional neural network using 17,532 T2-weighted (T2W) normal brain images and evaluated its performance on T2W images of normal and tumor brains, diffusion-weighted brain images, and T2W knee images. Results The proposed method effectively removed the ringing artifact without noticeable smoothing in T2W and diffusion-weighted images. Quantitatively, images produced by the proposed method were closer to the fully-sampled reference images in terms of the root-mean-square error, peak signal-to-noise ratio, and structural similarity index, compared with current state-of-the-art methods. Conclusion The proposed method presents a novel and effective approach for Gibbs-ringing reduction in MRI. The convolutional neural network-based approach is simple, computationally efficient, and highly applicable in routine clinical MRI.

Optimization of Real-Time EEG Artifact Removal and Emotion Estimation for Human-Robot Interaction Applications.

Abstract: Affective human-robot interaction requires lightweight software and cheap wearable devices that could further this field. However, the estimation of emotions in real-time poses a problem that has not yet been optimized. An optimization is proposed for the emotion estimation methodology including artifact removal, feature extraction, feature smoothing, and brain pattern classification. The challenge of filtering artifacts and extracting features, while reducing processing time and maintaining high accuracy results, is attempted in this work. First, two different approaches for real-time electro-oculographic artifact removal techniques are tested and compared in terms of loss of information and processing time. Second, an emotion estimation methodology is proposed based on a set of stable and meaningful features, a carefully chosen set of electrodes, and the smoothing of the feature space. The methodology has proved to perform on real-time constraints while maintaining high accuracy on emotion estimation on the SEED database, both under subject dependent and subject independent paradigms, to test the methodology on a discrete emotional model with three affective states.

A Multi-Channel Approach for Cortical Stimulation Artefact Suppression in Depth EEG Signals Using Time-Frequency and Spatial Filtering

Abstract: Objective : The stereo electroencephalogram (SEEG) recordings are the state-of-the art tool used in pre-surgical evaluation of drug-unresponsive epileptic patients. Coupled with SEEG, electrical cortical stimulation (CS) offers a complementary tool to investigate the lesioned/healthy brain regions and to identify the epileptic zones with precision. However, the propagation of this stimulation inside the brain masks the cerebral activity recorded by nearby multi-contact SEEG electrodes. The objective of this paper is to propose a novel filtering approach for suppressing the CS artifact in SEEG signals using time, frequency as well as spatial information. Methods : The method combines spatial filtering with tunable-Q wavelet transform (TQWT). SEEG signals are spatially filtered to isolate the CS artifacts within a few number of sources/components. The artifacted components are then decomposed into oscillatory background and sharp varying transient signals using TQWT. The CS artifact is assumed to lie in the transient part of the signal. Using prior known time-frequency information of the CS artifacts, we selectively mask the wavelet coefficients of the transient signal and extract out any remaining significant electro-physiological activity. Results : We have applied our proposed method of CS artifact suppression on simulated and real SEEG signals with convincing performance. The experimental results indicate the effectiveness of the proposed approach. Conclusion : The proposed method suppresses CS artifacts without affecting the background SEEG signal. Significance : The proposed method can be applied for suppressing both low and high frequency CS artifacts and outperforms current methods from the literature.

Automatic analysis of pre-ejection period during sleep using impedance cardiogram.

Abstract: The pre-ejection period (PEP) is a valid index of myocardial contractility and beta-adrenergic sympathetic control of the heart defined as the time between electrical systole (ECG Q wave) to the initial opening of the aortic valve, estimated as the B point on the impedance cardiogram (ICG). B-point detection accuracy can be severely impacted if ICG cardiac cycles corrupted by motion artifact, noise, or electrode displacement are included in the analyses. Here, we developed new algorithms to detect and exclude corrupted ICG cycles by analyzing their level of activity. PEP was then estimated and analyzed on ensemble-averaged clean ICG cycles using an automatic algorithm previously developed by the authors for the detection of B point in awake individuals. We investigated the algorithms' performance relative to expert visual scoring on long-duration data collected from 20 participants during overnight recordings, where the quality of ICG could be highly affected by movement artifacts and electrode displacements and the signal could also vary according to sleep stage and time of night. The artifact rejection algorithm achieved a high accuracy of 87% in detection of expert-identified corrupted ICG cycles, including those with normal amplitude as well as out-of-range values, and was robust to different types and levels of artifact. Intraclass correlations for concurrent validity of the B-point detection algorithm in different sleep stages and in-bed wakefulness exceeded 0.98, indicating excellent agreement with the expert. The algorithms show promise toward sleep applications requiring accurate and reliable automatic measurement of cardiac hemodynamic parameters.

Perceptual image quality assessment through spectral analysis of error representations

Abstract: In this paper, we analyze the statistics of error signals to assess the perceived quality of images Specifically, we focus on the magnitude spectrum of error images obtained from the difference of reference and distorted images Analyzing spectral statistics over grayscale images partially models interference in spatial harmonic distortion exhibited by the visual system but it overlooks color information, selective and hierarchical nature of visual system To overcome these shortcomings, we introduce an image quality assessment algorithm based on the S pectral U nderstanding of M ulti-scale and M ulti-channel E rror R epresentations, denoted as SUMMER We validate the quality assessment performance over 3 databases with around 30 distortion types These distortion types are grouped into 7 main categories as compression artifact, image noise, color artifact, communication error, blur, global and local distortions In total, we benchmark the performance of 17 algorithms along with the proposed algorithm using 5 performance metrics that measure linearity, monotonicity, accuracy, and consistency In addition to experiments with standard performance metrics, we analyze the distribution of objective and subjective scores with histogram difference metrics and scatter plots Moreover, we analyze the classification performance of quality assessment algorithms along with their statistical significance tests Based on our experiments, SUMMER significantly outperforms majority of the compared methods in all benchmark categories

Motion artifact removal and signal enhancement to achieve in vivo dynamic full field OCT

Abstract: We present a filtering procedure based on singular value decomposition to remove artifacts arising from sample motion during dynamic full field OCT acquisitions. The presented method succeeded in removing artifacts created by environmental noise from data acquired in a clinical setting, including in vivo data. Moreover, we report on a new method based on using the cumulative sum to compute dynamic images from raw signals, leading to a higher signal to noise ratio, and thus enabling dynamic imaging deeper in tissues.

Artifact Disentanglement Network for Unsupervised Metal Artifact Reduction

Abstract: Current deep neural network based approaches to computed tomography (CT) metal artifact reduction (MAR) are supervised methods which rely heavily on synthesized data for training. However, as synthesized data may not perfectly simulate the underlying physical mechanisms of CT imaging, the supervised methods often generalize poorly to clinical applications. To address this problem, we propose, to the best of our knowledge, the first unsupervised learning approach to MAR. Specifically, we introduce a novel artifact disentanglement network that enables different forms of generations and regularizations between the artifact-affected and artifact-free image domains to support unsupervised learning. Extensive experiments show that our method significantly outperforms the existing unsupervised models for image-to-image translation problems, and achieves comparable performance to existing supervised models on a synthesized dataset. When applied to clinical datasets, our method achieves considerable improvements over the supervised models. The source code of this paper is publicly available at this https URL.

The Riemannian Potato Field: A Tool for Online Signal Quality Index of EEG

Abstract: Electroencephalographic (EEG) recordings are contaminated by instrumental, environmental, and biological artifacts, resulting in low signal-to-noise ratio. Artifact detection is a critical task for real-time applications where the signal is used to give a continuous feedback to the user. In these applications, it is therefore necessary to estimate online a signal quality index (SQI) in order to stop the feedback when the signal quality is unacceptable. In this paper, we introduce the Riemannian potato field (RPF) algorithm as such SQI. It is a generalization and extensionof theRiemannian potato, a previouslypublished real-time artifact detection algorithm, whose performance is degraded as the number of channels increases. The RPF overcomes this limitation by combining the outputs of several smaller potatoes into a unique SQI resulting in a higher sensitivity and specificity, regardless of the number of electrodes. We demonstrate these results on a clinical dataset totalizing more than 2200 h of EEG recorded at home, that is, in a non-controlled environment.