Noise reduction in three-dimensional digital images

Two dimensional and three dimensional noise reduction techniques are used on real 3D images and compared. The comparison is based on the busyness of the resulting images and on their fidelity to the original images. The following methods, each with 2D and 3D versions, are reviewed: mean filtering, median filtering, nearest neighbor smoothing, selective averaging and maximum likelihood smoothing. The results suggest that the 3D techniques are more effective at removing noise and retaining image information content than the 2D techniques. The methods that produced the highest quality images were the nearest neighbor and maximum likelihood smoothing techniques. The mean and median filtering methods removed the most noise, but blurred the images. The selective averaging method provided intermediate results.     

Insulin-like growth factor-binding proteins (IGFBPs) and their regulatory dynamics

The IGFBPs are a family of homologous proteins that have co-evolved with the IGFs and that confer upon the IGF regulatory system both functional and tissue specificity. IGFBPs are not merely carrier proteins for IGFs, but hold a central position in IGF ligand-receptor interactions through influences on both the bioavailability and distribution of IGFs in the extracellular environment. In addition, IGFBPs appear to have intrinsic biological activity independent of IGFs. The current status of research on IGFBPs is reviewed herein. Following a brief introduction to the entire IGF/IGFBP system, separate sections for each of the six cloned mammalian IGFBPs, the most extensive for IGFBP3, cover selected topics that emphasize the dynamics of IGFBPs--that is, their regulation in cells, their functionally important post-translational modifications, and their interactions in the cellular microenvironment--and how these dynamics influence physiological function.     

The prism machine: An alternative to the pyramid

The prism machine is a stack of n cellular arrays, each of size 2ⁿ × 2ⁿ. Cell (i, j) on level k is connected to cells (i, j), (i + 2^k, j), and (i, j + 2^k) on level k + 1, 1 ≤ k < n, where the sums are modulo 2ⁿ. Such a machine can perform various operations (e.g., “Gaussian” convolutions or least-squares polynomial fits) on image neighborhoods of power-of-2 sizes in every position in O(n) time, unlike a pyramid machine which can do this only in sampled positions. It can also compute the discrete Fourier transform in O(n) time. It consists of n · 4ⁿ cells, while a pyramid consists of fewer than 4ⁿ⁺¹/3 cells; but in practice n would be at most 10, so that a prism would be at most about seven times as large as a pyramid.     

Measuring patterns of fantasy behavior in children.

Developed the Children's Fantasy Inventory using 748 1st and 3rd graders. Within the limits of a 45-item instrument relevant to the children's attention span, a wide range of fantasy activity was tapped. The 9 empirically derived, nonorthogonal scales had good internal consistency, as measured by coefficient alpha, and good test–retest reliabilities. The scales on the Children's Fantasy Inventory were related to other previously used measures of fantasy in children and to previously derived adult scales. Differences in styles of fantasy were found between boys and girls and between 1st and 3rd graders, but there were no significant differences in overall frequency of fantasy. Retesting after a year's lag indicated that fantasy behaviors had significant stability over time. (41 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Gray-level corner detection

Besides reducing thick responses to thin, the application of non-maximum suppression to digital gradient magnitudes also improves the form of the edge response histogram, making the choice of thresholds easier.     

Parallel computers for region-level image processing

It is well known that parallel computers can be used very effectively for image processing at the pixel level, by assigning a processor to each pixel or block of pixels, and passing information as necessary between processors whose blocks are adjacent. This paper discusses the use of parallel computers for processing images at the region level, assigning a processor to each region and passing information between processors whose regions are related. The basic difference between the pixel and region levels is that the regions (e.g. obtained by segmenting the given image) and relationships differ from image to image, and even for a given image, they do not remain fixed during processing. Thus, one cannot use the standard type of cellular parallelism, in which the set of processors and interprocessor connections remain fixed, for processing at the region level. Reconfigurable cellular computers, in which the set of processors that each processor can communicate with can change during a computation, are more appropriate. A class of such computers is described, and general examples are given illustrating how such a computer could initially configure itself to represent a given decomposition of an image into regions, and dynamically reconfigure itself, in parallel, as regions merge or split.     

“Probability transforms” of digital pictures

Let g be any local property (e.g., gray level or gradient magnitude) defined on a digital picture. Let p_g(z) be the relative frequency with which g has value z. At each point (x,y) of the picture we can display p_g[g(x,y)], appropriately scaled; the result is called the p_g transform of the picture. Alternatively, we can use joint or conditional frequencies of pairs of local properties to define transforms. This note gives examples of such transforms for various gs and discusses their possible uses and limitations.