Influences of Atmospheric Turbulence on Image Resolution of Airborne and Space-Borne Optical Remote Sensing System

A new way is proposed to evaluate the influence of atmospheric turbulence on image resolution of airborne and space-borne optical remote sensing system, which is called as arrival angle-method. Applying this method, some engineering examples are selected to analyze the turbulence influences on image resolution based on three different atmospheric turbulence models quantificationally, for the airborne remote sensing system, the resolution errors caused by the atmospheric turbulence are less than 1 cm, and for the space-borne remote sensing system, the errors are around 1 cm. The results are similar to that obtained by the previous Friedmethod. Compared with the Fried-method, the arrival angle-method is rather simple and can be easily used in engineering fields.

The co-effect of image resolution and crown size on deep learning for individual tree detection and delineation

Individual tree detection and delineation(ITDD)is an important subject in forestry and urban forestry.This study represents the first research to propose the concept of crown resolution to comprehensively evaluate the co-effect of image resolution and crown size on deep learning.Six images with different resolutions were derived from a DJI Unmanned Aerial Vehicle(UAV),and 1344 manually delineated Chinese fir(Cunninghamia lanceolata(Lamb)Hook)tree crowns were used for six training and validation mask region-based convolutional neural network(Mask R-CNN)models,while additional 476 delineated tree crowns were reserved for testing.The overall detection accuracy,the influence of different crown sizes,and crown resolutions were calculated to evaluate model performance accuracy with different image resolutions for ITDD.Results show that the highest accuracy was achieved when the crown resolution was between 800 and 12800 pixels/tree.The accuracy of ITDD was impacted by crown resolution,and it was unable to effectively identify Chinese fir when the crown resolution was less than 25 pixels/tree or higher than 12800 pixels/tree.The study highlights crown resolution as a critical factor affecting ITDD and suggests selecting the appropriate resolution based on the target detected crown size.

Correg-Yolov3:a Method for Dense Buildings Detection in High-resolution Remote Sensing Images

The exploration of building detection plays an important role in urban planning,smart city and military.Aiming at the problem of high overlapping ratio of detection frames for dense building detection in high resolution remote sensing images,we present an effective YOLOv3 framework,corner regression-based YOLOv3(Correg-YOLOv3),to localize dense building accurately.This improved YOLOv3 algorithm establishes a vertex regression mechanism and an additional loss item about building vertex offsets relative to the center point of bounding box.By extending output dimensions,the trained model is able to output the rectangular bounding boxes and the building vertices meanwhile.Finally,we evaluate the performance of the Correg-YOLOv3 on our self-produced data set and provide a comparative analysis qualitatively and quantitatively.The experimental results achieve high performance in precision(96.45%),recall rate(95.75%),F1 score(96.10%)and average precision(98.05%),which were 2.73%,5.4%,4.1%and 4.73%higher than that of YOLOv3.Therefore,our proposed algorithm effectively tackles the problem of dense building detection in high resolution images.

Photoacoustic microscopy image resolution enhancement via directional total variation regularization

Photoacoustic microscopy （PAM） is recognized as a powerful tool for various microcirculation system studies. To improve the spatial resolution for the PAM images, the requirements of the system will always be increased correspondingly. Without additional cost of the system, we address the problem of improving the resolution of PAM images by integrating a deconvolution model with a directional total variation regularization. Additionally, we present a primal-dual-based algorithm to solve the associated optimization problem efficiently. Results from both test images and some PAM images studies validate the effectiveness of the proposed method in enhancing the spatial resolution. We expect the proposed technique to be an alternative resolution enhancement tool for some important biomedical applications.

Image enhancement and post-processing for low resolution compressed video

This research paper recommends the point spread function(PSF)forecasting technique based on the projection onto convex set(POCS)and regularization to acquire low resolution images.As the environment for the production of user created contents(UCC)videos(one of the contents on the Internet)becomes widespread,resolution reduction and image distortion occurs,failing to satisfy users who desire high quality images.Accordingly,this research neutralizes the coding artifact through POCS and regularization processes by:1)factoring the local characteristics of the image when it comes to the noise that results during the discrete cosine transform(DCT)and quantization process;and 2)removing the blocking and ring phenomena which are problems with the existing video compression.Moreover,this research forecasts the point spread function to obtain low resolution images using the above-mentioned methods.Thus,a method is suggested for minimizing the errors found among the forecasting interpolation pixels.Low-resolution image quality obtained through the experiment demonstrates that significant enhancement was made on the visual level compared to the original image.

Integrating cross-sensor high spatial resolution satellite images to detect subtle forest vegetation change in the Purple Mountains,a national scenic spot in Nanjing,China

Accurate information on the location and magnitude of vegetation change in scenic areas can guide the configuration of tourism facilities and the formulation of vegetation protection measures.High spatial resolution remote sensing images can be used to detect subtle vegetation changes.The major objective of this study was to map and quantify forest vegetation changes in a national scenic location,the Purple Mountains of Nanjing,China,using multi-temporal cross-sensor high spatial resolution satellite images to identify the main drivers of the vegetation changes and provide a reference for sustainable management.We used Quickbird images acquired in 2004,IKONOS images acquired in 2009,and WorldView2 images acquired in 2015.Four pixel-based direct change detection methods including the normalized difference vegetation index difference method,multi-index integrated change analysis(MIICA),principal component analysis,and spectral gradient difference analysis were compared in terms of their change detection performances.Subsequently,the best pixel-based detection method in conjunction with object-oriented image analysis was used to extract subtle forest vegetation changes.An accuracy assessment using the stratified random sampling points was conducted to evaluate the performance of the change detection results.The results showed that the MIICA method was the best pixel-based change detection method.And the object-oriented MIICA with an overall accuracy of 0.907 and a kappa coefficient of 0.846 was superior to the pixel-based MIICA.From 2004 to 2009,areas of vegetation gain mainly occurred around the periphery of the study area,while areas of vegetation loss were observed in the interior and along the boundary of the study area due to construction activities,which contributed to 79%of the total area of vegetation loss.During 2009–2015,the greening initiatives around the construction areas increased the forest vegetation coverage,accounting for 84%of the total area of vegetation gain.In spite of this,vegetation loss occurred in the interior of the Purple Mountains due to infrastructure development that caused conversion from vegetation to impervious areas.We recommend that:(1)a local multi-agency team inspect and assess law enforcement regarding natural resource utilization;and(2)strengthen environmental awareness education.

Monitoring of Karst Rocky Desertification Control Projects Based on Remote Sensing Images with Medium and High Spatial Resolution——A Case Study of Disi River Basin in Puan County

[ Objective] The study aimed to improve methods of monitoring Karst Rocky Desertification （KRD） control projects and increase the working efficiency. [Method] Based on remote sensing images with medium and high spatial resolution, KRD control projects in Disi River basin in Puan County were monitored, that is, information of the project construction in the study area was extracted using supervised classification and hu- man-computer interactive interpretation, and the monitoring results were testified with the aid of GPS. [Result] It was feasible to monitor KRD con- trol projects in Disi River basin based on remote sensing images with medium and high resolution, and the monitoring accuracy was satisfactory, reaching above 80% or 90%, so the method is worthy of popularizing. [ Conclusion] Remote sensing images with medium and high resolution can be used to monitor other KRD control Droiects.

Retrieval of High Resolution Satellite Images Using Texture Features

In this research, a content-based image retrieval （CBIR） system for high resolution satellite images has been developed by using texture features. The proposed approach uses the local binary pattern （LBP） texture feature and a block based scheme. The query and database images are divided into equally sized blocks, from which LBP histograms are extracted. The block histograms are then compared by using the Chi-square distance. Experimental results show that the LBP representation provides a powerful tool for high resolution satellite images （HRSI） retrieval.

A Novel AlphaSRGAN for Underwater Image Super Resolution

Obtaining clear images of underwater scenes with descriptive details is an arduous task.Conventional imaging techniques fail to provide clear cut features and attributes that ultimately result in object recognition errors.Consequently,a need for a system that produces clear images for underwater image study has been necessitated.To overcome problems in resolution and to make better use of the Super-Resolution(SR)method,this paper introduces a novel method that has been derived from the Alpha Generative Adversarial Network(AlphaGAN)model,named Alpha Super Resolution Generative Adversarial Network(AlphaSRGAN).The model put forth in this paper helps in enhancing the quality of underwater imagery and yields images with greater resolution and more concise details.Images undergo pre-processing before they are fed into a generator network that optimizes and reforms the structure of the network while enhancing the stability of the network that acts as the generator.After the images are processed by the generator network,they are passed through an adversarial method for training models.The dataset used in this paper to learn Single Image Super Resolution(SISR)is the USR 248 dataset.Training supervision is performed by an unprejudiced function that simultaneously scrutinizes and improves the image quality.Appraisal of images is done with reference to factors like local style information,global content and color.The dataset USR 248 which has a huge collection of images has been used for the study is composed of three collections of images—high(640×480)and low(80×60,160×120,and 320×240).Paired instances of different sizes—2×,4×and 8×—are also present in the dataset.Parameters like Mean Opinion Score(MOS),Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio(PSNR),Structural Similarity(SSIM)and Underwater Image Quality Measure(UIQM)scores have been compared to validate the improved efficiency of our model when compared to existing works.

A Two-Stage Algorithm of High Resolution Image Alignment for Mobile Applications

Global motion estimation (GME) algorithms are widely applied to computer vision and video processing. In the previous works, the image resolutions are usually low for the real-time requirement (e.g. video stabilization). However, in some mobile devices applications (e.g. image sequence panoramic stitching), the high resolution is necessary to obtain satisfactory quality of panoramic image. However, the computational cost will become too expensive to be suitable for the low power consumption requirement of mobile device. The full search algorithm can obtain the global minimum with extremely computational cost, while the typical fast algorithms may suffer from the local minimum problem. This paper proposed a fast algorithm to deal with 2560 × 1920 high-resolution (HR) image sequences. The proposed method estimates the motion vector by a two-level coarse-to-fine scheme which only exploits sparse reference blocks (25 blocks in this paper) in each level to determine the global motion vector, thus the computational costs are significantly decreased. In order to increase the effective search range and robustness, the predictive motion vector (PMV) technique is used in this work. By the comparisons of computational complexity, the proposed algorithm costs less addition operations than the typical Three-Step Search algorithm (TSS) for estimating the global motion of the HR images without the local minimum problem. The quantitative evaluations show that our method is comparable to the full search algorithm (FSA) which is considered to be the golden baseline.

Fast and Accurate Thoracic SPECT Image Reconstruction

In Single-Photon Emission Computed Tomography(SPECT),the reconstructed image has insufficient contrast,poor resolution and inaccurate volume of the tumor size due to physical degradation factors.Generally,nonstationary filtering of the projection or the slice is one of the strategies for correcting the resolution and therefore improving the quality of the reconstructed SPECT images.This paper presents a new 3D algorithm that enhances the quality of reconstructed thoracic SPECT images and reduces the noise level with the best degree of accuracy.The suggested algorithm is composed of three steps.The first one consists of denoising the acquired projections using the benefits of the complementary properties of both the Curvelet transformand theWavelet transforms to provide the best noise reduction.The second step is a simultaneous reconstruction of the axial slices using the 3D Ordered Subset Expectation Maximization(OSEM)algorithm.The last step is post-processing of the reconstructed axial slices using one of the newest anisotropic diffusion models named Partial Differential Equation(PDE).The method is tested on two digital phantoms and clinical bone SPECT images.A comparative study with four algorithms reviewed on state of the art proves the significance of the proposed method.In simulated data,experimental results show that the plot profile of the proposed model keeps close to the original one compared to the other algorithms.Furthermore,it presents a notable gain in terms of contrast to noise ratio(CNR)and execution time.The proposed model shows better results in the computation of contrast metric with a value of 0.68±7.2 and the highest signal to noise ratio(SNR)with a value of 78.56±6.4 in real data.The experimental results prove that the proposed algorithm is more accurate and robust in reconstructing SPECT images than the other algorithms.It could be considered a valuable candidate to correct the resolution of bone in the SPECT images.

HIGH RESOLUTION STUDY OF TWINS IN Al_(20)Cu_2Mn_3 PHASE

The dispersoid phase Al_(20)Cu_2Mn_3 in a 2024 Al alloy is commonly composed of twins,An ob- servation of corresponding high resolution image shows that the twin boundary plane is a glide plane other than mirror one.Two neighbouring components of twins are not symmetry of re- flection or rotation,but of glide reflection.The“diamond”glide plane is(101)and the glide vector is(1/4)(-).Components of twins in the phase take shape of prism with the longitudinal edge being parallel to[010]and side faces being{101}and{100}.

Three-dimensional time-of-flight magnetic resonance angiography combined with high resolution T2-weighted imaging in preoperative evaluation of microvascular decompression

BACKGROUND Neurovascular compression(NVC) is the main cause of primary trigeminal neuralgia(TN) and hemifacial spasm(HFS). Microvascular decompression(MVD) is an effective surgical method for the treatment of TN and HFS caused by NVC. The judgement of NVC is a critical step in the preoperative evaluation of MVD, which is related to the effect of MVD treatment. Magnetic resonance imaging(MRI) technology has been used to detect NVC prior to MVD for several years. Among many MRI sequences, three-dimensional time-of-flight magnetic resonance angiography(3D TOF MRA) is the most widely used. However, 3D TOF MRA has some shortcomings in detecting NVC. Therefore, 3D TOF MRA combined with high resolution T2-weighted imaging(HR T2WI) is considered to be a more effective method to detect NVC.AIM To determine the value of 3D TOF MRA combined with HR T2WI in the judgment of NVC, and thus to assess its value in the preoperative evaluation of MVD.METHODS Related studies published from inception to September 2022 based on PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, and the Cochrane Library were retrieved. Studies that investigated 3D TOF MRA combined with HR T2WI to judge NVC in patients with TN or HFS were included according to the inclusion criteria. Studies without complete data or not relevant to the research topics were excluded. The Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies checklist was used to assess the quality of included studies. The publication bias of the included literature was examined by Deeks’ test. An exact binomial rendition of the bivariate mixed-effects regression model was used to synthesize data. Data analysis was performed using the MIDAS module of statistical software Stata 16.0. Two independent investigators extracted patient and study characteristics, and discrepancies were resolved by consensus. Individual and pooled sensitivities and specificities were calculated. The I_(2) statistic and Q test were used to test heterogeneity. The study was registered on the website of PROSERO(registration No. CRD42022357158).RESULTS Our search identified 595 articles, of which 12(including 855 patients) fulfilled the inclusion criteria. Bivariate analysis showed that the pooled sensitivity and specificity of 3D TOF MRA combined with HR T2WI for detecting NVC were 0.96 [95% confidence interval(CI): 0.92-0.98] and 0.92(95%CI: 0.74-0.98), respectively. The pooled positive likelihood ratio was 12.4(95%CI: 3.2-47.8), pooled negative likelihood ratio was 0.04(95%CI: 0.02-0.09), and pooled diagnostic odds ratio was 283(95%CI: 50-1620). The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve was 0.98(95%CI: 0.97-0.99). The studies showed no substantial heterogeneity(I2 = 0, Q = 0.001 P = 0.50).CONCLUSION Our results suggest that 3D TOF MRA combined with HR T2WI has excellent sensitivity and specificity for judging NVC in patients with TN or HFS. This method can be used as an effective tool for preoperative evaluation of MVD.

Decoding brain responses to pixelized images in the primary visual cortex: implications for visual cortical prostheses

Visual cortical prostheses have the potential to restore partial vision. Still limited by the low-resolution visual percepts provided by visual cortical prostheses, implant wearers can currently only ＂see＂ pixelized images, and how to obtain the specific brain responses to different pixelized images in the primary visual cortex（the implant area） is still unknown. We conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment on normal human participants to investigate the brain activation patterns in response to 18 different pixelized images. There were 100 voxels in the brain activation pattern that were selected from the primary visual cortex, and voxel size was 4 mm × 4 mm × 4 mm. Multi-voxel pattern analysis was used to test if these 18 different brain activation patterns were specific. We chose a Linear Support Vector Machine（LSVM） as the classifier in this study. The results showed that the classification accuracies of different brain activation patterns were significantly above chance level, which suggests that the classifier can successfully distinguish the brain activation patterns. Our results suggest that the specific brain activation patterns to different pixelized images can be obtained in the primary visual cortex using a 4 mm × 4 mm × 4 mm voxel size and a 100-voxel pattern.

Reconstruction and transmission of astronomical image based on compressed sensing

In the process of image transmission, the famous JPEG and JPEG-2000 compression methods need more transmission time as it is difficult for them to compress the image with a low compression rate. Recently the compressed sensing（CS） theory was proposed, which has earned great concern as it can compress an image with a low compression rate, meanwhile the original image can be perfectly reconstructed from only a few compressed data. The CS theory is used to transmit the high resolution astronomical image and build the simulation environment where there is communication between the satellite and the Earth. Number experimental results show that the CS theory can effectively reduce the image transmission and reconstruction time. Even with a very low compression rate, it still can recover a higher quality astronomical image than JPEG and JPEG-2000 compression methods.

Multiframe Blind Super Resolution Imaging Based on Blind Deconvolution

As an ill-posed problem, multiframe blind super resolution imaging recovers a high resolution image from a group of low resolution images with some degradations when the information of blur kernel is limited. Note that the quality of the recovered image is influenced more by the accuracy of blur estimation than an advanced regularization. We study the traditional model of the multiframe super resolution and modify it for blind deblurring. Based on the analysis, we proposed two algorithms. The first one is based on the total variation blind deconvolution algorithm and formulated as a functional for optimization with the regularization of blur. Based on the alternating minimization and the gradient descent algorithm, the high resolution image and the unknown blur kernel are estimated iteratively. By using the median shift and add operator, the second algorithm is more robust to the outlier influence. The MSAA initialization simplifies the interpolation process to reconstruct the blurred high resolution image for blind deblurring and improves the accuracy of blind super resolution imaging. The experimental results demonstrate the superiority and accuracy of our novel algorithms.

Effect of hydration film on scanning images of atomic force microscope

A standard calibration grating was used for image scanning to investigate the effect of hydration films on imaging resolution by Atomic Force Microscope （AFM）. The results showed that the hydration films greatly affect the imaging resolution for the tapping mode, but no evident effect on the contact mode, The possible reasons for the effect of hydration films on scanning images of AFM are also brought forward here.

Distribution patterns of fire regime in the Pendjari Biosphere Reserve, West Africa

Pendjari Biosphere Reserve(PBR),a primary component of the W-Arly-Pendjari transboundary biosphere reserve,represents the largest intact wild ecosystem and pristine biodiversity spot in West Africa.This savannah ecosystem has long been affected by fire,which is the main ecological driver for the annual rhythm of life in the reserve.Understanding the fire distribution patterns will help to improve its management plan in the region.This study explores the fire regime in the PRB during 2001–2021 in terms of burned area,seasonality,fire frequency,and mean fire return interval(MFRI)by analysing moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer(MODIS)burned area product.Results indicated that the fire season in the PBR extends from October to May with a peak in early dry season(November–December).The last two fire seasons(2019–2020 and 2020–2021)recorded the highest areas burned in the PBR out of the twenty fire seasons studied.During the twenty years period,8.2%of the reserve burned every 10–11 months and 11.5%burned annually.The largest part of the reserve burned every one to two years(63.1%),while 8.3%burned every two to four years,5.8%burned every four to ten years,and 1.9%burned every ten to twenty years.Only 1.3%of the entire area did not fire during the whole study period.Fire returned to a particular site every 1.39 a and the annual percentage of area burned in the PBR was 71.9%.The MFRI(MFRI<2.00 a)was low in grasslands,shrub savannah,tree savannah,woodland savannah,and rock vegetation.Fire regime must be maintained to preserve the integrity of the PBR.In this context,we suggest applying early fire in tree and woodland savannahs to lower grass height,and late dry season fires every two to three years in shrub savannah to limit the expansion of shrubs and bushes.We propose a laissez-faire system in areas in woodland savannah where the fire frequency is sufficient to allow tree growth.Our findings highlight the utility of remote sensing in defining the geographical and temporal patterns of fire in the PBR and could help to manage this important fire prone area.

A Visual Secret Sharing Scheme for Progressively Restoring Secrets

Visual secret sharing has received more and more attention over the past years due to the fact that neither complex computation nor cryptographic knowledge is required to decrypt the secret image directly according to the characteristics of the human vision system. Considering the issue of sharing the secret image at multiple image resolutions with the meaningful shadows, in this paper, we present a friendly progressive visual secret sharing scheme without expanding the image size in the shadows and the reconstructed secret image based on applying a 2x2-sized block-wise operation to generate the shadows block by block. The proposed method can achieve these benefits： 1） the generated shadows are meaningful, and their sizes are not expanded, and 2） the secret image can be recovered at different resolutions by stacking different quantities of shadows together. The experimental results also show that the proposed method is superior to other compared schemes.

Wall Imaging for Unilateral Intracranial Vertebral Artery Hypoplasia with Three-dimensional High-isotropic Resolution Magnetic Resonance Images

Background：There are few studies for evaluating wall characteristics of intracranial vertebral artery hypoplasia （VAH）.The aim of this study was to determine wall characteristics of VAH with three-dimensional volumetric isotropic turbo spin echo acquisition （3D VISTA） images and differentiate between acquired atherosclerotic stenosis and VAH.Methods：Thirty patients with suspicious VAH by luminograms were retrospectively enrolled between January 2014 and February 2015.The patients were classified as ＂acquired atherosclerotic stenosis＂ or ＂VAH＂ based on 3D VISTA images.The wall characteristics of VAH were assessed to determine the presence of atherosclerotic lesions,and the patients were classified into two subgroups （VAH with atherosclerosis and VAH with normal wall）.Wall characteristics of basilar arteries and vertebral arteries were also assessed.The clinical and wall characteristics were compared between the two groups.Results：Five of 30 patients with suspicious VAH were finally diagnosed as acquired atherosclerotic stenosis by 3D VISTA images.25 patients were finally diagnosed as VAH including 16 （64.00%） patients with atherosclerosis and 9 （36.00%） patients with normal wall.In the 16 patients with atherosclerosis,plaque was found in 9 patients,slight wall thickening in 6 patients,and thrombus and wall thickening in 1 patient.Compared with VAH patients with normal wall,VAH patients with atherosclerosis showed atherosclerotic basilar arteries and dominant vertebral arteries more frequently （P =0.000）.Conclusions：Three-dimensional VISTA images enable differentiation between the acquired atherosclerotic stenosis and VAH.VAH was also prone to atherosclerotic processes.