Abstract: The disclosure provides compositions and methods for making a colorized solution of an aqueous disinfectant that is both stable in bulk solution and will fade to clear within a predetermined period of time after being applied to a surface, for example as a spray or film. The compositions and methods described here allow an end user to visualize both the extent of coverage and the duration of contact of the disinfectant with the surface, thereby providing more efficient disinfection of the surface.

Abstract: Provided are devices, compositions, and methods for surface disinfection and decontamination; the devices generally adapted to contain a single or multi-component indicator composition, and optionally a disinfectant composition, and to dispense the indicator composition and optional disinfectant composition to a disinfectant solution, a surface, or a disinfectant article upon actuation of the device; also provided is an article of manufacture in the form of a removable cartridge adapted to fit a device described here, which may be pre-filled with a single or multi-component indicator composition as described here, and/or with a disinfectant composition, and one or more optional additives.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for generating a three dimensional representation of an ear canal are disclosed whereby an ear canal of a patient is imaged using optical coherence tomography (OCT). In a first embodiment, cross-section images of an ear canal are taken by, for example, rotating an OCT imaging sensor about a predetermined axis at each of a plurality of positions. In accordance with another embodiment, a contour line is then identified in each of the cross section images and a flow algorithm is used to identify the boundary of the ear canal cross section. Once the boundaries of each cross section have been identified, all of the cross section images are combined to generate a three dimensional image of the ear canal.

Abstract: A method for removing speckle noise from ultrasound images includes providing a plurality of digitized ultrasound (US) images, each image comprising a plurality of intensities corresponding to a domain of points on a 2-dimensional grid, initializing an initial gain associated with each of said plurality of US images, estimating a signal sub-space by averaging over each US image divided by its associated gain, and estimating an updated gain by projecting its associated image into said signal sub-space. If an absolute difference of said updated gain and said initial gain is less than a pre-determined quantity, obtaining an averaged image from said signal sub-space, estimating an optimal Wiener filter from said plurality of US images and said averaged image, and filtering said averaged image with said Wiener filter, wherein said speckle noise is substantially minimized.

Abstract: A system and method for image reconstruction is disclosed. The method divides iterative image reconstruction into two stages, in the image and Radon space, respectively. In the first stage, filtered back projection and adaptive filtering in the image space are combined to generate a refined reconstructed image of a sinogram residue. This reconstructed image represents an update direction in the image space. In the second stage, the update direction is transformed to the Radon space, and a step size is determined to minimize a difference between the sinogram residue and a Radon transform of the refined reconstructed image of the sinogram residue in the Radon space. These stages are repeated iteratively until the solution converges.

Abstract: A method identifying apertures of ear impressions is disclosed. A plurality of contour lines associated with an ear impression are determined and a difference value between a value of a characteristic, such as the diameter, of each contour line and that characteristic of an adjacent contour line is determined. The aperture is identified as being that contour line having the greatest difference value. The contour lines are determined by identifying where a plane intersects the surface of the graphical representations. In another embodiment, the contour lines are assigned a weight. A contour index is then calculated for each contour line as a function of the difference value and these weights. According to this embodiment, the aperture is identified as being a contour line that is adjacent to that contour line having the greatest contour index.

Abstract: A method of automatically detecting features in an image includes: designing a gradient detection filter and a line detection filter; applying the gradient detection filter and line detection filter to detect structures in an image; and estimating feature dimensionality and orientation of the detected structures in the image. The computation cost of gradient detection and line detection when applied on an image is a constant number of operations independent of the size of the gradient and line detection filters.

Abstract: A method for processing image data includes inputting image data, determining a plurality of quadrature filter pairs based on filter parameter values to detect features of interest in the image data, applying the quadrature filter pairs to the image data to obtain a set of filter responses, and processing the filter responses to obtain the features of interest in the image data.

Abstract: A method for reducing noise in an image sequence includes: detecting structures in an image sequence; estimating lighting changes in the image sequence and compensating for the estimated lighting changes; detecting moving structures in the image sequence using the detected structures after compensating for the estimated lighting changes in the image sequence; and adaptively filtering imaging noise in the image sequence.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for generating a three dimensional representation of an ear canal are disclosed whereby an ear canal of a patient is imaged using optical coherence tomography (OCT). In a first embodiment, cross-section images of an ear canal are taken by, for example, rotating an OCT imaging sensor about a predetermined axis at each of a plurality of positions. In accordance with another embodiment, a contour line is then identified in each of the cross section images and a flow algorithm is used to identify the boundary of the ear canal cross section. Once the boundaries of each cross section have been identified, all of the cross section images are combined to generate a three dimensional image of the ear canal.

Abstract: A method for registering two three-dimensional shapes is disclosed whereby the two shapes are represented as zero level set of signed distance functions and the energy between these two functions is minimized. In a first embodiment two undetailed ear impression models are rigidly registered with each other. In another embodiment, a detailed ear impression is initially aligned with an undetailed ear impression model and, then, the detailed ear impression model is rigidly registered with the undetailed ear impression model as a function of said signed distance functions. In accordance with another embodiment, an undetailed ear impression model is non-rigidly registered with a template ear impression model as a function of said signed distance functions.

Abstract: A method of designing hearing aid molds is disclosed whereby skeletons, o r simplified models, of two ear impressions are used to register the graphical representations of the molds to facilitate the joint design of hearing aid shells. The center points of at least a portion of contour lines on the surface of each ear impression are identified. Then, for each ear impression, by connecting these center points to each adjacent center point, a skeleton that represents a simplified model of an ear impression is generated. Vectors describing the distance and direction from the points of each skeleton to an anatomical feature of each ear impression are identified to obtain a correspondence between the points of each skeleton. Three-dimensional translations and rotations of a feature vector of at least one of the skeletons are determined to achieve alignment of the skeleton of one ear impression with the skeleton of another impression.

Abstract: A method of designing hearing aid molds is disclosed whereby two shapes corresponding to graphical images of ear impressions are registered with each other to facilitate joint processing of the hearing aid design. In a first embodiment, a first graphical representation of a first ear impression is received and a feature, such as the aperture of the ear impression, is identified on that graphical model. A first vector is generated that represents the orientation and shape of that first feature. The three-dimensional translation and rotation of that first vector are determined that are necessary to align the first vector with a second vector representing the orientation and a shape of a feature, once again such as the aperture, of a second ear impression. In another embodiment, this alignment is then refined by minimizing the sum of the distances between points on the first and second graphical representations.

Abstract: A method for estimating feature values from a digitized image includes calculating a gradient of an image, defining a filter weighting function, convolving the gradient with the filter weighting function, integrating over a subdomain of the convolved gradient to calculate components of a cost matrix ?, wherein the cost matrix minimizes a distance metric in a frequency domain of the image, solving for the eigenvalues of the cost matrix, and calculating one or more features from the cost matrix eigenvalues. One or more predesigned bandpass filters can be applied to the image, and cost matrix eigenvalues are analyzed to select one or more appropriate bandpass filters to be applied to the image.

Abstract: A method for interactively optimizing a system comprises interactively adjusting controlling parameters in a parameter set, by deriving successive pluralities of parameter sets in a parameter space, each of whose respective member parameter sets are respectively ranked in order, utilizing a ranking input based on respective system performance associated with each parameter set and from each of which plurality of parameter sets an optimal parameter set is selected and used as a point of departure for deriving the next following plurality of parameter sets in the parameter space, in accordance with the preceding ranking, in conjunction with a step size and a step direction derived from the ranking, in accordance with multidimensional scaling (MDS).

Abstract: A method of designing filters for filtering digitized images includes constructing a set of difference-of-Gaussian (DoG) filters that partition a frequency space, forming a linear combination of said DoG filters to form a trial filter, convolving said trial filter with a training image to obtain a trial image, summing a square difference of said trial image and a target image, wherein if said sum is a minimum, outputting said trial filter as a final filter, and using a singular value decomposition on said final filter wherein an eigenvector corresponding to the largest eigenvalue of the final filter is obtained.

Abstract: A method for multiple image restoration includes receiving a plurality of images corrupted by noise, and initializing a reduced noise estimate of the plurality of images. The method further includes estimating a probability of distributions of noise around each pixel and the probability of the signal, estimating mutual information between noise on the plurality of images based on the probabilities of distributions of noise around each pixel and the joint distribution of noise, and updating each pixel within a search range to determine a restored image by reducing the mutual information between the noise on the plurality of images.

Abstract: A method and system for improving image quality by compounding a plurality of images to mitigate the effects of image noise. The method utilizes the independency between noise components for multiple image compounding. An effective measurement is designed to regularize the independency between noise in a traditional generative model based filtering framework, thereby enabling a more robust algorithmic solution to inaccurate signal/noise modeling. The method generally comprises selecting a plurality of images, calculating the residual error on each image; calculating the noise likelihood of each image, calculating the signal likelihood of the image, performing an independence analysis to regularize an independence constraint between the residual errors of the images, and summing the signal likelihood, noise likelihood and pairwise independency to approximate the joint independency between the residual errors.

Abstract: A gradient-based image enhancement and restoration method and system which applies an orientation-isotropy adaptive filter to the gradients of high structured regions, and directly suppresses the gradients in the noise or texture regions. A new gradient field is obtained from which image reconstruction can progress using least mean squares. The method generally comprises: inputting image data; calculating image gradients; defining the gradients as having large or small coherence; filtering the large coherence gradients for edge enhancement; suppressing the small coherence gradients for noise reduction; assembling an enhanced gradient field from the filtered large coherence and suppressed small coherence gradients; and optimizing the assembled gradient field into a restored image.

Abstract: A method for joint segmentation and registration of a contour for detecting an object in image data includes initializing a segmentation, initializing a registration of the segmentation, updating the segmentation and the registration, outputting an updated segmentation and an updated registration, wherein the updated segmentation and updated registration delineates the object in the image data.