• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.123-131
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• 2020

Purpose: Joint label fusion (JLF) is a popular multi-atlas-based segmentation algorithm, which compensates for dependent errors that may exist between atlases. However, in order to get good segmentation results, it is very important to set the several free parameters of the algorithm to optimal values. In this study, we first investigate the feasibility of a JLF algorithm for prostate segmentation in MR images, and then suggest the optimal set of parameters for the automatic prostate segmentation by validating the results of each parameter combination. Materials and Methods: We acquired T2-weighted prostate MR images from 20 normal heathy volunteers and did a series of cross validations for every set of parameters of JLF. In each case, the atlases were rigidly registered for the target image. Then, we calculated their voting weights for label fusion from each combination of JLF's parameters (r_pxy, r_pz, r_sxy, r_sz, β). We evaluated the segmentation performances by five validation metrics of the Prostate MR Image Segmentation challenge. Results: As the number of voxels participating in the voting weight calculation and the number of referenced atlases is increased, the overall segmentation performance is gradually improved. The JLF algorithm showed the best results for dice similarity coefficient, 0.8495 ± 0.0392; relative volume difference, 15.2353 ± 17.2350; absolute relative volume difference, 18.8710 ± 13.1546; 95% Hausdorff distance, 7.2366 ± 1.8502; and average boundary distance, 2.2107 ± 0.4972; in parameters of r_pxy = 10, r_pz = 1, r_sxy = 3, r_sz = 1, and β = 3. Conclusion: The evaluated results showed the feasibility of the JLF algorithm for automatic segmentation of prostate MRI. This empirical analysis of segmentation results by label fusion allows for the appropriate setting of parameters.

• Journal of Communications and Networks
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.471-480
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• 2012

Reliable detection of primary user activity increases the opportunity to access temporarily unused bands and prevents harmful interference to the primary system. By extracting a global decision from local sensing results, cooperative sensing achieves high reliability against multipath fading. For the effective combining of sensing results, which is generalized by a likelihood ratio test, the fusion center should learn some parameters, such as the probabilities of primary transmission, false alarm, and detection at the local sensors. During the training period in supervised learning, the on/off log of primary transmission serves as the output label of decision statistics from the local sensor. In this paper, we extend unsupervised learning techniques with an expectation maximization algorithm for cooperative spectrum sensing, which does not require an external primary transmission log. Local sensors report binary hard decisions to the fusion center and adjust their operating points to enhance learning performance. Increasing the number of sensors, the joint-expectation step makes a confident classification on the primary transmission as in the supervised learning. Thereby, the proposed scheme provides accurate parameter estimates and a fast convergence rate even in low signal-to-noise ratio regimes, where the primary signal is dominated by the noise at the local sensors.