In search ofsharp fat contours

摘要

A heart attack is usually caused by a build-up of fatty deposits in the coronary arteries. In many cases the patient will have noticed early warnings signs such as rapid exhaustion and shortness of breath. A cardiologist can now use an ultrasonic sensor to detect fatty deposits in the coronary arteries. With the heart pumping away as usual during the examination, the artery containing the sensor is constantly being stretched and compressed in concertina fashion. This results in a collection of shuffled images, which makes measuring the thickness of the deposits a tricky and inaccurate business. At the faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics, and Informatics, Prof. Henk Koppelaar and his post-doc guest Dr. Xiaoqiang Liu have developed a mathematical model that rearranges the recorded images in the correct sequence to reconstruct the picture of the artery.