Browsing by Subject "Image"
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Item Automated analysis of linear array images for the detection of human papillomavirus genotypes(2011-05) Wilhelm, Matthew S.; Nutter, Brian; Mitra, SunandaPersistent infections with carcinogenic Human Papillomavirus (HPV) are a necessary cause for cervical cancer, which is the fifth most deadly cancer for women worldwide. Approximately 20 million Americans are currently infected with HPV, but only a subset will develop cervical cancer. While a negative HPV test indicates a very low risk for cervical cancer, a positive test cannot discriminate between an innocuous transient infection and a prevalent cancer. Additional information such as HPV genotype and HPV viral load is thought to improve the ability to predict which women will develop cervical cancer. The visual interpretation of hybridization-strip-based HPV genotyping results, however, is heterogeneous and poorly standardized. The need for accurate and repeatable results has led to work toward the development of a robust automated image analysis package for HPV genotyping strips.Item Inventing Trajan : the construction of the emperor's image in Book 10 of Pliny the Younger's Letters(2010-05) Turner, Abigail Burkholder, 1983-; Ebbeler, Jennifer; Riggsby, AndrewThe Roman Emperor Trajan, who ruled the Roman Empire from 98 CE – 117 CE has always been remembered as one of the good Emperors. The few ancient sources that mention Trajan, namely Pliny the Younger and Cassius Dio, compose a glowing portrait of the Emperor when describing his deeds and abilities. Part of the explanation for such a positive portrayal can surely be accounted for by the comparison of Trajan to one of his predecessors Domitian (who ruled from 51 CE – 96 CE). Domitian came to be memorialized as one of the most hated Emperor of the Principate, especially because of his scornful and suspicious attitude towards the Senate and his pillaging of the Roman provinces for the purpose of his own profit. In a time when the empire was expanding and expert diplomatic and strategic capability was necessary for an Emperor to possess, Domitian’s shortcomings were particularly harmful to Rome and her subjects. Thus when Trajan took control, many Romans must have looked to him to continue the improvements initiated by Domitian’s brief successor Nerva and repair the damage done to the empire. Pliny the younger, an influential and wealthy senatorial aristocrat, was one such Roman who looked to the new Emperor with hope and ambition for better times. During Pliny’s tenure as governor of the province of Bithynia and Pontus from roughly 110-112/3 CE, he exchanged many letters with Trajan which were subsequently collected and published as the tenth book of Pliny’s Letters. These letters generally take the form of advice sought by Pliny about the governance of the province, followed by a concise reply from the Emperor directing Pliny’s actions (or, at times, suggesting that Pliny himself choose the best way to proceed). Previous scholarship has primarily addressed the letters as a “self-fashioning text” (cf. Carlos Noreña and Philip Stadter, among others), but generally ignores the very active role Pliny plays in carefully constructing a particular representation of Trajan. Using this correspondence as a platform on which to create an image of the Princeps, Pliny expertly invents a particular portrait of Trajan that portrays the Emperor as a master at senatorial relations and management of the provinces. By allowing Trajan to perform this role, as is evidenced in the letters of Book 10, Pliny creates our most complete and compelling portrayal of this Emperor which serves both Pliny and Trajan’s interests for posterity.Item The lived experience of choosing nursing as a profession(2014-12) Polinard, Elizabeth Lee; Volker, Deborah L.The aim of this phenomenological study was to examine the lived experience of choosing professional nursing as a career and to explore the impact that public perception of nursing had on this choice for purposes of informing effective recruitment and retention strategies. Semi-structured interviews of 10 nurses who had been practicing between 11 months and two years were conducted. Five themes emerged from the data: Up Close and Personal/Exposure and Connection, The Image of Nursing, The Conflict Inherent in Nursing, Recruitment and Retention and the Work Environment. From these themes a description of the lived experience of choosing a career in nursing was formed. For these participants, the choice of nursing as a career bespoke a passion that had been affected—but not yet eclipsed—by conflict, compromised fulfillment, and the internalization of nursing and gendered stereotypes directly influenced by the image of nursing. Recommendations involved proposals for the support and preservation of the passion for the profession newer nurses demonstrate as well as health policy initiatives for programs, including a new ad campaign for nursing, that would expose the public to the value of a career in nursing and educate them about the significance and complexities of nursing practice.Item Measuring liquefaction-induced deformation from optical satellite imagery(2014-05) Martin, Jonathan Grant; Rathje, Ellen M.Liquefaction-induced deformations associated with lateral spreading represent a significant hazard that can cause substantial damage during earthquakes. The ability to accurately predict lateral-spreading displacement is hampered by a lack of field data from previous earthquakes. Remote sensing via optical image correlation can fill this gap and provide data regarding liquefaction-induced lateral spreading displacements. In this thesis, deformations from three earthquakes (2010 Darfield, February 2011 Christchurch, and 2011 Tohoku Earthquakes) are measured using optical image correlation applied to 0.5-m resolution satellite imagery. The resulting deformations from optical image correlation are compared to the geologic conditions, as well as field observations and measurements of liquefaction. Measurements from optical image correlation are found to have a precision within 0.40 m in all three cases, and results agree well with field measurements.Item Natural scene statistics-based blind visual quality assessment in the spatial domain(2013-05) Mittal, Anish; Bovik, Alan C. (Alan Conrad), 1958-With the launch of networked handheld devices which can capture, store, compress, send and display a variety of audiovisual stimuli; high definition television (HDTV); streaming Internet protocol TV (IPTV) and websites such as Youtube, Facebook and Flickr etc., an enormous amount of visual data of visual data is making its way to consumers. Because of this, considerable time and resources are being expanded to ensure that the end user is presented with with a satisfactory quality of experience (QoE). While traditional QoE methods have focused on optimizing delivery networks with respect to throughput, buffer-lengths and capacity, perceptually optimized delivery of multimedia services is also fast gaining importance. This is especially timely given the explosive growth in (especially wireless) video traffic and expected shortfalls in bandwidth. These perceptual approaches attempt to deliver an optimized QoE to the end-user by utilizing objective measures of visual quality. In this thesis, we shall cover a variety of such algorithms that predict overall QoE of an image or a video, depending on the amount of information available for the algorithm design. Typically, quality assessment (QA) algorithms are classiffied on the basis of the amount of information that is available to the algorithm. This thesis will primarily focus on blind QA algorithms, where blind or no-reference (NR) QA refers to automatic quality assessment of an image/video using an algorithm which only utilizes the distorted image/video whose quality is being assessed. NR QA approaches are further classiffied on the basis of whether the algorithm had access to subjective/human opinion prior to deployment. Algorithms which use machine learning techniques along with human judgements of quality during the 'training' phase may be labelled 'opinion aware' algorithms. The first part of the thesis deals with such approaches. While such opinion aware-NR algorithms demonstrate good correlation with human perception on controlled databases, it is impossible to anticipate all of the different distortions that may occur in a practical system and hence train on them. In such cases, it is of interest to design QA algorithms that are not limited in their performance by training data. Approaches which operate without the knowledge of human judgements during the training phase are labelled as 'opinion unaware' (OU) algorithms. We propose such an approach in the second part of the thesis. Further, we propose new VQA algorithms in the last part of the dissertation to address the completely blind VQA problem. The proposed approach quantify disturbances introduced due to distortions and thereby predict the quality of distorted content even without any external knowledge about the pristine natural sources and hence zero shot models.Item Visual rhetoric : a critical practice in image communication(2013-05) Barela, James John; Lee, GloriaThis report provides an understanding of the complexities involved in communicating through imagery. I've asserted in my research that the dissemination of images has changed significantly because of recent digital technologies. Social networking, in particular, has allowed for an intertextual web of communication to be created by exponentially increasing the visibility of images. By bringing these recent developments into my work, my design practice has focused on advancing social and political equality by exploiting digital reproduction. As part of my toolbox in image communication, the report focuses intently on two general methods of production: image-text relationships and visual tropes. By using these methods, I have been able to establish a critical practice that highlights the most recent possibilities in advancing social and political equality in the age of digital reproduction.