Abstract-Brain-computer interface (BCI) is a system to translate humans thoughts into commands. For Electroencephalography (EEG) based BCI, motor imagery is considered as one of the most effective ways. Different imagery activities can be classified based on the changes in µ and/or β rhythms and their spatial distributions. However, the change in these rhythmic patterns varies from one subject to another. This causes an unavoidable time-consuming fine-tuning process in building a BCI for every subject. To address this issue, we propose a new method called Sub-band Common Spatial Pattern (SBCSP) to solve the problem. First, we decompose the EEG signals into sub-bands using a filter bank. Subsequently, we apply a discriminative analysis to extract SBCSP features. The SBCSP features are then fed into Linear Discriminant Analyzers (LDA) to obtain scores which reflect the classification capability of each frequency band. Finally, the scores are fused to make decision. We evaluate two fusion methods: Recursive Band Elimination (RBE) and Meta-Classifier (MC). We assess our approaches on a standard database from BCI Competition III. We also compare our method with two other approaches that address the same issue. The results show that our method outperforms the other two approaches and achieves similar result as compared to the best one in the literature which was obtained by a time-consuming fine-tuning process.

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Pulsed fluoroscopy (hereafter called pulsed) at reduced acquisition rates, typically 15 acq/s (pulsed‐15), is proposed to reduce x‐ray dose in interventional procedures. However, since the human visual system (HVS) acts as a temporal low‐pass filter that interacts with such acquisitions, the proper dose for pulsed must be obtained in perception experiments. We determine the dose for low‐frame‐rate pulsed that gives visualization equivalent to that of conventional 30 acq/s fluoroscopy, hereafter called continuous. Computer‐generated phantoms are used. They consist of stationary, low‐contrast disks on a flat background containing Poisson noise that mimics quantum noise in fluoroscopy. Image sequences are displayed on the video tachistoscope, a device with considerable display flexibility. Three experimental paradigms are used. (1) In a paired‐comparison study, pulsed and continuous are displayed side‐by‐side on the same monitor, and the visibility of a contrast detail phantom is compared. (2) Using this same display, subjects record the minimally detectable disk contrast (the min‐contrast measurement). (3) In a four‐alternative forced‐choice experiment, a disk is placed in one of four positions, and the subject determines the position of the disk. The methods are complementary—the forced‐choice experiment properly eliminates the subjectivity of the observer threshold while the paired‐comparison study is much more time efficient. With regard to pulsed and continuous comparisons, remarkable similarity is found between the supra‐threshold experiments (1 and 2) and the detectability experiment (3); i.e., the average absolute differences in the equivalent‐perception dose as determined by the three measures is approximately 3%. No difference is found between interlaced and noninterlaced display. A relatively small dependence of dose savings on disk size is found with larger disks giving increased dose savings. Average dose savings of 22%, 38%, and 49% are found for pulsed‐15, pulsed‐10, and pulsed‐7.5, respectively.

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This paper presents a method to discriminate pixel differences according to their impact toward perceived visual quality. Noticeable local contrast changes are formulated firstly since contrast is the basic sensory feature in the human visual system (HVS) perception. The analysis aims at quantifying the actual impact of such changes (further divided into increases and decreases on edges) in different signal contexts. An associated full-reference distortion metric proposed next provides better match with the HVS viewing. Experiments have used two independent visual data sets and the related subjective viewing results, and demonstrated the performance improvement of the proposed metric over the relevant existing ones with various video/images and under diversified test conditions. The proposed metric is particularly effective to visual signal with blurring and luminance fluctuations as the major artifacts, and brings about the fundamental improvement when sharpened image edges are involved.Index Terms-Edge contrast increase, human visual system (HVS), just noticeable difference (JND), perceptual visual quality, subjective quality ratings.

Abstract. We develop a fiber optical coherence tomography ͑OCT͒ system in the clinical utility of imaging port wine stains ͑PWS͒. We use our OCT system on 41 patients with PWS to document the difference between PWS skin and contralateral normal skin. The system, which operates at 4 frames/ s with axial and transverse resolutions of 10 and 9 m, respectively, in the skin tissue, can clearly distinguish the dilated dermal blood vessels from normal tissue. We present OCT images of patients with PWS and normal human skin. We obtain the structural parameters, including epidermal thickness and diameter and depth of dilated blood vessels. We demonstrate that OCT may be a useful tool for the noninvasive imaging of PWS. It may help determine the photosensitizer dose and laser parameters in photodynamic therapy for treating port wine stains.

Wedeveloped an adaptive forced-choice method whereby reference and test presentations were alternated in order to minimize effects from variables such as subject attention level. In our demonstration example of an X-rayfluoroscopy perception study, we measured detectability of low-contrast objects in noisy image sequences and determined X-raydose levels for equivalent detectability of identical contrasts for a new test acquisition method (fluoroscopy at 15 acq/sec) as compared with a reference (conventional fluoroscopy at 30acq/sec). In preliminary experiments, we found a dose savings with the test method. We derived parameter uncertainties for the adaptive procedure and demonstrated their applicability with Monte Carlo simulations. Repeated experiments on a single subject demonstrated reduced standard errors due to the reduction of day-to-day variations. It is believed that the method can be applied in a variety of situations in which one needs to compare perception measurements.We have developed a new experimental method that addresses issues in human perception studies. First, a subject's response can vary due to fatigue, a lapse in attention, or possible physiological changes. Kahneman (1973) discussed the importance of attention in perception experiments, indicating that attention may affect the sensory mechanism as well as the decision mechanism. Taylor (1967) observed variation in performance from one day to the next, and others (Hall, 1981;Madigan & Williams, 1987) reported variations within single experiments. This variation complicates comparison of results. For example, in our experiments in medical X-ray fluoroscopy, we compared new test acquisition methods with an established reference technique. Some of the effects that we wished to measure are comparable to day-to-day variations, and our solution was to alternate reference and test presentations over a time scale of seconds and obtain responses under identical conditions. Second, variability between subjects also presents a dilemma. For an independent variable such as image contrast, many trial-and-error presentations are required to arrive at display conditions that match the floor and ceiling responses of all subjects. This problem is well known, and adaptive techniques can solve the problem (

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