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Albiol, A., Corbi, A., & Albiol, F. (2017). Automatic intensity windowing of mammographic images based on a perceptual metric. Med. Phys., 44(4), 1369–1378.
Abstract: Purpose: Initial auto-adjustment of the window level WL and width WW applied to mammographic images. The proposed intensity windowing (IW) method is based on the maximization of the mutual information (MI) between a perceptual decomposition of the original 12-bit sources and their screen displayed 8-bit version. Besides zoom, color inversion and panning operations, IW is the most commonly performed task in daily screening and has a direct impact on diagnosis and the time involved in the process. Methods: The authors present a human visual system and perception-based algorithm named GRAIL (Gabor-relying adjustment of image levels). GRAIL initially measures a mammogram's quality based on the MI between the original instance and its Gabor-filtered derivations. From this point on, the algorithm performs an automatic intensity windowing process that outputs the WL/WW that best displays each mammogram for screening. GRAIL starts with the default, high contrast, wide dynamic range 12-bit data, and then maximizes the graphical information presented in ordinary 8-bit displays. Tests have been carried out with several mammogram databases. They comprise correlations and an ANOVA analysis with the manual IW levels established by a group of radiologists. A complete MATLAB implementation of GRAIL is available at . Results: Auto-leveled images show superior quality both perceptually and objectively compared to their full intensity range and compared to the application of other common methods like global contrast stretching (GCS). The correlations between the human determined intensity values and the ones estimated by our method surpass that of GCS. The ANOVA analysis with the upper intensity thresholds also reveals a similar outcome. GRAIL has also proven to specially perform better with images that contain micro-calcifications and/or foreign X-ray-opaque elements and with healthy BI-RADS A-type mammograms. It can also speed up the initial screening time by a mean of 4.5 s per image. Conclusions: A novel methodology is introduced that enables a quality-driven balancing of the WL/WW of mammographic images. This correction seeks the representation that maximizes the amount of graphical information contained in each image. The presented technique can contribute to the diagnosis and the overall efficiency of the breast screening session by suggesting, at the beginning, an optimal and customized windowing setting for each mammogram.
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Wuensch, W., Degiovanni, A., Calatroni, S., Korsback, A., Djurabekova, F., Rajamaki, R., et al. (2017). Statistics of vacuum breakdown in the high-gradient and low-rate regime. Phys. Rev. Accel. Beams, 20(1), 011007–11pp.
Abstract: In an increasing number of high-gradient linear accelerator applications, accelerating structures must operate with both high surface electric fields and low breakdown rates. Understanding the statistical properties of breakdown occurrence in such a regime is of practical importance for optimizing accelerator conditioning and operation algorithms, as well as of interest for efforts to understand the physical processes which underlie the breakdown phenomenon. Experimental data of breakdown has been collected in two distinct high-gradient experimental set-ups: A prototype linear accelerating structure operated in the Compact Linear Collider Xbox 12GHz test stands, and a parallel plate electrode system operated with pulsed DC in the kV range. Collected data is presented, analyzed and compared. The two systems show similar, distinctive, two-part distributions of number of pulses between breakdowns, with each part corresponding to a specific, constant event rate. The correlation between distance and number of pulses between breakdown indicates that the two parts of the distribution, and their corresponding event rates, represent independent primary and induced follow-up breakdowns. The similarity of results from pulsed DCto 12GHz rf indicates a similar vacuum arc triggering mechanism over the range of conditions covered by the experiments.
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ATLAS Collaboration(Aaboud, M. et al), Alvarez Piqueras, D., Barranco Navarro, L., Cabrera Urban, S., Castillo Gimenez, V., Cerda Alberich, L., et al. (2017). Measurement of the inclusive cross-sections of single top-quark and top-antiquark t-channel production in pp collisions at root s=13 TeV with the ATLAS detector. J. High Energy Phys., 04(4), 086–41pp.
Abstract: A measurement of the t-channel single-top-quark and single-top-antiquark production cross-sections in the lepton+jets channel is presented, using 3.2 fb(-1) of proton-proton collision data at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LHC in 2015. Events are selected by requiring one charged lepton (electron or muon), missing transverse momentum, and two jets with high transverse momentum, exactly one of which is required to be b-tagged. Using a binned maximum-likelihood fit to the discriminant distribution of a neural network, the cross-sections are determined to be sigma(tq) = 156 +/- 5 (stat.) +/- 27 (syst.) +/- 3 (lumi.) pb for single top-quark production and sigma((t) over barq) = 91 +/- 4 (stat.) +/- 18 (syst.) +/- 2 (lumi.) pb for single top-antiquark production, assuming a top-quark mass of 172.5 GeV. The cross-section ratio is measured to be R-t = sigma(tq) / sigma((t) over barq) = 1.72 +/- 0.09 (stat.) +/- 0.18 (syst.). All results are in agreement with Standard Model predictions.
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ATLAS Collaboration(Aaboud, M. et al), Alvarez Piqueras, D., Barranco Navarro, L., Cabrera Urban, S., Castillo Gimenez, V., Cerda Alberich, L., et al. (2017). Measurement of charged-particle distributions sensitive to the underlying event in root s=13 TeV proton-proton collisions with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. J. High Energy Phys., 03(3), 157–42pp.
Abstract: We present charged-particle distributions sensitive to the underlying event, measured by the ATLAS detector in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, in low-luminosity Large Hadron Collider fills corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 1.6 nb-1. The distributions were constructed using charged particles with absolute pseudorapidity less than 2.5 and with transverse momentum greater than 500 MeV, in events with at least one such charged particle with transverse momentum above 1 GeV. These distributions characterise the angular distribution of energy and particle flows with respect to the charged particle with highest transverse momentum, as a function of both that momentum and of charged-particle multiplicity. The results have been corrected for detector effects and are compared to the predictions of various Monte Carlo event generators, experimentally establishing the level of underlying-event activity at LHC Run 2 energies and providing inputs for the development of event generator modelling. The current models in use for UE modelling typically describe this data to 5% accuracy, compared with data uncertainties of less than 1%.
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