NPRE 435: Principles of Imaging with Ionizing Radiation

Fall, 2008

 

 

Course Description

§         Basic contents: This course covers basic concepts and techniques for radiological imaging. These include radiation interactions, detection techniques, data acquisition schemes, basics on data processing methods. Special emphasis will be placed on biomedical applications. Several commonly used imaging modality including X-ray CT, Single Photon Emission Tomography and Positron Emission Tomography will be discussed in detail. Principles of Magnetic Resonance Imaging will also be covered.

 

§         Special seminar(s): This course includes one (or two) special seminars (90min. each), given by Professor Chin-Tu, Chen from the University Of Chicago Medical School. These lectures will be focused on medical applications of imaging techniques based on ionizing radiation. The title of the lecture is “Nuclear Age, Computed Tomography, and Image-Guided Therapy”.

 

§         Lab tour: As part of this course, we will have two lab tours:

      (a) Lab tour to the nuclear imaging facility at the School of Veterinary Medicine.

(b)    Lab tour to the MRI facility at the Biomedical Imaging Center, UIUC.

 

§         Term project: This project is designed to offer a practical example for procedures and techniques involved in radiological imaging. This term project will consists of two parts. The first half involves the development of a data processing using one of the iterative reconstruction techniques taught in this class and test it with simulated data. The second half involves the use of the code developed to process experimental data acquired in the lab tours.

 

§         Exams: There will be two major exams (Oct. 15 and Dec. 11-13) and two in class quizs (Sept. 17 and Nov. 12) during the semester.

 

Teaching Staff and Office Hours

Instructor: Ling-Jian Meng, PhD. E-mail: ljmeng@uiuc.edu; Office: 111E Talbot Lab; Tel: 217-3337710.

Office Hours: Friday, 3:30~5:00pm at 111E Talbot Lab, or by prior appointment.

 

Teaching Assistant: TBN.

 

Lecture Time and Place

      MWF 2:00pm-2:50pm; Room 203 NEL.

 

Prerequisites

      Officially: NPRE 446

      Unofficially: radiation interactions, basic principles of radiation detectors, probability and random variables complex numbers, linear algebra, Matlab.

 

Textbook

      Required textbooks

      [1] Medical Imaging Signals and Systems, J. Prince and J. M. Links, Pearson Prentice Hall, 2006.

      [2] Foundations of Medical Imaging, Z. H. Cho, John Wiley & Sons, 1993.

 

      Additional textbooks

      [3] Radiation Detection and Measurements, Third Edition, G. F. Knoll, John Wiley & Sons, 1999.

 

Recourses

               General Information

               Lecture Topics

               Course Syllabus

               Important Dates

 

Course Website:

                http://npre435.ne.uiuc.edu

 

Lecture Notes (will be posted after each lecture)

Chapter 1: Radiation Sources and Radiation Interactions

§         Radiation Sources: 08-25-08 & 08-27-08, Reading Material: Chapters 1 in Ref. book [3].

§         Radiation Interactions, 08-29-08 & 090308, Reading Material: Chapters 2 in Ref. book [3].

 

Chapter 2: Mathematical Preliminaries for Image Processing

§         Signals and Systems: 09-05-08 & 09-08-08, Reading Material: Chapters 2 in Ref. book [1].

§         Fourier Transform and Sampling: 09-10-08, 09-15-08, &09-17-08, Reading Material: Chapters 2 in Ref. book [1] and Chapters 2 in Ref. book [2].

§         Analytical Image Reconstruction Methods: 09-19-08, 09-22-08, (1) – Radon Transform & Central Slice Theorem: Reading: Chapter 3 in Ref. book [1]. Chapter 6 (Page 192-207) in Ref. book [2]

§         Analytical Image Reconstruction Methods:  09-24-08, 09-26-08 (2) – Back-projection based reconstruction methods:

§         Matlab Introduction and Examples: 09-29-08.

§         Iterative Image Reconstruction Methods: 09-29-08, 10-01-08, 10-03-08 & 10-06-08, please also see attached paper by Shepp and Vardi on MLEM.

§         Image Quality (1): Reading Material: Chapters 3 in Ref. book [2].

§         Image Quality (2):This is the complete lecture note for the Image Quality section. Reading Material: Chapters 3 in Ref. book [2]

 

      Additional Material for Chapter 2

§         Proof of the mean of Binomial Distribution.

§         Scanned Chapter 6 of J. Prince’s textbook (This is strictly for those who do not have access to a paper copy of the text book).

§         A brief introduction to Matlab.

§         A classic paper on Maximum Likelihood Expectation Maximization (MLEM) reconstruction by Shepp and Vardi. One of the most referenced paper on the very popular reconstruction method. A bit technical but worth reading through!

§         A hand written derivation of the impulse-response-function of simple back-projection reconstruction.

 

Chapter 3: X-ray Radiography and Computed Tomography

§         X-Ray Physics (1):X-ray generation: Reading Material: Chapters 4 & 5 in Ref. book [2]

§         X-Ray Physics (2):X-ray interaction, attenuation and practical considerations. Reading Material: Chapters 4 & 5 in Ref. book [2]

§         X-Ray Physics (3):X-ray Detectors. Reading Material: Chapters 4 & 5 in Ref. book [2]

§         X-Ray Image Formation: Reading Material: Chapters 5 in Ref. book [2]. Note that the notations used in lecture notes may be different from those used in the text book.

§         SNR of X-Ray Images: Reading Material: Chapters 5 in Ref. book [2].

§         X-Ray CT:Reading Material: Chapters 6 in Ref. book [2].

 

Additional Material for Chapter 3

§         Statistical distribution of a cascade of Poisson process followed by a Binomial distribution.

 

Chapter 4: Emission Tomography and Related Imaging Techniques

§         Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT) (1): Principle, Radio-nuclides and Detector Technologies: Reading Material: Chapters 7 & 8 in Ref. book [2].

§         Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography (2): Detector Technologies and System Consideration for Gamma Cameras: Reading Material: Chapters 7 & 8 in Ref. book [2].

§         Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography (3 & 4) SPECT systems, Image Formation, Design Considerations and Recent Advances: Reading Material: Chapters 7 & 8 in Ref. book [2].

§         Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography (5) Design Considerations, Recent Advances and Multiplexing Apertures: Reading Material: Chapters 7 & 8 in Ref. book [2].

§         Positron Emission Tomography (PET) Basic Principle, Instrumentations, Design Considerations and Clinical Uses: Additional Reading Material: Chapters 9 in Ref. book [2].

 

Additional Material for Chapter 4

§         Several early publications on coded aperture imaging by Fenimore et, al [1][2]. These publications covers the contents not described in the lecture, which include the basic concept, applications, decoding methods and aperture design aspects for coded aperture imaging. 

§         A brief note by Les Rogers and Neal Clinthorne from the University of Michigan on Compton imaging with application on medical imaging. This note is published in Emission Tomography, edited by M. N. Wernick and John Aarsvold, Elsevier Academic Press, 2005. The attached photocopy of the note is strictly indented for this class only.

 

Chapter 5: Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)

§         Basic Physics of NMR (1): Reading Material: Chapters 12 in Ref. book [2].

§         Basic Physics of NMR (2): Reading Material: Chapters 12 in Ref. book [2].

§         MRI Basic (1): Reading Material: Chapters 13 in Ref. book [2].

§         MRI Basic (2): Reading Material: Chapters 13 in Ref. book [2].

§         MRI Basic (3): Reading Material: Chapters 13 in Ref. book [2].

 

Homework (will be posted after each Monday’s lecture)

Homework 1, Due date: 09-10-08, 5pm. Solution.

Homework 2, Due date: 09-22-08, 5pm. Solution.

Homework 3, Due date: 09-29-08, 5pm. Solution

Homework 4, Here is the Matlab code for use in this homework. Due date: 10-06-08, 5pm.

 

 

Mid-term Exam Information

§         Mid-term exam will be held in class on Oct. 15.

 

Final Information

§         To be announced

 

Grading

Homework 30%

Term project: 20%

Mid-term exam: 20%

Final: Exam 30% (date TBA, towards end)

Scores may be standardized before computing the final score if the means and standard deviations vary substantially.

 

Term Project

            TBN