RIT Imaging Science 2013-2014 Annual Report

5 Foreword

7 Academics

7 Imaging Science Undergraduate Program

12 Motion Picture Science Program

15 Imaging Science Graduate Program

19 Research

19 Digital Imaging and Remote Sensing Lab

25 Laboratory for Advanced Instrumentation Research

31 Multidisciplinary Vision Research Laboratory

37 Biomedical and Materials Multimodal Imaging Laboratory

47 Magnetic Resonance Imaging Laboratory

51 Optics

55 Nanoimaging Research Laboratory

59 Laboratory for Space Weather Alert Technologies

61 Historical Manuscript Restoration

65 Laboratory for Multiwavelength Astrophysics

75 Outreach

81 Alumni

contents

3

RIT Imaging Science 2013–2014 Annual Report

4

5FOREWORD

On behalf of the faculty, staff, and students of the Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science at RIT, I am pleased to present the 2013-14 CIS Annual Report. Here you will find an overview of the research and education activities of the Center and I hope you become as engaged and amazed as we are at the happenings here in the Center!

This was a very exciting year for CIS, and bittersweet as well. This past year long-time faculty member Dr. Harvey Rhody retired from his full time position and was granted Emeritus Professor status at the Institute. Harvey has served as a faculty member, a Center Director, a Major Research Laboratory Director, and of course, outstanding teacher in the Center since its inception, and has served RIT for over 40 years. And while he will still be seen walking the halls of the Carlson building, engaging students, faculty, and staff alike, we will miss his presence deeply and we thank him for his service and friendship.

In addition to Harvey’s retirement, Dr. Stefi Baum has moved on from her role as Center Director to a new and exciting challenge as the Dean of the Faculty of Science at the University of Manitoba. Stefi lead the Center as our Director for 10 years—the longest serving Director in the history of CIS. As Director, Stefi moved CIS to a new level of excellence, increasing the size of our graduate program and overseeing several new initiatives. Again, we thank Stefi for all of her unwavering support over the past ten years and wish her all the best in this new adventure.

2013-2014 also saw us welcome the addition of three new faculty members to CIS. Joining us were Dr. Jie Qiao, Dr. Gabe Diaz, and Dr. Chip Bachmann as the next Fred-erick and Anna B. Wiedman Chair. Jie is developing novel approaches to Optical Metrology, Adaptive & Active Optics, and other optical instrumentation research. Gabe is working with the Multidisciplinary Vision Research Lab to better under-stand cognitive processes related to the human vision system through the use of virtual / augmented reality environments. Chip is working with the Digital Imaging and Remote Sensing laboratory studying the use of remote sensing systems to as-sess geophysical properties such as sand and soil water content, compaction, and ultimately trafficability. We are thrilled to have them join us here in the Center and we all look forward to collaborating with them.

We have continued our education and outreach programs as well. We still host a cadre of high school students each summer, having them work in research labs and gaining experience in scientific research. We continue to run a successful NSF Re-search Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program in “Imaging in the Physical Sciences”. Our Freshman Imaging Project is still a major success, so much so that we replicated it for our first-year Ph.D. students. Experiential Learning continues to be one of the cornerstones of the CIS educational experience.

I hope you enjoy reading this Annual Report and learning about the activities of the Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science. Please contact us if you would like more information about any of the topics covered briefly here, or if you have other ideas related to Imaging Science that you’d like to explore!

By David W. Messinger, Ph.D.


ACADEMICSACADEMICS

Student Michael Richos displays his time slicing multi-camera array at the annual National Association of Broadcasters convention

6

7

ACADEMICSRIT finally embarked on its new semester schedule this academic year—so the mys-tery was finally exposed. How did we do? I think that our years of planning, prepa-ration, and thought made this a seamless conversion. Were there some hiccups in some of the class scheduling, sure…did we already modify our planned curriculum for next year, of course we did…did we give the students so much work that they were here in the labs at 3AM trying to finish up their projects, sure thing…but none of that was new for us as all of you that are our alumni know. What did not change was the drive and dedication of the students, the faculty, and the staff to assure that our future Imaging Science graduates are going to continue in the same tradi-tion of greatness that they have for decades.

So what was new this year? Our freshman continued to take on the challenge of the Innovative Freshman Experience. In the fourth incarnation of this activity, our class of over twenty students from the Imaging Science and Motion Picture Sci-ence programs created an intelligent multi-camera video chat system. This system brought the video call experience to a whole new level. Integrating tracking and automated cinematography based on a person's location and orientation, the idea of intelligent telepresence means that a person is no longer confined to a chair during a video call. Their vision was to ultimately make the video call a fami-ly-friendly and convenient form of communication. After a year’s worth of work, struggle, and the strategic import of talents they discovered that they needed from other departments around the campus, they provided a great display of their toils at the ImagineRIT festival at the beginning of May.

We also offered a revised version of our computing class for the first time, reinvent-ing this class as Introduction to Computing and Control. Intended for the incoming freshman as one of their first classes on campus, students from the upper-year levels as well as several other departments across campus joined in the experience for a population of well over 30. The intended outcome for this class was to not only impart the traditional programming skills that we have always tried to do, but to also introduce the students to simple electronics and devices and the control of these devices from the programming layer. This past year saw the introduction of many microcomputers, one of the most popular being the Raspberry Pi. This was the platform we used. Each student had their own computer and kit filled with mo-tors, light-emitting diodes, ultrasonic distance sensors, H-bridges, level shifters, breadboards, wires … you name it … and built all kinds of devices like radiometers, remote distance measuring systems, and even a collision-avoiding robotic car. Yes they still learned to read in images, compute histograms, and apply lookup tables but we wanted to get them ready for so much more.

Our incoming freshman class was small, with 8 new students enrolling in the fall, but we nearly doubled in size as the year went on and other RIT students discov-ered our program. We have a real gem here in the Center, as I hope you all agree, and we reach out to you to help spread the word to a high school junior or senior

Program Coordinator’s Comments By Dr. Carl Salvaggio

IMAGING SCIENCE UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAM

ACADEMICS

I was asked to step back in as the Undergraduate Program Coordinator for the Imaging Science program this year as Maria Helguera embarked on a well-deserved sabbatical that she is currently finishing up in Peru. It was easy to agree to take on this role again as my love for this program is as strong as ever.

8


who loves math, physics, engineering, and computers and may even love pho-tography to top it off, that we are here at RIT and provide a great environment in which to do all of those things to prepare them for an exciting career like you all have.

It has been another great year at the Center and I hope that everyone reading this report can in someway stay involved with these great students that we have. Whether it is by providing an internship possibility, visiting campus and talking at our seminar series or to the Friday afternoon meeting of the student chapter of SPIE/OSA/IS&T, or through the sponsorship of a high school senior’s application to our program—it continues to be very rewarding to be a part of the Center.

Student BodyOur program size has held steady at 45 students this year, including double majors with Physics, Information Securi-ty and Forensics and Motion Picture Sci-ence. We also have 7 students actively pursuing minors in Imaging Science from Applied Mathematics, Motion Picture Science, Imaging and Photographic Technology, Mechanical Engineering, and Physics. In addition, through our Imaging Science Fundamentals series of classes and our newly approved immer-sion in the Science of Film, Photography, and Imaging (yes you can now take Imaging Science as your general edu-cation concentration) we hope to reach well over 100 additional students across campus…exposing them to the field to which we have all dedicated our careers, hopefully exciting the next generation.

Awards/Recognition

The following awards have been bestowed on our students in Imaging Science during the 2013–2014 academic year:

RIT— Alfred L. and Ruby C. Davis Leadership Award

Rose Rustowicz

RIT— Outstanding Undergraduate Scholar Award

Margaret Castle

Rose Rustowicz

RIT College of Science—John Wiley Jones Scholarship

Kevin Dickey

Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science—Carlson Scholarship

Amy Becker

Matthew Casella

Ryan LaClair

Douglas Peck

Rose Rustowicz

Kevin Sacca

Victoria Scholl

Andrew Smith

Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science—Jerry Hughes Scholarship

Megan Iafrati

The Astellas USA Foundation Scholarship in Biological Sciences

Amy Becker

United States Department of Defense—SMART Scholarship

Briana Neuberger

Arcadia University Scholarship (for study abroad)

Douglas Peck

Publications, Conference Proceedings, and Conference Presentations

• Bondi, E.; Neuberger, B.; Iafrati, M.; Pow, J., Multidimensional Comparison of Project-Based Learning Programs, IEEE, 4th IEEE Integrated STEM Edu-cation Conference, K–12 Integrated STEM Education Track, Princeton, New Jersey, United States (2014)

• Canham, K.; Goldberg, D.; Kerekes, J.P.; Raqueno, N.G.; Messinger, D.W., SHARE 2012: Large Edge Targets for Hyper-spectral Imaging Applications, Algo-rithms and Technologies for Multispec-tral, Hyperspectral, and Ultraspectral Imagery XIX, Defense, Sensing, and Security, Algorithms and Technologies for Multispectral, Hyperspectral, and Ultraspectral Imagery XIX, SPIE Vol. 8743, 87430G, Baltimore, Maryland, United States, April (2013)

• Fan, L.; Ambeau, B.; Messinger, D.W., A semi-supervised classification algo-rithm using the TAD-derived back-ground as training data, Algorithms and Technologies for Multispectral, Hy-perspectral, and Ultraspectral Imagery XIX, Defense and Security Symposium, Algorithms and Technologies for Mul-tispectral, Hyperspectral, and Ultra-spectral Imagery XIX, 8743, Baltimore, Maryland, United States, May (2013)

• Helguera, M.; Ravines, P.; Baum, K.G.; Cox, N.; Welch, S., Multimodality Imaging of Daguerreotypes and De-

velopment of a Registration Program for Image Evaluation, Journal of the American Institute for Conservation, 53, 1, pp. 1–26 (2013)

• Kerekes, J.P.; Ludgate, K.; Giannan-drea, A.; Raqueno, N.G.; Goldberg, D., SHARE 2012: Subpixel Detection and Unmixing Experiments, Algorithms and Technologies for Multispectral, Hyperspectral, and Ultraspectral Imagery XIX, Defense, Sensing, and Security, Algorithms and Technolo-gies for Multispectral, Hyperspectral, and Ultraspectral Imagery XIX, 8743, 87430H, Baltimore, Maryland, United States, April (2013)

• Kerekes, J.P.; Goldberg, D., Hyperspec-tral Image Quality for Unmixing and Subpixel Detection Applications, Im-age Quality and System Performance X, Electronic Imaging 2013, Image Quality and System Performance X, SPIE Vol. 8653, Burlingame, Califor-nia, United States, February (2013)

• Kushalnagar, P, Conceptual Model of Quality of Life in Adults with Congen-ital or Early Deafness, Disability and Health Journal (2014)

• Kushalnagar, P.; Naturale, J.; Palud-neviciene, R.; Smith, S.R.; Werfel, E.; Doo-little, R.; Jacobs, S.D.; DeCaro, J., Health Websites: Accessibility and Usability for American Sign Language Users, Journal of Health Communication (2014)

• Kushalnagar, P.; McKee, M.; Smith, S.R.; Hopper, M.; Kavin, D.; Atcherson, S.R., Conceptual model of quality of life in adults with congenital and early deafness, Disability and Health Journal (2014)

• Kushalnagar, R.; Kushalnagar, P., Live and collaborative gaze review for deaf and hard of hearing students, Inter-national Conference on Computers Helping People with Special Needs, In-ternational Conference on Computers Helping People with Special Needs, Paris, France (2014)

• Long, M.E.; Glade, A.; Bierre, K.J.; Moore, B.L., Crowd Anomaly Detection Using Standardized Modeled Input, Interna-tional Journal of Intelligent Information Systems, 1, 1, pp. 1–6 (2013)

• Pelz, J.B., Markers of confidence and correctness in spoken medical narratives, Proceedings of the 14th Annual Con-ference of the International Speecth Com-munication Association, International Speech Communication Association, 14th Annual Conference of the International Speecth Communication Association, Lyon, Rhone-Alpes, France (2013)

9• Pow, J.; Iafrati, M.; Kratzer, S.; Scholl,

V.; Bondi, E., Putting the Capstone First: Turning the STEM Curriculum Upside Down, The League for Innova-tion in the Community College, 2013 STEMtech Conference, Atlanta, Geor-gia, United States, October (2013)

• Pow, J.; Helguera, M.; Iafrati, M.; Neu-berger, B.; Pieri, E., Using A Non-Tra-ditional Pedagogy In Freshman-Level STEM Classes: Implications For Faculty, Hawaii University, Hawaii University International Conference on Education, Math, and Engineering Technology, Honolulu, Hawaii, June (2013)

• Rustowicz, R.; Schultz, M.; Putting the Capstone First: Turning the STEM Curriculum Upside-Down, 26th Annual International Conference on the First Year Experience, Kona, Hawaii, United States, June (2013)

• Rustowicz, R; Schultz, M; Using a Non-Traditional Pedagogy in STEM Disciplines: Implications for Faculty & Students, Hawaii University Inter-national Conference on Education & Technology, Oahu, Hawaii, United States, June (2013)

• Rustowicz, R.; Student Initiated Project: Creating a Volumetric Display, Hawaii University International Confer-ence on Education & Technology, Oahu, Hawaii, United States, June (2013)

• Scholl, V.; Iafrati, M.; Long, D.L.; Pow, J., Motion Picture Science: A Fully Integrated Fine Arts/STEM Degree Program, IEEE, 4th IEEE Integrated STEM Education Conference, Postsec-ondary/Higher Education Programs Track, Princeton, New Jersey, United States (2014)

• Smith, T.W., PVDF-based polymer blend films for fuel cell membranes, Materials Research Society Sympo-sium Proceedings, Advance Materials for Fuel Cells, MRS, 2012, Boston, Massachusetts, United States, pp. 1384– (2013)

• Tomaszewski, B.; Vodacek, A.; Parody, R.; Holt, N., Spatial Thinking Ability Assessment in Rwandan Secondary Schools: Baseline Results, Journal of Geography, In Press. (2014)

InternshipsAmy Becker / REU, Colorado State University, Colorado

Kevin Dickey / United States Environ-mental Protection Agency, Colorado

Cicely DiPaulo / Riverside Research, Ohio

Daniel Goldberg / MITRE, Virginia

Megan Iafrati / University of Southern California, California

Briana Neuberger / United States De-partment of Defense, Washington, DC

Jonathan Rowe / OGSystems, Virginia

Kevin Sacca / National Ecological Ob-servatory Network (NEON), Colorado

Andrew Smith / Idaho National Laboratory, North Dakota

Study Abroad

Amy Becker / Hawaii (technically not abroad, but offshore)

Cicely DiPaulo / Scotland

Douglas Peck / Scotland

Rose Rustowicz / New Zealand

Malachi Schultz / New Zealand

Student-Initiated Research Projects

Interactive Landscapes

The goal of this project was to construct an interactive education system that allows the user to visually explore a planet’s terrain and various other char-acteristics, like erosion, that affect it. In-frared transmission was used to measure the thickness of a surface and project the calculated data onto a manipulable surface to create a model. This system is based on the Sandscapes interface, developed by the MIT Tangible Media Group, which uses computer simulations and sand to model landscapes.

Participants: Elizabeth Bondi, Victoria McGowen, Kevin Sacca, Victoria Scholl

Undergraduate Research Experiences (by Laboratory)Ancient Document Restoration Laboratory

Elizabeth Bondi

Biomedical and Materials Multimodal Imaging Laboratory

Brooke Saffren

Digital Imaging and Remote Sensing (DIRS) Laboratory

Margaret Castle

Nick Holt (REU)

Ryan LaClair

Ashley Miller

Briana Neuberger

Karen Nisley

Douglas Peck

Victoria Scholl

Andrew Smith

Samuel Valerio

Kayla Vodacek

Insight Laboratory

Brian Adams

Kevan Bjornson

Elizabeth Bondi

David Cardenas

Colby Carll

Brandon Cole

Brandon Doyle

Brandon Edquist

Michael Every

Sara Fair

Nicholas Hawkins

Daniel Hudy

Alexander Jermyn

Ross Kahn

Akshay Kumar

Michael Levee

Benjamin McFadden

Thomas McKeown

David Park

Vladimir Pribula

Jordan Russ

Kelsey Schaefer

Justin Schoenfeld

Matthew Seita

Daniel Simon

Christopher Stevens

Greyson Watkins

Zachary Whitman

Multidisciplinary Vision Research Labo-ratory

Victoria McGowen

Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Laboratory

Amy Becker

Anthony Cannella (Chemistry)

Lauren Switala (Chemistry)

Optical Vortex Laboratory

Nicholas Hawkins (Microelectronic Engineering)

Michael Rinkus (Physics)

PERFORM Laboratory

Victoria McGowen

Daniel Simon

Andrew Smith

10


NSF REU StudentsThe following students participated in our NSF Research Experience for Under-graduates (REU) titled Imaging in the Physical Sciences (IPS). THE IPS REU program introduces young scientists to research in a highly interdisciplinary environment, where cross-disciplinary team problem solving is the norm.

Noah Baum / Carnegie-Mellon University

Wendy Garcia / New Mexico State University

Andrew Hitchner / Rochester Institute of Technology

Nicholas Holt / Furman University

Brendan John / Rochester Institute of Technology

Kyle Nowak / Bowdoin College

Katherine Pierce / University at Buffalo

Chasya Rhys-Church / Texas State University

Matthew Seita / Rochester Institute of Technology

Adam Simon / Earlham College

Michael Terwilliger / Susquehanna University

Carter Thaxton-Smith / University of Arizona

Brianne Zins / Allegheny College

GraduatesIn 2013–2014, the following students have graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree from the undergraduate program in Imaging Science

• Margaret Castle

• Kevin Dickey

• Stephanie Darling

• Ashley Miller

• Jonathan Rowe

Captone ExperiencesDuring the 2013–2014 academic year, the fourth year students participated in a formal capstone experience through the traditional senior project to prepare them for a specialty within imaging science or for graduate school in the coming year. The following senior proj-ects were carried out and completed as of 31 May 2014:

STUDENT

Margaret Castle

ADVISOR(S)

Mark Fairchild

TITLE

Design of a Saturation Scale for Real-World Chromatic Comparison

ABSTRACT

The saturation of an object’s color, or its colorfulness in proportion to its’ own brightness, is an important character-istic in qualitatively and quantitatively describing three-dimensional objects, self-luminant sources, and items with large field of views. The creation of a one-dimensional scale of saturation is important and innovative in accurately describing and comparing saturation in relation to visual data. The goal of this research was to create such a mea-surement ruler for use with real-world objects (not 2D with uniform lighting) through a psychophysical observation experiment. Subjects were asked to compare and assign a numerical scale factor corresponding to the saturation of thirty seven color samples along side four reference samples with a stated saturation of 1. Statistical analysis was conducted to find the average visual saturation values for each color sample as well as the variability between observers and references.

The collected data was also compared to previous saturation formula proposals to test their accuracy and validity. It was found that a new saturation scale was indeed needed to more accurately identify and compare saturation of col-ors that is true for both numerical and visual information. An attempt to create this scale is completed through this research presented in this paper.

STUDENT

Stephanie Darling

ADVISOR(S)

Carl Salvaggio

TITLE

A novel approach to temperature- emissivity separation using a multiple-window smoothness criteria

ABSTRACT

A blackbody is any object that absorbs all the electromagnetic radiation inci-dent upon it, and that emits spectral radiation that is solely depen-dent on the object’s kinetic tempera-ture. Real-world objects seldom exhibit this behavior, and are termed spectral greybodies. A spectral greybody does not absorb all the incident energy, it differentially absorbs this energy as a function of wavelength. The ratio of

energy radiated by a greybody to the energy radiated by a blackbody at the same temperature and wavelength, is called the spectral emissivity. Unlike spectroscopy in the reflective portion of the spectrum, the temperature of the object must be known in order to calculate the spectral emissivity. This presents a problem since a measure of the energy radiated by the object can be made at each wavelength, however, this only provides n measurements to solve for n+1 unknowns, including the object’s temperature. One is left with an ill-posed problem requiring an optimization approach. An optimization referred to as temperature-emissivity separation is used to best estimate the temperature of the object. There are previously published methods for accomplishing this, however, these methods only look at a small region of the full wavelength range for their optimization. This research proposes a novel approach that looks at multi-ple subregions, in multiple positions, using optimization to achieve a better estimate of the object’s temperature. A comparison of the results obtained using this new approach with methods previously employed are presented.

STUDENT

Kevin Dickey

ADVISOR(S)

Zoran Ninkov

TITLE

A Low-Cost Multispectral Camera for Consumer Applications

ABSTRACT

This report describes the conceptu-alization and creation of a prototype multispectral camera which incorpo-rates visible and infrared wavelengths. A novel method for integrating variable amounts of visible and near-infrared light onto a single sensor during a single exposure was devised to allow for a single-image, spectrally tunable multispectral camera system. The device incorporates broadband spec-tral tuning, attenuating visible light (400-700nm) and passing near-infrared (700-1100nm). The amount of atten-uation of visible light is controlled by input voltage, and is analog in nature, allowing for a nearly-infinite number of settings of visible light attenuation. Uti-lizing a standard consumer digital SLR as a starting point for the prototype device, this imaging system is able to run on low voltage that can be supplied by the

11source camera. The broadband spectrally tunable filter and its control systems can easily be miniaturized and integrat-ed into the small space of a consumer camera body, requiring little more than a few additional integrated circuits.

STUDENT

Ashley Miller

ADVISOR(S)

Jan van Aardt, Robert Kremens, Paul Romanczyk

TITLE

Canopy Segmentation using Airborne LiDAR

ABSTRACT

Since it’s introduction to the remote sensing research community, the air-borne laser light detection and ranging (LiDAR) instrument has provided a new dimension to data analysis of the scenes below. Representing signal in the form of return time bins, the LiDAR data adds a z component to data, allowing researchers to reference the height within the scene as another point of analysis. This paper presents several ways of managing air-borne LiDAR data, along with other data sources, to segment individual trees within a forested region. Methods used include: watershed segmentation, two dimensional (2D) euclidean distance, three dimensional (3D) euclidean dis-tance, and sobel filtering. Each method was applied to both a digital canopy height model (CHM) and high resolution RGB imagery to analyze the differences in outcomes from both. Though the re-sults of this paper suggest the challenge with segmenting a dense forested re-gion, the proposed future work provides ideas for minimizing these challenges in the future.

STUDENT

Jonathan Rowe

ADVISOR(S)

Paul Romanczyk, David Kelbe, Robert Kremens

TITLE

Ground Classification and Below Ground Response Assessment of Forested Re-gions using Full-Waveform LiDAR

ABSTRACT

To gain a better understanding of how forested ecosystems function, research has been performed to characterize

and model specific features within the forest using imaging techniques. Since the 1960s, light detection and ranging (LiDAR) has been used to generate three dimensional models of scenes by emitting a laser pulse and record-ing the time it takes for the pulse to interact with a scene and return back to the instrument. These times are converted to discrete ranges, often able to record multiple returned ranges per laser pulse. More recently, a new type of LiDAR instrument has been used in research that has the ability to digitize the reflected energy at a much finer scale, giving it the ability to record the entire waveform of reflected laser ener-gy from the scene. Since the technology is so new, its potential is still not fully understood in the scientific community. In this paper, we focus on this new tech-nology as a means to locate and model the ground of a forested region based on a 100m by 100m study area within the Harvard Forest in Massachusetts. The ground layer, called a digital eleva-tion model (DEM), is important in LiDAR forest research because many other models, such as understory and canopy height models, require accurate DEM estimation. It became apparent that this task is not as easy with waveform LiDAR as with discrete LiDAR because in some cases, the waveform energy distribution extends below the ground level. Although discrete LiDAR can sometimes contain below ground hits, intensity and range thresholds tend to eliminate the issue from becoming a serious difficulty in estimating the DEM. In addition to generating a DEM derived from waveform products provided by the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON), we focus on how to characterize these below ground responses and understand where they are coming from. Our reference data include a discrete derived DEM from NEON’s same sensor, and a discrete de-rived DEM generated by NASA’s G-LiHT system. Results show that our proposed method produced a DEM with root mean square deviation metrics of 293.7m and 7.41m when compared with the NEON and G-LiHT DEM, respectively. Assess-ment of the below ground responses reveal that the strongest relationship of below and above ground hits happened within the first meter of elevation above ground, yielding an R2 value of 0.2557. Overall, however, our method did not produce an acceptable accurate model to determine the cause of the below ground echoes.

12Motion Picture Science ProgramProf. David Long, Chairperson

The Motion Picture Science (MPS) program in the School of Film and Animation at RIT is privileged to share curriculum, research relationships and a great many campus collaborations with the students and faculty of the Center for Imaging Science. These two undergraduate programs are truly unique in the country. The students who find either enjoy specialized training in high-demand fields across imaging and entertainment industries that absolute-ly set them apart.

2013–2014 was an academic year of transition at RIT. We all said good-bye to the quarter calendar model during spring and summer of 2013 and wel-comed the first semester schedule in RIT’s history to campus. While chal-lenging and different, the new model provided an opportunity to completely reevaluate the CIS and MPS undergrad-uate curricula. Freshmen who entered both programs in September were imme-diately integrated during the Freshmen Imaging Project and Introduction to Imaging and Video System courses. This was the first such year where every mem-ber of both departments attended these classes together. It also marked the first year where I personally took on teaching responsibilities for each of these cours-es, providing an even stronger faculty connection between MPS and CIS. Pre-vious to this year, MPS students took a large number of courses with CIS faculty but no CIS students had any required coursework with MPS faculty.

For upperclassmen who had been anticipating the semester model for some time, the new calendar was definitely an awakening. Many entered the 10th week of the fall semester with a mindset of being nearly done (as this was the previous final week of the old quarter academic term) but then had to put heads down and continue working for 5 more weeks. I can say it was also a challenge for faculty who enjoyed our old 10-week cadence! The lessons for us all were both positive and negative,

but as with all transitions, time and experience will permit us to take full advantage of the new schedules.

Freshmen in MPS and CIS did an excel-lent job with this year’s experiential Freshmen Imaging Project. Their task was to design an intelligent telepresence system permitting hands-free video chatting for home or office complete with subject tracking and automated cinema-tography. The tagline for the project was “What Skype will be when it grows up.” Rather than forcing participants to stare into a stationary camera on a laptop, the freshmen Multi-camera Video Chat sys-tem allowed users to walk around freely and engage in a more natural conversa-tion. The team presented an excellent demonstration at Imagine RIT in May, coming away with many compliments from festival attendees.

Though still a relatively young program at RIT, MPS has certainly blossomed its research efforts. MPS students joined the Multidisciplinary Vision Research Laboratory and Digital Imaging and Remote Sensing groups in CIS as un-dergraduate research assistants. Others contributed to Research Computing at RIT or with the research efforts of MPS faculty. Senior capstone projects were also quite impressive, ranging from anti-piracy watermarking for cinema applications to solid-state illumination and color reproduction simulations for cinematography equipment. Two MPS students were also awarded CIS micro-grants. Michael Richos developed a video timeslice system similar to that employed in The Matrix trilogy using 15 Go Pro cameras and Sean Cooper designed an immersive video wall for Imagine RIT where participants were tracked in real-time as they navigated a dynamic virtual environment.

Ricky Figueroa and I have also been pushing research in motion imaging applications at the faculty level. Ricky’s research focuses on developing novel methods for estimating camera radio-metric response functions from a series of motion images. Current methods to estimate this function rely on multiple static images taken under different ex-posures or different lighting conditions, the use of measurement charts, specific image sets from point-and-shoot only cameras, or assume a simplistic model of the function’s shape. All these approach-es become impractical when it comes to having a robust efficient method that can fit into motion picture industry post-pro-duction workflows, where workflow simplicity and accuracy are critical for

proper image processing. Ricky’s alter-nate methodology is based on the work of Stephen Lin et al. but expanded to include the use of measured color char-acteristics in a motion image sequence and including additional constraints on the statistical prior model during the estimation of the radiometric function.

My own research continues in multispec-tral video capture and display with in-tent to replace the traditional 3-channel RGB metamerism model. This approach becomes critical in light of narrow-spec-tra display systems such as laser pro-jectors that greatly exacerbate observer color vision variability. With the invest-ment made by creative professionals in the film industry in the final aesthetic of a film, differences in observer experi-ence can be a huge detriment.

With the end of our year in May, 8 more students graduated off to the real world with employment earned at Dolby, IMAX and others. Slowly but surely, RIT and MPS are taking over the technical side of Hollywood. Watch for alums at a coming Oscar ceremony!

Abstracts taken from sample MPS Senior Projects

Jake DeBoer

Digital Watermarking for Video

As the Internet continues to expand, it becomes easier and much more common-place for pirated videos to be shared. Digital watermarking is a process by which data is embedded into a film in such a way that it is largely invisible to the human eye. This is not file metadata, but rather another signal well hidden in the image. This is important to remember, since it is a secondhand recording of a film from off the cinema screen that we will ultimately be dealing with. Detecting information such as the copyright owner, the name of the theater, and the date and time that the video was captured can all be important information in learning the circumstances under which a film was stolen.


13The embedding and extracting algo-rithms proposed in this work are loosely based on a paper by Chris Honsinger and Majid Rabbani of the Eastman Ko-dak Company. Honsinger and Rabbani proposed a method of data embedding on an image based on a convolution of a message image with a random phase carrier. This will be further expanded to apply to video.

Additionally, it is of the utmost impor-tance that the ability to extract data from a video remains effective regard-less of position, rotation, scale, per-spective, color balance, and any other manipulation that a secondhand record-ing of a video in a theater can apply.

Last, but certainly not least, the water-marking must not make any artifacts such that the embedded content is un-pleasant for a viewer to watch. Included in this research are the results of a psychophysical experiment in which the minimum amount of watermarking that a human being can detect while watch-ing the content are explored.

Kyle Mooney

Display Calibration and Color, Hue and Chrominance-based Gamut Remapping to Meet ITU-R BT.709 Video Standard

Rochester Institute of Technology’s School of Film and Animation (SOFA), as a university program intending to provide a professional level of experi-ence to its students, has elected to use the ITU-R BT.709 high definition video standard for post-production editing and mastering of content as well as for exhibition within the School. To this effect, SOFA has purchased and installed an order of NEC PA242W professional monitors for editing and mastering purposes within the School. For projection purposes, SOFA utilizes two models of Christie projectors, the DS+5K in Carlson Auditorium that is used for end-of-semester exhibition screenings and the HD6K’s used within SOFA’s own small exhibition theaters.

These projectors, particularly the Carlson Auditorium projector, must be calibrated to match ITU-R BT.709 video. However, there exist issues with both of these displays in reaching the recorded standards for Rec.709, specifically in terms of color gamut issues. The PA242 monitors must be characterized and calibrated fully before they are able to achieve the Rec.709 standard and the Christie projectors possess a debili-tating primary chromaticity deficiency with the blue primary that must be characterized and adapted through the use of color gamut remapping in order for SOFA to truly achieve a standardized post production environment.

Jaclyn Pytlarz

Video Camera Color Prediction Tool

The Color Prediction Tool (CPT) allows the user to see the consequences of various light sources (HMI, Tungsten, LED) by viewing test targets as well as a stock set of scenes. The program runs through a full color prediction model of the Canon 5D MkIII and allows the user to select various filters, color in-camera modes, and white balance. The goal of this project is to educate the user on possible metameric failure of the various cameras and settings due to the recent push in the film industry for the use of solid-state lighting.

Michael Richos

Creating a Time Slicing Effect

Time Slicing or as we may know it, “Bullet Time,” is an effect most famously achieved in The Matrix (1999). The effect is achieved using a series of still camer-as surrounding a subject. At the point of action, the cameras are set off simul-taneously to capture that one point in time from various positions. The Matrix used this technique, but incorporated a laser targeting system to form a uniform curve in space of a given radius. When triggered, every camera would begin to capture the action at a high frame-rate as it was happening. This footage was then processed to interpolate between each camera at one point in time with heavy frame-to-frame manipulation.

The proposed technique for application in the School of Film and Animation at RIT is similar to that of The Matrix, but will not contain any large amount of intense computer interpolation between each image and will rely on a fixed rig of GoPro Hero 3: Black Edition cameras rather than a laser generated curved path. The difference between this rig

array and other similar GoPro arrays is the addition of an interchangeable curved and straight vertical element, giving artists a new perspective. This method will create a few interpola-tion artifacts when switching between cameras at a single point in time, but can be fixed using image interpolation algorithms for motion frames with both standard editing software or user creat-ed implementation.

CIS Micro-grant

Michael Richos—time slice senior project

Sean Cooper—interactive video wall

Miscellaneous Awards

Jaclyn Pytlarz

• Placed in Generation Auto student video competition, international student competi-tion amongst university SAE racing teams

• Chosen undergraduate college dele-gate for College of Imaging Arts and Sciences—spoke at RIT graduation

• RIT Outstanding Undergraduate Scholar

Josh Berkowitz

• Society of Motion Pictures and Televi-sion Engineers Lou Wolf Scholar


ACADEMICSACADEMICS14

Graduate student Najat Alharbi doing materials characterization on the Center's scanning electron microscope.

15

ACADEMICSThe transition to a semester calendar has gone smoothly. One of the advantages of the semester calendar was an extended break in January. To take advantage of this time, a number of faculty (and a graduate student) organized short courses and offered them free of charge to our students. The topics ranged from courses on pro-gramming tools such as MATLAB and Python, to ones with a more imaging science flavor such as eye tracking and Fourier optics. These courses were well received.

Another new innovation this past year was a three-day orientation for our incoming graduate students entitled “Imaging Science Immersion.” During the first week of classes our students were exposed to the imaging chain through lectures, demon-strations, and lab tours. The orientation culminated in a social gathering where the new students had an opportunity to meet with the faculty. With some lessons learned on the scheduling and content, we plan to make this a part of the start of each new school year.

We look forward to the continued success of our nation’s unique graduate program in Imaging Science. The following is a summary of activities, changes, and student highlights over the 2012–13 academic year.

Graduate Program FacultyThis past year brought a number of changes to our graduate faculty. After many years of service to RIT, Professors Harvey Rhody, Navalgund Rao, and John Schott retired, although Naval and John remain engaged as Research Faculty. We wel-comed three new members of our faculty with the Center as their home depart-ment: Gabriel Diaz, Jie Qiao, and Charles “Chip” Bachmann. Chip now holds the Wiedman Chair previously occupied by John Schott and works in the remote sens-ing area. Gabe works in the vision and perception area, and Jie comes to us with a background in optics and lasers. In addition, we also welcomed Michael Gartley as an Assistant Research Professor in the Center and four new members of our Graduate Program Faculty from outside the Center: Iris Asllani and Cristian Linte of Biomedical Engineering, Sildomar Monteiro of Electrical and Microelectronic Engineering, and Ernest Fokoue of the Center for Quality and Applied Statistics.

As of the end of the 2013–14 academic year there are now 50 members of the CIS Graduate Program Faculty. Nineteen are tenured, or tenure-track, with the Center as their primary appointment. Another twenty have a primary appointment in one of thirteen other departments centers, programs or laboratories with which the Center is affiliated. The Center is the home to nine Research Faculty and one CIS Fellow. There is currently just one Affiliate Faculty who holds a position at govern-ment laboratory.

Program Coordinator’s Comments By Dr. John Kerekes

IMAGING SCIENCE GRADUATE PROGRAM

ACADEMICS

First year Ph.D. students with the testbed for the imaging-based vehicle hazard avoidance system they designed and built.

The Imaging Science graduate program continues to be healthy with a strong student applicant pool, successful students, and growing vibrant research activity. Our graduates continue to be in high demand and are finding employment in industry, government, nonprofits and universities.

16


Curriculum DevelopmentWe now have one year of experience under the semester calendar. The slower pace was nice, but the shorter class session times did take some getting used to by our faculty. Also, we heard several comments about how “long” the term felt!

We consolidated our seven core courses to six by eliminating the course entitled Digital Imaging Mathematics and incorpo-rating the material into the Fourier Methods and Digital Image Processing courses. The increased class term afforded by the semester calendar allowed some additional material to be taught across all our courses, providing additional breadth to our imaging science curriculum.

New faculty member Gabriel Diaz developed a new graduate course Virtual Environ-ments: Applications and Evaluation, which explored virtual reality technologies and how they can be used to investigate the human perceptual and motor system. This course was well received by the students.

With the new calendar we also introduced a yearlong Ph.D. laboratory course led by Prof. Roger Dube. Eighteen first-year Ph.D. students were challenged to design and build a long-range infrared camera system to warn drivers of deer in their vicinity, with the Imagine RIT festival held in May as a deadline. The students organized themselves along subsystems developing requirements, designs, and then building and demonstrating the system. Their project won the Paychex sponsor award at the festival. Congratulations!

Prof. Dube also continued to refine our use of the Matterhorn video capture system now used to record nearly all graduate course lectures. This system has not only been used by our online M.S. students, but also the on-campus students have found it useful to review lectures for material they may have missed the first time around.

Graduate Student BodyAt the beginning of the 2013 academic year there were a total of 122 graduate students pursuing degrees in Imaging Science. There were 32 resident M.S. students, 9 online M.S. students, and 81 Ph.D. students includ-ing one who is pursuing the degree online.

The incoming class that started in the fall of 2013 included 9 resident M.S. students, 1 online M.S. student, and 19 Ph.D. students. In the group of on campus students there are three US Air Force officers (1 M.S. and 2 Ph.D.). All of the rest of the Ph.D. students received an assistantship covering full tuition and a stipend, while three of the M.S. students also received an assistantship

covering tuition and stipend. Thirteen of the new resident students were from the United States, with the balance being international including seven from China, three from Ne-pal, two from India and one each from Iran, Japan, and Rwanda.

Student AwardsOur graduate students continue to be recognized through a variety of awards, fellowships, scholarships and other forms of recognition. The following is a sampling of awards received by imaging science gradu-ate students during 2013–2014.

• American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing Central New York Region Student of the Year Award

Javier Concha

• Department of Energy Conference on Data Analysis Best Student Paper

Amanda Ziemann

• IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society IGARSS Travel Grant Award

Sanjit Maitra

• IEEE Western New York Image Processing Workshop Best Paper Award

Saugata Sinha

• NSF Graduate Fellowship Phillip Salvaggio

• SPIE Conference on Data Analysis Best Student Paper

Mohammed Yousefhussien

Student Publications and PresentationsImaging science graduate students are strongly encouraged and provided opportu-nities to broadly disseminate their research by publishing journal articles, presenting and publishing at scientific conferences, and interacting with sponsors at meetings and workshops. The following is a partial list of publications authored or coauthored by our graduate students in 2013–2014.

Selected Journal Articles with Graduate Stu-dent Authors (student author underlined)

• Chen, B.; Vodacek, A.; Cahill, N.D., A Novel Adaptive Scheme for Evaluating Spec-tral Similarity in High-resolution Urban Scenes, IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing, 6, 3, pp. 1376–1385 (2013)

• Helguera, M.; Garvin, K.; Dalecki, D.; Hocking, D.; Yousefhussien, M., Spatial Patterning of Endothelial Cells and Vascu-lar Network Formation Using Ultrasound Standing Wave Fields, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 134, 2, pp. 1483–1490 (2013)

• Helguera, M.; Vaidya, K.; Pichichero, M.; Osgood, R.; Ren, D., Ultrasound Imaging

and Characterization of Biofilms Based on Wavelet Denoised RF Data, Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology, 40, 2, pp. 1–31 (2014)

• Herweg, J.A.; Kerekes, J.P.; Eismann, M.T., Separability Between Pedestrians in Hy-perspectral Imagery, Applied Optics, 52, 6, pp. 1330–1338 (2013)

• McGlinchy, J.; van Aardt, J.A.; Erasmus, B.F.; Asner, G.P.; Mathieu, R.; Wessels, K.; Knapp, D.; Kennedy-Bowdoin, T.; Rhody, H.E.; Kerekes, J.P.; Ientilucci, E.J.; Wu, J.; Sarrazin, D.; Cawse-Nicholson, K.A., Ex-tracting Structural Vegetation Components From Small-Footprint Waveform Lidar for Biomass Estimation in Savanna Ecosys-tems, IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing, 7, 2, pp. 480–490 (2014)

• Sun, S.; Salvaggio, C., Aerial 3D building detection and modeling from airborne Li-DAR point clouds, IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing, 6, 3, pp. 1440–1449 (2013)

• Sun, W.; Messinger, D.W., Knowl-edge-Based Automated Road Network Extraction System Using Multispectral Images, Optical Engineering, 52, 4 (2013)

• Sun, W.; Chen, B.; Messinger, D.W., Nearest Neighbor Diffusion Based Pan-sharpening Algorithm for Spectral Images, Optical Engineering, 53, 1 (2014)

• Wu, J.; Cawse-Nicholson, K.A.; van Aardt, J.A., 3D Tree Reconstruction from Sim-ulated Small Footprint Waveform Lidar, Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing, 79, 12, pp. 1147–1157 (2013)

Selected Conference Proceeding Papers with Graduate Student Authors (student author underlined)

• Albano, J.A.; Ziemann, A.; Messinger, D.W., Assessing the Impact of the Edge-Weight-ing Function in a Graph-Based Approach to Anomaly Detection, IEEE WHISPERS 2013, Gainesville, Florida, United States (2013)

• Busuioceanu, M.; Messinger, D.W.; Greer, J.; Flake, C., Analysis and Utility of Atmospheric Compensation of Simulated Compressive Sensing (CS) Measurements, IEEE WHISPERS 2013 Gainesville, Florida, United States (2013)

• Ding, B.; Kerekes, J.P., Extended Hyper-spectral Imaging System Modeling and Implementation for Subpixel Target Detection, Imaging Spectrometry XVIII, Optical Engineering + Applications, Imaging Spectrometry XVIII, SPIE Vol. 8870, 8870P, San Diego, California, United States, August (2013)

17• Geniviva, A.M.; Faulring, J.W.; Salvaggio,

C., Automatic georeferencing of imagery from high-resolution, low-altitude, low-cost aerial platforms, Proceedings of SPIE, Defense + Security, Geospatial InfoFusion and Video Analytics IV, Geospatial Data Processing, Exploitation, and Visualization I, 9089, 13, Baltimore, Maryland, United States, May (2014)

• Horan, K.H.; Kerekes, J.P., An automated statistical analysis approach to noise reduction for photon-counting lidar systems, IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium 2013, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, pp. 4336–4339, July (2013)

• Katuwal, G.; Kerekes, J.P.; Ramchandran, R.; Sisson, C.; Rao, N.A., Automatic Fundus Image Detection and Quality Assessment, IEEE Western New York Image Processing Workshop, Rochester, New York, United States, November (2013)

• Maitra, S.; Gartley, M.G.; Faulring, J.W.; Kerekes, J.P., Characterization of basic scattering mechanisms using laboratory based polarimetric synthetic aperture radar imaging, IEEE International Geo-science and Remote Sensing Symposium 2013Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, pp. 4479–4482, July (2013)

• Perkins, C.; Kerekes, J.P., Spatial het-erodyne spectrometer: modeling and interferogram processing for calibrated spectral radiance measurements, Imaging Spectrometry XVIII, Optical Engineering + Applications, Imaging Spectrometry XVIII, SPIE Vol. 8870, 8870R, San Diego, Califor-nia, United States, August (2013)

• Romanczyk, P.A.; van Aardt, J.A.; Kelbe, D.; Cawse-Nicholson, K.A.; Ramond, T.M., The Effect of Positioning Error on the Repeat-ability of Small-Footprint Waveform Lidar Signals, Silvilaser 2014, Beijing, China, October (2013)

• Salvaggio, K.N.; Salvaggio, C.; Hagstrom, S., A voxel-based approach for imaging voids in three-dimensional point clouds, Proceedings of SPIE, Defense + Security, Geospatial InfoFusion and Video Ana-lytics IV, Geospatial Data Processing, Exploitation, and Visualization I, 9089, 14, Baltimore, Maryland, United States, April (2014)

• Sinha, S.; Rao, N.A., Development of a novel acoustic lens based pulse echo ultra-sound imaging system, Proc IEEE Medical Imaging Conf, San Diego, California, Unit-ed States, December (2013)

• Uzkent, B.; Hoffman, M.J.; Vodacek, A.; Kerekes, J.P.; Chen, B., Feature Matching and Adaptive Prediction Models in an Ob-ject Tracking DDDAS, Procedia Computer

Science, Procedia Computer Science, 18, pp. 1939–1948 (2013)

• Vaidyanathan, P.; Pelz, J.B.; Alm, C.; Calvel-li, C.; Shi, P.; Haake, A., Integrating Eye Movements and Spoken Description for Medical Image Understanding, Proceed-ings of the 2013 European Conference on Eye Movements, Eye Movement Research-ers Association, European Conference on Eye Movements, Lund, Scania, Sweden (2013)

• Wang, D.; Pelz, J.B.; Simpson, S.; Haake, A., Head motion compensation for remote eye trackers, Proceedings of the 2013 European Conference on Eye Movements, Eye Movement Researchers Association, European Conference on Eye Movements, Lund, Scania, Sweden (2013)

GraduatesDuring academic year 2013–2014 the Center conferred 10 Ph.D. degrees and 8 M.S. degrees.

The following students received a Ph.D. in Imaging Science.

• James Albano, Target Manifold Separation Using Physics-based Modeling and the Commute Time Distance Transformation, Advisor: David Messinger

• May Casterline, Physics-based Surface En-ergy Model Optimization for Water Bodies in Cold Climates using Visible and Calibrat-ed Thermal Infrared Imagery, Advisor: Carl Salvaggio

• Sanjit Maitra, Analysis of Polarimetric Syn-thetic Aperture Radar and Passive Visible Light Polarimetric Imaging Data Fusion for Remote Sensing Applications, Advisor: John Kerekes

• David Nilosek, Analysis and Exploitation of Automatically Generated Scene Struc-ture from Aerial Imagery, Advisor: Carl Salvaggio

• Honghong Peng, Automatic Denoising and Unmixing in Hyper-spectral Image Processing, Advisor: Sohail Dianat

• Alvaro Rojas Arciniegas, Towards the Control of Electrophotographic-based 3-Dimensional Printing, Advisor: Marcos Esterman

• Shaohui Sun, Automatic 3D Building De-tection and Modeling from Airborne LiDAR Point Clouds, Advisor: Carl Salvaggio

• Weihua Sun, Knowledge-based Feature ex-traction and Spectral Image Enhancement from Remotely Sensed Images, Advisor: David Messinger

• Santosh Suresh, A Framework for Near Real Time Feature Detection from the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly Images of

the Solar Dynamics Observatory, Advisor: Roger Dube

• Kunal Vaidya, Multimodal Imaging and Characterization of Biofilms, Advisor: Mari Helguera

The following students received an M.S. in Imaging Science.

• Derrick Campbell, Advisor: Joseph Hornak

• Bo Ding, Hyperspectral Imaging System Model Implementation and Analysis, Advi-sor: John Kerekes

• Stephen Dolph, Perception and Mitigation of Artifacts in a Flat Panel Tiled Display System, Advisor: James Ferwerda

• Kimberly Horan, The Use of Coincident Synthetic Aperture Radar and Visible Imagery to Aid in the Analysis of Pho-ton-Counting Lidar Data Sets Over Complex Ice/Snow Surfaces, Advisor: John Kerekes

• Libby Hsiao, An Augmentative Gaze Direct-ing Framework for Multi-Spectral Imagery, Advisor: Jeff Pelz

• Adam Rossi, Abstracted Workflow Frame-work with a Structure from Motion Applica-tion, Advisor: Harvey Rhody

• Jie Zhang, Dense Point Cloud Extraction from Oblique Imagery, Advisor: John Kerekes

• Ming Zhang, Towards 3D Matching of Point Clouds Derived from Oblique and Nadir Airborne Imagery, Advisor: John Kerekes

The following are post-graduate plans for some of the students who graduated during 2013–2014.

• James Albano, MIT Lincoln Laboratory

• Bo Ding, GoPro

• Kimberly Horan, Canadian Forces

• Libby Hsiao, Canadian Forces

• David Nilosek, Pictometry International

• Cara Perkins, Systems & Technology Research

• Alvaro Rojas Arciniegas, Universidad Autonoma de Occidente

• Adam Rossi, Carestream Health

• May Casterline, Commonwealth Computer Research, Inc.

• Santosh Suresh, Karl Storz Imaging

• Shaohui Sun, Hover, Inc.

• Weihua Sun, Motorola Mobility

• Kunal Vaidya, Phillips

• Jie Zhang, Pictometry International

• Ming Zhang, Lantos Technologies

18


RESEARCHDIRS graduate students in Fall 2013

RESEARCH

19

RESEARCHMost prominent among these was the addition of Dr. Charles (Chip) Bachmann to our ranks as the new Weidman Professor in Imaging Science. Chip brings expertise in physical modeling of complex surfaces, advanced non-linear exploitation algorithms, as well as a strong commitment to field measurement campaigns of material BRDF in complex environments, and we have welcomed him into our ranks. Dr. John Schott, the previous Weidman Professor has not completely retired, instead transitioning to a part-time Research Professor, continuing to oversee several graduate students and manage our involvement and support of the NASA Landsat program.

A major focus of the lab for the past year has been the issue of workforce develop-ment in the Imaging Science and Remote Sensing community, both for commercial entities as well as for the US Government. There is a well known and documented need for a new generation of scientists and engineers with expertise in imaging systems, particularly in the remote sensing community. Our students continue to be very highly sought after by government and industry alike, with recent MS and Ph.D. alumni obtaining employment in organizations such as the National Geospa-tial-Intelligence Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office, Exelis, MITRE Corpo-ration, MIT / Lincoln Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, etc. To this end, and with the support of Congresswoman Louise Slaughter, we hosted an event on Capitol Hill in December 2013 to educate members of Congress on this national STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) workforce need. Speakers included Senior personnel from the NGA, Exelis, and the US Geospatial-Intelligence Foundation (USGIF), a not-for-profit edu-cation foundation supporting the Geospatial-Intelligence community. Additionally, on this same trip Dr. David Messinger (Director of DIRS), along with RIT President Dr. Bill Destler, RIT Vice President for Government and Community Relations Debo-rah Stendardi, and RIT Board of Trustee Jeff Harris met with senior personnel at the NGA to discuss future strategic directions for collaboration between NGA and CIS.

Two DIRS graduation students received prestigious awards for their research this past year. Amanda Ziemann (Ph.D. candidate) was awarded "Best Poster" at the 2014 De-partment of Energy Conference on Data Analysis (Santa Fe, NM). Javier Concha (Ph.D. candidate) was given the "Student of the Year" award by the Central New York chapter of the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. Additionally, the entire DIRS laboratory was profiled in the December 2013 issue of the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine in an article written by Dr. John Kerekes.

There were several other research advances made by the DIRS laboratory. The DIRSIG modeling and simulation team had an outstanding year, conducting almost 10 training sessions while still managing to advance the science of remote sens-ing system simulation. Critically, the group also made advances in the automatic extraction of three dimensional geometrical models of structures from point clouds collected by LIDAR systems or derived from overlapping two-dimensional (tradi-tional) imagery. Figure roccity shows the results of this process for a LIDAR point

Laboratory Director’s Comments By Dr. David Messinger

DIGITAL IMAGING AND REMOTE SENSING LAB

RESEARCH

The faculty, staff, and students affiliated with the Digital Imaging and Remote Sensing Laboratory had another exciting year in 2013–2014, breaking ground in several new areas related to remote sensing systems, algorithms, and methods.

Representatives from RIT and DIRS meet with senior personnel at the NGA to discuss Imaging Science workforce development collaborative opportunities.

roccity: three dimensional geometrical models of buildings in downtown Rochester automatically extracted from an airborne LIDAR point cloud.

20cloud collected over downtown Roches-ter, highlighting the isolated buildings that are then attributed and input into a DIRSIG simulation.

Under the direction of Dr. Chip Bach-mann, the laboratory designed, built, and deployed the Goniometer at RIT —GRIT (see Figure GRIT_Korea). This field-depoloyable instrument will allow us to make BRDF measurements in the reflective spectrum of complex surfaces, both in the field and in our new BRDF laboratory setup. The ultimate goal is to use these measurements, along with radiative transfer modeling of these complex surfaces, to develop physical models of BRDF that can be used to extract physical characteristics of re-gions such as beaches and deserts from airborne hyperspectral imagery.

Dr. Jan van Aardt continues to lead our efforts in collaboration with the NSF NEON program. NEON is the National Ecological Observatory Network—a network of ground truth sites that will be used for monitoring and modeling the large scale ecology of North America. Our role is in helping NEON extract use-ful information from airborne hyperspec-tral and waveform LIDAR data, as well

as providing DIRSIG modeling support of their airborne sensors for several of the ground truth sites. Above figure,

Harvardgb, shows a scan collected from the RIT developed ground based LIDAR system, collected in the Harvard forest during a field campaign in the summer of 2013. Data sets such as these are being used to develop realistic, ecologically accurate modes of forests for rendering in DIRSIG and for use in other environ-mental modeling programs.

Another accomplishment was achieved by Ph.D. student Wayne Sun in the area of pan-sharpening of multispectral imagery. Wayne developed a method based on a nearest neighbor diffusion approach to pan-sharpen multispec-tral imagery from systems such as the DigitalGlobe Worldview-2 satellite. His method not only produces visually "sharp" images, but it also maintains the radiometric fidelity of the scene,

The Goniometer at RIT (GRIT), shown here deployed on a beach to measure the BRDF characteristics of wetted sand.


21allowing for spectral exploitation of the high-resolution, fused imagery. Figure WSun_Col_RGB_sharp shows an example of this algorithm as applied to an image of the Coliseum in Rome. This algorithm has been transitioned to corporate partners Exelis VIS and will ultimately be available to the community via their ENVI software package.

Taking NASA-USGS’s Landsat 8 to the Beach By Kate Ramsayer, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland

http://1.usa.gov/1Gpb1NC

Some things go swimmingly with a summer trip to the beach—sunscreen, mystery novels, cold beverages and sandcastles. Other things—like aquatic algae—are best avoided.

The Landsat 8 satellite is helping re-searchers spot these organisms from space, gathering information that could direct beachgoers away from contami-nated bays and beaches. With improved sensors and technology on the latest Landsat satellite, researchers can now distinguish slight variations in the color of coastal water due to algae or sediments to identify potential problem areas.

“We can sample everything in the blink of an eye and can say right here your yellow organic [contaminants] are look-ing high,” said John Schott, a researcher at the Rochester Institute of Technolo-gy in New York. “We could use that to guide water managers’ sampling, and say we think there’s likely a problem along this stretch of beach.”

Water challenges

Remote sensing satellites like Landsat 8, built by NASA and operated by the U.S. Geological Survey, detect the intensity

of different wavelengths of light that reflect off Earth’s surface. Over forests or grasslands, for example, the satellite will detect strong signals in the green band, since chlorophyll in leaves absorbs red and blue, but reflects green.

Water, however, poses a challenge. Water absorbs a lot of light, Schott said, and so oceans and lakes look dark on satellite images compared to land. Still, Landsat satellites pick up some light that’s reflected off water – and Landsat 8 has a new band designed to pick up even more above coastal areas. This latest satellite can also detect more of the subtle differences between levels of a given color intensity that would indi-

cate what was mixed in with the water.

“All of the interesting stuff is typically lost in the noise of the old instruments,” said Schott, a Landsat Science Team member. While the old satellites might have allowed scientists to classify coast-al waters into a handful of categories, Landsat 8 data can expand that to tens or hundreds of categories, he said.

“Now we’ve got a possibility to see and possibly suss out what’s causing color changes,” Schott said. “It’s a potential revolution for doing water. No matter how hard we worked, we could only get so far with the old system.”

Landsat 8 instruments were designed to detect more gradations in light inten-sity to improve results like this over both land and water, said Jim Irons, Landsat 8 project scientist. Not only did engineers and developers improve the instrument’s detectors to pick up more shades, but they also changed how the instruments scan the Earth’s surface. The Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Map-per-Plus sensor used a rapidly vibrating mirror to sweep the view of a few de-tectors across a swath of land to create an image. In contrast, the Landsat 8 instruments—the Operational Land Imager and Thermal Infrared Sensor—use long rows of detectors to observe the swath in a fixed line, moving like a pushbroom. This arrangement allows the detectors to linger just a bit longer over each parcel of land, Irons said, which improves the signal while cutting down on the static noise.

Landsat 8 also added a spectral band to pick up dark blue colors to help

Pan-sharpened multispectral image of the Coliseum in Rome, Italy. RGB bands shown.

Landsat detects the intensity of light reflected off or emitted from Earth, from dark to bright extremes. The number of shades in between depends on instrument sensitivity, or bit depth, for each wavelength. Here, a 12-bit Landsat 8 view of Lake Ontario is altered to illustrate different bit depths. Image Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/M. Radcliff

Related story: "A Dynamic Landscape, a Dynamic Sensor"

With Landsat 8's improved ability to detect variations in colors, the waters of Lake Ontario can show sediment patterns as well as potentially problematic algae, indicated by higher chlorophyll concentrations.Image Credit: NASA/USGS

22


studies like Schott’s that are looking at coastal areas, both of lakes and oceans. Pollutants from land impact fresh and salt-water ecosystems including coral reefs. “Water quality in the coastal re-gions is key to the health of the ocean,” Irons said.

Water's color wheel

Beyond the blue of the water, Schott is paying attention to three colors to decipher what’s in Lake Ontario: green, yellow and grey. Green indicates the presence of chlorophyll, the molecule found not only in land plants but in lake algae. The yellow color is decaying plant matter. The gray color, apparent from a combination of Landsat’s bands, comes from particulates like dust and soil, or from dead algae that have lost

their chlorophyll.

“It’s a classic color problem,” Schott said. “All of these things together give the water a color. You can unmix these to give you the components.”

After paddling out in boats and testing the waters on the same day Landsat 8 passes overhead, his team compares

the water samples to the satellite data. They use those comparisons to create tables and computer programs that can use the satellite data to help deter-mine water quality and composition. This summer, they plan to sample the harmful algal blooms that start small in Lake Ontario’s bays and rivers—which could grow and cause water quality and public health concerns.

Other remote sensing satellites, which gather data representing an area a kilometer (0.6 miles) wide, can provide water quality information about the open ocean, Schott said. But with each pixel in a Landsat image representing an area about the size of a baseball diamond (30 meters, or 98 feet wide), the satellite's resolution is optimal for looking at those inlets and other coastal

areas where people swim, boat and fish.

“It’s the water we touch,” Schott said.

Mapping the muck

It's not just the algae floating on the surface that Landsat can spy. Scientists with the Michigan Tech Research Insti-tute are tracking the spread of Chlado-phora, a hair-fine algae that attaches to shallow water rocks, or the shells of dead invasive zebra and quagga mussels. Occasionally, due to storms in the Great Lakes, the algae slough off the rocks, and cover the beach in a green decaying mess.

Bob Shuchman, the co-director of the institute, and his colleagues including senior research scientist Colin Brooks and Michigan Tech professor Marty Auer, started using Landsat data for lakebed

analysis in 2009. As part of a NASA-fund-ed feasibility study, they developed computer programs to analyze color gra-dations in satellite data and turn it into a map of submerged aquatic vegetation, primarily Cladophora, near the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in Mich-igan. Once they developed the program, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agen-cy asked them to map coastal waters of four of the Great Lakes.

The maps were useful not only for water quality researchers and regulators, Shuchman said, but the beach-going public as well. “You don’t want to take the grandkids to a place where they’re going to get muckety muck all over their feet,” he said.

The team began with the remote sensing satellite data from Landsats 5 and 7. Then they went back to the first Landsat image they could find—in 1974, from Landsat 1, then called the Earth Resources Technology Satellite. From there, they looked at the distribution of Chladophora algae every five years.

“Landsat was really a time machine for us,” Shuchman said. “The team used it to go and study selected areas in the Great Lakes to fill in the times when the scientists weren’t studying it.”

With Landsat 8, the researchers can continue that time series. They’ve used the satellite to look at the algae extent around Sleeping Bear again. Shuchman said the new data allows them to deter-mine the algae's density, and also see through deeper waters—which expands the area they can search for green.

“We can tease out more information about what’s on the lake bottom,” he said. “Landsat 8 gives us continuity, but it also lets us do a better mapping job.”

Sediment swirls and chlorophyll whirls

Landsat 8's more detailed aquatic obser-vations don't stop at algae. Researchers in Belgium are looking at the swirls of sediments created by wind turbines in near shore waters. Wind companies are required to monitor the environmen-tal impact of the turbines, explained Quinten Vanhellemont, a scientist with the Royal Belgian Institute for Natural Sciences, and Landsat has the spatial resolution—and the sensitivity—to pick up some of the smaller features.

“The resolution and sensitivity of the imager on board makes it an ideal sensor for coastal water applications. On almost every image we process there are interesting features, some we had never

Landsat data of dissolved organic matter, suspended sediment, chlorophyll along Lake Ontario shoreline

Landsat 8’s new blue band and improved ability to distinguish subtle color variations help researchers study coastal water quality. John Schott and colleagues at Rochester Institute of Technology are measuring chloro-phyll and more along Lake Ontario’s shores.

Image Credit: RIT/NASA/USGS

23considered before,” Vanhellemont wrote.

At NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, scientists in the Ocean Ecology Laboratory are looking to Landsat 8 as well. They have created open-source software that researchers use to analyze satellite data for studies on marine phytoplankton chlorophyll concentration other water constituents.

Currently they use satellites that take the big view, but Bryan Franz, a research oceanographer at Goddard, worked with Vanhellemont to see how well Landsat 8 data could be processed to determine chlorophyll patterns in coastal waters. It shows promise, Franz said. He plans to add Landsat 8 data to the software this summer to see how the ocean research community will use it.

“There are plenty of coastal ecosystem managers and people out there that have interest,” Franz said. “They’ll use these tools if we make them available … the community will run with it.”

People in the water quality community are excited about Landsat and it’s appli-cations beyond land, Schott said.

“We’re going to have to change the name of the satellite one of these days,” he said.

Landsat 8 image of Thames Estuary, with wind power turbines highlighted

With Landsat 8’s improved images of water color, scientists can examine events like sediment movements around wind power turbines, seen here in the Thames Estuary in the United Kingdom.

Image Credit: NASA/USGS

Thames Estuary wind power turbines

Close-up of the Thames Estuary wind power turbines from the above image.

Image Credit: NASA/USGS

24


RESEARCHRESEARCH

Katie Seery and Sahil Pravin Bhandari standing by the optical setup for future Terahertz image testing.

25

RESEARCHLAIR utilizes the excellent infrastructure facilities available at RIT including the Semiconductor and Microsystems Fabrication Laboratory, the Center for Electronics Manufacturing and Assembly, and the Center for Detectors.

A wide variety of instruments have been developed at RIT over the last twenty years including digital radiography systems, liquid crystal filter based imaging systems for air-borne (UAV) mine detection, a speckle imaging camera for the WIYN 3.6 meter telescope, a MEMS digital micromirror based multi-object spectrometer, and an X-ray imaging sys-tems for laser fusion research. This research has been funded by NASA, the NSF, NYSTAR and a variety of corporations such as Exelis, ITT, Kodak, Moxtek and ThermoFisher Scien-tific. A description of some of the current research projects are listed below.

Graduate Students :Dmitry Vorobiev

Greg Fertig

Kevan Donlan

Chao Zhang

Katie Seery

Sahil Pravin Bhandari

Ross Robinson

Bryan Fodness

Kyle Ryan

1. Studies of the optical properties of TI DMDs and the development of a multi-object spectrometer

The Digital Micromirror Device (DMD) built by Texas Instruments is the device used as the optical slit mask in the RITMOS Multi-Object Spectrometer. RITMOS was designed to record the spectra of multiple stars within the field of view. The instru-ment has been improved, with newly written software and a new imaging camera. The 2010 Astronomy Decadal survey's leading suggestion for space instrumentation is a wide field IR Space Telescope which will require a multi-object spectrograph to accomplish its science goals. Other space based missions requiring multi-object spectroscopy capability have been proposed, including for the ultraviolet. There have been four key aspects of the performance of DMDs that have been questioned for use in a MOS for space. We have attempted to address each of these.

(1) To assess the light scattering properties of DMDs. a spot scanning system has been assembled that accurately translates a spot of light across the DMD and measures the scattered light across the mirror, at the central via, and at the edges of the individual mirrors.

Laboratory Director’s Comments By Dr. Zoran Ninkov

LABORATORY FOR ADVANCED INSTRUMENTATION RESEARCH (LAIR)

RESEARCH

The Laboratory for Advanced Instrumentation Research is dedicated to;

(a) the development of novel and innovative instruments for gathering data from a wide variety of physical phenomena

(b) the training of the next generation of instrument scientists who will occupy positions in government, industry and academia.

26


(2) For use in the infrared it is required that DMDs operate at cooled tempera-tures. The test configuration seen below in the laboratory at RIT showed that nor-mal operation of these devices was able to carried out to a temperature of 130K. This was the limit of how cold the DMD could be cooled by the configuration and did not reflect a failure on the DMD.

(3) The radiation hardness of the DMD. Tests were conducted using the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory 88” Cyclo-tron to irradiated the DMDs with high energy protons. The tests showed that the DMDs worked well when exposed to a dose equivalent to that found at an L2 orbit over a period of five years. A picture of the test configuration at the end of the proton beam line is shown in the figure.

(4) The DMDs are supplied by Texas Instruments with a protective borosili-cate glass window. This glass limits the range of wavelengths that the device can be used for. We are currently work-ing on removing these windows and repacking the devices with windows that are transmissive in the ultraviolet. Initially we are using magnesium fluo-ride and HEM Sapphire as the replace-ment window material A DMD with part of the protective package removed is shown below.

2. Enhancing Focal Plane Array Quantum Efficiency with Quantum Dots

There are many interesting things to see in the ultraviolet (UV). Lithography for integrated circuit production is exposed with 193nm light with future, honey bees' view of flowers include the UV region and analytical instruments use UV emissions to identify materials. Current silicon CMOS or CCD based detectors used in standard digital cameras do a poor job of recording UV images. The ability to detect UV light may be im-proved by switching to exotic materials or by polishing the detector until it is so thin that it is flexible and almost trans-parent. Both of those options are very ex-pensive to fabricate. A different approach is to apply a coating of nanometer-scale materials to the surface of a detector chip to convert the incoming UV light is to visible light which is more readily recorded by standard detector chips. This research has developed a method of coat-ing detector arrays with nano materials and applied it to improve the ability of detectors to record UV and blue light.

Figure 3: Quantum Dot coated detector in aluminum mask under UV illumination. The active area is 15mmx15mm

Figure 4: TEM image of thin quantum dot film showing well distributed individual dots on an array

3. The effect of IPC on Astronomical Imaging Systems

The effect of interpixel capacitance (IPC) on images captured by infrared sensors was first identified by a Ph.D. student at RIT, Drew Moore. Now that this effect has been characterized, research has focused on investigating how IPC affects photometry. IPC acts as a smoothing filter, by spreading out the signal of each pixel into the neighboring pixels and also affects the normal assumptions about the relationship between noise and signal. Astronomers commonly use a method of photometry called aperture photometry which is compromised by IPC effects. For isolated stars the effect is small. Continuing research will explor-er IPC effects on diffraction limited im-agery, such as on the James Webb Space Telescope, as well as in crowded fields. Current modeling focuses on determin-ing the coupling strength as a function of structural design.

Figure 6: Shows the smoothing features of an IPC coupling at 10% on star and image noise (dark dominated).

Figure 7: Shows a TCAD rendering of a small simulated linear pixel array.

4. Imaging Polarimetry

Imaging polarimeters utilizing the divi-sion-of-focal technique present unique chal-lenges during the data reduction process. Because an image is formed directly on the polarizing optic, each pixel “sees” a differ-ent part of the scene; this problem is anal-ogous to the challenges in color restoration that arise with the use of Bayer filters.

Figure 1: Left: A polarimeter based on a

27micropolarizer array: the light passing through a single polarizer is collected by a single pixel. Right: A polarization-sensitive imaging sensor fabricated at the Laboratory for Advanced Instrumentation Research.

Although polarization is an inherent property of light, the vast majority of light sensors (including bolometers, semiconductor devices and photograph-ic emulsions) are only able to measure the intensity of incident radiation. A polarimeter measures the polarization of the electromagnetic field by con-verting differences in polarization into differences in intensity. The microgrid polarizer array (MGPA) divides the focal plane into an array of superpixels. Each sub-pixel samples the electric field along a different direction, polarizing the light that passes through it and modulating the intensity according to the polarization of the light and the orientation of the polarizer.

We are actively looking at techniques for hybridizing microgrid polarizer arrays to commercial CID, CCD and CMOS arrays.

Figure 2: To attach micropolarizer arrays with imaging sensors, we have constructed a computerized alignment system in a clean-room of the RIT Semiconductor Manufactur-ing and Fabrication Laboratory.

Figure 3: Dmitry Vorobiev and the comput-erized alignment system for fabrication of polarization-sensitive imaging sensors.

5. THz Imaging

A silicon CMOS based array purposed for the terahertz regime has promising applications for many fields including security screening, manufacturing process monitoring, communications,

and medicine. Current systems mainly consist of bulky technology, including large pulsed laser systems and are pri-marily laboratory-based setups. A silicon CMOS based technology was chosen in order to eventually develop a compact, portable, practical imaging system. A large amount of recent research has been conducted regarding the detection of terahertz using silicon MOSFETs. The THz focal plane technology being tested is uncooled and employs direct over-damped, plasmonic detection with silicon CMOS MOSFETs that are each coupled to an individual micro-antennae.

Figure 1: A photo of the new experimental setup with the newest version of the chip is shown above. The Gunn Diode source is on the left, followed by the shutter, and the test enclosure. The enclosure will be mounted on XYZ and rotation stages for alignment of the MOSFET of interest with the source. Re-sponse is viewed in real-time for alignment with a source measurement instrument, or a lock-in amplifier (Drain bias current, Id not available when using the lock-in.

Chip DescriptionThe chip used in these experiments was a custom designed and fabricated in a 0.35 μm silicon CMOS process using the MOSIS facility. The current design has an imaging array and 15 test transis-tors. The previous version of the chip has four test imager arrays and five test transistors. These ‘test’ transistors can be connected directly to outputs for characterization without clocking electronics. Our work has focused on characterizing the response from these five test transistors. The figure below shows a micrograph of the previous test chip with the test transistors located on the bottom edge.

Figure 2: Previous generation MOSIS devices. Five test structures are seen along the bottom.

Figure 3: MOSIS test chip on circuit board outside housing.

Test DescriptionThe transistors were biased using a Keithley 2602 Source Measurement Unit (SMU), which connects to the test enclo-sure via low noise shielded twisted pair ca-bles. The enclosure creates a Faraday cage around the fan-out board and test chip, and the connections are fed through the box with feed-through capacitors to reduce as much RF noise as possible. A removable high resistivity silicon window on the front of the enclosure precedes a high-speed shutter, which is controlled via digital I/O from the Keithley. The source is mounted on XYZ and rotation stages for alignment purposes. The Keithley is commanded via a MATLAB serial interface for applying bias sweeps and relaying data. The radiation source is an ≈ 50 mW 188 GHz Gunn diode from Virginia Diodes. An illustration of the experimental setup is shown below.

Figure 4: Schematic of laboratory experi-mental setup

PatentRobinson R. and Ninkov Z. [2010]

Enhancing Focal Plane Array Quantum

28


Efficiency with Quantum Dots

US Patent Application Serial Number 12/655,350,

PCT International Patent Application Number PCT/US10/62159

Sample Publications1. Polarization in a snap: Imaging pola-

rimetry with micropolarizer arrays

Vorobiev, Dmitry (Center for Imag-ing Science, Rochester Institute of Technology, 54 Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester NY, 14623, United States); Ninkov, Zoran; Gartley, Michael Source: Proceedings of SPIE—The International Society for Optical Engineering, v 9099, 2014, Polarization: Measurement, Anal-ysis, and Remote Sensing XI

2. T-ray detection in 0.35-μm CMOS technology

Fertig, Gregory J. (Rochester Institute of Technology, Carlson Center for Im-aging Science, Rochester, NY 14623, United States); Ninkov, Zoran; Bocko, Mark F.; Dayalu, Jagannath; Four-spring, Kenny D.; Ignjatovic, Zeljko; Lee, Paul P. K.; McMurtry, Craig W.; Newman, J. Daniel; Pipher, Judith L.; Sacco, Andrew P.; Zhang, Chao Source: Proceedings of SPIE—The Internation-al Society for Optical Engineering, v 9102, 2014, Terahertz Physics, Devices, and Systems VIII: Advanced Applications in Industry and Defense

3. THz imaging Si MOSFET system de-sign at 215 GHz

Sacco, Andrew P. (Exelis Geospatial Systems, Rochester NY 14606, United States); Newman, J. Daniel; Lee, Paul P. K.; Fourspring, Kenneth D.; Osborn, John H.; Fiete, Robert D.; Bocko, Mark F.; Ignjatovic, Zeljko; Pipher, Judith L.; McMurtry, Craig W.; Zhang, Xi-Cheng; Dayalu, Jagannath; Fertig, Gregory J.; Zhang, Chao; Ninkov, Zoran Source: Proceedings of SPIE—The Internation-al Society for Optical Engineering, v 9102, 2014, Terahertz Physics, Devices, and Systems VIII: Advanced Applications in Industry and Defense

4. Development of radiometrically accu-rate synthetic thermal infrared video for tracking algorithm evaluation Rhodes, David B. (Center for Imag-ing Science, Rochester Institute of Technology, 54 Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, NY 14623-5406, United States); Ninkov, Zoran; Newman, J. Daniel; Lee, Paul P. K.; Gosian, Greg-ory J. Source: Proceedings of SPIE—The International Society for Optical Engineering, v 8403, 2012, Modeling

and Simulation for Defense Systems and Applications VII

5. Testing of digital micromirror devices for space-based applications kenneth fourspring1

Ninkov, Zoran (Rochester Institute of Technology, 54 Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, NY 14623, United States); Heap, Sally; Roberto, Massimo; Kim, Alex Source: Proceedings of SPIE—The International Society for Optical Engi-neering, v 8618, 2013, Emerging Digi-tal Micromirror Device Based Systems and Applications V

6. Simulation of practical single-pixel wire-grid polarizers for superpixel stokes vector imaging arrays Raisanen, Alan D. (Rochester Institute of Technol-ogy, SMFL, 82 Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, NY 14551, United States); Presnar, Michael D.; Ninkov, Zoran; Fourspring, Kenneth; Meng, Lingfei; Kerekes, John P. Source: Optical Engi-neering, v 51, n 1, January 2012

7. First report on quantum dot coated CMOS CID arrays for the UV and VUV

Robinson, Ross (Center for Imaging Science, Rochester Institute of Tech-nology, Rochester, NY 14623, United States); Ninkov, Zoran; Cormier, De-nis; Raisanen, Alan; Bhaskaran, Suraj; Beam, Carey; Ziegler, Herb; Arp, Uwe; Vest, Robert Source: Proceedings of SPIE—The International Society for Optical Engineering, v 8859, 2013, UV, X-Ray, and Gamma-Ray Space Instrumentation for Astronomy XVIII

8. Compact THz imaging detector

Newman, J. Daniel (ITT Exelis Geospa-tial Systems, 800 Lee Rd, Rochester, NY 14606, United States); Lee, Paul P. K.; Sacco, Andrew P.; Chamberlain, Thomas B.; Willems, David A.; Fiete, Robert D.; Bocko, Mark V.; Ignjatovic, Zeljko; Pipher, Judith L.; McMurtry, Craig W.; Zhang, Xi-Cheng; Rhodes, David B.; Ninkov, Zoran Source: Proceedings of SPIE—The Internation-al Society for Optical Engineering, v 8716, 2013, Terahertz Physics, Devices, and Systems VII: Advanced Applications in Industry and Defense

9. Scattered light in a DMD based multi-object spectrometer

Fourspring, Kenneth D. (Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science, Rochester Institute of Technology, 54 Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, NY, United States); Ninkov, Zoran; Kerekes, John P. Source: Proceedings of SPIE—The International Society for Optical Engineering, v 7739, 2010, Modern

Technologies in Space- and Ground-Based Telescopes and Instrumentation

10. Sensor modeling and demonstration of a multi-object spectrometer for performance-driven sensing

Kerekes, John P. (Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science, Roches-ter Institute of Technology, 54 Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, NY 14623-5604, United States); Presnar, Michael D.; Fourspring, Kenneth D.; Ninkov, Zoran; Pogorzala, David R.; Raisanen, Alan D.; Rice, Andrew C.; Vasquez, Juan R.; Patel, Jeffrey P.; MacIntyre, Robert T.; Brown, Scott D. Source: Proceedings of SPIE—The Internation-al Society for Optical Engineering, v 7334, 2009, Algorithms and Technol-ogies for Multispectral, Hyperspectral, and Ultraspectral Imagery XV

11. SpecTIR hyperspectral airborne Rochester experiment data collec-tion campaign

Herweg, Jared A. (Center for Imag-ing Science, Rochester Institute of Technology, 54 Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, NY 14623-5406, United States); Kerekes, John P.; Weatherbee, Oliver; Messinger, David; Van Aardt, Jan; Ientilucci, Emmett; Ninkov, Zoran; Faulring, Jason; Raqueño, Nina; Meola, Joseph Source: Proceed-ings of SPIE—The International Soci-ety for Optical Engineering, v 8390, 2012, Algorithms and Technologies for Multispectral, Hyperspectral, and Ultraspectral Imagery XVIII

12. Polynomial fitting adaptive kalman filter tracking and choice of correla-tion coefficient

Ausfeld, Kyle (Center for Imaging Science, Rochester Institute of Technology, 54 Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, NY 14623-5406, United States); Ninkov, Zoran; Lee, Paul P.K.; Newman, J. Daniel; Gosian, Gregory Source: Proceedings of SPIE—The International Society for Optical Engineering, v 8395, 2012, Acquisition, Tracking, Pointing, and Laser Systems Technologies XXVI

13. Optical characterization of a mi-cro-grid polarimeter

Fourspring, Kenneth (Center for Imaging Science, Rochester Institute of Technology, 54 Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, NY 14621, United States); Ninkov, Zoran Source: Pro-ceedings of SPIE—The International Society for Optical Engineering, v 8364, 2012, Polarization: Measure-ment, Analysis, and Remote Sensing X

2914. Simulation of practical single-pixel

wire-grid polarizers for superpixel stokes vector imaging arrays

Raisanen, Alan D. (Rochester Insti-tute of Technology, Semiconductor and Microsystems Laboratory, 82 Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, NY 14551, United States); Presnar, Mi-chael D.; Ninkov, Zoran; Fourspring, Kenneth; Meng, Lingfei; Kerekes, John P. Source: Optical Engineering, v 51, n 1, January 2012

15. Subpixel scatter in digital micromir-ror devices

Fourspring, Kenneth D. (Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science, Rochester Institute of Technology, 54 Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, NY 14623-5604, United States); Ninkov, Zoran; Kerekes, John P. Source: Pro-ceedings of SPIE—The International Society for Optical Engineering, v 7596, 2010, Emerging Digital Mi-cromirror Device Based Systems and Applications II

16. Synthetic scene building for testing thermal signature tracking algorithms

Rhodes, David B. (Center for Im-aging Science, Rochester Institute of Technology, 54 Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, NY 14623-5406, United States); Ninkov, Zoran; Pi-pher, Judith L.; McMurtry, Craig W.; Newman, J. Daniel; Lee, Paul P.K.; Gosian, Gregory J.; Presnar, Michael D. Source: Proceedings of SPIE—The International Society for Optical Engineering, v 7813, 2010, Remote Sensing System

17. Charge injection devices for use in astronomy

Ninkov, Zoran; Tang, Chen; Backer, Brian; Easton, Roger L. Jr.; Carbone, Joseph Source: Proceedings of SPIE—The International Society for Optical Engineering, v 2198, p 868-876, 1994

18. Preliminary results with a CID-based photon counting system

Corba, Massimiliano (Rochester Inst. of Technology,, Rochester, NY, USA); Ninkov, Zoran; Backer, Brian; Wu, Minming; Slaw-son, Bob Source: Proceedings of SPIE—The International Society for Optical Engineering, v 2654, p 310-316, 1996

19. Design, fabrication and characterization of a family of active pixel CID imagers

Lungu, George (Rochester Inst of Technol-ogy, Rochester, United States); Lubberts, Gerrit; Ninkov, Zoran; Ma, Dan; Fuller, Lynn; Carbone, Joe; Alam, Zulfiquar; Borman, Claudia Source: Proceedings of

SPIE—The International Society for Opti-cal Engineering, v 3649, p 67-73, 1999

20. Imaging spectroscopy with digital micromirrors

Kearney, Kevin J. (Rochester Inst of Technology, Rochester, United States); Corio, Mark; Ninkov, Zoran Source: Proceedings of SPIE—The International Society for Optical Engineering, v 3965, p 11-20, 2000

21. Quantum efficiency overestimation and deterministic cross talk result-ing from interpixel capacitance

Moore, Andrew C. (Rochester Insti-tute of Technology, Center for Imag-ing Science, Rochester, NY 14623-5604, United States); Ninkov, Zoran; Forrest, William J. Source: Optical Engineering, v 45, n 7, July 2006

22. Subpixel sensitivity maps for a back-illuminated charge-coupled device and the effects of nonuniform response on measurement accuracy

Piterman, Albert (Rochester Institute of Technology, Center for Imaging Science, 54 Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, NY 14623, United States); Ninkov, Zoran Source: Optical En-gineering, v 41, n 6, p 1192-1202, June 2002

23. A new low-noise high-quantum-effi-ciency speckle imaging system

Horch, Elliott P. (Center for Imaging Science, Rochester Institute of Tech-nology, 54 Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, NY 14623-5604, United States); Ninkov, Zoran; Van Altena, William F. Source: Proceedings of SPIE—The International Society for Optical Engineering, v 3355, p 777-785, 1998, Optical Astronomical Instrumentation

24. Measurements of the sub-pixel sensi-tivity for a backside-illuminated CCD

Piterman, Albert (Rochester Inst of Technology, Rochester, United States); Ninkov, Zoran Source: Pro-ceedings of SPIE—The International Society for Optical Engineering, v 3965, p 289-297, 2000

25. Operation and test of hybridized sil-icon p-i-n arrays using open-source array control hardware and software

Moore, Andrew C. (Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY, United States); Ninkov, Zoran; Burley, Greg S.; Forrest, William J.; Murtry, Craig W.Mc.; Avery, Lars E. Source: Proceedings of SPIE—The International Society for Optical En-

gineering, v 5017, p 240-253, 2003

26. Interpixel capacitance in non-de-structive focal plane arrays

Moore, Andrew C. (Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY, United States); Ninkov, Zoran; Forrest, William J. Source: Proceedings of SPIE—The International Society for Optical Engineering, v 5167, p 204-215, 2004, Focal Plane Arrays for Space Telescopes

27. RITMOS: A micromirror-based multi-object spectrometer

Meyer, Reed D. (Rochester Institute of Technology, Center for Imaging Science, 54 Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, NY 14623, United States); Kearney, Kevin J.; Ninkov, Zoran; Cot-ton, Christopher T.; Hammond, Peter; Statt, Bryan D. Source: Proceedings of SPIE—The International Society for Optical Engineering, v 5492, n PART 1, p 200-219, 2004, Ground-based Instrumentation for Astronomy

28. Characterization of a digital micro-mirror device for use as an optical mask in imaging and spectroscopy

Kearney, Kevin J. (Center for Imaging Science, Rochester Institute of Tech-nology, Rochester, NY 14623, United States); Ninkov, Zoran Source: Pro-ceedings of SPIE—The International Society for Optical Engineering, v 3292, p 81-92, 1998

29. Characterization of a CID-38 charge injection device

Backer, Brian (Rochester Inst. of Technology,, Rochester, NY, USA); Ninkov, Zoran; Corba, Massimiliano Source: Proceedings of SPIE—The International Society for Optical Engineering, v 2654, p 11-19, 1996

30. Characterization of a large format CCD array

Ninkov, Zoran; Backer, Brian; Bretz, David; Burns, Peter D. Source: Pro-ceedings of SPIE—The International Society for Optical Engineering, v 1987, p 14-27, 1994

31. Photometric studies using the Starfire Optical Range adaptive optics system

Piterman, Albert (Center for Imaging Science, Rochester Institute of Tech-nology, 54 Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, NY 14623-5604, United States); Ninkov, Zoran; Backer, Brian S.; Horch, Elliott P. Source: Proceed-ings of SPIE—The International Soci-ety for Optical Engineering, v 3353, p 447-454, 1998, Adaptive Optical System Technologies

30

RESEARCHRESEARCH


The PerForM laboratory before and after renovation of the 2nd-floor space in the Carlson building

31

RESEARCHGabe Diaz arrived at RIT in September of 2013, and has been very busy working with his students building his new virtual reality laboratory in the MVRL: the PerForM Lab (Perception For Movement). Housed in newly renovated space on the second floor of the Carlson building, the PerForM lab has undergone quite a transition over the last year.

The PerForM Lab is dedicated to bettering our understanding of the mechanisms that allow humans to perform everyday visually guided actions, like catching a ball, driving a car, or walking over uneven terrain. Although these are natural actions, the natural environment does not afford the experimental control required for the rigorous testing of hypotheses. To overcome the limitations of real-world studies without sacrificing realism or freedom of movement, the PerForM Lab leverages new advances in virtual reality and motion capture. This includes virtual reality helmets by NVis and Oculus Rift, a 14-camera Phasespace motion capture system, and integrated eye-tracking technology.

Dr. Gabriel Diaz (right), undergraduate Victoria McGowen, and Ph.D. student Kamran Binaee initiate a visitor to a virtual environment in the PerForM lab

By conducting studies in virtual reality, Dr. Diaz and the students in the PerForM lab are able to replicate the visual information and freedom of movement available in the natural world, but maintain the experimental control typical of the laboratory environment. Because experiments take place in computer-generated environments, and because head position and viewing geometry are known, there is a digital record of what each subject saw when they performed the task. In addition, the motion cap-ture system can track the position of small markers affixed to the subject’s body with millimeter precision, providing a complementary record of the subject’s movements as they act within the virtual environment. With in-helmet eye-tracking devices, one can also monitor the gaze of subjects as they move and interact.

One ongoing study headed by CIS Ph.D. student Kamran Binaee is motivated by the observation that movements guided to quickly moving targets are complicated by the presence of sensory and motor delays that prevent the immediate use of new visual information. The fact that humans are able to catch balls at all suggests that we are able to compensate for these delays. However, little is known about the underlying predictive mechanisms. This study draws upon real-world investigations that have shown that, when a person is preparing to catch a quickly moving ball, s/he will make eye movements to locations ahead of the ball’s current position, to a location where the ball will arrive a short time in the future. To further our insight, the PerForm lab has brought this real-world investigation into the laboratory, where subjects are asked to catch virtual balls seen through a head-mounted display. Using the virtual-reality equipment, one can artificially manipulate the ball’s trajectory, make the ball shrink, expand, or disappear, in ways that one cannot in the real world, enabling the testing of hypotheses that are untestable in the real world.

Laboratory Director’s Comments By Dr. Jeff Pelz

MULTIDISCIPLINARY VISION RESEARCH LABORATORY

RESEARCH

The MVRL has welcomed two new members to the lab. Dr. Gabriel Diaz joined the faculty at RIT from the University of Texas at Austin, and Dr. James Ferwerda formally joined the lab after collaborations on several projects.

32


Dr. Diaz received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees under the guidance of Brett Fajen at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where he studied human navigation and visuo-motor control in the natural environment. Most re-cently, He worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the laboratory of Drs. Mary. M. Hayhoe and Dana Ballard at UT Austin.

Jim Ferwerda’s research is focused on building computational models of human vision from psychophysical experiments and developing advanced graphics technologies based on these models. By understanding how different im-age-quality characteristics affect the perception of gloss and other surface qualities, Dr. Ferwerda and his students are able to design display sys-tems that can more accurately reproduce them. (Ferwerda, 2014a)

Dr. Gabriel Diaz (right), undergraduate Victoria McGowen, and Ph.D. student Kamran Binaee initiate a visitor to a virtual environment in the PerForM lab

33

He and his students have been devel-oping surface display systems that support realistic and accurate real-time display of complex surfaces. Displaying photorealistic texture, color, and gloss is even more challenging in real-time displays that allow user interaction.

Dr. Ferwerda is an Associate Editor of ACM Transactions on Applied Percep-tion, has served as Guest Editor of IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, is Technical Co-chair of the IS&T Color Im-aging Conference, and serves as a mem-ber of CIE Technical Committee TC8- 08 on High Dynamic Range Imaging. In 2003 and 2005 he was selected for the National Academy of Engineering Frontiers of Engineering Program and in 2010 for the National Academies Keck Futures Initiative Program. He received a B.A. in Psychology, M.S. in Computer Graphics, and a Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology, all from Cornell University.

MVRL Publications 2013-2014Baschnagel, J. S. (2013). Using mobile eye-tracking to assess attention to smok-ing cues in a naturalized environment.

Addictive behaviors, 38(12), 2837-2840.

Baschnagel, J. S., Schwartz, J., Dziedzic, B., Duell, M., & Aube, V. (2014, Septem-ber). Affective modification of startle to alcohol cues in undergraduates. In Psy-chophysiology (Vol. 51, pp. S31-S31). Wiley-Blackwell.

Baschnagel, J. S., Coffey, S. F., Hawk Jr, L. W., Schumacher, J. A., & Holloman, G. (2013). Psychophysiological assessment of emotional processing in patients with borderline personality disorder with and without comorbid substance use. Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment, 4(3), 203.

Bohannon, L. S., Herbert, A. M., Pelz, J. B., & Rantanen, E. M. (2013). Eye contact and video-mediated communication: A review. Displays, 34(2), 177-185.

Bona, S., Herbert, A., Toneatto, C., Silvanto, J., & Cattaneo, Z. (2014). The causal role of the lateral occipital com-plex in visual mirror symmetry detec-tion and grouping: an fMRI-guided TMS study. Cortex, 51, 46-55.

Booth, T., Sridharan, S., Bethamcherla, V., & Bailey, R. (2014, August). Gaze3D:

framework for gaze analysis on 3D reconstructed scenes. In Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on Applied Percep-tion (pp. 67-70). ACM.

Booth, T., Sridharan, S., McNamara, A., Grimm, C., & Bailey, R. (2013, Au-gust). Guiding attention in controlled real-world environments. In Proceed-ings of the ACM Symposium on Applied Perception (pp. 75-82). ACM.

Bullard, J., & Alm, C. O. (2014). Computa-tional analysis to explore authors’ depic-tion of characters. EACL 2014, 11-16.

Bullard, J., Alm, C. O., Yu, Q., Shi, P., & Haake, A. (2014). Towards multimodal modeling of physicians’ diagnostic confidence and self-awareness using medical narratives. In Proceedings of COLING (pp. 1718-1727).

Cattaneo, Z., Vecchi, T., Fantino, M., Her-bert, A. M., & Merabet, L. B. (2013). The effect of vertical and horizontal symmetry on memory for tactile patterns in late blind individuals. Attention, Perception & Psychophysics, 75, 375-382

Diaz, G., Cooper, J., Rothkopf, C., & Hayhoe, M. (2013). Saccades to future

A real painting (left), and a representation rendered by a surface display system (right). The appearance of the surface changes appropriately with movement of the observer or display. (Ferwerda, 2014b)

34


ball location reveal memory-based pre-diction in a virtual-reality interception task. Journal of vision, 13(1), 20.

Diaz, G., Cooper, J., & Hayhoe, M. (2013). Memory and prediction in nat-ural gaze control. Philosophical Trans-actions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 368(1628), 20130064.

Diaz, G., Cooper, J., Kit, D., & Hayhoe, M. (2013). Real-time recording and classification of eye movements in an immersive virtual environment. Journal of vision, 13(12), 5.

Farnand, S. P., & Fairchild, M. D. (2014). Designing pictorial stimuli for perceptual ex-periments. Applied Optics, 53(13), C72-C82.

Ferwerda, J.A. (2013) Tangible imaging sys-tems. Proceedings SPIE Electronic Imaging ’13 (Invited keynote paper), 86640M

Ferwerda, J.A., (2013) Tangible Images: bridging the real and virtual worlds. Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 7786, 13-24.

Ferwerda, JA (2014a). On pictures and stuff: image quality and material ap-pearance. IS&T/SPIE Electronic Imaging 901801 International Society for Optics and Photonics

Ferwerda, JA (2014b). ImpastoR: A realistic surface display system. Vision Research In Press

Ferwerda, J.A., Stillwell, A., Hovagi-mian, H., & Kosik Williams, E. (2014) Perception of sparkle in anti-glare dis-play screens. Journal of the Society for Information Display, 22(2), 139-146.

Fores, A., Ferwerda, J.A., Tastl, I., and Recker, J. (2013) Perceiving gloss in surfaces and images. Proceedings IS&T/SID 21st Color Imaging Conference, 44-51. (Best paper award)

Gollier, J., Piech, G., Hart, S., West, J., Hovagimian, H., Kosik Williams, E.,Still-well, E., and Ferwerda, J.A. (2013) Dis-play sparkle measurement and human response. Proceedings of the Society for Information Display, 1-3.

Guo, X., Yu, Q., Li, R., Alm, C. O., & Haake, A. R. (2014, November). Fusing Multi-modal Human Expert Data to Uncover Hidden Semantics. In Proceedings of the 7th Workshop on Eye Gaze in Intelligent Human Machine Interaction: Eye-Gaze & Multimodality (pp. 21-26). ACM.

Guo, X., Yu, Q., Alm, C. O., Calvelli, C., Pelz, J. B., Shi, P., & Haake, A. R. (2014). From spoken narratives to domain knowledge: Mining linguistic data for medical image understanding. Artificial intelligence in medicine. 66(2), 79-90

Guo, X., Li, R., Alm, C., Yu, Q., Pelz, J., Shi, P., & Haake, A. (2014, March). Infusing perceptual expertise and do-main knowledge into a human-centered image retrieval system: a prototype application. In Proceedings of the Sym-posium on Eye Tracking Research and Applications (pp. 275-278). ACM.

Hensley, B. and Ferwerda, J.A. (2013) Colorimetric characterization of a 3D printer with a spectral model. Pro-ceedings IS&T/SID 21stColor Imaging Conference, 160-166.

Hochberg, L., Alm, C. O., Rantanen, E. M., DeLong, C. M., & Haake, A. (2014, June). Decision style in a clinical rea-soning corpus. In Proceedings of the BioNLP Workshop (pp. 83-87).

Hochberg, L., Alm, C. O., Rantanen, E. M., Yu, Q., DeLong, C. M., & Haake, A. (2014). Towards Automatic Annotation of Clinical Decision-Making Style. LAW VIII, 129-138.

Humphries, T., Kushalnagar, P., Mathur, G., Napoli, D. J., Padden, C., Pollard, R., ... & Smith, S. (2014). What Medical Education can do to Ensure Robust Lan-guage Development in Deaf Children. Medical Science Educator, 1-11.

Humphries, T., Kushalnagar, P., Mathur, G., Napoli, D. J., Padden, C., & Rathmann, C. (2014). Ensuring language acquisition for deaf children: What linguists can do. Language, 90(2), e31-e52.

Humphries, T., Kushalnagar, P., Mathur, G., Napoli, D. J., Padden, C., Rathmann, C., & Smith, S. (2014). Bilingualism: A Pearl to Overcome Certain Perils of Cochlear Implants. Journal of Medical Speech-Lan-guage Pathology, 21(2), 107-125.

John, B., Sridharan, S., & Bailey, R. (2014, March). Collaborative eye track-ing for image analysis. In Proceedings of the Symposium on Eye Tracking Research and Applications (pp. 239-242). ACM.

Keane, T. P., Cahill, N. D., & Pelz, J. B. (2013, November). Image sequence event detection VIA recurrence anal-ysis. In Image Processing Workshop (WNYIPW), 2013 IEEE Western New York (pp. 35-38). IEEE.

Keane, T. P., Cahill, N. D., & Pelz, J. B. (2014, March). Eye-movement sequence statistics and hypothesis-testing with classical recurrence analysis. In Proceedings of the Symposium on Eye Tracking Research and Applications (pp. 143-150). ACM.

Keane, T. P., Cahill, N. D., Tarduno, J. A., Jacobs, R. A., & Pelz, J. B. (2014, Febru-ary). Computer vision enhances mobile

eye-tracking to expose expert cognition in natural-scene visual-search tasks. In IS&T/SPIE Electronic Imaging (pp. 90140F-90140F). International Society for Optics and Photonics.

Kinsman, T. B., & Pelz, J. (2013). A note on the challenge of feature selection for image understanding. In Image Process-ing Workshop (WNYIPW), 2013 IEEE Western New York (pp. 26-30). IEEE.

Kinsman, T. B., & Pelz, J. (2014). Simu-lating refraction and reflection of ocular surfaces for algorithm validation in outdoor mobile eye tracking videos. In Proceedings of the Symposium on Eye Tracking Research and Applications(pp. 311-314). ACM.

Kushalnagar, P., Naturale, J., Palud-neviciene, R., Smith, S. R., Werfel, E., Doolittle, R., & DeCaro, J. (2014). Health Websites: Accessibility and Usability for American Sign Language Users. Health Communication, (ahead-of-print), 1-8. [10.1080/10410236.2013.853226]

Kushalnagar, P., McKee, M., Smith, S. R., Hopper, M., Kavin, D., & Atcherson, S. R. (2014). Conceptual model for quality of life among adults with congenital or early deafness. Disability and Health Journal.

Kushalnagar, R., & Kushalnagar, P. (2014). Collaborative Gaze Cues and Replay for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Students. In Computers Helping Peo-ple with Special Needs (pp. 415-422). Springer International Publishing.

Li, R., Shi, P., & Haake, A. R. (2013, June). Image Understanding from Experts' Eyes by Modeling Perceptual Skill of Diagnostic Reasoning Processes. In Computer Vision and Pattern Recog-nition (CVPR), 2013 IEEE Conference on(pp. 2187-2194). IEEE.

Liu, X., Chen, L., Ortiz-Segovia, M. V., Ferwerda, J., & Allebach, J. (2014). Characterization of relief printing. In IS&T/SPIE Electronic Imaging (pp. 90180P-90180P). International Society for Optics and Photonics.

Moseley, N., Alm, C. O., & Rege, M. (2014). User-annotated microtext data for modeling and analyzing users' sociolin-guistic characteristics and age grading. In Research Challenges in Information Science (RCIS), 2014 IEEE Eighth Interna-tional Conference on (pp. 1-6). IEEE.

Preiss, J., Fairchild, M. D., Ferwerda, J. A., & Urban, P. (2014). Gamut mapping in a high-dynamic-range color space. In IS&T/SPIE Electronic Imaging(pp. 90150A-90150A). International Society for Optics and Photonics.

35Rantanen, E., Alm, C. O., Worrell, T., Valentage, N., & Iuliucci, N. (2014). Linguistic Analysis of Clinical Commu-nications A Novel Method for Study of Diagnostic Errors. In Proceedings of the International Symposium of Human Factors and Ergonomics in Healthcare (Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 207-213). SAGE Publications.

Rege, M., Koruthu, J., & Bailey, R. (2013). On Knowledge-Enhanced Document Clus-tering. International Journal of Informa-tion Retrieval Research, 2(3), 72-82.

Schenkel, L. S., Chamberlain, T. F., & Towne, T. L. (2014). Impaired Theory of Mind and psychosocial functioning among pediatric patients with Type I versus Type II bipolar disorder. Psychia-try research, 215(3), 740-746.

Schenkel, L. S., Rothman-Marshall, G., Schlehofer, D. A., Towne, T. L., Burnash, D. L., & Priddy, B. M. (2014). Child mal-treatment and trauma exposure among deaf and hard of hearing young adults. Child abuse & neglect, 38(10), 581-589

Stillwell, A., Ferwerda, J.A., Hovagim-ian, H., and Kosik Williams, E. (2013) Perception of sparkle in anti-glare display screens. Proceedings of the Soci-ety for Information Display, 1-3. (Distin-guished paper award)

Vaidyanathan, P., Pelz, J., Alm, C., Shi, P., & Haake, A. (2014). Recur-rence quantification analysis reveals eye-movement behavior differenc-es between experts and novices. In Proceedings of the Symposium on Eye Tracking Research and Applications (pp. 303-306). ACM.

Womack, K., Alm, C. O., Calvelli, C., Pelz, J. B., Shi, P., & Haake, A. R. (2013). Using linguistic analysis to characterize conceptual units of thought in spoken medical narratives. In INTERSPEECH 2013 (pp. 3722-3726).

Womack, K., Alm, C. O., Calvelli, C., Pelz, J. B., Shi, P., & Haake, A. R. (2013). Markers of confidence and correctness in spoken medical narratives. In INTER-SPEECH 2013 (pp. 2549-2553).

36


RESEARCH

Associate professor Nathan Cahill ’97, ’00 (applied mathematics; industrial and applied mathematics), standing, is improving biomedical image computing, the focus of his Ph.D. research. He and imaging science Ph.D. student Kfir Ben Zikri ’11 (electrical engineering) are developing algorithms for a longitudinal study of lung nodules in CT scans.

RESEARCH

Photograph by—A. Sue Weisler

37

RESEARCHFacultyDr. María Helguera, Laboratory Director

Dr. N.A.H.K. Rao.

CollaboratorsDr. Hans Schmitthenner, Ph.D. (RIT, Chemistry), Dr. Irene Evans, Ph.D. (RIT, Biol-ogy), Dr. Vikram Dogra, MD (University of Rochester (U of R), Radiology), Dr. John Krolewski, MD, Ph.D. (U of R, Pathology), Dr. Kent Nastiuk (U of R, Pathology), Dr. Ron Wood, Ph.D. (U of R, Neurobiology and Anatomy), Dr. Wayne Knox, Ph.D. (U of R, Optics). Research associates involved in the projects were Chinni Bhargava (former RIT MS graduate, now research associate, U of R) and Shalini Singh, Ph.D. (Research Associate, U of R).

Research in the lab was conducted and supported by a number of students:

• Colin Axel, BS Imaging Science, “Designing an image processing toolkit to view through light scattering materials” Sponsored by CEIS-FluxData.

• Mohammed YousefHussien, MS EE, “Three-Dimensional Image Analysis and Visualization of Vasculature in Engineered Tissues”

• Yansong Liu, MS EE, “Motion Estimation of Red Blood Cells in Video Data”

• Kunal Vaidya, Ph.D. Candidate, Imaging Science, “Multimodal Imaging and Characterization of Biofilms”.

• Saugata Sinha, Ph.D. Candidate, Imaging Science, “Design of a Laser Diode Based Photoacoustic Imaging System”

• Kfir Ben-Zikri, Ph.D. Candidate, Imaging Science, “Image-Based Quantification and Analysis of Longitudinal Lung Nodule Deformations” Sponsored by NIH.

• Saugata Sinha (Ph.D. student)

• Viraj Adduru (MS student),

Research Projects“Multimodal Imaging and Characterization of Biofilms”. Kunal Vaidya, María Hel-guera in collaboration with Dr. Michael Pichichero, Director of the Rochester Gener-al Hospital Research Institute, RIT.

Bacterial infection is a rampant problem faced by the medical community. The bacteria gene pool is capable of adapting itself to changing conditions building biofilms to ensure the survival of progeny. This capability reduces the efficiency of antibiotics and protects the bacteria from immune system eradication, prompting the need for a technology capa-ble of early detection of biofilms.

BIOMEDICAL AND MATERIALS MULTIMODAL IMAGING LABORATORY

RESEARCH

To develop innovative ways to visualize, analyze, and characterize biological tissues and synthetic materials by means of multimodal medical imaging devices.

Laboratory Director’s Comments By Dr. Maria Helguera

38


The ability to non-invasively image and characterize bacterial biofilms in children during nasopharyngeal colo-nization with potential otopathogens and during acute otitis media would represent a significant advance.

We sought to determine if quantitative high-frequency ultrasound techniques could be used to achieve that goal.

Systematic time studies of bacterial bio-film formation were performed on three preparations of an isolated Haemophilus influenzae (NTHi) strain, a Streptococcus pneumoniae (Sp) strain and a combina-tion of H. influenzae and S. pneumoniae (NTHi + Sp) in an in vitro environment. The process of characterization included conditioning of the acquired radiofre-quency data obtained with a 15-MHz focused, piston transducer by using a sev-en-level wavelet decomposition scheme to de-noise the individual A-lines ac-quired. All subsequent spectral parameter estimations were done on the wavelet de-noised radiofrequency data. Various spectral parameters—peak frequency shift, bandwidth reduction and integrated backscatter coefficient—were recorded. These parameters were successfully used to map the progression of the biofilms in time and to differentiate between single- and multiple species biofilms. Results were compared with those for confocal microscopy and theoretical evaluation of form factor. We conclude that high-fre-quency ultrasound may prove a useful modality to detect and characterize bacterial biofilms in humans as they form on tissues and plastic materials.

Results in Figure 1 (a), (b) and (c) show the trend within samples as a function of time for the peak frequency, the 3dB bandwidth and the biofilm to background ratio. Results are analyzed using Prism 6, where unpaired t-tests with a 95% confi-dence interval were performed.

Figure 1: Results of unpaired t-test on trends within samples as a function of maturity for (a) Peak frequency; (b) 3dB Bandwidth; and (c) Biofilm to background ratio showing the ability of these parameters to differentiate biofilms as they mature.

Results from the two independent imag-ing modalities conducted confirm that as biofilms mature they grow thicker and denser regardless of the strain al-though the rate of growth varies among the strains. Since the two experiments are independent of each other no quan-titative comparison of the results was performed. Figure 2 (a), and (b) shows results obtained from stacks of images of confocal microscopy.

Figure 2 (a) t-test results for Average thick-ness based on confocal data at p<0.001 for NTHi, p<0.001 for NTHi+Sp and p<0.009 for Sp. (b) t-test results for Biovolume coverage based on confocal data at p<0.001 for NTHi, p<0.001 for NTHi+Sp and p<0.006 for Sp.

Results based on the spectral fit model are shown in Figure 3. It can be seen that the effective scatterer size is consistently larger for NTHi than for Sp and NTHi + Sp. Furthermore, the trend shown in these estimates confirms the findings of an increase in the integrated backscatter as a function of maturity.

Figure 3. Results of unpaired t-test on trends within samples as a function of maturity for ESS

“Three-Dimensional Image Analysis and Visualization of Vasculature in Engineered Tissues”, Mohammed YousefHussien and María Helguera in collaboration with Dr. Diane Dalecki, Biomedical Engineering Department, University of Rochester, Dr. Denise Hocking, Department of Pharmacology and Physiology, School of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Rochester, and Dr. Eli Saber, EE, RIT.

We have designed a tool that provides quantitative textural and morphometric analyses of multi-photon microscopy images of ultrasound-induced vasculature in engineered tissues, alongside with fast three-dimensional volume rendering. A block diagram is shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4. Block diagram of analyses of vasculature in artificial tissues

The investigated 3D artificial tissues consist of Human Umbilical Vein Endothelial Cells (HUVEC) embedded in collagen exposed to two regimes of ultrasound standing wave fields under different frequency and pressure con-ditions. Representative examples are shown in Figure 5.

(a) (b) (c)

Figure 5. The figure shows different projec-tions of cell formation due to the pressure exposure. (a) shows low-pressure exposure with shorter branches (1 MHz–0.1 MPa). (b) shows high-pressure exposure which forms thick bands in the center of the gel (2 MHz–0.2 MPa), while (c) shows the sham formation with less structure at the bottom of the gel.

Textural features were evaluated over the extracted connected region using the normalized Gray Level Co-occur-rence Matrix (GLCM) combined with Gray-Level Run Length Matrix (GLRLM) analysis. An averaged version of nine GLCM and GLRLM orientations is used to minimize errors resulting from volu-metric rotation and to provide compre-hensive textural analysis.

Volume run length and percentage vol-ume were utilized to evaluate volumet-ric features. Z-projections of the image stacks were used to estimate vessel tortuosity, and to measure length and the angle of the branches.

We utilized MATVTK, a 3D volume ren-dering technique running on MATLAB with faster volume reconstruction time compared to MATLAB built-in tools.

Results show that our method quantita-

39

tively characterizes morphological differ-ences induced by the ultrasound fields. Providing more textural parameters than what is currently being reported in the literature enhances the quantitative understanding of the heterogeneity of artificial tissues. For example, entropy is a measure of randomness and in the present application serves as a complex-ity measurement, with a higher value corresponding to a more complex struc-ture. Figure 7 shows that entropy is high-est for the low peak positive pressure cases in both frequency regimes, i.e., 0.1 MPa for 1 MHz, and 0.08 MPa for 2 MHz. These entropy values indicate the dis-ruption of the network appearance com-pared to the sham values. On the other hand, the entropy value for the high peak positive pressure cases in both frequen-cy settings is lowest, since the images contain highly packed sprouts with lower structural complexity. This confirms our qualitative observation that the effect of pressure is significant regardless of the frequency used. These observations are supported as well by the quantitative estimation of energy (measurement of cluster repetition and uniformity) and homogeneity (measurement of similarity and smoothness between the intensity values of neighboring pixels). These are shown respectively in Figures 8 and 9.

“Measurement of blood flow velocity in vivo video sequences with motion estimation methods”, Yansong Liu and María Helguera in collaboration with

Dr. Angela Glading, Department of Pharmacology and Physiology, School of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Rochester, and Dr. Eli Saber, EE, RIT.

Measurement of blood flow velocity in vivo microscopy video is an invasive approach to study microcirculation systems, which has been applied in clin-ical analysis and physiological study. The video sequences investigated in this project utilize a CCD camera with frame rate of 30 frames/s. Therefore the accuracy and feasibility of applying motion estimation methods need to be evaluated. We have compared current optical flow algorithms (OF) and parti-cle image velocimetry (PIV) techniques based on cross-correlation by testing them with simulated vessel images and in vivo microscopy video sequences. The estimated results from different in vivo video sequences are influenced by several factors such as the width of the

vessels, vascular structures and noise. The accuracy is evaluated by applying OF and PIV to simulated vessel image sequences and calculating the mean square root based on ground truth. The issue of erroneous motion generated by microscopy video noise was addressed in this work. A temporal post-pro-cessing scheme is proposed to reduce erroneous vectors in velocity field. By incorporating the iterative PIV algo-rithm with optical flow method, a dense velocity field therefore can be obtained.

Based on that, a new approach of adap-tive window cross-correlation method is proposed for overcoming the drawbacks of using fixed interrogation window. Limitations of applying motion estima-tion algorithms to microscopy video sequences are discussed in terms of noise, the effect of large displacements, and vascular structure.

Figure 10: Overview of the proposed pro-cessing scheme leading to the visualization of the red blood cells (RBC) velocity field.

Figure 11: (a) a 10 pixel wide simulated ves-sel with moving particles (b) ground truth of the velocity color map (c) velocity color map of optical flow method (d) velocity color map of cross-correlation method using a 10×10 window (e) velocity color map of cross-cor-relation method using a 10×32 window to take advantage of the stripe like vessel

This paper demonstrates that both optical flow and PIV techniques using cross-correlation have their limitations when determining motion vector field in complicated vessel structures. Optical flow provides smoother vector fields in thicker vessels, while cross-correla-tion is more robust to noise but suffers from the fixed size of the interrogation window. However, according to the simulated experiments, we conclude that the performance of cross-correla-tion method is superior to optical flow in relatively thinner vessels.

Figure 7. Entropy at 9 orientations into the 2.5 x 2.5 x 1 μm3 volume, yz90 corresponds to the shorter dimension.

Figure 6. (a) Isosurface rendering by MATLAB functions (~ 1 hour), (b) MATVTK volume rendering through MATLAB (~10 sec.)

Figure 8. Energy at 9 orientations into the 2.5 x 2.5 x 1 μm3 volume, yz90 corresponds to the shorter dimension.

Figure 9. Homogeneity at 9 orientations into the 2.5 x 2.5 x 1 μm3 volume, yz90 corre-sponds to the shorter dimension.

40


“Lung Nodule Detection” Kfir Ben-Zikri and María Helguera, in collaboration with Nathan Cahill, School of Mathemat-ics, RIT, Kitware, and Mark Niethammer, University of North Carolina.

Lung cancer in an early stage manifests itself as a pulmonary nodule. Thin-slice helical chest CT scans with a sub-milli-meter resolution is able to show early stage lung cancer. Pulmonary nodules can be differentiated into subsolid and solid nodules. Subsolid nodules (ground glass nodules) manifest as fo-cal areas of hazy increased attenuation that do not obliterate the bronchial or vascular margins. Subsolid pulmonary nodules occur less often than solid pulmonary nodules, but show a much higher malignancy rate.

Subsolid nodules don't have clear boundaries and are highly affected from the lungs background deformation. Therefore, accurate detection of the subsolid nodule deformation (form and appearance change) when comparing two or more CT scans of this type of pul-monary nodules is crucial and challeng-ing. Radiologists need computational algorithms that compensate the back-ground deformation, so they can see the subsolid nodule deformation only. Accurate deformation information is crucial for diagnostic, future treatment and other clinical decisions. This prob-lem is much more challenging for the radiologist in patients with emphysema (involving damage to the air sacs in the lungs, common around smokers). Since, in those cases, the subsolid nodule de-formation is much more affected by the dynamic change of the background.

We are currently adjusting the Geomet-ric Metamorphosis (GM) algorithm to be applied to CT images, since it was originally developed for change detec-tion in Magnetic Resonance (MR) neuro-imaging. GM is a general mathematical

framework that extends the state of the art by simultaneously estimating the background deformations plus the foreground geometric (i.e. growing and shrinking) pathology deformations that affect image appearance. Since both the background and nodule deformations are modeled non-rigidly and estimated jointly, the registration enables nodules with pathology changes to be aligned after compensating for the influence of non-rigid background motion on their morphology. These transformations are modeled through a fluid-registra-tion formulation which is based on the velocity field instead of the displace-ment field. This is required for the large deformations of the lungs in our driving clinical problem.

Figure 13 shows one axial slice from the 3D volume of each scan, with the subsolid nodule mask in red; this is the GM input. To date, we are in the process of detecting and correcting algorithm artifacts, adjusting the algorithm pa-rameters, adding elasticity term to the optimization problem and testing the GM with different regularizations terms.

“Frequency analysis of Multispectral Photoacoustic images for differentiat-ing malignant region from the normal region in excised human Prostate”, Saugata Sinha, Navalgund Rao and María Helguera in collaboration with Dr. Vikram Dogra, Department of Imaging Sciences, School of Medicine and Den-tistry, University of Rochester.

This study investigates the feasibility of using frequency analysis of multispectral Photoacoustics (PA) signals generated by excised human prostate specimens to differentiate between malignant and normal prostate regions. Multispectral PA imaging was performed on 9 freshly excised prostate specimens taken from patients undergoing prostatectomy for biopsy-confirmed prostate cancer. The calibrated power spectrum of each PA signal from selected region of interest corresponding to cancer and normal tissue was fit to a linear model for ex-tracting slope, mid-band fit and intercept parameters. The results show that the mean values of all three parameters are significantly different between cancer and normal regions.

Photoacoustic ImagingPhotoacoustic (PA) imaging is a promising new modality that is coming out of the research arena, promising to become a valuable tool in many clinical areas where there are unmet needs. At RIT we have been working with PA imaging technology and investigating its potential for medical diagnostics for the past several years. PA imaging is based on PA effect, where a short time duration ultrasound (US) wave, also referred to as PA signal, is generated due to thermal expansion of light absorb-ers when it is exposed to a high intensity nanosecond (ns) pulses of near-infra-red

Figure 13. From left to right, slice from first CT scan with subsolid nodule mark in red, and 11 months after, slice from sec CT scan with the a red mask on the same subsolid nodule. This example assumed to be misleading and show nodule shrinkage, however after com-pensating on the background deformation and aligned the registered nodules, we suspect that there will not be a form change. When comparing we also need to consider that the two slices are not across the exact same location.

Figure 12. Comparison of vector maps of 15 averaged frames for: OF (left) and AWCC (right). Note that OF does not detect flow in smaller blood vessels.

41

(NIR) laser light with wavelength in 700-1000 nanometer (nm) range. The ampli-tude of the PA signal is proportional to the absorption coefficient of the absorber. Notably hemoglobin in the tissue is the dominant absorber in the NIR. The tissue and its major constituents (water, oxy and de-oxy hemoglobin in blood, lipid, fat, melanin, collagen, etc.) have widely vary-ing absorption spectra in the NIR region that not only provide abundant contrast features, but also open the door for PA imaging based spectroscopy, non-invasive tissue characterization and functional imaging. With PA imaging one can depict optical absorption property of the tissue constituents up to a depth of few centime-ters with sub-millimeter resolution (1).

Development of a Novel Photoacoustic Imaging Device We have developed a prototype PA imaging probe with acoustic lens based focusing of the PA signal for ex-vivo studies. Fig. 1 illustrates our patented acoustic lens technology implemented in a prototype. Following laser exci-tation, PA signals from all the absorbers in a small vol¬ume of tissue are simul-taneously fo¬cused on an ultrasound sensor array using an acoustic lens, which corrects for loss of lateral image resolution. The acoustic lens eliminates the need for expensive and time con-suming off-line computerized and algo-rithm based image reconstruction, and

does not produce errors in the recon-structed im¬age. Thus it can be more rapidly translated to the clinic, relative to other PA imaging devices (2,3).

Phantom Imaging Demonstrates the Utility of C-scan PA Imaging Fig. 2A is a photograph of a gelatin phantom in which tapioca seeds soaked in indocyanine green (ICG) were embed-ded at different depths (1-6 mm) inside a gelatin phantom. The phantom was PA imaged at 790 nm (peak absorption of ICG). Fig. 4B-E show C-scan PA images ob-tained at different depths. Fig. 4F shows a projection of reconstructed volumetric rendering of C-scan PA images acquired over the entire phantom thickness.

Ex vivo Imaging of Human Prostate Cancer Demonstrates the Utility of Multi-spectral PA To test our prototype device further and explore its multispectral capability, we performed ex vivo PA imaging on prosta-tectomy tissue slices, at 760, 850, 930 and 970 nm, the absorption maxima for dHb, HbO2, lipid and water, respectively (4,5). Thirty prostatectomy specimens with at least one grossly visible nodule were PA imaged. The excised prostate was scanned

to acquire a 3D PA dataset. We developed algorithms in MATLAB® for chromophore analysis. The resulting chromophore photoacoustic images, co-registered with the histopathology, were used to identify regions of interest (ROI) corresponding to prostate cancer as shown in Fig. 3. Sensi-tivity was 81.3% (95% CI: 57% - 93.4%), and specificity 96.2% (95% CI: 81.1% - 99.3%), positive predictive value (PV) and negative PV were 92.9 % and 89.3 %.

Figure 14: Average slope values (a), mid-band fit (b) and intercept (c) corresponding to cancer and normal regions against wavelengths. The error bar at each point is the standard deviation of the corresponding mid-band values for the 9 specimens.

Figure. 1: Multispectral photoacoustic imaging device based on acoustic lens technology. (A) Schematic. (B) Photograph of the device.

Fig. 2. Phantom imaging with PA. (A) Indocy-anine green (ICG)-soaked tapioca seeds em-bedded in gelatin phantom. PA C-scan images at increasing depths are presented in B-E. Arrows are color-coded to match the appro-priate absorbers in photograph with those in PA C-scan images (F) Volumetric rendering of data reconstructed from all PA C-scan images collected over 6 mm depth.

42


Frequency Domain PA Image Data Analysis for Tissue Differentiation In this project, a number of parameters were extracted from multiwavelength 3 dimensional PA image data from freshly excised human prostate and thyroid specimens, imaged at five different wavelengths. (6-9). Fig.4 shows how the analysis was done. Raw PA data was stored as digitized time signals (A-line) at each pixel location (Fig. 4C). C-scan PA image was formed by time gating all A-lines to the specimen surface where histology slice was taken (Fig. 4B). The specimen boundary was visible on C-scan PA image and this was used to co-register PA data pixels with digital image of whole mount histology slide (Fig. 4F). Cancer and normal regions were marked on the histology by a genitourinary pathologist. This defines the PA data pixels that fall within the region-of-interest (ROI). Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) was computed on each time gated A-line, and the resulting magnitude spectrum (Fig. 2D) was corrected for the ultrasound transduc-er’s frequency response yielding an estimate of the frequency spectrum that is predominantly due to the underlying microvasculature of the blood vessels (Fig. 2E). Several parameters such as slope, intercept, mid-band fit were extracted from the best fitted linear models to the frequency spectrums and averaged separately over three types of regions, namely malignant, normal and benign prostate hyperplasia (BPH). Statistical analysis was performed to test whether the extracted parameters are significantly different between the three regions. A multidimensional [29 dimensional] feature set, built with the extracted parameters from the 3D PA images, was divided randomly into training and testing sets. The training set was used to train support vector machine (SVM) and neural network (NN) classifiers while the performance of the classifiers in differentiating different tissue pathologies were determined

by the testing dataset. Using the NN classifier, performance of parameters belonging to different categories in differentiating malignant tissue from non-malignant tissue was determined. We found that, among different catego-ries, the performance based on frequen-cy parameters was the best in differen-tiating malignant from non-malignant tissue (sensitivity and specificity with testing dataset were 85% and 84%), while performance of all the categories combined was even superior (sensitiv-ity and specificity with testing dataset are 93% and 91%).

Development of Molecular Imaging Agents for Prostate cancer

PSMA is detected on the surface of nearly every human prostate cancer (PCa), while expression is low to mod-erate on non-cancerous prostate tissue and very low outside the prostate, making it an excellent biomarker for molecular imaging of PCa. The effective use of PSMA as a targeting motif has been shown in the clinical diagnosis of metastatic PCa. Subsequently, improved PSMA binding agents have been devel-oped, including nuclease-stable RNA aptamers that bind very efficiently. One of these, the A10 aptamer, specifically

binds PSMA-expressing cells and can be successfully delivered in vivo, intraper-itoneal or intra-tumorally. In addition, aptamers can be readily synthesized including dye conjugation of NIR dyes. These dyes produce strong PA signal in the NIR. We have studies several dyes (IRDye800CW, AlexaFluor750, Cy7-NHS-ester, Cy7-sulfo and Dylight800) by testing them using our acoustic lens based device at 100 micromolar (μM) concentration, determining their PA absorption spectrum and PA signal sensitivity. Thus aptamer conjugated dyes represent an immediately avail-able contrast agents for use in develop-ing PCa-specific PA imaging. We have successfully made the agents and also confirmed its cell binding specificity by using it on (PSMA+) cancer cells (C4-2) and (PSMA-) non cancer cells (C3). This work will be published shortly. Our future plan is to tests the hypothesis that PA imaging targeted to PSMA, spe-cifically and sensitively detects PCa in a preclinical mouse model.

Ultrasound Guided Robot for Human Liver Biopsy using High Intensity Focused Ultrasound for HemostasisPercutaneous liver biopsy is the gold standard among clinician’s tools to diagnose and guide subsequent therapy for liver disease. Ultrasound image guidance is being increasingly used to reduce associated procedural risks but post-biopsy complications still persist. The major complication is hemorrhage, which is highly unpredictable and may sometimes lead to death. Non-invasive methods to stop bleeding exist like electro-cautery, microwave, RF, and High Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU), etc. All the methods except HIFU require direct exposure of the

Figure 3. Multispectral PA imaging of human prostate cancer. (A) Photograph of an excised human prostate tissue (B) Histopathology image indicating the malignant region-of-interest (ROI) in circled area (C) Photoacoustic (PA) C-scan image showing absorption of deoxy-he-moglobin (dHb). (D) C-scan image showing absorption of oxy-hemoglobin (HbO2). Multi-spectral PA imaging confirms hypoxia (HbO2 < dHb) in the malignant prostate ROI.

Figure 4. Frequency domain analysis of PA signal for tissue differentiation

43needle puncture site for hemostasis. To reduce human error in focusing HIFU we have designed and developed an ultrasound guided prototype robot for accurate targeting. This system, named Hemobot, shown in Fig.5 was built at RIT as a collaborative project with scientists at U of R. The robotic system performs percutaneous needle biopsy and a 7.5 cm focal length HIFU is fired at the puncture point when the needle tip retracts to the liver surface after sample collection. The robot has 4 degrees of freedom (DOF) for biopsy needle insertion, HIFU positioning, needle angle alignment and US probe image plane orientation. As the needle puncture point is always in the needle path, mechanically constraining the HIFU to focus on the needle reduced its functionality significantly. Two mini c-arms are designed for needle angle alignment and US probe image plane orientation. This reduced the contact footprint of the robot over the patient providing a greater dexterity for posi-tioning the robot. The robot is validat-ed for HIFU hemostasis by a series of experiments on chicken breasts. HIFU initiated hemorrhage control with ro-botic biopsy ensures arrest of post-bi-opsy hemorrhage and decreases patient anxiety, hospital stay, morbidity, time of procedure, and cost. This can also be extended to other organs like kidney,

lungs etc. This research opens a greater scope for research for further size reduction of the robot and automation making it a physician friendly tool for eventual clinical use.

Selected Publications and Conference Presentations

1. Ontiveros, F., Saxum, J., Saffren, B., Helguera, M., “Ultrasound-en-

hanced Transdermal Delivery of Nanoparticles”, Rochester Acade-my of Sciences, 2013.

2. YousefHussien, M.*, Garvin, K., Dalecki, D., Saber, E., Helguera, M., “Three-dimensional Volume Anal-ysis of Vasculature in Engineered Tissues”, Proc. of SPIE Vol. 8654 86540C-1-C-11, 2013.

3. Garvin, K., Dalecki, D., Yousef-Hussien, M.*, Helguera, M., Hocking, D., "Spatial patterning of endothelial cells and vascular network formation using ultra-sound standing wave fields", JASA, 134(2), pp.1483-1490, 2013.

4. Vaidya, K.*, Osgood, R., Ren, D., Pichichero, M., Helguera, M., “Ultrasound Imaging and Char-acterization of Biofilms Based on Wavelet Denoised RF Data”, Ultrasound in Med. & Biol., 40(3), pp. 583–595, 2014.

5. Ravines, P., Baum, K.G.*, Cox, N.**, Welch, S.***, Helguera, M., “Multimodality imaging of da-guerreotypes and development of a registration program for image evaluation”, Journal of the Amer-ican Institute of Conservation, 53(1), pp.19-32, 2014.

6. Mercado, K.P.*, Helguera, M., Hocking, D., Dalecki, D. “Estimat-ing Cell Concentration in Three-Di-mensional Engineered Tissues using High Frequency Quantitative Ultrasound”, Annals of Biomedi-cal Engineering. DOI: 10.1007/s 10439-014-0994-8, 2014.

7. Sinha, S.*, Rao, N., Valluru, K.S., Chinni, B.K., Dogra, V.S., Helguera, M. “Frequency analysis of Multi-spectral Photoacoustic images for differentiating malignant region from the normal region in excised human Prostate”, Proceedings of SPIE, 9040, pp. 90400P-1-9, 2014

8. Liu, Y., Glading, A., Saber, E., “Measure-ment of blood flow velocity in vivo video sequences with motion estimation methods”, SPIE Medical Imaging, 2014

9. Mercado, K.P., Helguera, M., Hocking, D.C., Dalecki, D., “Char-acterizing Collagen Microstructure using High Frequency Ultrasound”, 167th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, May, 2014.

10. Valluru KS, Chinni BK, Rao NA. (2011) Photoacoustic Imaging: Opening New Frontiers in Medi-cal Imaging. J Clin Imaging Sci;

1:24. PMCID: PMC3177418 URL: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21966621

11. Keerthi S. Valluru, Bhargava K. Chinni, Navalgund A. Rao, Shweta Bhatt, Deniz Akata and Vikram S. Dogra, "Development of a c-scan photoacoustic imaging probe for prostate cancer detection", Proc. SPIE 7968, 79680C (2011); doi:10.1117/12.878131.

12. K. Valluru, B. Chinni, N. Rao, S. Bhatt, D. Akata, V. Dogra, “Probe Design for Photoacoustic Imaging of Prostate”, IEEE International Conference on Imaging Systems and Techniques-IST 2010, Thes-saloniki, Greece, pp.121-124, 1-2 Jul. 2010.

13. Dogra V, Bhatt S, Chinni B, Valluru K, Rao N, Ghazi A, Yao J, Joseph J. (2012). “Photoacoustic imaging for prostate cancer detection: prelim-inary results”. J Ultrasound Med, Vol. 31: s67-s68, Phoenix, Arizona.

14. Dogra VS, Chinni BK, Valluru KS, Joseph JV, Ghazi A, Yao JL, Evans K, Messing EM, Rao NA. (2013) Photoacoustic Imaging of Pros-tate Cancer: Preliminary Ex-vivo Results. J Clin Imaging Sci; 3:41. PMCID: PMC3814905. URL: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24228210/

15. Saugata Sinha*, Navalgund Rao, Keerthi S. Valluru, Bhargava K Chin-ni, Vikram S. Dogra, Maria Helguera. (2014) Frequency analysis of Mul-tispectral Photoacoustic images for differentiating malignant region from the normal region in excised human Prostate. Proc. SPIE, Medical Imag-ing: Ultrasonic Imaging and Tomog-raphy, 9040: 90400P-1 - 90400P-9. doi:10.1117/12.2043802. URL: http://proceedings.spiedigitalli-brary.org/proceeding.aspx?arti-cleid=1852036

16. Dogra VS, Chinni BK, Valluru KS, Moalem J, Giampoli EJ, Evans K, Rao NA. (2014) Preliminary results of ex vivo multispectral photoacous-tic imaging in the management of thyroid cancer. AJR Am J Roent-genol; 202(6): W552-558. PMID: 24848849 URL: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24848849

17. Vikram Dogra, Saugata Sinha*, Bhargava Chinni, Edward Mess-ing, Ahmed Ghazi, Navalgund Rao. (2014) Differentiation between Malignant, Benign Prostatic

Figure 5. Figure showing the Hemobot cart and its contents

44


Hyperplasia and normal prostate tissue using frequency analysis of Multispectral Photoacoustic imag-es. The J of Uro; 191(4): e502.

18. Saugata Sinha*, Navalgund A Rao. (2014) Development of a novel acoustic lens based pulse echo ultrasound imaging system. Ultrasonic Imaging and Tomogra-phy; Proc. of SPIE. 9040 90400M-1 - 90400M-8. URL: http://spie.org/Publications/Proceedings/Paper/10.1117/12.2043253

* Graduate Student, ** Undergraduate Student, ***High School Intern

Patents:

(1) Low Cost Device for C-scan Pho-toacoustic Imaging, Patent No. US 8,353,833B2. Issued January 15 2013. Inventors: Vikram S. Dogra and Naval-gund A.H.K. Rao

(2) Photoacoustic Imaging Using Versatile Acoustic Lens, Patent No. ZL200980140749.3 issued by the Chi-nese State Intellectual Property Office. Issued September 2014. Inventors: Vikram S. Dogra, Navalgund A.H.K. Rao and Wayne Knox.

Grants and Research FundingFunding was provided by NIH, CEIS-FluxData, and CIS. Funding was also received from DOD prostate Cancer Research Program, NIH, CIS microgrant, Radiological Society of North America, Lang Memorial Foundation and CEIS.

Honors and Recognition

1. Mohammed YousefHussien won the Best Student Paper Award at the SPIE Visualization and Data Analyis

Conference, 2013

2. Saugata Sinha won the Best Student Paper Award at the Western New York Image Processing Workshop, 2013.

3. Colin Axel was selected as the Col-lege of Science student representative at Convocation, 2013.

4. Saugata Sinha, Graduate Student Re-search & Creativity Grant, Fall 2013, RIT.

5. Kunal Vaidya completed an internship rotation in Phillips (2013). Defended his dissertation in March 2014.

6. Kfir Ben-Zikri completed an internship in Qmetrics, 2013.

7. María Helguera was appointed Wedd Visiting Professor in the Pharma-cology and Physiology Department, University of Rochester Medical Center, while on sabbatical from RIT. She was as well a visiting professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru (PUCP) in the Department of Electrical Engineering, 2013-2014.

8. Karla P. Mercado awarded the 2nd Place in Best Student Presentation at the 167th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, 2014.

45

June 12, 2014 by Susan Gawlowicz

Medical-imaging software under devel-opment at Rochester Institute of Tech-nology could someday give radiologists a tool for measuring the growth of nod-ules in patients at risk of lung cancer, the leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Nathan Cahill, an associate professor in RIT’s School of Mathematical Sciences, is creating algorithms to quantify the growth of lung nodules imaged on Com-puted Tomography (CT) scans. The two-year, longitudinal study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, compares existing scans of individual patients. The algorithms will analyze medical images, measuring changes in nodules to iden-tify small cancers or, if stable, obviate unnecessary, often risky biopsies.

Simple factors can complicate the comparison of CT scans, creating extra-neous information in medical images, introducing artifacts and possible errors in diagnosis.

“It’s not an apples-to-apples problem with reliable correspondence between two images,” Cahill said.

Discrepancies between scans of a single patient can result from differences in position and inhalation during imaging. A 10-pound weight gain between CT scans can also affect how surrounding organs push against the lungs and stretch or compress the nodules.

“Having even 1 or 2 millimeters of difference could throw off the estimates of the volumes of the nodules because the size of the nodules might be 5 milli-

meters or so,” Cahill said. “The goal of this project is to develop an algorithm that tries to compensate for all those potential background factors.”

Dr. David Fetzer, a radiologist at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and a member of the collaboration, suggested the clinical problem. Fetzer, an alumnus from the RIT Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science, had worked as an undergraduate with Maria Helguera, professor in the center, and a member of Cahill’s team.

“Modern CT imaging devices produce hundreds and sometimes thousands of images,” Fetzer said. “If a patient is being followed for an abnormality, such as a lung nodule, a radiologist must compare these images visually, mentally compensating for differences such as patient position. Slight changes in technique between two CT scans may simulate tumor growth, for instance.”

Radiologists compute the doubling time of a nodule, or the range of time it takes for the size of the nodule to increase twofold. A mass that doubles in less than 30 days is growing fast and could be an infection, Cahill said. “If it takes more than one and a half years to dou-ble, it’s growing slowly and is probably benign. If it’s anywhere between that—one month and 1.5 years—then, it could be malignant and you have to do further testing and do biopsy.”

Cahill and Kfir Ben Zikri, a Ph.D. student in the Center for Imaging Science, are registering, or aligning, backgrounds to create a common frame of reference between sets of images. The process geometrically transforms one three-di-

mensional image into another and com-pensates for background information that blurs edges of nodules, even when underlying diseases like emphysema or fibrosis make intensities in the back-ground brighter.

“Then we can estimate the volumes, which will allow us to more accurately estimate the doubling time and have a better chance to determine if it’s a ma-lignant growth or benign,” Cahill said.

The technology will be part of the free software libraries offered by Kitware, a North Carolina-based, open-source software company that specializes in medical image analyses. Cahill and Ben Zikri work closely with scientists at Kitware and professor Marc Nietham-mer at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Fetzer is selecting 30 CT scans of patients treated for lung cancer at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. The images are scrubbed of patient-identifying information and sent to Cahill and Ben Zikri. Fetzer will clinically verify the algorithmic results.“With today’s technology we have the ability to create three-dimensional datasets, volumes of image data that can be manipulated and analyzed in non-visual ways,” Fetzer said. “With techniques such as this we may be able to compensate for background changes and, hopefully, more accurately show growth, assess aggressiveness or prove stability of a nodule. This accurate assessment could dramatically affect patient care, decrease cost and the number unnecessary procedures, and improve outcomes through earlier can-cer detection.”

Imaging tools help radiologists diagnose lung cancer, save lives RIT scientists develop imaging software to compare and measure nodules

46 RESEARCH

Ceramic objects analyzed with low frequency electron paramagnetic resonance (LFEPR) spectroscopy.


RESEARCH

47

This past year we completed our work on a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) phantom with a switchable signal, and continued our work on low frequency elec-tron paramagnetic resonance (LFEPR) spectroscopy, targeted contrast agents, and a lipid-water MRI phantom. In this report, we highlight two projects from the past year: the lipid-water phantom and the LFEPR spectroscopy. LFEPRLFEPR spectroscopy is a special form of electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectros-copy. Both are capable of identifying free radicals and paramagnetic metal ions, as well as their chemical environment. LFEPR is also capable of non-destructively and non invasively making these determinations on objects as large as 15 cm in diameter. As such it holds the promise of being able to determine the provenance of ceramic objects with cultural heritage significance, as well as the migration of cultures. We are examining the LFEPR signal from clays fired at different temperatures, paramagnetic impurities in glazes, and pigments for this application. We have examined the signals from a typical student clay fired at different temperatures and saw reproducible trends in the signals of the various peaks located at different spectral g factors as a function of firing temperature.

We have also begun analyzing various larger objects including 15 cm diameter Ming dynas-ty bowls (circa 1400 AD); a 6.5 cm diameter, 15 cm high Meissen Böttger candlestick holder (circa 1935); and a 12 cm diameter, 15 cm high Wedgwood rosso antico pitcher (discontin-ued circa 1850). These items have distinct LFEPR spectra characteristic of the composition of their clay and the firing temperatures of the kilns. These ceramic objects have a high iron content. Based on these spectra, we believe the Meissen Böttger candlestick holder and the Wedgwood rosso antico pitcher were fired at temperatures less than 1000 C.°

Lipid-Water MRI Phantom

A magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) phantom is an anthropogenic object used to test the performance of an MRI system or imaging sequence. Fat or water sup-pression MRI sequences require phantoms containing hydrogen chemical shift peaks in the NMR spectrum at approximately 4.5 and 1 ppm. Current standards consist of emulsions of vegetable oil and water, lard and water, purified bovine fat in D2-chloroform, mayonnaise, or the IV nutrient Intralipid. All of these require a preservative, such as sodium azide, and some are subject to phase separation with a temperature change. We proposed a mixture of t-butanol and water as an alter-native phantom. This system requires no preservative, is not an emulsion and thus is stable over a larger temperature range. We used a Magritek 1T tabletop nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometer to measure the spin-lattice relaxation time (T1) of mixtures of t-butanol and water between 0 and 0.9 mole fraction of the 1 ppm spectral component. These T1 values allow prediction of the MRI image intensity during fat and water suppression imaging sequences.

Laboratory Director's Comments by Dr. Joseph Hornak

MAGNETIC RESONANCE LABORATORY

RESEARCH

The RIT Magnetic Resonance Laboratory is a research and development laboratory devoted to solving real world problems with magnetic resonance.

Amy Becker, a 2nd year BS Imaging Science student, worked on measuring the hydrogen NMR relaxation rates for the lipid-water phan-tom and the targeted contrast agent projects.

Typical LFEPR signature as a function of temperature.

RESEARCH

48


Staff NewsBrian Antalek, A research scientist at Eastman Kodak Co., collaborated with members of the lab by working on sol-id-state, NMR spectroscopy of paramag-netic pigments.

Amy Becker, a second year BS Imaging Student at RIT, worked on measuring the hydrogen NMR relax-ation rates for the lipid-water phantom and the targeted contrast agent projects.

Derrick Campbell, received his MS in Imaging Science from RIT.

Anthony Cannella, a third year BS Chemistry major at RIT, worked on LFEPR and NMR spectroscopy.

Dr. Joseph Hornak, Professor of Chemistry, Materials Science and Engineering, & Imaging Science, became a member of the RIT millionaire’s club.

Dr. Wing-Chi Edmund Kwok, Associate Professor of Imaging Sciences at the Universi-ty of Rochester Medical School, continued a collaboration with the lab. He is working with Yujie Qiu on the MRI phantom with a switch-able signal.

Yujie Qiu, successfully defended her Ph.D. dissertation on A Dynamic MRI Phantom Based on Electric Field Induced Residual Dipole Coupling, and received her Ph.D. in Imaging Science from RIT.

William Ryan, an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Chem-istry, is working on a LabView interface for the lab’s low frequency electron paramagnet-ic resonance (LFEPR) spectrometer. The spec-trometer will be used to detect unique spectral signatures from para-magnetic components in clay.

Dr. Hans Schmitthenner, a Research Scientist in the Center for Imaging Science and Lecturer in the Department of Chemistry, is working on targeted contrast agents for magnetic resonance imaging.

Lauren Switala, a sec-ond year BS Chemistry major at RIT, started work on LFEPR of ceram-ic items with cultural heritage significance.

Michael Terwilliger, a third year BS Biology major at Susquehanna University, was a summer intern in the lab and studied the LFEPR spectra of paramagnetic complex-es as a function of firing temperature.

Wei Yao, a Ph.D. Imaging Science student at RIT, became an honorary member of the lab for all the help he provided building the interface and pulse circuits for the MRI phantom with a switch-able signal.

Dr. Nicholas Zum-bulyadis, a retired Research Scientist from Eastman Kodak and expert on Meissen's Blue and White Porce-lain continued working with the lab on the identification of ceramics by LFEPR.

Conference Presentations1. N. Zumbulyadis, W.J. Ryan, J.P. Hornak,

Non-destructive Low Frequency EPR Spectroscopy of Pottery Standards Using Surface Coils, 246th American Chemical Society National Meeting, Indianapolis, IN, September 2013.

2. M. Terwilliger, A. Cannella, W.J. Ryan, N. Zumbulyadis, J.P. Hornak, The Potential of Low Frequency Electron Paramagnetic Resonance for the Analysis of Cultural Heritage Arti-facts, Rochester Academy of Science 40th Annual Fall Scientific Paper Ses-sion, Rochester, NY November 2013.

3. N. Zumbulyadis, W.J. Ryan, J.P. Hor-nak, The Potential of Low Frequen-cy EPR Spectroscopy in Studying Pottery Artifacts, 2013 Materials Re-search Society Fall Meeting, Boston, MA, December 2013.

4. A. Becker, J.P. Hornak, A t-Butanol/Water, Lipid/Water MRI Standard, 59nd American Chemical Society Undergraduate Research Symposium, Rochester, NY, 2014.

5. N. Zumbulyadis, B. Antalek, W.J. Ryan, J.P. Hornak, Non-destructive Low Fre-quency EPR and Solid State NMR for the Characterization of Paramagnetic Components in Cultural Heritage Ob-jects. 55th Experimental NMR Confer-ence, Boston, MA, March 2014.

Publications1. Y, Qiu, WC.E. Kwok, J.P. Hornak, A meth-

od of switching the signal in an MRI phantom based on trace ion currents. Accepted J. Magn. Reson. (2014).

2. Y. Qiu, W. Yao, WC.E. Kwok, J.P. Hornak, A Circuit for Synchronizing External Stimuli and Events to the Pulse Sequence of a Clinical Magnetic Resonance Scanner. Accepted Con-cepts in Magnetic Resonance (2014).

Research Features1. Magritek Spinsolve Benchtop NMR

Used for Research and Teaching at Rochester Institute of Technology. AZoM, The A ro Z of Materials. Janu-ary 7, 2014. http://www.azom.com/news.aspx?newsID=39622

49

The first cohort of students in the Center's new undergraduate course on Introduction to Computing and Control.

50


RESEARCHRESEARCH

A total of 67 attendees from 54 academic and business units attended WiSTEE Con-nect's first regional event, "Lean In Together With WiSTEE Connect," in April 2014.

51

RESEARCHSwartlander LabProfessor Grover Swartzlander continues as Editor-in-Chief of the stalwart international optics research journal, Journal of the Optical Society of America—B. The journal, formed in 1917 shortly after the founding of the Optical Society of America (in Rochester) split into A and B versions in 1984.

In addition to this national and international involvement, Dr. Swartzlander enjoys collaborations with researchers at the University of Bristol (England), the University of Naples (Italy), the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Pasadena, CA), the Marshall Space Flight Center (Huntsville, AL), and the US Naval Research Laboratory (Washington DC). Two of his grad-uate students enjoyed summer research internships at MSFC and NRL. At RIT, his group collaborates with Alan Raisanen (Manufacturing & Mechanical Engineering Technology, CAST) and Mario Gomes (Mechanical Engineering, KGCOE).

His research spans three different areas:

1. Radiation pressure for outer space propulsion and imag-ing systems

2. Advanced design of coronagraphs for imaging exoplanets

3. Advanced imaging concepts including computational photograph and light-field microscopy

Funding for the Swartzlander Lab comes from the National Science Foundation and the prestigious NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program. A visiting scholar, Prof. Lingyu Wan, has joined his team for two years to develop an optical vortex coronagraph for a telescope in China.

Recent Peer Reviewed Publications:

Alexandra B. Artusio-Glimpse, Timothy J. Peterson, Grover A. Swartzlander, Jr. Refractive optical wing oscillators with one reflective surface Opt. Lett. 38, 935-937 (2013).

G. J. Ruane and G. A. Swartzlander, Jr., Optical vortex co-ronagraphy with an elliptical aperture, Applied Optics 52, 171-176 (2013).

Alexandra B. Artusio-Glimpse, Daniel G. Schuster, Mario W. Gomes, and Grover A. Swartzlander, Jr., Rocking motion of an optical wing: theory Applied Optics 53, 11-19 (2014)

OPTICSRESEARCH

The Center for Imaging Science hosts two groups performing cut-ting-edge research in the field of optics: the Swartzlander Lab and the Laboratory for Advanced Optical Fabrication, Instrumentation and Metrology (AOFIM)

52


Book Chapter, Editorials, Awarded Patent:

Les Johnson, Grover A. Swartzlander, Al-exandra Artusio-Glimpse “An Overview of Solar Sail Propulsion within NASA,” Advances in Solar Sailing, Springer Prax-is Books 2014, pp 15-23 (2014).

Alexandra B. Artusio-Glimpse and Grover A. Swartzlander “Thrust Efficiency on an Idealized Deformable Sail,” Advances in Solar Sailing, Springer Praxis Books 2014, pp 457-467 (2014).

Grover A. Swartzlander, Jr.. Letter from the Editor: “Celebrating the Diamond (30th) Anniversary of the Journal of the Optical Society of America B,” JOSA B, Vol. 31, pp. ED1-ED2 (2014)

Grover A. Swartzlander, Jr. (inventor), “Optical lift apparatuses and meth-ods thereof,” Publication Number US8675269 B2 (Mar 18, 2014)

Graduate Students:

Undergraduate REU Student:

Laboratory for Advanced Optical Fabrication, Instrumentation and Metrology (AOFIM)The AOFIM Laboratory conducts research in the areas of (1) Laser Forming and Polishing for Freeform Optics Fabrication (2) Advanced Metrology and innovative wavefront sensing (3) Active Optics and Adaptive Optics Control. (4) Coherent phasing of segmented large-scale optics, laser pulse compression. Prof. Qiao leads the laboratory for Advanced Optical Fabrication, Instrumentation and Metrol-ogy (AOFIM) where two Ph.D. students, two undergraduate students and one post-doctoral researcher conduct their research projects.

The vision for the AOFIM Laboratory is to provide coherent, integrated, and closed-looped research and educational experiences to directly engage undergrad-uate and graduate students to work on a diverse set of real-world projects in Optical Science and Engineering. The mission is to train young researchers on how to frame research problems, acquire relevant knowl-edge, test hypotheses, demonstrate con-cepts, and provide solutions, all of which are driven by industry applications.

Postdoctoral Fellow: Dr. Hetish Vora

Ph.D. students: Lauren Taylor, Anton Travinsky

Graduate research assistants: Jie Yang, Jiang Fu

Undergraduate research students: Danny Dang, Gaozhan Ding (NSF REU student from Wheaton College )

Research projects:1. Ultrafast lasers for forming and surface

finishing of lightweight freeform optics and additively manufactured objects

This project investigates the effective-ness of non- thermal ultrafast-laser polishing of optical materials that can be used to additively manufacturing lightweight, freeform optics. Freeform surfaces can build fast, simple, com-pact, lightweight, and unobscured optical systems with improved optical quality in terms of aberration, field of view and stray light. The revolution of using freeform surfaces for imag-ing provides considerable room for technology innovations in the area of optical design, fabrication, metrology, alignment, assembly, and integration of freeform optics into systems. The laser beam is small, flexible, and can be guided over the surface in con-tour-aligned patterns to perform nano-meter level surface finish, providing a high level of automation and up to two order of magnitude higher speed compared to the conventional polish-ing process. AOFIM Lab conducts fun-damental research on the theoretical modeling for ultrashort pulsed laser polishing of silicon carbide, which is essential to the understanding the electronic aspects of the short-pulse and material interaction such as char-acteristics of the free electron-hole plasma developing at the material surface in strongly non-equilibri-um thermodynamic conditions. The project team will perform factorial studies and experiments to character-ize the propagation and interaction of the ultra-short laser beam in vari-ous regimes of laser influences. The project team is working to understand laser-induced microstructural sample changes, subsurface damage, and la-ser polishing of complex geometries.

2. An innovative wavefront sensor based on binary pixellated transmission filters

High-resolution wavefront sensors are of great interest for laser engineering and astronomy. The optical differentiation wave-front sensor allows for high signal-to-noise ratio broadband characterization of the spatial phase of optical waves. When a filter with a field transmission that is linear with

Prof. Qiao

Lauren Taylor

Alexandra Artu-sio-Glimpse (NSF Graduate Student Fellow, NASA Sum-mer Intern)

Garreth Ruane (ONR Internship, WBI Excellence Scholar—Brussels Internship)

Xiaopeng Peng Daniel Schuster

Wendy Garcia, New Mexico State Univ.

Visiting Scholar:

Prof. Lingyu Wan, Guangxi University, China

53

respect to a spatial coordinate is located in the far field of the optical wave, the spa-tially resolved wavefront slope along that coordinate can be recovered from the near field of the filtered wave. The complete spa-tially resolved wavefront is recovered from a set of two orthogonal wavefront-slopes maps. We study the characteristics of such wavefront sensor when the far-field lin-ear-transmission filter is implemented with a pixelated binary filter. These filters allow for quasi-arbitrary gray-scale continuous transmission patterns using arrays of small (e.g., 10-micron) transparent or opaque pixels that can simply be fabricated by conventional lithography techniques. The pixelated filters are shown to lead to similar wavefront reconstruction than continuous filters, with the advantage of simpler fabri-cation and ability to generate a large vari-ety of filter transmission profiles. Various wavefronts are theoretically reconstructed using a least-square algorithm applied to two wavefront slopes obtained after far-field filtering with pixelated binary filters. The trade-off between pixel size, filter size, beam parameters, and wavefront recon-struction accuracy is studied. Experimental reconstruction of the wavefront of a HeNe laser with Cr-on-glass pixelated binary transmission filters is being demonstrated.

3. Large-scale deformable gratings / optics with optimized actuator positions and holographic correction

This project proposes a deform-able-grating architecture to correct

the spatial and temporal aberrations induced by grating surface wavefront errors. The project team developed an integrated finite-element-analysis and genetic-optimization model for deformable-optics design. This model was used to design and optimize the actuator layout for a 1.5-meter scale adaptive optics. The optimization pro-cess, criteria, and an optimized design were developed. The optimized actuator positions were achieved using genetic optimization method. The optimization was robust and flexible.

4. Outreach

As a woman scientist, the PI Dr. Qiao is a strong role model for attracting women and minority in the engineering disciple, not only as the sole female associate professor on tenure-track with rich industrial and national lab expe-rience, also through her leadership in founding and chairing WiSTEE (Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Entrepreneurship) Connect, an organization created to improve women leadership and networking in the STEM fields. This organization has attracted close to 70 women across all career ranks and across all STEM disciplines during its recent regional event. Prof. Qiao provided a keynote speech on WiSTEE at the 2013 Frontier in Optics.

Funding awards:

• Collaborative Innovation Research (CIR) program, New York State Center for Emerging and Innovative Sciences: PI for “Development & Investigation of an Integrated Laser-based Optics Polishing / Manufacturing System”

• Collaborative Innovation Research (CIR) program, New York State Center for Emerg-ing and Innovative Sciences: PI for “Laser Polishing for Additive Manufacturing”

Peer reviewed journal paper (2013– 2014):

1. J. Qiao, P. A. Jaanimagi, R. Boni, J. Bro-mage, and E. Hill, “Measuring 8–250 ps Short Pulses Using a High-Speed

Streak Camera on Kilojoule, Pet-awatt-Class Laser System,” Rev. Sci. Instrum. 84, 073104 (2013).

Peer reviewed conference proceedings (2013—2014):

1. J.Qiao, X.Liu, “Design and Actua-tor-Position Optimization for a Large-Scale Adaptive Grating”, Frontiers in Optics, Paper FTu2C4, Tucson, Arizona, 19–23 October, 2014

2. J.Qiao, X.Liu, J. Papa, “Actuator-Po-sition Optimization and Holographic Correction for Large-Scale Deform-able Gratings”, International Confer-ence on Ultrahigh Intensity Lasers, Goa, India, 12–17 October, 2014

3. J. Papa, J.Qiao, “Holographic Correc-tion of Surface Errors on Large-Scale Diffraction Gratings2013, CIOMP-OSA Summer Session on Optical Engi-neering, Design and Manufacturing, Changchun, China, 4-10 August, 2013

4. X. Liu, J.Qiao, “Design Optimization for a Meter-Scale Deformable Optics,” 2013 CIOMP-OSA Summer Session on Optical Engineering, Design and Manufacturing, Changchun, China, 4-10 August, 2013

5. (Invited) J. Qiao, “Technical Market-ing for High-Technology Products and Innovations” 2013 CIOMP-OSA Sum-mer Session on Optical Engineering, Design and Manufacturing, Changc-hun, China, 4-10 August, 2013

6. J. Qiao, J. Papa, A. Kalb, “Design and Analysis of Meter-Size Deformable Gratings for Compressing Kilojoule, Petawatt Laser Pulses”, CLEO: Sci-ence and Innovations (CLEO_SI) 2013 paper: CTu2D.2, CLEO, San Jose, CA, 10-14 June 2013

Fig. 1. (a) Initial 9-actuator design; (b) Optimized 9-actuator design; (c) Residual wavefront error of initial design (RMS = 0.032λ, PV = 0.202λ); (d) Residual wavefront error of optimized design (RMS = 0.015 λ, PV = 0.084 λ).

Anton Travinsky Gaozhan Ding Danny Dang

54


RESEARCHRESEARCH

An electron diffraction pattern of bimetallic nanoparticles. Labels indicate the different crystallographic planes in the particles and their corresponding position in the diffraction pattern.

55

RESEARCHMetal Nanoparticles for Catalysis Applications. Our industrial partner is prepar-ing a variety of metal nanoparticles (NPs) for catalysis applications in industrial processes. Our role is to provide images of these particles for sizing and morpho-logical characterization, and electron diffraction for crystallographic information, as well as elemental composition in the case of bimetallic particles. An example of the former is shown in the transmission electron microscope (TEM) image in Fig. 1 for the particular case of PdAg NPs. It is desired that each NP be a homogeneous mixture of Pd and Ag, and be smaller than 5 nm diameter. As Fig.1 demonstrates, the size criterion has been approximately met.

Questions such as “Are the particles a true alloy of Pd and Ag?” and “Are they crystalline?” can be answered by electron diffraction which is one of the standard operating modes in any TEM. The overleaf figure is an example of the electron diffraction pattern of these NPs and clearly demonstrates that the NPs are crys-talline. Both Pd and Ag have the same crystal structure, but their lattice spacings differ by 4.8%. The lattice spacings derived from the overleaf figure are intermedi-ate between those for pure Pd and pure Ag. This result suggests that the particles are indeed an alloy of Pd and Ag. This project is ongoing as our industrial partner continues to refine the synthesis technique, as well as exploring other bimetallic and monometallic materials.

Characterization of a Nickel/Nickel Oxide Catalyst. Our industrial partner request-ed we characterize a commercial catalyst to understand its nanostructure. The particles are advertised to be a mixture of Ni and NiO deposited on diatomaceous earth. Fig. 2 shows an image of this material, along with an electron diffraction pattern that shows the NPs indeed have Ni and NiO crystalline phases. At this point we do not know if the two phases are present in the same NP or some particles are Ni and some are NiO. More advanced characterization techniques will be required.

PZT Devices. Lead zirconium titanate (PZT) is a piezoelectric material with many applications. Prof. Borkholder and his graduate student Jing Ouyang are exploring aerosol printing methods as a way to fabricate useful devices which can take ad-vantage of this piezoelectric property. In order to print the PZT material, it must be in the form of micro or even nanoparticles. After printing the material is subjected to high temperatures in order to sinter the material into “uniform” layer. An alter-native form of sintering is to use high-irradiance light.

Figure 3 gives a comparison using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images of a printed material before and after high-temperature sintering. As can be seen, the sintering conditions are not yet producing a uniform layer. The project is ongoing exploring methods that will allow a uniform layer upon sintering.

Laboratory Director’s Comments By Professor Rich Hailstone

NANOIMAGING RESEARCH LABORATORY

RESEARCH

The NanoImaging Laboratory has continued to grow in the diversity of materials imaged at the micro and nanoscale as part of collaborations with other RIT research groups and our industrial partner.

Fig. 1. TEM image of nanoparticles com-posed of Pd and Ag.

56


Fabricating SOFC Materials by Electro-spinning. Prof. Cormier and his gradu-ate student Swaroop Reddy Yerasi are exploring electrospinning methods as a way to produce high surface area, high gas permeability, and high electrical conductivity porous films for solid-ox-ide fuel cells (SOFC). In electrospinning the desired material (or its precursor) is mixed with a suitable polymer and then forced thru a nozzle via a syringe pump. As shown in Fig. 4, an electric field between the nozzle head and the substrate causes the material to form fibers. After sintering the desired ma-terial is in the form of fibers having the desired properties.

More recently they have used a dual syringe pump technique in order to create a biphasic material. Under conditions of

laminar flow it is hoped that the two mate-rials do not intermingle, and after sintering a two-phase material results. In order to ascertain if a biphasic material actually forms we use SEM and x-ray microanalysis. In the latter technique we use the x-rays produced by the beam electrons in the SEM to determine what elements are pres-ent and their spatial distribution. Figure 5 shows an image of a fiber produced by sin-tering and also an x-ray linescan showing the distribution of the elements Ni and Ce across the width of the fiber, as indicated by the arrow in the SEM image. We note the brighter areas in the image and the x-ray analysis show that these areas are Ce rich. Although somewhat biphasic, this heterogeneous distribution is not the one desired. Rather, we desire the two phases—Ni and CeO2—to be on opposite halves of the fiber width. Work continues towards this objective.

Fig. 2. Left, TEM image of Ni/NiO catalyst particles on diatomaceous earth substrate. Inset is a zoomed-in view. Right, electron diffraction pattern showing both Ni and NiO crystalline phases are present.

Fig. 3. SEM image of PZT films. Left: unsintered. Right: sintered.

Fig. 5. Top: Image of electrospun fiber after sintering. Bottom: X-ray counts for Ni (red) and Ce (green) along arrow superimposed on top image.

Figure 4. Left: Schematic of electrospinning apparatus with the red-filled circles repre-senting particles. Right: An SEM image of the electrospun fibers after sintering.

57Publications, Patent Applications, Patents Issued, and Conference Presentations1. K. L. Heckman, W. DeCoteau, A. Es-

tevez, K. J. Reed, W. Costanzo, D. San-ford, J. C. Leiter, J. Clauss, K. Knapp, C. Gomez, P. Mullen, E. Rathbun, K. Prime, J. Marini, J. Patchefsky, A. S. Patchefsky, R. K. Hailstone, and J. S. Ehrlichman (2013). Custom Cerium Oxide Nanoparticles Protect against a Free Radical Mediated Autoimmune Degenerative Disease in the Brain. ACS Nano, 7, 10582-10596.

2. C. L. Augustyn, T. D. Allston, R. K. Hailstone, and K. J. Reed (2014). One-Vessel Synthesis of Iron Oxide Nanoparticles Prepared in Non-Polar Solvent. RSC Adv., 4, 5228–5235.

3. R. K. Hailstone, A. G. DiFrancesco, T. D. Allston, K. Parsiegla, and K. Reed (2014). Is Iron Doping of Nanoceria Possible at Low Temperatures? J. Nanoparticle Research,16, 2267-2278.

4. L. Irving, D. Sanford, A. G. DiFran-cesco, R. K. Hailstone. (2013). IRON OXIDE NANOPARTICLE DISPERSIONS AND FUEL ADDITIVES FOR SOOT COMBUSTION, U. S. Pat. Appl. Ser. No.13/902,156; May.

5. L. M. Irving, A. G. DiFrancesco, R. K. Hailstone, and K. J. Reed (2013). “Magnetite Nanoparticles as Efficient Promoters of Soot Combustion.” MRS Fall Meeting, Boston, December.

Grants and Contracts 2013–2014

Cerion Advanced Materials, $130k

Facilities

Microscopy: JEOL 6400V scanning elec-tron microscope with a LaB6 electron gun and energy dispersive X-ray analy-sis for elemental detection. JEOL 2010 transmission electron microscope with energy dispersive X-ray analysis for el-emental detection. JEOL 100CX II trans-mission electron microscope. Reichert Jung ultramicrotome for cross-section preparation. Nikon 9000 Film Scanner.

58


RESEARCHRESEARCH

Image courtesy of NASA

59

RESEARCHSevere space weather storms can also bring down the power grid and disable or even destroy satellites orbiting around Earth due to the high electromagnetic pulse that often accompanies storms of this nature. In order to assure the survivability of a human colony on the moon or Mars, there remains a critical need to develop a pre-dictive capability that will monitor various precursor events on the sun and develop a high-confidence prediction that a coronal mass ejection will erupt at a future time. Moreover, such a system should include forecasting awareness of planetary and spacecraft positions so that warnings may be issued to appropriate human operations in multiple places within the solar system. The amount of advanced warning is clearly important, since the first wave of radiation (X-rays) and very high-energy particles (> 100 mev protons) will strike the Earth (for example) eight minutes and Mars 12 minutes after eruption. The extent to which a reliable predictor with high confidence can be developed that provides in excess of hours of advanced notice before a CME eruption will determine how much prepara-tion time Earth and a colony on Mars have before being struck by the first wave of radiation. This early warning should provide any affected populations to take protective actions, thereby assuring survivability of their effort.

The research is currently pursuing two av-enues to improve our ability to predict the arrival time or occurrence of these storms. First, we are using enhanced data on the propagation of CMEs through the inter-planetary medium to develop more precise predictions of the effect of drag on the CME as it plows through the solar wind. Second, we are applying artificial intelligence tech-

niques on data from the Solar Dynamics Observatory to identify signatures in solar activity that could act as reliable forecast-ers of subsequent storms.

StaffOne full time faculty member, Dr. Roger Dube of Imaging Science, anchors the lab. With earlier seed funding by NASA, the Space Weather lab works closely with NASA on advanced predictive algorithms that monitor solar data for signatures that can reliably predict a subsequent eruption.

Research in the lab has been and continues to be conducted by:

• Santosh Suresh, Ph.D. candidate, Imaging Science, graduated Spring 2014

• Matthew Murphy, MS candidate to graduate in the summer of 2015

Summer REU students have included:

• Alicia Lazore

• Alexis LaBoy

• Ivana Molina

• Stephen Chow

• Andrew Ferris

• Caitlin Kavanaugh

OutreachDr. Dube’s role as a Native American fac-ulty member, combined with his mentor-ing of students in the local chapter of the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES), provided multiple op-portunities to attract members of various underrepresented minority groups to the project. In particular, during the past 3 years, the project has included:

- 3 Native Americans

- 3 African Americans

- 5 women

Press CoverageSince its inception, the project has enjoyed a good deal of press coverage, ranging from front-page local newspaper coverage to Space Coalition and Mars Daily websites.

Democrat and Chronicle—front page

http://rocnow.com/article/lo-cal-news/20109130331

Azo Sensors

http://www.azosensors.com/Details.asp?NewsID=130

Mars Daily.com (we didn’t know there was such a thing!)

http://www.marsdaily.com/reports/Early_Warning_System_Would_Predict_Space_Storms_on_Mars_999.html

PlanetStewards.net

http://planetstewards.net/a919727-early-warning-system-would-predict-space.cfm

The Space Coalition

http://spacecoalition.com/blog/nasa/danger-mars-colonists-need-for-predicting-space-storms

PR Web

http://www.prweb.com/releases/RIT_Roger-Dube/space_storms_Mars/prweb3808924.htm

Softpedia News

http://news.softpedia.com/news/How-to-Forecast-Space-Storms-on-Mars-138729.shtml

Laboratory Director’s Comments By Dr. Roger Dube

LABORATORY FOR SPACE WEATHER ALERT TECHNOLOGIES ASTRONOMICAL IMAGING

RESEARCH

The Space Weather lab develops technologies to ensure sustain-able colonies on the Moon, Mars and other interplanetary bodies by developing advanced early warning systems that forecast the arrival of deadly space weather storms at the colony location.

60


RESEARCHRESEARCH

Illustration 1: left to right: Keith Knox (USAF Research Laboratory), Jana Gruskova (Austrian Academy of Sciences), William Christens-Barry (Equipoise Imaging), David Kelbe (CIS), and Roger Easton (CIS) at the Conference on St. Catherine's Imaging in Vienna, October 2013.

61

RESEARCHIn July 2014, Dr. Roger Easton and second-year student Elizabeth Bondi spent two weeks at the Museo del Tesoro del Duomo, the Cathedral Library in Vercelli Italy. A large team of 14 including colleagues from the University of Mississippi, the USAF Research Laboratories, the Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM) in Berlin, the Early Manuscripts Electronic Library, and Megavision, Inc. collected spectral imagery of the “Codex Vercellensis,” which is thought to be the oldest copy of the Old Latin Gospels, having been copied in the fourth century. This heavily damaged book includes approximately 640 leaves that will require signifi-cant image processing to recover the original text.

Immediately following the two weeks in Vercelli, David Kelbe and Dr. Easton assisted in imaging of an important historical palimpsest in Rome that requires signficant

image processing to recover the unique original writing.

This trip to Europe was followed immediately thereafter by a 10-day trip to the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University to image the 1490 world map of Henricus Martellus Germanus, of which a copy likely was used by Columbus on his 1492 voyage to the “New World.” The notes on the map and the cartouches are much faded and should yield important information that will place this map amongst its contemporaries.

Dr. Easton participated with colleagues in a week of imaging and teaching at the Sorbonne in September 2014 that was aimed at showing manuscript scholars the capabilities of the imaging system and the processing. The manuscripts imaged included fragments of parchments that suffered both burning and water damage during the bombings of the Cathedral at Chartres, as well as a palimpsest from a private collection.

Other efforts included research in the application of infra-red thermography to manuscript imaging and processing of imagery that had been collected previously, including a col-laborative project funded by NEH and directed by Dr. Adrian Wisnicki of the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, to finish processing of images of the handwritten African diaries of

Dr. David Livingstone that were collected in 2010. The imagery of the palimpsests at St. Catherine's Monastery in Sinai continue to pile up and will require signifi-cant processing. The imaging effort includes 2–3 five-week sessions per year, each producing approximately 3 terabytes of data that requires processing.

Scheduled imaging trips in 2015 include a visit to image the palimpsests in a private collection in the midwest, a trip to the New York Public Library to image a globe, a possible visit to the Folger Shakespeare Library in the spring, and an additional

Laboratory Director’s Comments By Dr. Roger Easton

HISTORICAL MANUSCRIPT IMAGING

RESEARCH

The Laboratory for Historical Manuscript Imaging continued to elicit interest from other researchers and individuals who wish to enhance or recover writings on documents of historical importance and interest. The efforts of the laboratory are directed both at ac-quisition of spectral imagery of such documents and processing of the images to recover the writings or other features of interest.

Illustration 2: Ira Rabin (Federal Institute for MaterialsResearch and Testing, Berlin), Liz Bondi (CIS Student), and Keith Knox (USAF Research Laboratory) at the Museo del Tesoro del Duomo in Vercelli, Italy, July 2014.


62

Illustration 3: Martellus Map (1490) being prepared for spectral imaging at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Yale University, August 2014. Historic map expert Chet Van Duzer in foreground.

63trip to St. Catherine’s Monastery. Future plans include additional imaging of a palimpsest in Vienna under the direction of Dr. Jana Grusková of the Institut für Mittelalterforschung, ABF of the Österre-ichische Akademie der Wissenschaften in Vienna. Much original text has already been recovered from this important man-uscript, which is a history of the wars between the Romans and the Visigoths.

Publications: Roger L. Easton, Jr. and David Kelbe, “Sta-tistical Processing of Spectral Imagery to Recover Writings from Erased or Damaged Manuscripts,” accepted for publication in the special issue “Natural Sciences and Technology in Manuscript Analysis” of the journal “Manuscript Cultures”

Presentations: Roger L. Easton, Jr., Conference of Schol-ars for the St. Catherine's Palimpesst Imaging Project, Vienna, October 2013

David Kelbe, Conference of Scholars for the St. Catherine's Palimpsest Imaging Project, Vienna, October 2013

Roger L. Easton, Jr., Keynote Address to the Rochester Academy of Science Fall Scientif-ic Paper Session, 9 November 2013.

ENVI tutorial at the University of Missis-sippi, 22–24 November 2013.

Roger L. Easton, Jr. and David Kelbe, “Statistical Processing of Spectral Im-agery to Recover Writings from Erased or Damaged Manuscripts,” Conference on Natural Sciences and Technology in Manuscript Analysis, Hamburg, 5 December 2013

Roger L. Easton, Jr., Image Processing of the Martellus Map, Public talk at the Beinecke Library, Yale University, August 2014

Roger L. Easton, Jr., week-long course in image processing of spectral images of manuscripts at the Sorbonne, Paris, 15–19 September 2014

64


RESEARCHRESEARCH

Figure 6. Multiwavelength images of the OH megamaser galaxy IRAS16399-0937. Top row: Hubble Space Telecscope images at wavelengths of, from left to right, 435 nm, 814 nm and 1.6 μm. Bottom row: HST image showing emission in the Hα emission line of Hydrogen (left), Spitzer Space Telescope image showing dust emission at 8.0μm (middle), Very Large Array image showing radio emission 1.4 GHz (right).

65

RESEARCHLAMA exists to foster the utilization and advancement of cutting-edge techniques in multiwave length astrophysics by RIT faculty, research staff, and students, so as to improve human understanding of the origin and fate of the universe and its constituents. In 2013, LAMA’s third year as a designated Research Laboratory, LAMA-affiliated PIs held or obtained 37 external grants, mostly from NASA and the NSF. LAMA faculty, postdocs, and students were lead or co-authors of nearly 40 ref-ereed papers and conference presentations, many of these resulting from projects involving international teams of astrophysics researchers. LAMA PI grant expendi-tures totaled approximately $981K, yielding roughly $47.9K in overhead recovery return to the lab. Expenditures to the research center account totaled approximate-ly $51.5K. In summer 2013, LAMA continued its highly successful student fellow-ship program, again in association with (and in support of) the Center for Imaging Science (NSF-sponsored) Research Experience for Undergraduates program. LAMA also continued its investments in existing and new astrophysics research infra-structure, and maintained its administrative and software support. Overall, LAMA continued to play a leading role in support of RIT’s thriving community of astro-physics researchers and educators.

2.0 Mission Statement and Progress Toward Goals & Objectives 2.1. LAMA’s Mission. The mission of LAMA is to foster the utilization and advance-ment of cutting-edge techniques in multiwavelength astrophysics by RIT faculty, research staff, and students, so as to improve human understanding of the origin and fate of the universe and its constituents.

LAMA exists to support the following major astrophysics activities at RIT:

• exploitation of existing and forthcoming national and international ground-and space-based astronomical observing facilities/missions;

• exploitation and mining of the present and forthcoming generations of multiwave-length data archives;

• development of scientific requirements for future astronomical observing facili-ties/missions and future data archival and mining methods;

• analysis and modeling of multiwavelength astronomical and astrophysical data.

2.2. Goals & Objectives. Support of the four major activities listed in §2.1 drives LAMA’s primary goals and objectives. Specific LAMA goals and objectives include:

(1) obtain external funding sufficient to maintain a healthy cadre of student and postdoc-toral scholars pursuing research in multiwavelength astrophysics;

(2) widely disseminate the research results of LAMA-affiliated faculty, postdocs, and students;

Laboratory Director's Comments By Dr. Joel Kastner

LABORATORY FOR MULTIWAVELENGTH ASTROPHYSICS

RESEARCH

1.0 Executive Summary. A subset of the faculty, staff and students from the Center for Imaging Science (CIS) and School of Physics and Astronomy within the College of Science at Rochester Insti-tute of Technology participates in the Laboratory for Multiwave-length Astrophysics (LAMA).

66


(3) promote a highly dynamic, interactive astrophysics research environment at RIT and bolster national and international astrophysics collaborations involving RIT;

(4) strategically invest in novel astro-physics research initiatives and in new astrophysics research infrastructure in both the instrumentation and software domains, within and beyond RIT.

2.3. Progress Toward Goals & Objectives. In 2013—LAMA’s third year as a designated research laborato-ry at RIT—LAMA-affiliated faculty, post-docs and students continued to make significant strides toward the goals and objectives listed in §2.2:

• LAMA-affiliated PIs obtained or main-tained 37 grants, with total CY 2013 expenditures of approximately $981K (§4.1).

• LAMA personnel were lead or co-au-thors of nearly 40 refereed papers and conference presentations (§6.5), with many of these publications highlight-ing the involvement of LAMA faculty, research staff, and students in large national and international teams.

• In summer 2013, in association with (and in support of) the Center for Imaging Science (NSF-sponsored) Re-search Experience for Undergraduates program and the School of Astronomy & Physics AST Ph.D. program, LAMA continued its highly successful stu-dent fellowship program (§5.1).

• LAMA contributed to RIT’s investment in the WIYN 0.9 m telescope consor-tium via direct payment of member-ship fees and student travel support, and provided supplementary funding for the CIS Microgrant program (§6.4).

• LAMA continued to use some of its dis-cretionary funds for support of student travel to conferences, publication page charges, and general RIT astrophysics community-building activities (§5.2).

3. Personnel

Participating Faculty: Stefi Baum (CIS), Roger Dube (CIS), Joel Kastner (CIS; LAMA Director), Jacob Noel-Storr (CIS), Chris O’Dea (Physics), Michael Richmond (Physics), Andrew Robinson (Physics)

Research Staff (Postdoctoral Research-ers): Preeti Kharb, Rupal Mittal, Benja-min Sargent

Graduate Students: Triana Almeyda, Kevin Cooke, Marcus Freeman, Davide Lena, Dave Principe, Kristina Punzi,

Valerie Rapson, Sravani Vaddi, Billy Vazquez (all AST Ph.D.)

Undergraduate Students: Mollie Corrigan (Physics), Kayla Emerson (Physics), Mike Every (Physics), Andrew Ferris (Physics), Alyssa Hunter (Physics), Kaitlyn Schmidt (Physics), Trent Seelig (Imaging & Photo Tech), Luke Shadler (Physics)

Administrative Staff: Amanda Zeluff (50% FTE), Bob Krzaczek (5% FTE)

4. Finances The following summarizes the key aspects of LAMA’s CY 2013 finances. Detailed spreadsheets describing LAMA grants, grant expenditures, and lab ac-count income and expenses for CY 2013 are available upon request.

4.1. Research Funding and Grant Expen-ditures. A total of 37 external grants were maintained by LAMA faculty and research staff PIs during calendar year 2013. The vast majority of this funding comes from NASA and the National Sci-ence Foundation. Expenditures in CY

Notes: (a) Includes salary and benefit ex-penditures for research faculty, postdoctoral fellows, and administrative staff; (b) see §5.1; (c) Investments in the CIS Microgrant program and the WIYN 0.9 m telescope annu-al consortium membership fee; (d) see §5.2.

2013 totaled approximately $981K. In Table 1, we present a summary of grants awarded to LAMA PIs in CY 2013.

4.2. Overhead Recovery and Expenses. Overhead return to LAMA in CY 2013 totaled $47,877. Expenses in CY 2013 totaled $51,561. Table 2 presents a breakdown of these expens-es according to expense category.

5. Student Support and Community Building 5.1. Summer Student Fellowship Pro-gram. In summer 2013, LAMA continued its RIT summer student fellowship pro-gram, in association with (and in sup-port of) the Center for Imaging Science (NSF-sponsored) Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program and the School of Astronomy & Physics AST Ph.D. program. A list of students who received full or partial stipend support from LAMA in summer 2013 is present-ed in Table 3. As in previous summers, these LAMA-supported students were seamlessly integrated into the larger summer astrophysics student research community consisting of grant-support-ed AST graduate students, grant-sup-ported CIS and Physics undergraduates,

and visiting REU students involved in summer astrophysics research. Small working groups, organized around research themes and data analysis tech-niques, developed naturally. Biweekly group breakfast meetings were held in which the LAMA fellows and REU students (along with AST grad students and LAMA faculty and postdocs) gave research status reports and shared results with each other. All of these LAMA-inspired Table 3. LAMA Summer Student Fellowships, 2013 and LA-MA-supported summer student projects led to student presentations at the 2013 RIT Summer Undergraduate Re-

search Symposium. Some students also presented at the Jan. 2014 American Astronomical Society meeting, and a few projects are developing into papers for refereed journals.

Table 1. Grants awarded to LAMA PIs in CY 2013

Table 2. LAMA expenses, 2012

675.2. RIT Astrophysics Community Build-ing and Outreach. Via hospitality support in 2013, LAMA again facilitated informal interactions between visiting RIT astro-physics colloquium speakers and RIT’s community of AST and CIS graduate students and post-docs. These informal gatherings over lunch or dinner are very popular with the students, as they serve as opportunities to make connections and ponder career choices. LAMA also provided pizza and drinks for the weekly RIT astrophysics lunch talk series, whose typical audience consists of 5–10 gradu-ate students from the AST Ph.D. program and another half-dozen researchers from all three RIT astrophysics research labs (LAMA, CCRG, CfD).

During the 2013-2014 academic year, LAMA students and faculty (Richmond, Kastner, Ph.D. students Valerie Rapson and Billy Vazquez1 and NTID faculty member Stacey Davis) reached out to the Rochester community at various venues, with much outreach activity centered on RIT Observatory facility visits. We had typical luck at our RIT Observatory Open Houses: one was clear, so visitors had a chance to see the Moon, the Ring Nebula, and other objects through our telescopes; the other was cloudy, so we gave a presentation on the Chang’e 3 lunar mission, which landed safely on the Moon just hours later. We also host-ed Genesee Community Charter School students and facilitated three visits from Cub Scout troops and a visit from students at Nazareth College.

Finally, we are proud to note that AST/LAMA Ph.D. student Valerie Rapson was named an American Astronomical Society “Astronomy Ambassador” in Dec 2013. According to the AAS, ”the Astronomy Ambassadors program pro-vides mentoring and training experienc-es for young astronomers, from ad-vanced undergraduates to new faculty; it also provides access to resources and a network of contacts within the astron-omy EPO community.”1Also see http://www.rit.edu/news/sto-ry.php?id=49827

6. Research Highlights

6.1. Galactic Astrophysics Research. 6.1.1. Star and planet formation. In 2013, Kastner’s team continued its NSF-and NASA-funded focus on young, solar-mass (and lower-mass) stars near Earth. In the context of the coming gen-eration of extremely large telescopes, such nearby, young, low-mass stars will serve as prime targets for direct near-infrared imaging searches for

warm (self-luminous), young planets. Meanwhile, established and new exam-ples of nearby young stars orbited by planet-forming disks provide important subjects for investigations of as-yet poorly understood solar system forma-tion processes.

Figure 1. First results from the GALNYSS project include the identification of roughly 50 new candidate members of the Tu-cana-Horologium Association of nearby, young stars. The Tuc-Hor group lies at a mean distance of ~150 light years, and its member stars are of age ~10–40 million years. The positions and proper motions of the newly GALNYSS-identified Tuc-Hor mem-ber candidates (red circles) are here shown superimposed on the same data for previ-ously known member stars (blue squares).

From Rodriguez et al. (2013).

The GALNYSS project: Under NASA funding, Kastner and collaborators at UCLA and Universidad de Chile have developed a new method to identi-fy nearby, low-mass stars with ages 10–100 Myr using archival GALEX (UV) and 2MASS (near-IR) data. We have now used this new UV/optical/IR-based method to compile a comprehensive list of ~2000 candidate young, late-type stars within ~100 pc of Earth (Rodri-guez et al. 2013). We have named this comprehensive search the Galex Near-Young Star Survey (GALNYSS). With the list of nearby, young stars resulting from GALNYSS, we can begin to address a number of questions raised over the past decade concerning nearby young stars. Of primary interest are the luminosity and (hence) initial mass functions of the recently discovered young (age 10–100 Myr) groups within ~100 pc. In particular, by exploiting the sensitivity of Galex, we have discovered a large number of low-mass (M dwarf) stars that were too faint to be picked up by the ROSAT (X-ray) All-Sky Survey. These new detections of nearby, young M stars include ~50 new candidate members of the Tucana-Horolo-gium Association (see Fig. 1).

Multiwavelength young star cluster studies at Protostars & Planets VI: In the summer of 2013, AST program Ph.D.

student David Principe attended the Protostars and Planets conference in Heidelberg, a small city nestled in the hills of Germany. This international conference was attended by over 800 astronomers and is one of the largest astronomical meetings for star and planet formation in the world. Principe presented his research on magnetic ac-tivity during the earliest stages of star formation. The presence and strength of magnetic fields likely influence the col-lapse of molecular clouds and thus, how stars and planets first form. Principe de-scribed the results of a multiwavelength campaign (e.g., radio, infrared, and X-ray observations) of two star-forming regions in Orion that he has conducted with G. Sacco (formerly a LAMA post-doc, now at Arcetri Observatory) and colleagues from the Harvard-Smith-sonian Center for Astrophysics. These findings suggest that magnetic activity, as probed via high-energy X-ray emis-sion, can be variable on timescales from days to years even in the earliest stages of young stars. Such X-ray variability may influence the earliest formation of circumstellar disks and/or planets.

Radio molecular line survey of a proto-planetary disk: A team led by Kastner and IPAG (France) colleagues P. Hily-Blant and T. Forveille has conducted the first comprehensive mm-wave molecular emission line survey of the circumstel-lar disk orbiting the nearby, pre-main sequence (T Tauri) star LkCa 15. The outer disk orbiting LkCa 15 is chemically rich, with numerous previous detections of molecular emission lines revealing a significant gas mass. Hence, LkCa 15 is an excellent target for an unbiased radio spectroscopic survey intended to produce a full census of the detectable molecular species within an evolved, protoplanetary disk. Our survey of LkCa

Figure 2. A compendium of spectra of all molecules detected in the IRAM 30-meter telescope spectral line survey of the plan-et-forming disk orbiting the young star LkCa 15. From Punzi et al. (2014, in prep.).

68


15 was conducted with the Institute de Radioastronomie Millimtrique (IRAM) 30 meter telescope over the 1.1-1.4 mm wavelength range. AST program Ph.D. student Kristina Punzi is leading the analysis of these line survey data. Her work demonstrates the value of com-prehensive single-dish line surveys in guiding future high resolution interfero-metric imaging by ALMA of protoplane-tary disks orbiting T Tauri stars. Punzi’s preliminary results (see Fig. 2) were presented at the 221st American Astro-nomical Society meeting in January of 2013 and the Astronomical Society of New York meeting in October of 2013.

A multiwavelength spectroscopic study of the disk orbiting V4046 Sgr: In col-laboration with G. Sacco (Arcetri Obser-vatory) and LAMA postdoc Ben Sargent, AST program Ph.D. student Valerie Rapson is conducting an infrared study of the young (age ~20 Myr), nearby (~250 light years distant) binary system V4046 Sagittarii to understand the con-tents and structure of the planet-form-ing disk around the twin young suns. Using Spitzer and Herschel spectrosco-py, Rapson determined the gas and dust content of the planet forming region of the V4046 Sgr disk and discovered a plethora of lines of water, carbon mon-oxide, and other volatile molecules. Us-ing newly obtained spectroscopic data from the Infrared Telescope Facility in Mauna Kea, HI, Rapson and LAMA-spon-sored summer REU student

C.T. Smith was able to re-analyze the spec-tral types (hence temperatures) of the stars in the system, and thereby demon-strate that infrared spectroscopy alone is not sufficient to determine a young star’s temperature. These projects were presented at the From Stars to Life confer-ence in Gainesville, FL and the Astronomi-cal Society of NY meeting in Schenectady, NY, and dovetail with Kastner’s ongoing investigations of the V4046 Sgr system (e.g., Rosenfeld et al. 2013).

Molecules in disks around T Tauri stars: LAMA postdoc Sargent led a team analyzing spectra of a small sample of T Tauri stars, i.e., young stars with orbit-ing dust and gas disks that may evolve into planetary systems. In Spitzer Space Telescope Infrared Spectrograph (IRS) 5–7.5 micron wavelength spectra, these T Tauri stars shows emission from water vapor and absorption from other gases in these stars protoplanetary disks. Some show an emission feature at 6.6 microns due to warm (>500 K) water vapor, while others show an absorption band, peaking in strength at 5.6–5.7

microns. For some, this absorption band is consistent with gaseous formal-dehyde (H2CO), and, for others, it is consistent with gaseous formic acid (HCOOH). The water vapor integrated flux at 6.6 microns in low resolution Spitzer-IRS spectra correlates well with water line fluxes at 17 microns in high resolution Spitzer-IRS spectra mea-sured by Najita et al (2013). Spitzer-IRS observed many more protoplanetary disks in low resolution than high reso-lution, so the 6.6 micron emission is a good tracer of water vapor emission in protoplanetary disks. Modeling of these stars' spectra suggests these gases are present in the inner few AU of their host disks, consistent with recent studies of infrared spectra showing gas in proto-planetary disks.

6.1.2. Mass-losing evolved stars and planetary nebulae. Mass loss from evolved stars in the Galactic Bulge: In 2013, LAMA postdoc Sargent continued his NASA-funded studies of rapidly mass-losing red giants (i.e., asymp-totic giant branch, or AGB, stars) in the central Bulge region of our Galaxy. Sargent et al. (2013) detected three of eight AGB stars in the Galactic bulge that they observed in the CO J = 2-1 line using the Submillimeter Array. Com-bining these CO data with observations at infrared wavelengths constraining dust mass loss from these stars, they determined the gas-to-dust ratios of the Galactic Bulge stars for which CO emission is detected. The derived gas/dust ratios lie in the range 200-300, i.e., somewhat larger than character-istic of the interstellar medium in the vicinity of the Sun. The Chandra Plane-tary Nebula Survey: Planetary nebulae represent a brief, spectacular phase late in the final phases of the life cycle of a Sun-like star, between its red giant and white dwarf stages. In 2013, Kastner and inaugural AST Ph.D. recipient Rudy Montez (presently a Bridge Postdoc-toral Fellow at Vanderbilt University) continued to lead an international team of two dozen astronomers that is conducting a systematic Chandra X-ray imaging survey of nearby, well-studied planetary nebulae (“ChanPlaNS”; see Fig 3). ChanPlaNS began as a Large Program in Chandra’s Cycle 12, with ob-servations of 21 objects. These imaging data were combined with archival data to yield an initial sample of 35 objects, i.e., roughly a quarter of the known planetary nebulae within roughly 4000 light years of the Sun. ChanPlaNS continued in 2013 with an allocation of more than a week of Chandra ob-

serving time in Cycle 14 to observe another 24 relatively compact objects, chosen so as to complete a survey of the youngest planetary nebulae in the solar neighborhood. AST Ph.D. student Marcus Freeman, who is developing a thesis based on X-rays from planetaries, spearheaded RIT’s ChanPlaNS efforts in 2013. The combined ChanPlaNS and Herschel Planetary Nebula survey (Her-PlaNS) teams met near Madrid, Spain in February 2013 to forge plans for future analyses and observation and theoretical programs aimed at building on the highly successful ChanPlaNS and HerPlaNS projects.

Asymmetrical Planetary Nebulae VI: Kastner served on the Scientific Orga-nizing Committee for the sixth meeting on Asymmetrical Planetary Nebulae (APN VI), held in November 2013 in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. Freeman and Montez presented the most recent results from ChanPlaNS at APN VI. Oth-er topics at the meeting included 3-D simulations of the growth of planetary

Figure 3. Cover of the Spring 2013 Chan-dra X-ray Center Newsletter, whose feature story, “The Secret X-ray Lives of Planetary Nebulae,” was written by Montez & Kastner. The cover shows Chandra X-ray Observatory images of X-ray emission from four plane-tary nebulae (in purple) overlaying Hubble Space Telescope images. All four of these objects feature soft X-ray “hot bubbles” due to the colliding winds that are now shaping these objects, as well as harder, point-like X-ray sources at the dying central stars. This image montage was also featured in a 2012 Chandra X-ray Center press release (http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2012/pne/).

69nebulae and the role of magnetic fields and binary companions in generating various nebula structures.

Figure 4. Light curves for supernova SN2013ej, obtained with the 12-inch RIT Observatory telescope.

6.2. Extragalactic Astrophysics Research.

6.2.1. Supernovae. For the second time in three years, a bright supernova exploded in a nearby galaxy. This time, it was the type IIP supernova 2013ej in the face-on spiral galaxy M74. Just as we (Richmond et al.) had done in the case of SN 2011fe two years ago, we followed the optical evolution of this titanic explosion with the 12-inch

telescope at the RIT Observatory. Six months of measurements yield a light curves with a clear plateau (hence the ’P’ in ’type IIP’), followed by a sharp drop in light (see Fig 4). A paper describing these observations has been submitted to the Journal of the American Association of Variable Star Observers.

6.2.2. Supermassive black holes and their environments. Infall vs. outflow in active galactic nuclei: For decades it has been known that the nuclei of certain galaxies are characterized by unusually large energy outputs, the presence of radio-emitting jets, out-flows and a number of highly energetic phenomena varying on short time-scales (days). Such galaxies are known as active galactic nuclei (AGN). The key mechanism that keeps them active is believed to be well understood: grav-itational potential energy is released in the form of radiation during the ac-cretion of gas on a super-massive black hole (SMBH) residing at the galactic center. Nevertheless it is not yet clear how the gas is funneled from the inner kiloparsec down to the sub-parsec scale accretion disk that fuels the SMBH. Is there a relation between the accretion

rate of the SMBH and the presence of outflows? An international (US/Brazil-ian/Chilean) team led by Robinson and AST Ph.D. student Davide Lena have been using the the Integral Field Unit (IFU) on the Gemini Multi Object Spec-trograph (GMOS) on the 8-m GEMINI telescopes to observe the ionized gas in the nuclear regions of a sample of AGN. We completed the analysis and modeling of the active galaxy NGC 1386 (see Fig. 5), proposing that the complex spectral features observed within 250 pc from its nucleus are due to (i) the presence of a rotating nuclear outflow and (ii) the illumination of the large-scale galactic disk by the energetic pho-tons generated in vicinity of the SMBH.

Black hole “kicks” from galaxy mergers: The current standard model of cosmol-ogy predicts that galaxies grow mainly via mergers with other galaxies. The hypothesis that super-massive black holes (SMBHs) reside in the center of all galaxies above a given a mass threshold implies that many of such galactic mergers result in the formation of SMBH-binaries which will eventually coalesce. Asymmetries in the binaries (different masses and spins) result in the anisotropic emission of gravitation-al waves which impart a recoil to the newly formed SMBH. The recoil velocity can be as large as a few ×1000 km s−1 , removing the SMBH from the nucleus or ejecting it from the host galaxy. Whilst large recoils are rare (they require spe-cial configurations of the binary), small recoils are expected to be more com-mon. LAMA’s Robinson and Lena, in col-laboration with colleagues in Italy and at Florida Inst. of Technology, studied a set of nearby, active, giant elliptical galaxies imaged with the Hubble Space Telescope to look for spatial offsets between the active nucleus (supposed to pinpoint the SMBH position) and the photometric center of the galaxy (supposed to mark the minimum of the large-scale potential well, the location where the SMBH is expected to reside). We found evidence for small (<10 pc) displacements in 6 out of 14 galaxies.In individual objects these displacements can reasonably be attributed to residual gravitational recoil oscillations, follow-ing a merger within the last few Gyr. For plausible merger rates, however, there is a high probability of larger displace-ments than those actually observed, if SMBH coalescence events took place in these galaxies. When relatively power-ful and well-defined kpc-scale jets are present, the SMBH-photocenter dis-placements are approximately aligned

Figure 5. Upper left: NGC 1386 imaged with the Hubble Space Telescope. The green box marks the region observed with the GEMINI IFU. Upper right: Flux map derived from our observation. Although emission seems strongly localized in a central blob and two elonga-tions approximately aligned along the north-south direction, low-level emission is present over the whole field of view. Lower left: Velocity map (in km/s) derived from the modeling of the spectra. It shows the typical pattern of a rotating disk with additional distortions. Lower right: Cartoon showing the inferred structure of the nuclear region of NGC 1386.

70


with the radio jets. Although such alignments could also result from grav-itational recoil, this suggests intrinsic asymmetries in radio jet power as a possible displacement mechanism.

OH megamaser galaxies: Collisions be-tween galaxies leading to the merger of the two original galaxies into a single, larger galaxy are believe to play an important role in galaxy evolution. One important consequence of these events is channeling of interstellar gas into the center of the merging system, where it fuels rapid star formation and may ”ig-nite” a hitherto dormant supermassive black hole, creating an active galactic nucleus (AGN). Lena and Robinson and an international team (that includes former LAMA postdoc Aires de Sales) are conducting a multiwavelength study of a particular class of merging gal-axy, known as OH megamaser galaxies (OHMGs), which are characterized by intense maser emission (the microwave equivalent of a laser) from the hydroxyl (OH) molecule (see Fig. 6). The ma-ser emission may be a signature of a nascent AGN, or massive star formation that is deeply embedded in interstellar dust and therefore difficult discern at shorter wavelengths. The figure shows images in optical, infrared and radio wavelengths of one particular OHMG, IRAS 16399-931. This system is an ad-vanced galaxy merger -the nuclei of the two original galaxies can be seen in the images, surrounded by an envelope of stars, dust and ionized gas. Using these and other data we have shown that the northern nucleus harbors a luminous AGN, which is almost completely con-cealed by surrounding dust, whereas the southern nucleus is dominated by star formation. However, the luminos-ities of both nuclei imply relatively modest gas inflow rates.

Interacting galaxies and star forma-tion: LAMA faculty members Baum and O’Dea, RIT AST graduate student Kevin Cooke, and former graduate student Grant Tremblay, in collaboration with the cluster lensing group led by Mike Gladders, are studying a spectacular 30 kpc long filament system undergo-ing “beads-on-astring” star formation. New Hubble Space Telescope (HST) ultraviolet and optical Figure 7. A four-color composite HST/WFC3 image of the strong lensing cluster SDSS J1531+3414 and its two central bright-est cluster galaxies, which are likely undergoing a major merger. The F160W and F814W images are shown in yellow/orange, the F606W image is shown in

Figure 6. Multiwavelength images of the OH megamaser galaxy IRAS16399-0937. Top row: Hubble Space Telecscope images at wavelengths of, from left to right, 435 nm, 814 nm and 1.6 μm. Bottom row: HST image showing emission in the Hα emission line of Hydrogen (left), Spitzer Space Telescope image showing dust emission at 8.0μm (middle), Very Large Array image showing radio emission 1.4 GHz (right).

imaging of the strong-lensing galaxy cluster SDSS J1531+3414 (z = 0.335) reveals two cen-trally dominant elliptical galaxies participating in an ongoing major merger (see Fig. 7). The interaction is at least somewhat rich in cool gas, as the merger is associated with a complex network of nineteen massive superclusters of young stars (or small tidal dwarf galaxies) separated by ~1 kpc in projection from one another, combining to an estimated total star formation rate of ~5 M8 yr−1 . The resolved young stellar superclusters are threaded by narrow H, [O ii], and blue excess filaments arranged in a network spanning ~27 kpc across the two merging galaxies. This morphology is strongly reminiscent of the well-known “beads on a string” mode of star formation observed on kpc-scales in the arms of spiral galaxies, resonance rings, and in tidal tails between interacting galaxies. Nevertheless, the arrange-ment of this star formation relative to the nuclei of the two galaxies is difficult to interpret in a dynamical sense, as no known “beads on a string” sys-tems associated with kpc-scale tidal interactions exhibit such lopsided morphology relative to the merger participants.

71green, and the F390W image containing rest-frame near-ultraviolet emission from young stars is assigned to the blue channel. Left: a wide (200×200 kpc2) view of the galaxy cluster. Tangential gravitational arcs from strongly lensed background galaxies are clearly seen. Right: a zoom-in on the left-hand panel, showing the two merging central cluster galaxies. Bright NUV emission asso-ciated with ongoing star formation is observed in blue. (From Tremblay et al., ApJ, in press.)

6.3. Space Weather Research. During the summer of 2013, LAMA supported Kellyn Berrigan, an honors high school student from Connecticut. Kellyn’s project was to employ time-sequence images of the expulsion of Coronal Mass Ejections (CME’s) from the sun, in conjunction with the total travel time to Earth, in order to extract a measure of the coefficient of drag exerted on the CME by the interplanetary medium. By using a wide variety of CMEs (with varying initial speeds), Kellyn was able to extract 2 drag coefficients one for low speed CME’s whose average speed was less than that of the solar wind, and one for high speed CMEs, characterized by speeds greater than that of the solar wind. As expected, slow CMEs were ac-celerated by the faster solar wind, and fast CMEs were slowed down. The drag coefficients were found to be in agree-ment with published measurements. This work has evolved further into a Master’s thesis for an Imaging Science graduate student, Matthew Murphy.

6.4. Astronomical Research Facilities.

6.4.1. Wisconsin-Indiana-Yale-NOAO (WIYN) 0.9 m Telescope. This past year LAMA began providing financial assistance to help pay RIT’s share of the university consortium that owns and operates the Wisconsin-Indi-ana-Yale-NOAO 0.9 m telescope, which is located at Kitt Peak National Ob-servatory near Tucson, AZ. Each year, LAMA’s Richmond supervises a group of RIT students in observing at WIYN, with LAMA providing supplementary student travel support. This observing season’s run was scheduled for January, 2014, to take advantage of the first winter semester intersession period in RIT’s history.

6.4.2. RIT’s new spectrograph. In 2013, AST Ph.D. students Vasquez and Rapson began characterizing and testing the LHIRES III optical spectrograph they purchased via a combination of LAMA funds and a Center for Imaging Science

(CIS) “microgrant”. The spectrograph was successfully installed on the Vasquez Astronomical Observatory (VAO) in Spring 2013, and used to obtain test spectra of standard stars and nearby young star candidates. In summer 2013, Vasquez and Rapson supervised two CIS high school interns in the reduction and analysis of stellar spectra obtained with LHIRES.

6.5. Publications. 6.5.1. Refereed papers.

(1) Couto, G. S., Storchi-Bergmann, T., Axon, D. J., Robinson, A., Kharb, P., Riffel, R. A. 2013. Kinematics and excitation of the nuclear spiral in the active galaxy Arp 102B. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 435, 2982-3000.

(2) Reynolds, C., Punsly, B., O’Dea, C. P., Hurley-Walker, N. 2013. A Bla-zar-like Radio Flare in Mrk 231. The Astrophysical Journal 776, L21.

(3) Rosenfeld, K. A., Andrews, S. M., Wilner, D. J., Kastner, J. H., McClure, M. K. 2013. The Structure of the Evolved Circumbinary Disk around V4046 Sgr. The Astrophysical Jour-nal 775, 136.

(4) McClure, M. K., D’Alessio, P., Calvet, N., Espaillat, C., Hartmann, L., Sar-gent, B., Watson, D. M., Ingleby, L., Hern´andez, J. 2013. Curved Walls: Grain Growth, Settling, and Compo-sition Patterns in T Tauri Disk Dust Sublimation Fronts. The Astrophysi-cal Journal 775, 114.

(5) Rodriguez, D. R., Zuckerman, B., Kastner, J. H., Bessell, M. S., Faherty, J. K., Murphy, S. J. 2013. The GALEX Nearby Young-Star Survey. The As-trophysical Journal 774, 101.

(6) Meixner, M., and 54 colleagues 2013. The HERSCHEL Inventory of The Agents of Galaxy Evolution in the Magellanic Clouds, a Herschel Open Time Key Program. The Astro-nomical Journal 146, 62.

(7) Reynolds, C., Punsly, B., O’Dea, C. P. 2013. Misalignment of the Jet and the Normal to the Dusty Torus in the Broad Absorption Line QSO FIRST J155633.8+351758. The Astrophysi-cal Journal 773, L10.

(8) Cara, M., and 13 colleagues 2013. Polarimetry and the High-energy Emission Mechanisms in Quasar Jets: The Case of PKS 1136-135. The Astrophysical Journal 773, 186.

(9) O’Dea, C. P., Baum, S. A., Tremblay,

G. R., Kharb, P., Cotton, W., Perley, R. 2013. Hubble Space Telescope Observations of Dusty Filaments in Hercules A: Evidence for Entrain-ment. The Astrophysical Journal 771, 38.

(10 ) Kim, K. H., and 12 colleagues 2013. Transitional Disks and Their Origins: An Infrared Spectroscopic Survey of Orion A. The Astrophysical Journal 769, 149.

(11 ) McClure, M. K., Calvet, N., Espail-lat, C., Hartmann, L., Hern´andez, J., Ingleby, L., Luhman, K. L., D’Alessio, P., Sargent, B. 2013. Characteriz-ing the Stellar Photospheres and Near-infrared Excesses in Accreting T Tauri Systems. The Astrophysical Journal 769, 73.

(12 ) Edge, A. C., Oonk, J. B. R., Mittal, R. 2013. The Herschel view of clusters of galaxies. Astronomische Nach-richten 334, 382.

(13 ) Montez, R., Jr., Kastner, J. H. 2013. Serendipitous Detection of X-Ray Emission from the Hot Born-again Central Star of the Planetary Nebula K 1-16. The Astrophysical Journal 766, 26.

(14 ) Sargent, B. A., Patel, N. A., Meix-ner, M., Otsuka, M., Riebel, D., Srini-vasan, S. 2013. CO J = 2-1 Emission from Evolved Stars in the Galactic Bulge. The Astrophysical Journal 765, 20.

(15 ) Capetti, A., Robinson, A., Baldi, R. D., Buttiglione, S., Axon, D. J., Celot-ti, A., Chiaberge, M. 2013. Exploring the spectroscopic properties of relic radiogalaxies. Astronomy and Astro-physics 551, A55.

(16 ) Floyd, D. J. E., Dunlop, J. S., Kukula, M. J., Brown, M. J. I., McLure, R. J., Baum, S. A., O’Dea, C. P. 2013. Star formation in luminous quasar host galaxies at z = 1-2. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 429, 2-19.

(17 ) Otsuka, M., Kemper, F., Hyung, S., Sargent, B. A., Meixner, M., Tajit-su, A., Yanagisawa, K. 2013. The Detection of C60 in the Well-charac-terized Planetary Nebula M1-11. The Astrophysical Journal 764, 77.

(18 ) Campbell, H., and 27 colleagues 2013. Cosmology with Photometri-cally Classified Type Ia Supernovae from the SDSS-II Supernova Survey. The Astrophysical Journal 763, 88.

(19 ) Gnerucci, A., Marconi, A., Capetti, A., Axon, D. J., Robinson, A. 2013.

72


Spectroastrometry of rotating gas disks for the detection of super-massive black holes in galactic nuclei. III. CRIRES observations of the Circinus galaxy. Astronomy and Astrophysics 549, A139.

6.5.2. Non-refereed publications (conference proceedings, astronomical bulletins, etc.)

(1) Sargent, B., and 14 colleagues 2013. Following Up the First Light Curves of the Dustiest, Most Extreme Asymp-totic Giant Branch Stars in the LMC and SMC. Spitzer Proposal 10154.

(2) Kato, T., and 86 colleagues 2013. Survey of Period Variations of Su-perhumps in SU UMa-Type Dwarf No-vae. V: The Fifth Year (2012-2013). ArXiv e-prints arXiv:1310.7069.

(3) Gregory, S. G., and 16 colleagues 2013. The magnetosphere of the close accreting PMS binary V4046 Sgr AB. ArXiv e-prints arX-iv:1309.2142.

(4) Kastner, J., Punzi, K., Rodriguez, D., Sacco, G. G., Hily-Blant, P., Forveille, T., Zuckerman, B. 2013. Molecular Line Surveys of Nearby T Tauri Stars: Late-time Chemistry of Protoplane-tary Disks. Protostars and Planets VI Posters 22.

(5) Rodriguez, D., Zuckerman, B., Kast-ner, J., Bessell, M., Faherty, J., Mur-phy, S., Vican, L. 2013. The GALEX Nearby Young-Star Survey. Proto-stars and Planets VI Posters 96.

(6) Principe, D., Sacco, G., Kastner, J. 2013. Investigations of Magnetic Activity Across YSO Classes: Mul-tiwavelength Observations of the Star-forming Regions L1630 and L1622. Protostars and Planets VI Posters 3.

(7) Kim, M., Zheng, W., Li, W., Filippen-ko, A. V., Cenko, S. B., Richmond, M. W., Amorim, A., Balam, D. D., Graham, M. L., Hsiao, E. Y. 2013. Supernova 2013ej in M74 = Psn J01364816+1545310. Central Bu-reau Electronic Telegrams 3606, 1.

(8) Sciortino, S., and 18 colleagues 2013. The Hot and Energetic Uni-verse: Star formation and evolution. ArXiv e-prints arXiv:1306.2333.

(9) Nandra, K., and 239 colleagues 2013. The Hot and Energetic Uni-verse: A White Paper presenting the science theme motivating the Athena+ mission. ArXiv e-prints arXiv:1306.2307.

(10) Montez, R., Kastner, J. H., Chan-PlaNS Team 2013. Mysteries and Discoveries from the Chandra Plan-etary Nebulae Suvery (ChanPlaNS). AAS/High Energy Astrophysics Division 13, #103.01.

(11) Richmond, M. W., Mazzali, P. A., Pian, E. 2013. Supernova 2013al. Central Bureau Electronic Tele-grams 3438, 1.

(12) Punzi, K. M., Kastner, J. H., Hi-ly-Blant, P., Forveille, T., Sacco, G. 2013. First Results from a Radio Emission Line Survey of the Molec-ular Disk Orbiting LkCa 15. Ameri-can Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #221 221, #443.13.

(13) Zuckerman, B. M., Rodriguez, D., Kastner, J. H., Darling, S., Principe, D., Montez, R., Diaz, M., Vican, L. 2013. Investigating Young Stars Near Earth with GALEX, WISE & 2MASS. American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #221 221, #423.04.

(14) Thibodeau, C., Rafiee, A., Scott, J. E., Richmond, M., Benigno, G., Kubli, A., Bechtold, J., Ellingson, E. 2013. Associated Absorption in Low Redshift Quasar Environ-ments. American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #221 221, #339.32.

(15) Sargent, B. A., Patel, N. A., Meixner, M., Otsuka, M., Riebel, D., Srini-vasan, S. 2013. SMA Observations of CO J=2-1 Emission from Evolved Stars in the Galactic Bulge. Ameri-can Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #221 221, #213.05.

(16) Kastner, J. H., Hily-Blant, P., Ro-driguez, D., Punzi, K., Forveille, T. 2013. Radio Emission Line Surveys of the Molecular Disks Orbiting TW Hya and V4046 Sgr. American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #221 221, #205.07.

(17) Rodriguez, D., Zuckerman, B. M., Kastner, J. H., Bessell, M. S., Faherty, J., Murphy, S. J., Vican, L. 2013. First Results from the Gal-ex-Wise Young Star Program. Amer-ican Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #221 221, #158.12.

(18) Diaz, M., Rodriguez, D., Darling, S., Principe, D., Kastner, J. H., Mon-tez, R., Zuckerman, B. M. 2013. Galex-selected Nearby Young Stars: X-ray Counterparts and Potential New eps Cha Members. American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #221 221, #158.11.

(19) Balmaverde, B., and 13 colleagues 2013. Extended soft X-ray emission in 3CR radio galaxies at z<0.3: high excitation and broad line galaxies. Memorie della Societa Astronomica Italiana 84, 715.

73NASA astronaut Donald Pettit tours RIT’s Center for Imaging Science

by Susan Gawlowicz

NASA astronaut Donald Pettit visited RIT’s Chester F. Carlson Center for Imag-ing Science on Thursday, Jan. 9, while in town to give a lecture at the George East-man House on his space photography.

Peter Blacksberg, a 1975 alumnus from the School of Photography, introduced Pettit to key members of the center: Stefi Baum, director; Joe Pow, associate director; and David Messinger, direc-tor of the Digital Imaging and Remote Sensing Laboratory.

“Knowing that taking photos from space posed some unique problems, Peter suggested that Don connect with our researchers here, thinking we might be able to help address some of these chal-lenges,” Pow said.

Pettit asked specific questions about imaging the sun from the space station.

“He posed for us an interesting ques-tion on what useful filtered photogra-phy of the sun might he do,” said Baum. “We are investigating that and will be getting back to him soon.”

Pettit has logged more than 370 days on the International Space Station and more than 13 spacewalking hours during his three times in space.

Photo by—Peter A. Blacksberg, RIT '75

74


OUTREACHOUTREACH

High school summer interns Rachel Shadler, Madeline Wolters, and David Lewis present a "do-it-yourself" camera of their own design to Steve Sasson, inventor of the first digital camera and member of the Imaging Hall of Fame. 2014 marked the 15th year in which CIS offered internship opportunities to highly qualified high school juniors.

75

Through January 2014, Bethany maintained a blog, “The Imaging Science Show,” which featured outreach and recruitment activities, alumni events, staff initiatives, student and intern highlights, and other various goings-on. You will see throughout the following outreach report sections links highlighted with a “¢” which lead to specific related postings that go into detail about Bethany’s experiences. Although it is no longer being updated, you can view, follow, and comment on past blog entries via http://bjcpci.blogspot.com/.

Prospective Student Programs

2013 CIS Intern Program

The Center for Imaging Science summer intern program, in its 14th year in 2013, still manages to outdo itself year after year. The overall number of applications to the program hit a record high in 2013 with 90 total applicants, a 50% increase over average and a 91% increase compared to the previous year. 30 total schools were represented, including an unprecedented 6 non-local schools spread across the United States. From this extremely competitive applicant pool, 14 interns were selected as listed in the chart below.

Intern High School CIS Research Lab

John Bartlett Brighton Insight Lab

Nate Bellavia Rush-Henrietta Multi-Camera Array

Kellyn Berrigan Darien (CT) Space Weather

Jacob Bigenwald W. Irondequoit Remote Sensing

Killian Coddington Honeoye Falls–Lima Multi-Camera Array

Elizabeth Dinella Spencerport Multi-Camera Array

Ian Gooding Honeoye Falls–Lima Insight Lab

Sara Leary Gates–Chili Astronomical Imaging

Mary Emma Martin Mercy Document Restoration

Simran Marwah Pittsford Mendon Visual Perception

Calvin Salacain Loudon School for the Gifted (VA) Document Restoration

Robert Semple Greece Olympia PRISM Lab

Maura Sutherland Bishop Kearney Astronomical Imaging

Solomiya Vysochanska Honeoye Falls–Lima Visual Perception

Comments By Bethany Choate

OUTREACH

OUTREACHImaging Science senior Kevin Dickey explains the operation of a spectrometer to visitors at the Science and Technology Entry Program (STEP) Middle School Imaging Science Fair in February 2014.

Outreach efforts for the Center for Imaging Science are manifested in a variety of programs, demonstrations, activities, materials, events, and publications which serve three main audiences: prospective students; the community at large; and alumni. 2013–2014 has been another busy year as outreach efforts have continued under the organization and facilitation of 2006 Imaging Science BS graduate Bethany Choate.

76


Interns conducted authentic research in several CIS laboratories as outlined in the table above. The seven week long paid internship program also included a field trip to Mees Observatory and a career exploration luncheon featuring a live Skype session with CIS alumnus and NASA scientist David Bretz. CIS also continued the tradition of weekly cookout lunches organized and coordi-nated by the interns, which also includ-ed team building games and activities. Interns were required to maintain blogs recording their memorable experiences and presented their research at a half day symposium at the end of August. For the first time, we recorded these presentations for later viewing, which can be accessed via the CIS internship webpage at http://www.cis.rit.edu/interns. Meet our 2013 interns and read their blogs at http://www.cis.rit.edu/2013interns/.

http://bjcpci.blogspot.com/search/label/interns

As of 2013 the CIS Intern Program has jump started successful academic and professional careers for 158 participants over fourteen years. The benefits of the CIS intern program are four-fold: to students; to the community; to CIS and RIT; and to STEM (science, technology, education, and math) education in the United States as a whole. Participants benefit from research experience, exposure to a college environment, experientially exploring their academic interests, and learning the responsibilities of a full time job. The intern program is a community builder, as schools and students from across the area participate, and local companies and research centers are showcased through field trips. The program is also CIS’s most successful recruitment initiative: ~50% of participants have enrolled at RIT for STEM-related disciplines; and 15% of all past interns have applied to Imaging Science, with 12% ultimately enrolling as students in the Imaging Science program. Lastly, our internships encourage the further pursuit of STEM disciplines by up-and-coming young talent.

The 2014 internship cycle will present some changes to the program. For one, the program will be shortened to six weeks due to RIT’s conversion to a se-mester calendar system and the result-ing earlier start to the academic year. Additionally, due to the rising costs of maintaining the program, interns will be unpaid for the first time in the program’s history. Despite the funding challenges we anticipate being able to offer the same high level of experience and extracurricu-

lar programming thanks to the support of industry and alumni, who are recognized for their generosity on the internship webpage, http://www.cis.rit.edu/interns. We sincerely thank all sponsors past, present, and future for your generous sup-port of our high school intern program.

K-12 School CollaborationsCIS Outreach personnel made class-room visits to, participated in college/career fairs at, or hosted groups from, a variety of local schools in 2013-2014.

http://bjcpci.blogspot.com/search/la-bel/classroom%20visits

http://bjcpci.blogspot.com/search/la-bel/outreach

Between increased school security, decreased college/career readiness programming, and the implementation of new Common Core standards, it has become increasingly difficult to get into school classrooms to interact directly with prospective students. In order to be able to continue this particular practice, CIS hopes to broaden its contacts with K-12 schools both locally and nationally. To this end, we continue to support the CIS Ambassador Program (see below).

CIS Ambassador ProgramCIS established the Ambassador Program in fall 2011 to encourage and reward par-ticipation in outreach initiatives. The CIS ambassador program is made up of indi-viduals who volunteer their time to help spread the word about Imaging Science at RIT. Ambassadors can be students, alumni, industry professionals, educators, or people simply interested in helping increase enrollment in Imaging Science. Ambassadors can visit school classrooms, represent CIS/RIT at college and career fairs, recruit prospective students, and/or distribute promotional materials. CIS greatly appreciates the value of person-al time, so in return for their time and effort our Ambassadors are rewarded with thank-you gifts. The more outreach performed by an Ambassador, the greater the value of their appreciation gifts. All Ambassadors receive a high quality polo shirt embroidered with the CIS logo, to wear while acting as a representative of CIS and performing outreach duties. Additional information on the program, as well as a link to sign up, is available at http://www.cis.rit.edu/ambassadors.

2013 witnessed an increase in student participation in the Ambassadors Program. We hope that by establishing a culture of expressing pride and wanting to spread the word, that graduating students will

want to continue participating in outreach efforts as they transition to alumni.

High School Elective The Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science partnered with the local school district Rush-Henrietta to develop and offer a high school elective course in Imaging Science for the 2013-2014 school year. Thirty-six students enrolled two sections of the year-long class, which included one semester of science theory and application, and one semester of technology theory and application. The units of study are: Ob-servables, Visual Perception, Capturing Observables, Color & Color Theory, The

Capture Device, Processing an Image, Display & Presentation of Images, and Careers in Imaging Science.

Collaboration with RIT DepartmentsCIS continues to work cooperatively with the RIT Admissions department to help raise awareness of Imaging Science among potential students. Undergraduate Admis-sions is increasing the visibility of Imaging Science in Open House presentations and on their websites and blogs. CIS and the Admissions department also collabora-tively worked to spark interest in Imaging Science among waitlisted Engineering stu-dents, which directly resulted in increased undergraduate enrollment in Imaging Science for the fall of 2014.

In 2013 RIT worked to establish the Uni-versity Center for Engaging K-12 (UCEK). UCEK coordinates, supports, promotes, and advocates for RIT initiatives that positively affect pre-college youth through outreach and enrichment activities that

Professor Rich Hailstone demonstrates the use of a scanning electron microscope at the STEP Middle School Imaging Science Fair.

77contribute to their education, and through research endeavors that seek to broaden knowledge about children. UCEK has invited CIS to participate in a number of its programs and initiatives, including some of the special projects outlined below (marked with an *), which has resulted in a very positive partnership. CIS looks for-ward to future collaboration and participa-tion in an increased amount of on-campus outreach initiatives facilitated by UCEK.

Special Projects and Events

Science Technology Entry Program (STEP) Saturday ProgramsThe RIT Science and Technology Entry Program, or STEP, is a state-funded grant program that provides academic enrich-ment and college and career exploration to students in grades 7–12. Seven high school students from under-represented ethnic groups participated in a program lasting four Saturdays which gave them an in-depth exposure to imaging science. Participants researched, designed, carried out, and analyzed experiments utilizing a thermal camera to determine insulating properties of clothing. The program culminated in a final presenta-tion by the students.

http://bjcpci.blogspot.com/search/label/STEPWorkforce Innovations Conference*

The Monroe County School-Business Partnership (MCSBP), a service for school districts coordinated by Mon-roe #1 BOCES, offers the annual Youth Workforce Innovations Conference to around 100 sophomore high school students enrolled in its ten member school districts with the goal of having students learn about regional workforce areas offering high potential for future employment. RIT’s UCEK has extended

the invitation to Rochester City Schools to help broaden the audience further. Imaging Science presentations focused on academic, scholarship, and career opportunities, and multi-spectral imag-ing including a live demonstration with a thermal camera.

http://bjcpci.blogspot.com/2013/04/workforce-innovations-2013.html

Greece Athena Middle School Career Exploration Day*

Approximately 95 accelerated Greece Athena Middle School math and science students participated in Career Explo-ration Day at RIT where they connected their academic skills with related math and science fields. Imaging Science presentations focused on multi-spectral imaging and included wildly popular interactive activities using a thermal camera. 99% of survey respondents rat-ed the presentation as either “good” or “excellent”, and most said it was great and/or their favorite part of the day.

http://bjcpci.blogspot.com/2013/05/greece-career-exploration-day-2013.html

From the first group of 72 students to go through this event 5 years ago, eleven have applied to RIT, 7 of which applied to a STEM-related program.

GECAC: GO College*

A group of high school students from Pennsylvania visited RIT for an Admis-sions overview, tour of campus, and presentations on engineering, liberal arts, art, and Imaging Science. An in-teractive demonstration with a thermal camera was performed.

http://bjcpci.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-day-i-put-up-picture-of-mars-rover.html

Science Saturdays at the RMSC

CIS presented an exhibit on thermal im-aging in a booth at the Rochester Museum and Science Center as part of their Science Saturdays programming. Several objects and materials were available for interaction with the camera including ice, hair dryers, hot and cool liquids, plastic bags, space blankets, glasses, and more. Printed images were available as souvenirs to take home.http://bjcpci.blogspot.com/2013/05/that-day-at-museum-that-it-was-so-quiet.html

42nd Annual Science Exploration Days

For over four decades the Science Teachers Association of New York State’s Central Western Section has presented an event, per their website, “at which science students are exposed

to relevant, interesting, and up-to-date science and technology topics.” (http://www.ggw.org/~cws/sed.htm). The two-day long event consists of a science exhibition hall open to the public one evening, followed by a full day of events including exhibits, demonstrations and seminars. The event regularly attracts approximately 1,800 high school juniors and seniors from a 6 county region. CIS staff and students participated in the 2013 event through an exhibition table devoted to thermal imaging with print-out souvenirs.

http://bjcpci.blogspot.com/2013/05/42nd-annual-science-ex-ploration-days.htmlhttp://bjcpci.blogspot.com/2013/05/42nd-annual-science-ex-ploration-days_17.html

STEP Middle School Imaging Science Fair

CIS organized and hosted a science fair for middle school students and their families who are part of the Science Technology Entry Program (STEP). Approximately 80 people attended hands-on activities, demonstrations, and exhibits covering scanning electron microscopes, spectrometers, astronom-ical imaging, a student-made tabletop Schlieren system for visualizing heat waves, thermal imaging with a FLIR cam-era and printer, portable and tabletop eye trackers, virtual reality simulations, and Insight Lab exhibits including Laser Challenge and Science Exploration Technologies. The highly successful fair was made possible by a significant coming-together of students, faculty, and staff. Pictures from the event can be viewed at the following URL:

https://plus.google.com/pho-tos/112697798423575378845/al-bums/5979158123600976193

2013 interns visit Mees Observatory

78


Promotional MaterialsNew Website

CIS has embarked on the significant un-dertaking of completely overhauling our entire website, www.cis.rit.edu. We have partnered with the Wallace Center on campus to produce a modern, appealing, highly-functional website that serves the needs of our diverse audiences.

Videos

CIS worked with RIT’s Wallace Center Video Production services to produce two videos about the Imaging Science Innova-tive Freshmen Experience first-year course. One 6-minute video has the intended audience of prospective students, while a second 9.5-minute video goes into greater detail about the pedagogy for the intended audience of educators. Both videos can be accessed via the Favorites playlist on the CIS YouTube Channel, https://www.youtube.com/user/ritimagingscience.

MAKE Magazine Advertisement

CIS experimented with new territory by advertising in MAKE magazine. The quar-ter-page advertisement appeared in MAKE: 36, which hit newsstands in Fall 2013.

Digital and Print Materials

In addition to those listed above, many additional resources are continuously being produced and updated to illus-trate and promote Imaging Science:

• A variety of posters, pamphlets, postcards, handouts, booklets, and magnets, which can be viewed on our website at www.cis.rit.edu/resources/promotional-material

• A YouTube channel which features videos about Imaging Science as well as movie clips captured by students participating in outreach programs, at

o http://www.youtube.com/user/RITImagingScience

• Image Gallery, at http://picasaweb.google.com/RITImagingScience

CIS encourages the use of these resources to promote the Center for Imaging Science and its academic and outreach offerings. New for 2014, CIS has begun assembling digital versions of all promotional print materials and videos onto wearable USB bracelets that feature the CIS logo. These bracelets, which are provided to all prospective students, have the advantages that they save on material costs, are func-tional beyond the life span of their sup-plied contents, and are also more “green”. Says one now-enrolled student,

“I must say wow! I knew that [the USB bracelet and pamphlet] were going to be informational, but I didn't think there would be as much thought and effort put into the conveyance of the information as there clearly was. The presentation on the USB was certainly not generic and it really did give me some further insight into the major, and the pamphlet did just the same. “

You may request a supply of USB bracelets to provide to prospective students by e-mailing Bethany Choate at [email protected].

http://bjcpci.blogspot.com/search/ label/materials

Community OutreachCIS also organizes and/or participates in a variety of events not aimed at a particular population but rather the community at large.

CIS Seminar Series

Throughout the academic year, CIS sponsors a series of weekly imaging science seminars. These seminars present an opportunity to learn about imaging research being done by faculty, staff, alumni, corporate partners, and scientists in other related fields. While these are typically aimed at the level of a first year graduate student in the Imaging Science disciplines, seminars are advertised across campus and ev-eryone, including the general public, is welcome to attend. Past seminar topics and presentation videos are available for viewing on our website at http://www.cis.rit.edu/seminar.

Suggestions for seminar speakers are encouraged and welcomed by CIS. Please send any suggestions to [email protected].

Imaging Science Hall of Fame

2013 marked the 8th year of CIS’s annual Imaging Science Hall of Fame induction ceremony and reception. The Hall of Fame celebrates individuals for their development of foundational

theories of imaging, demonstration of key imaging technologies or systems, novel applications of imaging devices, or leadership in the imaging industry. 2013’s three inductees included Dr. George Heilmeier, a pioneering contrib-utor to the development of the liquid crystal display; Dr. Ren Ng, the founder and Executive Chairman of Lytro, the first company to produce and market a light field camera for consumer use; and August Toepler, a German physicist who was the first to succeed at visualizing acoustic waves in air. For the second time in the Hall of Fame’s history, one of the current recipients, Ren Ng, was present for the ceremony and to accept a plaque identical to the one that now hangs in the Carlson Auditorium.

The event is intended for the general public. Information on current and past inductees can be found at http://www.cis.rit.edu/ImagingHallOfFame.

http://bjcpci.blogspot.com/2013/12/introducing-imaging-hall-of-fame.html

CIS Espresso Cart

CIS continues this tradition that began in 2010, and has even added an addi-tional day due its success. Afternoons at 3:00 on Monday, Tuesday, Wednes-day, and Thursday the CIS Espresso Machine rolls into action in Café Chet on the second floor of the Center for Imaging Science. The machine produces on demand espresso (with or without caffeine) and a variety of concentrated teas. Treats are also provided for a little afternoon sweetness. All CIS students, faculty/staff, alumni, associates, collaborators, supporters, and guests and visitors are encouraged to meet, greet, chat, interact, and re-energize around the well in the afternoon. This is a great way to informally connect with others in CIS and learn about the latest goings-on.

CIS Summer Movie Series

The weekly movies series, which debuted in summer 2011, continued in the summer of 2013. All students, faculty, and staff on campus for the summer, as well as high school interns and REU students were invited to view a once-weekly movie related to entrepre-neurship. CIS provided pizza, popcorn, and refreshments for all attendees.

Imagine RIT

The sixth annual ImagineRIT Innovation and Creativity Festival, designed to showcase RIT’s culture of innovation and creativity, brought a record 35,000

USB drives for prospective students

79visitors from the local community to the RIT campus. CIS was affiliated with fourteen booths in 2014:

3D Planeterrainium

Digital Solar Explorer

Family Science Test Pad

Immersive Living Room System

Insight Lab Central

Intelligent Multi-Camera Video Chat

Interactive Landscapes

Revealing the Universe

Scales of the Universe

Seeing the Invisible

Space Adventure

UAV Aerial Imagery & Autopilot Integration

Vehicle Hazard Detection and Alert System *

Where's Waldo: Eye Tracking and Relat-ed Sciences

*Winner of the Paychex Sponsor Award

More detailed information can be found at http://www.cis.rit.edu/imagine.

Alumni ProgramsCIS is looking to increase and improve alumni relations with its graduates. Sev-eral supporting initiatives have been es-tablished to realize this goal: an increase in the frequency and quality of alumni social events; increased communication with alumni; and online social network-ing. Related information and links for CIS Alumni can be found on the CIS website: http://www.cis.rit.edu/alum

http://bjcpci.blogspot.com/search/ label/alumni

Social Events

Alumni events are a great way for alum-ni of the Center for Imaging Science degree programs to reconnect with each other and back to CIS. CIS has hosted the following events in 2013–2014:

• Boston-area College of Science/CIS Alumni Reception in April, 2013

• 7th annual DC Alumni Reception in June, 2013

• Annual CIS Fall Picnic, and RIT Brick City Festival in October, 2013

• Reception for Rochester area alumni following the Imaging Science Hall of Fame ceremony in December, 2013

• San Francisco / SPIE Photonics West and Electronic Imaging Alumni Event in February, 2014

CIS is proud to continue our collabo-rative effort with RIT Alumni Relations to help ensure that alumni events are a success, by sharing Alumni Relations’ experience, reach, and superior organi-zation skills. Unfortunately we have had to say goodbye to Lauren Sauer, Alumni Relations’ Associate Director of Alumni Relations for the College of Science, as she tackles a new adventure in San Fran-cisco, CA. We hope to connect with a new Alumni Relations representative soon.

We also welcome alumni to join us for our various on-campus events that take place throughout the academic year, including: the fall Picnic; the winter Imaging Science Hall of Fame ceremony and reception; the annual springtime scavenger hunt; the weekly Seminar Series; and the four-times-weekly espresso cart coffee chat.

Imaging Connection Newsletter

We have continued producing the CIS Imaging Connection current events news-letter in 2013-2014. While the intended audience is Imaging/Color/Photo Science alumni, most topics are of general public interest. Content includes: news stories related to CIS; upcoming events; alumni updates; research spotlights; and more. Past issues can be viewed online at www.cis.rit.edu/about/newsletter.

The newsletter is e-mailed quarterly to CIS’s alumni population. If you are an alumnus and wish to be added to our mailing list, please fill out the Alumni Update Contact Info form (see “Update your contact info”, below).

Social Networking

CIS continues to maintain its social networking sites, which have proven themselves quite successful. Please connect with us on Facebook and Twitter via the username RITimagingsci. Here you can find news and information about the Center; opportunities for potential students, current students, and alumni; links to interesting Imaging-related arti-cles; CIS event announcements; as well as general announcements. We encour-age anyone involved with CIS to become a fan, interact with the site, and spread the word to others. There is also a Linke-dIn group called RIT Imaging Science and Photographic Science Alumni.

Call for Volunteers: CIS Ambassador Program

CIS hopes to broaden its contacts with K-12 schools both locally and nationally. To help with this effort, we are looking to collaborate with CIS alumni. Alumni

can assist by providing CIS with contacts for schools they are involved with, as well as by going out themselves to make classroom visits utilizing CIS-provided materials. To this end, we have devel-oped the CIS Ambassador Program (see previous section: Outreach—Prospective Student Programs). Please consider joining us as a CIS Ambassador.

Please Update Your Contact Info With Us

CIS maintains its own private alumni directory, and we need continuing input from alumni to help keep the information up to date. Providing your e-mail address will ensure delivery of the CIS Imaging Connection newsletter to your inbox. Your data will never be shared without your consent. Please update your information and set your preferences online at http://www.cis.rit.edu/updateinfo.

Imaging science undergraduate Kevin Sacca presents Lytro founder and executive chair-man Ren Ng with a plaque to commemorate his induction into the Imaging Hall of Fame.

80


ALUMNIALUMNI

Professor John Schott presents a plaque to outgoing CIS Director Stefi Baum to commemorate her 10 years of leadership at the Center.

81

ALUMNIThe U.S. workforce is undergoing a generational shift as baby boomers near retirement age.

The national defense and intelligence communities, in particular, stand to lose scientists and engineers with decades of experience in imaging systems that track environmental change, natural disasters, peacekeeping efforts and matters related to homeland security.

In an effort to put the issue on the national agenda, experts from RIT, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and the imaging industry shared their con-cerns with Congressional representatives, aides and staff from the House Armed Services Committee and House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence late last year. U.S. Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-Fairport, sponsored the briefing.

The RIT initiative drew upon a report written by the Subcommittee on Technical and Tactical Intelligence in 2008 for the U.S. House of Representatives, which calls for workforce development in imaging science and remote sensing and partner-ships with universities.

RIT President Bill Destler, Professor David Messinger and industry representatives who attended the Dec. 3 event emphasized the need to cultivate the next generation of scientists and engineers to develop, build and operate complex imaging systems.

The university presented itself as part of the solution and sought sustained funding to produce more Ph.D. students and research critical to the defense and intelli-gence communities.

“We feel that we can graduate more students every year out into the field with the science and technical background to understand the capabilities of an imaging system, what it can and can’t do and how to process the image to get the informa-tion you want out of it,” said Messinger, associate research professor and director of the Digital Imaging and Remote Sensing Laboratory in RIT’s Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science.

Building relationshipsFederal agencies looking to hire U.S. citizens to fill defense and intelligence positions are facing a workforce shortage and a knowledge gap, said Stefi Baum, professor and director of the Center for Imaging Science.

“The U.S. has not been good at training U.S. citizen Ph.D.s in the STEM fields, and for agencies doing security-related work, it’s a huge problem,” Baum said. “The U.S. has had 20 years of not producing scientists and engineers to feed into that and has been relying on people who are from the Sputnik era who are retiring. There’s a large awareness of that but exactly what to do about it hasn’t been well addressed.”

The Center for Imaging Science seeks to grow its remote sensing lab and its other related imaging laboratories through sustained relationships with the federal departments and agencies that routinely hire RIT graduates. Messinger and Baum

FEATURED ALUMNI— MATTHEW MONTANARO, ARIEL SCHLAMM

ALUMNI

Wanted: Scientists to operate complex imaging systemsBy Susan Gawlowicz

Matthew Montanaro

Ariel Schlamm

82


envision targeted recruitment of imag-ing science graduates akin to Toyota’s formal courtship of RIT’s mechanical and automotive engineers.

Prior to the Congressional briefing, Destler and Messinger met with key members of the National Geospatial-In-telligence Agency to discuss starting a formal relationship with RIT’s imaging science program. RIT Board of Trustee member Jeffrey Harris ’75 (photograph-ic science and instrumentation), chair-man of the Open Geospatial Consortium and a former director of the National Reconnaissance Office, acted as their primary contact with the agency.

Harris described his experience work-ing with imaging science graduates while he served in both government and industry as “having the right skills on the team.”

“The STEM-educated, tech-savvy special-ist—competent with imaging systems—is a valued member of the new integrat-ed-information eco-system,” he said.

According to Messinger, 10 to 15 percent—or 13 RIT alumni, mostly with imaging science and photo technology degrees—“dominate” the NGA’s image science group. Team leader, retired U.S. Air Force Officer Michael Foster ’07 (imaging science), NGA Image Science Integration Lead in the Office of Sciences and Methodologies, earned

his Ph.D. through an Air Force advanced education program that sends officers to study imaging science at RIT.

“Clearly, we’re doing something valuable because their human resources people are hiring our graduates for these critical positions,” Messinger said. “But there is no longer-term strategy.”

Center for Imaging ScienceMessinger met in January with the head of human resources and other spe-cialists to further explore a strategic relationship between the NGA and RIT, including on-site training for scientists at the agency. Discussion with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency remains ongoing.

“We hope to convince the NGA and other governmental agencies to generate a signifi-cant amount of funding to support five to 15 graduate students a year,” Messinger said.

The Center for Imaging Science grad-uates approximately 10 to 15 under-graduate and 20 master and doctoral students per year. The undergraduate program hovers between 40 and 50 students, while the graduate program claims 110 to 115 students.

“Even if we produce 20 Ph.D.s a year, that makes a big difference because one of these people with this kind of train-ing can influence a large swath of the industry and federal capability,” Baum

said. “The difference is in what they can do and in their multiplying effect. They can help train the others around them and provide this imaging-systems perspective that people trained in very specific aspects may not have.”

Imaging systems attached to planes or satellites juxtapose optical camer-as side by side with infrared sensors to capture information beyond what the human eye can see. Some imaging scientists develop the instrumentation to collect data; others write the algo-rithms, or computer programs, that turn data into useful information by process-ing and interpreting imaging data and creating geospatially accurate maps.

“Typically, agencies will have to train physicists, mathematicians, computer scientists or engineers as much as they can in the imaging system,” Baum said.

“RIT brings everything together in an interdisciplinary way. It’s math, physics, engineering—and we produce a student who is an imaging scientist—and those people have a different level of under-standing and knowledge of the end-to-end system of imaging—how to apply imaging systems, how to design them, commission them, do the program man-agement for them, how to make sure that they’re going to get the imaging system that will attain the results they need.”

Adds Baum, “It’s not enough to take the

83end data and write an algorithm for it if you don’t understand how to develop the system that takes the data.”

Matthew Montanaro ’05, ’09 (physics, imaging science) came to imaging science with a physics background and appreciates the end-to-end perspective he has developed.

“Having my physics degree was a good base to have but my graduate project forced me to become familiar with engineering and computer science and technical writing,” said Montanaro, a Landsat calibration scientist who works for the Sigma Space Corp. as a contractor to the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. “It definitely made me more rounded in terms of technical skills that really allowed me to be desirable to an organization like NASA.”

The nuances of imaging science are a product of the education, he said.

“I think that having the imaging science background allows us to be sort of an interface between the engineers build-ing the sensors and the scientists and analysts who use the data,” Montanaro said. “That’s very beneficial out in the workforce since it lets you see the big picture. You can see how all aspects of the imaging system tie together.”

Ariel Schlamm ’06, ’10 (imaging and photographic technology, imaging science) is a senior sensor systems

engineer at the MITRE Corp., a federally funded research-and-development center in McLean, Va.

Schlamm applies her strong mathe-matical background to evaluating the quality of remotely sensed imagery and developing algorithms for extracting information from images. She attributes her imaging-science coursework to her easy transition from graduate student to team member “working on remote sensing technologies, with little or no time required for training and getting up to speed.”

Graduates from RIT’s Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science have a good reputation for being able to “dive in quickly,” she said.

“In the defense community, when people find out you have a degree from RIT in imaging science, they immediately trust your abilities and understand what you can bring to a project,” Schlamm said. “Often those who work with us say they wish they could hire more graduates of CIS, but unfortunately there aren’t enough of us graduating each year.”

84


Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging ScienceRochester Institute of Technology

54 Lomb Memorial DriveRochester New York 14623

(585) 475–5944

http://www.cis.rit.edu/

RIT Imaging Science 2013-2014 Annual Report · 19 Digital Imaging and Remote Sensing Lab ... It was...

Documents

Transcript of RIT Imaging Science 2013-2014 Annual Report · 19 Digital Imaging and Remote Sensing Lab ... It was...