Master's Thesis Defense: Fast Skeletonization of Blood Vessels

You are invited to attend Aaron Croasmun's Master's Thesis defense on Friday, October 5th at 10am.  The defense will be held in Olmsted W209.  Details about Aaron's thesis can be found below.

Title:  Fast Skeletonization of Blood Vessels

Author:  Aaron Croasmun

Thesis Adviser:  Sukmoon Chang, Ph.D.

Abstract

The study of the morphological and rheological behaviors of intramural vessels plays a critical role in various clinical applications such as surgical planning and radiotherapy. To better understand the rheological behavior of vascular structures in relation to the network morphology, we must obtain the concrete measurements of the morphometric parameters of the vascular networks under various conditions. Morphometric parameters of the networks include vessel diameter, branching points, branch end points, branch length, and branching angles. Because of the complexity of blood vessel morphology, however, it is diffi cult to obtain accurate measurements. In this thesis, we present a novel and effi cient method for skeletonization of intramural vessel networks. The proposed method automatically skeletonizes the vascular network in a given image and constructs a graph structure that represents the branching structures of the network. Since the method processes a given image as a whole, the multiple vascular networks present in the image are automatically detected and skeletonized simultaneously. Moreover, since the skeletons are represented as graph structures, various morphometric parameters can be obtained automatically. We present the promising results of the proposed method applied to the complex structure of retinal vessel networks.

Programming Contest Announcement - Funding and Prizes Available (Part of the IEEEXtreme Programming Contest)

The IEEE PACE (Professional Activities Committees for Engineers) and Region 2 Susquehanna Section is sponsoring a section-wide contest as part of the IEEEXtreme 6.0, which is being held on October 20, 2012.  IEEEXtreme is a global challenge in which teams of IEEE student members – advised and proctored by an IEEE member – compete in a 24-hour time span against each other to solve a set of programming problems.  This contest is geographically spread out - you can create a competition site at your own institution.  Also, students do not need to stay up the entire time.  They leave the competition site to rest, and then return when they would like to continue.

For more information on the contest please visit the website: http://www.ieee.org/membership_services/membership/students/competitions/xtreme/index.html

The section is providing prize money for top teams and money for food for participants.  This is a "distributed" competition, in that we envision that students will compete at sites in their own schools.  The prizes will be awarded as follows:

• $100 per member of the first place team in the Section*
• $75 per member of the second place team in the Section*
• $50 per member of the third place team in the Section*

* Only teams participating from schools in the IEEE Region 2 Susquehanna Section are eligible for these prizes.  In addition, to be eligible, the teams must be registered with the Section by October 13th.  The rankings of teams will be based on the official results announced at the IEEEXtreme website.  Prizes will be awarded after the official results are posted.  Only one team per school is eligible for prizes, i.e. if two teams from U of Alice score highest, followed by a team from Bob College and one from Chuck U, the top team from U of Alice will be awarded the first prize, the team from Bob College will be awarded second prize, and the team from Chuck U will be awarded third prize.  The Executive Committee of the Susquehanna Section reserves the right to amend the rules as it deems necessary.  Decisions by the Executive Committee are final.

In addition, the Section is also making available a limited amount of funding for food for participants.  On a first-come basis, the section will provide up to $25 per contestant for food during the contest, with a limit of nine contestants per institution.  This funding is limited to the first 39 contestants that are registered.

Registration Details

If you are a Penn State Harrisburg graduate or undergraduate student interested in competing, please send an email to  jjb24@psu.edu.

In order to register a team from another school for the contest, please send the following information to Jeremy Blum, Treasurer of the Susquehanna Section, at jjb24@psu.edu:

Team Name
College/University Name
Student Names
Proctor's Name
How many of students and proctors are new IEEE members
Contact Name
Contact Email Address
Contact Address (where prizes would be sent for distribution to the students)

In addition, after the contest for each site, the contact provided at the time of registration will be asked to provide the following information:  Number of volunteers other than the proctor who assisted in the contest at that site, with counts for how many of the volunteers are IEEE members and how many are not.

If your school's teams register with the Section in time to be eligible for funding for food, you will send either an invoice or receipts to Jeremy Blum within 30 days of the contest.  You will be sent a check for the amount of the invoice or the receipts, up to the limit that was allocated for your school.

If you have any questions, please contact Jeremy Blum at jjb24@psu.edu.  Please also forward this announcement to others that you think would be interested.