GAUSSIAN WHITE NOISE PROCESS IN RADIOLOGY AND MEDICAL IMAGING

Arimie, C.O.

Department of Radiology,

University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital, Port Harcourt.

E-mail: codarimie@yahoo.com

ABSTRACT

This paper highlights the impact of noise on diagnostic image quality and the methods used to de-noise the images for improved quality and better clinical diagnosis. The various types of noise sequences interfering with the diagnostic image especially, the Gaussian white noise was discussed. Since the first two moments of a normally distributed process is sufficient to characterize it completely, the mean and variance of higher powers of the linear Gaussian white noise process  were determined. The results show that for fixed s, increase in power of the process leads to increase in variance. As noise production is inherent in the modality for the image acquisition, and against the backdrop that repeat studies have some unpalatable economic, health and social consequences, we recommend that health managers should rather, go for equipments with high signal to noise ratio when procuring medical imaging equipments and should at all times hire the services of quality assurance personnel.  

Keywords: Gaussian white noise, time series, image quality, medical diagnosis, computed tomography.