Theme: Application of digital image processing, computer vision, pattern recognition, content-based retrieval, data mining, and indexed atlas techniques to analyze mammograms for computer-aided diagnosis of breast cancer.

Breast cancer and mammography: Mammograms are difficult images to interpret, especially in the screening context. Objective methods for the analysis of mammographic features are needed for the development of computer-aided methods to assist radiologists in the evaluation of ambiguous features. This seminar will present an overview of several image processing techniques that we have developed over the past 20 years for the following applications:
    • Contrast enhancement
    • Detection of calcifications
    • Analysis of calcifications
    • Detection of masses and tumors
    • Shape analysis of tumors
    • Texture flow-field analysis of masses
    • Texture analysis of tumors
    • Detection of the skin-air boundary, pectoral muscle, and the fibro-glandular disc
    • Analysis of bilateral asymmetry
    • Detection of architectural distortion
    • Pattern classification and computer-aided diagnosis.

Objective analysis of mammograms: The representation of breast masses and tumors in a database requires the design of a reasonable number of descriptors to represent the features of diagnostic value with minimal loss of information. Based upon expert knowledge, we have developed techniques to extract the following features from mammograms:
    • Calcifications: contours, shape factors, spatial distribution parameters.
    • Masses: contours, shape factors, texture and gradient measures, size, location.
    • Bilateral asymmetry: statistics of the directional distribution of tissue in the fibro-
      glandular disc, spatial-geometric moments of the fibro-glandular disc.
    • Architectural distortion: geometric parameters of the distorted area, location.

The seminar will present general descriptions and examples of the techniques listed above. Our latest work on the application of Gabor filters, phase portraits, and oriented texture analysis for the detection of architectural distortion will be described in detail.

Rangaraj (Raj) Mandayam Rangayyan was born in Mysore, Karnataka, India, on 21 July, 1955. He received the Bachelor of Engineering degree in Electronics and Communication in 1976 from the University of Mysore at the People's Education Society College of Engineering, Mandya, Karnataka, India, and the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, Karnataka, India, in 1980. He was with the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, from 1981 to 1984.

He is at present a Professor with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and an Adjunct Professor of Surgery and Radiology, at the University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada. His research interests are in the areas of digital signal and image processing, biomedical signal analysis, medical imaging and image analysis, and computer vision. His current research projects are on mammographic image enhancement and analysis for computer-aided diagnosis of breast cancer; region-based image processing; knee-joint vibration signal analysis for noninvasive diagnosis of articular cartilage pathology; and analysis of textured images by cepstral filtering and sonification. He has lectured extensively in many countries, including India, Canada, U.S.A., Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, U.K., The Netherlands, France, Spain, Italy, Finland, Russia, Romania, Egypt, Malaysia, Thailand, China, and Japan. He has collaborated with many research groups in Brazil, Spain, France, and Romania.

He was an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering from 1989 to 1996; the Program Chair and Editor of the Proceedings of the IEEE Western Canada Exhibition and Conference on "Telecommunication for Health Care: Telemetry, Teleradiology, and Telemedicine", July 1990, Calgary, Alberta, Canada; the Canadian Regional Representative to the Administrative Committee of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS), 1990-93; a Member of the Scientific Program Committee and Editorial Board, International Symposium on Computerized Tomography, Novosibirsk, Russia, August 1993; the Program Chair and Co-Editor of the Proceedings of the 15th Annual International Conference of the IEEE EMBS, October 1993, San Diego, CA; and Program Co-chair, 20th Annual International Conference of the IEEE EMBS, Hong Kong, October 1998.

His research productivity was recognized with the 1997 and 2001 Research Excellence Awards of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, the 1997 Research Award of the Faculty of Engineering, and by appointment as a ``University Professor" in 2003, at the University of Calgary. He was awarded the Killam Resident Fellowship in 1998 and 2002 by the University of Calgary in support of writing two books: Biomedical Signal Analysis (IEEE/ Wiley, 2002) and Biomedical Image Analysis (CRC, 2005). He was recognized by the IEEE with the award of the Third Millennium Medal in 2000, and was elected as a Fellow of the IEEE in 2001, Fellow of the Engineering Institute of Canada in 2002, Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering in 2003, and Fellow of SPIE: the International Society for Optical Engineering in 2003.