Introduction to DSP

Digital Signal Process is a subject that I always was curious to learn but I never had a chance to pursue it.
Hence, I have decided to take this course Introduction to DSP in the first semester of my Master’s. This
course was offered by Professor Dr. Adly Fam. After enrolling and getting accepted into the class. I
started preparing by revising the basics of signal processing, which helped me a lot during the course
period. Also, Professor Fam's research work amused me a lot, Dr. Fam is a senior member of the IEEE
and a member of the ASEE. He received the Hughes Aircraft Company Division Invention Award in 1984.

The course was offered remotely only, which was very convenient because we don’t have to travel to
attend the class. This allowed us to work more efficiently and used the time to prepare for the class, we
didn’t have to wait till the end of the class to clarify our doubts, we could ask the professor at any time
during the class and the professor used to answer our doubts and even discuss our views regarding the
topic on which the doubts were asked. This was helpful to us since we didn’t have to wait to clear the
doubts. The class was very interactive even if it was online, Professor Fam used to crack jokes in
between the class which made it interesting, and the personal experiences shared by professor Dr. Adly
Fam were invaluable, we have learned so much from his experience which helped me during the course,
We used to discuss the real-world application of DSP and how we are dependent on Digital signal
processing in our day to day lives.

We did not have any quizzes, exams, and assignments, during the course but I think that helped us to
focus better on the subject itself, the professor used to ask questions regarding the topic on that day to
make sure we are listening and paying attention to the class. The classes were also recorded and
uploaded into ub-learns so, in any case, if we miss a class we could always listen to the recorded class.

We had to do a research project at the end of our semester and the topic was to choose a field in which
digital signal processing was used most. Hence, I have chosen the medical field, where brain tumor can
be detected using MATLAB. I have chosen this topic because, this method of detecting tumor faster and
in the early stages of tumor.

A tumor is defined as the abnormal growth of the tissues. A brain tumor is an abnormal mass of tissue in
which cells grow and multiply uncontrollably, seemingly unchecked by the mechanisms that control
normal cells. Brain tumors can be primary or metastatic, and either malignant or benign. A metastatic
brain tumor is cancer that has spread from elsewhere in the body to the brain. The normal practice
method to detect a tumor was to use Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). MRI is a medical imaging
technique used in radiology to form pictures of the anatomy and the physiological processes of the
body. MRI scanners use strong magnetic fields, magnetic field gradients, and radio waves to generate
images of the organs in the body.

The method to detect the tumor faster has various important steps at first, we input the MRI images
into Matlab, then the image is converted into a grayscale image, these images which turned into
grayscale images are known as halftone, the only possible shades of black and white. The illusion of gray
shading in a halftone image is obtained by rendering the image as a grid of black dots on a white
background (or vice-versa), with the sizes of the individual dots determining the apparent lightness of
the gray in their vicinity. Grayscale is a range of shades of gray without apparent color. The darkest
possible shade is black, which is the total absence of transmitted or reflected light. The lightest possible
shade is white, the total transmission or reflection of light at all visible wavelengths.

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Fig: - A color image turned into a halftone.

The next step is called Threshold Segmentation, this method is based on a threshold value to turn a
gray-scale image into a binary image. Threshold segmentation is used to locate boundaries like lines or
curves in an image. The next step is called Watershed Segmentation in this step, a grey-level image may
be seen as a topographic relief, where the grey level of a pixel is interpreted as its altitude in the relief. A
drop of water falling on a topographic relief flow along a path to finally reach a local minimum.
Intuitively, the watershed of a relief corresponds to the limits of the adjacent catchment basins of the
drops of water. In image processing, different watershed lines may be computed. In graphs, some may
be defined on the nodes, on the edges, or hybrid lines on both nodes and edges. Watersheds may also
be defined in the continuous domain. There are also many different algorithms to compute watersheds.

The next and final step in this process is Morphological Operation, morphological image processing is a
collection of non-linear operations related to the shape or morphology of features in an image. This
operation relies only on the relative ordering of pixel values, not on their numerical values, and
therefore, is especially suited to the processing of binary images. Morphological techniques probe an
image with a small shape or template called a structuring element. The structuring element is a small
binary image, i.e., a small matrix of pixels, each with a value of zero or one.

The matrix dimensions specify the size of the structuring element, and the pattern of ones and zeros
specifies the shape of the structuring element. The structuring element is positioned at all possible
locations in the image, and it is compared with the corresponding neighborhood of pixels. Some
operations test whether the element "fits" within the neighborhood, while others test whether its "hits"
or intersects the neighborhood.

Fig: - Sample MRI images which are processed through MATLAB.

From the sample images, we can intervene that this method can be used to identify the brain tumor
from an MRI image. Also, as this method does not take a considerable amount of time and as it happens
in real-time, we can apply this in the real-time system which will be very helpful in the medical field.

Overall, this course was very helpful in understanding the Digital Signal Processing field, and the
professor was helpful throughout the problems that I faced during the course period. I would
recommend this course to anyone interested in the field of signal processing, as it teaches from the
basis to explore more into the signal processing field.