Howard Gifford

Faculty

Howard Gifford

Associate Professor

Office Location SERC 2006

Phone 832-842-8715

Fax 713-743-2501

Email hgifford [at] uh.edu

Website http://www2.egr.uh.edu/~hgifford

Education

Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics, University of Arizona (1997)

Courses

Introduction to Biomedical Imaging (BIOE 5317)

Advanced Medical Imaging (BIOE 6346)

Professional Activities

Member, IEEE Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society

Member, SPIE

Research Interests

Image formation and reconstruction for medical imaging; objective assessment of imaging systems; visual perception and sources of observer variability; image classification and pattern recognition; statistical decision and estimation theory; parallel-computing applications in imaging.

Funding Received

Principal investigator: NIH grant R01EB012070, “Reliable Human-Model Observers for Emission Tomography”

Principal investigator: NIH grant R21 EB012529, “Feasibility of Multipinhole SPECT for Prostate Imaging”

Selected Publications

M. Das, H. C. Gifford, J. M. O’Connor, and S. J. Glick, “Penalized maximum likelihood reconstruction for improved microcalcification detection in breast tomosynthesis,” IEEE Trans Med Imaging, 30, 904-914, 2011.
M. Das, H. C. Gifford, J. M. O’Connor, and S. J. Glick, “Improved Microcalcification Detection for Breast Tomosynthesis Using a Penalized-Maximum-Likelihood Reconstruction Method,” Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 6136, 697-703, 2010.
M. Das, H. C. Gifford, J. M. O’Connor, and S. J. Glick, “Evaluation of a variable dose acquisition technique for microcalcification and mass detection in digital breast tomosynthesis,” Med Phys, 36, 1976-1984, 2009.
A. Lehovich et al., “Impact on reader performance for lesion-detection/localization tasks of anatomical priors in SPECT reconstruction,” IEEE Trans Med Imaging, 28(9),1459-1467, 2009.
N. F. Pereira, H. C. Gifford, P. H. Pretorius, M. Smyczynski, R. Licho, P. Schneider, T. Farncombe and M. A. King, “An evaluation of iterative reconstruction strategies based on mediastinal lesion detection using hybrid Ga-67 SPECT images,” Med Phys, 35, 4808, 2008.
S. Gu, J. E. McNamara, J. Mitra, H. C. Gifford, K. Johnson, M. A. Gennert, and M. A. King, “Body Deformation Correction for SPECT Imaging,” IEEE Trans Nucl Sci, 4, 2708-2714, 2007.
H. C. Gifford, P. E. Kinahan, C. Lartizien, and M. A. King, “Evaluation of multiclass model observers in PET LROC studies” IEEE Trans Nucl Sci, 54(1), 116-123, 2007.
R. D. Beach, H. Depold, G. Boening, P. P. Bruyant, B. Feng, H.C. Gifford, M. A. Gennert, S. Nadella, and M. A. King, “An adaptive neural network approach to decomposing patientmotion tracking data during cardiac SPECT imaging,” IEEE Trans Nucl Sci, 54(1), 130-139, 2007.
T. H. Farncombe, H. C. Gifford, and M. A. King, “Reducing artifacts in pelvic bone SPECT: An assessment of lesion detectability using numerical and human observers,” IEEE Trans Nucl Sci, 53(5), 2808-2813, 2006.
B. Feng, P. P. Bruyant, P. H. Pretorius, R. D. Beach, H. C. Gifford, J. Dey, M. A. Gennert, and M. A. King, Estimation of the Rigid-Body Motion from Three-Dimensional Images Using a Generalized Center-of-Mass Points Approach, IEEE Trans Nucl Sci, 53(5), 2712-2718, 2006.
B. Feng, H. C. Gifford, R. D. Beach, G. Boening, M. A. Gennert, and M. A. King, Use of three-dimensional Gaussian interpolation in the projector/backprojector pair of iterative reconstruction for compensation of known rigid-body motion in SPECT, IEEE Trans Med Imaging, 25(7), 838-844, 2006.
P. H. Pretorius, M. A. King, H. C. Gifford, S. T. Dahlberg, F. Spencer, E. Simon, J. Rashkin, N. Botkin, W. Berndt, M. V. Narayanan, and J. A. Leppo, “Myocardial perfusion SPECT reconstruction: Receiver operating characteristic comparison of CAD detection accuracy of filtered backprojection with all of the clinical imaging information available to readers and solely stress slices iteratively reconstructed with combined compensation,” J Nucl Cardiol 12, pp. 284–293, 2005.
H. C. Gifford, M. A. King, P. H. Pretorius, and R. G. Wells, “A comparison of human and model observers in multi-slice LROC studies,” IEEE Trans Med Imaging 24, pp. 160–169, 2005.
P. H. Pretorius, H. C. Gifford, and M. A. King, “A 5-dimensional mathematical model for regional and global changes in cardiac uptake and motion,” IEEE Trans Nucl Sci 51, pp. 2634–2640, 2004.
T. H. Farncombe, H. C. Gifford, M. V. Narayanan, P. H. Pretorius, E. C. Frey, and M. A. King, “An assessment of scatter compensation strategies for Ga-67 tumor SPECT using channelized Hotelling observers and human LROC studies,” J Nucl Med 45, 802-812, 2004.
P. P. Bruyant, H. C. Gifford, G. Gindi, and M. A. King, “Numerical observer study of MAPEM regularization methods with anatomical priors for lesion detection in Ga-67 images,” IEEE Trans Nucl Sci 51, pp. 193–197, 2004.
P. H. Pretorius, H. C. Gifford, M. V. Narayanan, S. T. Dahlberg, and M. A. King, “Comparison of detection accuracy of perfusion defects in SPECT for different reconstruction strategies using polar-map quantitation,” IEEE Trans Nucl Sci 50, pp. 1569–1574, 2003.
H. C. Gifford, M. A. King, M. V. Narayanan, P. H. Pretorius, M. S. Smyczynski, and R. G. Wells, “Effect of block-iterative acceleration on Ga-67 tumor detection in thoracic SPECT,” IEEE Trans Nucl Sci 49, pp. 50–55, 2002.
M. V. Narayanan, H. C. Gifford, M. A. King, P. H. Pretorius, T. H. Farncombe, P. Bruyant, and M. N.Wernick, “Optimization of iterative reconstructions of Tc-99m cardiac SPECT using numerical observers,” IEEE Trans Nucl Sci 49, pp. 2355–2360, 2002.
T. H. Farncombe, H. C. Gifford, M. A. King, M. V. Narayanan, P. H. Pretorius, and P. H. Bruyant, “An optimization of reconstruction parameters and investigation into the impact of photon scatter in 67Ga SPECT,” IEEE Trans Nucl Sci 49, pp. 2148–2154, 2002.
R. G. Wells, H. C. Gifford, P. H. Pretorius, T. H. Farncombe, and M. A. King, “The impact of noisy attenuation maps and patient motion on human-observer performance at Ga-67 lesion detection in SPECT,” IEEE Trans Nucl Sci 49, pp. 753–760, 2002.
L. R. Bouwens, R. Van de Walle, H. C. Gifford, M. A. King, I. Lemahieu, and R. A. Dierkx, “LMIRA: list mode iterative reconstruction algorithm for SPECT,”IEEE Trans Nucl Sci, 48, 1364—1370, 2001.
L. R. Bouwens, H. C. Gifford, R. Van de Walle, M. A. King, I. Lemahieu, and R. A. Dierckx, “Resolution recovery for list-mode reconstruction in SPECT,” Phys Med Biol 46, pp. 2239–2253, 2001.
M. V. Narayanan, M. A. King, P. H. Pretorius, H. C. Gifford, J. Leppo, and S. Dahlberg, “Optimization of regularization of attenuation and scatter corrected Tc-99m cardiac SPECT studies for defect detection using hybrid images,” IEEE Trans Nucl Sci 48, pp. 785–789, 2001.
H. C. Gifford, M. A. King, R. G. Wells, W. G. Hawkins, M. V. Narayanan, and P. H. Pretorius, “LROC analysis of detector-response compensation in SPECT imaging,” IEEE Trans Med Imaging 19, pp. 463–473, 2000.
R. G. Wells, M. A. King, H. C. Gifford, and P. H. Pretorius, “Single-slice versus multi-slice display for human-observer lesion-detection studies,” IEEE Trans Nucl Sci 47, pp. 1037–1044, 2000.
R. G. Wells, M. A. King, P. Simkin, P. Judy, A. B. Brill, H. C. Gifford, R. Licho, P. H. Pretorius, P. Schneider, and D. W. Seldin, “Comparing FBP and OSEM for small lesion detection and localization in Ga-67 SPECT,” J Nucl Med 41, pp. 1391–1399, 2000.
H. C. Gifford, M. A. King, D. J. de Vries, and E. J. Soares, “Channelized Hotelling and human observer correlation for lesion detection in hepatic SPECT imaging,” J Nucl Med 41, pp. 514–521, 2000.
H. C. Gifford, R. G. Wells, and M. A. King, “A comparison of human observer LROC and numerical observer ROC for tumor detection in SPECT images,” IEEE Trans Nucl Sci 46, pp. 1032–1037, 1999.
R. G. Wells, P. Simkin, P. Judy, M. A. King, P. H. Pretorius, and H. C. Gifford, “Effect of filtering on the detection and localization of small lesions in thoracic single photon emission computed tomography images,” Med Phys 26, pp. 1382–1388, 1999.
R. G. Wells, P. Simkin, P. Judy, M. A. King, P. H. Pretorius, H. C. Gifford, and P. Schneider, “Maximizing the detection and localization of Ga-67 tumors in thoracic SPECT MLEM(OSEM) reconstructions,” IEEE Trans Nucl Sci 46, pp. 1191–1198, 1999.
H. H. Barrett and H. C. Gifford, “Cone-beam tomography with discrete data sets,” Phys Med Biol 39, pp. 451–476, 1994.