Advice needed for PhD research: MCMC for image analysis

Hi,

I will be embarking on a PhD program. Some supervisors suggested
Markov Chain Monte Carlo on medical image analysis.  I just know that
it can be used to detect cancer cells/blood capillaries et al.  Think
it branches off from stochastic geometry.

Can someone offer some advice?

1.  What textbook can I look up?

2.  Generally how is this field?  Is it at its infancy, with
substantial research potential? 

I would like to explore this area from a more applied approach, like
writing new algorithms.

Thanks!

Beihai wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I will be embarking on a PhD program. Some supervisors suggested
> Markov Chain Monte Carlo on medical image analysis.  I just know that
> it can be used to detect cancer cells/blood capillaries et al.  Think
> it branches off from stochastic geometry.
> 
> Can someone offer some advice?
> 
> 1.  What textbook can I look up?
> 
> 2.  Generally how is this field?  Is it at its infancy, with
> substantial research potential? 
> 
> I would like to explore this area from a more applied approach, like
> writing new algorithms.
> 
> Thanks!


  http://www-sigproc.eng.cam.ac.uk/smc/index.html

"Stan Pawlukiewicz" <stanp@nospam_mitre.org> wrote in message
news:bjkj8r$bjq$1@newslocal.mitre.org...
> Beihai wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I will be embarking on a PhD program. Some supervisors suggested
> > Markov Chain Monte Carlo on medical image analysis.  I just know that
> > it can be used to detect cancer cells/blood capillaries et al.  Think
> > it branches off from stochastic geometry.
> >
> > Can someone offer some advice?
> >
> > 1.  What textbook can I look up?
> >
> > 2.  Generally how is this field?  Is it at its infancy, with
> > substantial research potential?
> >
> > I would like to explore this area from a more applied approach, like
> > writing new algorithms.
> >
> > Thanks!
>
>
>   http://www-sigproc.eng.cam.ac.uk/smc/index.html

Text books are always helpful but a PhD program probably should center more
on the contemporary literature - journal and conference papers.  A solid
literature search is part of a good research project and will allow you to
figure out what methods are available, worked through, etc. and will prevent
you from reinventing the wheel.
It will also help answer your second question.

Fred