Speeding up Biological Imaging

An example of the sharing of methodology to create algorithms.  Note also the replacement and augmentation of human process.

Researchers Use Algorithm From Netflix Challenge to Speed Up Biological Imaging 
Optical Society of America

Scientists at the Ecole Normale Superieure in France have repurposed an algorithm developed for Netflix's 2009 movie preference prediction challenge for high-speed acquisition of classical Raman spectroscopy biological-tissue images. The researchers demonstrated imaging speeds of a few tens of seconds for an image that would usually take minutes to obtain, and they think sub-second speeds could be realized in the future. Said Ecole Normale Superieure's Hilton de Aguiar, "We combined compressive imaging with fast computer algorithms that provide the kind of images clinicians use to diagnose patients, but rapidly and without laborious manual post-processing." The researchers replaced costly, slow cameras used in conventional setups with a spatial light modulator, which selects groups of wavelengths identified by a single-pixel detector, compressing images as they are captured. This allowed the team to use a portion of the data typically required for non-invasive Raman spectroscopy, and employ the Netflix algorithm to fill in the missing information .... "