arXiv Machine Learning

Score-based diffusion models for severely ill-posed problems in diffuse optical tomography

Score-based diffusion models, a recent framework for posterior sampling in Bayesian inverse problems, are applied to diffuse optical tomography (DOT), a highly ill‑posed boundary value problem for recovering tissue absorption and scattering. The authors introduce a mixed score that combines a learned component with a model‑based component, providing a theoretical justification for its local approximation to the true score in the small diffusion‑time regime. Four difference‑imaging approaches are compared—classical model‑based, approximate diffusion, exact posterior sampling (UCoS), and a regularized UCoS—showing that UCoS yields more accurate reconstructions, especially under limited‑view geometry and real experimental data.

arXiv AI
Oct 5

Consecutive Posterior Fusion for Diffusive Recovery of Unobservable Image Structures

The paper introduces Consecutive Posterior Fusion Denoising Diffusion Null‑Space Models (CPF‑DDNM), an inference‑time method that fuses successive measurement‑aware estimates to better recover unobservable image structures in severely ill‑posed imaging inverse problems. CPF‑DDNM builds on DDNM’s range/null‑space decomposition, preserving measurement‑determined components while refining prior‑driven null‑space estimates. Experiments on sparse‑view CT, low‑dose CT, and medical image super‑resolution demonstrate consistent improvements over DDNM and competitive performance against other diffusion‑based inverse solvers.

By Elena Morotti, Davide Evangelista, Elena Loli Piccolomini
arXiv AI
Sep 4

A Posterior-Dynamics Framework for Imaging Inverse Problems with Pretrained Diffusion Priors

The paper introduces a Posterior‑Dynamics Framework that leverages pretrained diffusion models as multiscale priors for linear imaging inverse problems such as deblurring, super‑resolution, and inpainting. By constructing a surrogate likelihood centered on the clean image and incorporating diffusion uncertainty, the authors derive continuous posterior dynamics and a tunable Langevin component for adaptive exploration. They prove theoretical guarantees (endpoint consistency, finite‑horizon tracking, weak accuracy) and present the PD‑IMEX sampler, which achieves high‑quality reconstructions with only 100 score evaluations and controllable fidelity‑diversity trade‑offs.

By Zhaoqiang Liu, Tongyao Pang, Ruibing Wang, Yang Zheng
arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 18

Learning-Based Reconstruction of Optical Properties in Bilayered Media from Single-distance Time-Resolved Reflectance Measurements

The paper presents a machine‑learning framework for reconstructing absorption and scattering coefficients in bilayered biological media from single‑distance, time‑resolved reflectance data. By training on a synthetic dataset generated with exact Monte Carlo simulations, the method outperforms traditional diffusion‑equation‑based inverse solvers in both speed and accuracy. It also estimates the dimensionality of the parameter space without prior knowledge of the number of layers, and suggests that future work could further improve accuracy using multi‑distance data.

By Caterina Amendola, Giulia Maffeis, Lorenzo Buffoni, Lorenzo Chicchi, Francesco Coghi, Duccio Fanelli, Raffaele Marino, Fabrizio Martelli, Riccardo Paoli, Lorenzo Pattelli, Lorenzo Spinelli
arXiv Computer Vision
Oct 2

Principled Design of Diffusion-based Optimizers for Inverse Problems

Score‑based diffusion models excel at inverse problems but suffer from slow inference and task‑specific hyperparameter tuning. This paper introduces principled reparameterizations that create invariances, enabling the reuse of the same hyperparameters across different tasks. Building on the RED‑diff framework, the authors present OptDiff, a streamlined pipeline that integrates convex optimization to accelerate inference, achieving notable speedups and higher image quality in reconstruction, deblurring, and super‑resolution experiments.

By Julio Oscanoa, Irmak Sivgin, Cagan Alkan, Daniel Ennis, John Pauly, Mert Pilanci, Shreyas Vasanawala
arXiv Machine Learning
Oct 8

Kinetic Langevin Meets Split Gibbs: Accelerated Posterior Sampling for Imaging Inverse Problems with Diffusion Priors

The paper introduces RED-KLwSGS, a new posterior sampling method for Bayesian imaging inverse problems that combines exact Gaussian updates for the data variable with underdamped (kinetic) Langevin diffusion for the auxiliary variable, driven by a one‑shot denoising score. It achieves the same per‑iteration cost as existing Langevin‑within‑SGS samplers while providing non‑asymptotic Wasserstein‑2 convergence guarantees for strongly log‑concave priors. A further variant, Joint-RED-KLwSGS, applies kinetic Langevin diffusion to both variables, and experiments using denoising diffusion probabilistic models on FFHQ and ImageNet demonstrate faster convergence and high‑quality image reconstruction.

By Dai Hai Nguyen, Duc Dung Nguyen