24,292 research outputs found
Medical imaging analysis with artificial neural networks
Given that neural networks have been widely reported in the research community of medical imaging, we provide a focused literature survey on recent neural network developments in computer-aided diagnosis, medical image segmentation and edge detection towards visual content analysis, and medical image registration for its pre-processing and post-processing, with the aims of increasing awareness of how neural networks can be applied to these areas and to provide a foundation for further research and practical development. Representative techniques and algorithms are explained in detail to provide inspiring examples illustrating: (i) how a known neural network with fixed structure and training procedure could be applied to resolve a medical imaging problem; (ii) how medical images could be analysed, processed, and characterised by neural networks; and (iii) how neural networks could be expanded further to resolve problems relevant to medical imaging. In the concluding section, a highlight of comparisons among many neural network applications is included to provide a global view on computational intelligence with neural networks in medical imaging
A convolutional autoencoder approach for mining features in cellular electron cryo-tomograms and weakly supervised coarse segmentation
Cellular electron cryo-tomography enables the 3D visualization of cellular
organization in the near-native state and at submolecular resolution. However,
the contents of cellular tomograms are often complex, making it difficult to
automatically isolate different in situ cellular components. In this paper, we
propose a convolutional autoencoder-based unsupervised approach to provide a
coarse grouping of 3D small subvolumes extracted from tomograms. We demonstrate
that the autoencoder can be used for efficient and coarse characterization of
features of macromolecular complexes and surfaces, such as membranes. In
addition, the autoencoder can be used to detect non-cellular features related
to sample preparation and data collection, such as carbon edges from the grid
and tomogram boundaries. The autoencoder is also able to detect patterns that
may indicate spatial interactions between cellular components. Furthermore, we
demonstrate that our autoencoder can be used for weakly supervised semantic
segmentation of cellular components, requiring a very small amount of manual
annotation.Comment: Accepted by Journal of Structural Biolog
3D Geometric Analysis of Tubular Objects based on Surface Normal Accumulation
This paper proposes a simple and efficient method for the reconstruction and
extraction of geometric parameters from 3D tubular objects. Our method
constructs an image that accumulates surface normal information, then peaks
within this image are located by tracking. Finally, the positions of these are
optimized to lie precisely on the tubular shape centerline. This method is very
versatile, and is able to process various input data types like full or partial
mesh acquired from 3D laser scans, 3D height map or discrete volumetric images.
The proposed algorithm is simple to implement, contains few parameters and can
be computed in linear time with respect to the number of surface faces. Since
the extracted tube centerline is accurate, we are able to decompose the tube
into rectilinear parts and torus-like parts. This is done with a new linear
time 3D torus detection algorithm, which follows the same principle of a
previous work on 2D arc circle recognition. Detailed experiments show the
versatility, accuracy and robustness of our new method.Comment: in 18th International Conference on Image Analysis and Processing,
Sep 2015, Genova, Italy. 201
Validity and sensitivity of a human cranial finite element model: Implications for comparative studies of biting performance
Finite element analysis (FEA) is a modelling technique increasingly used in anatomical studies investigating skeletal form and function. In the case of the cranium this approach has been applied to both living and fossil taxa to (for example) investigate how form relates to function or infer diet or behaviour. However, FE models of complex musculoskeletal structures always rely on simplified representations because it is impossible completely to image and represent every detail of skeletal morphology, variations in material properties and the complexities of loading at all spatial and temporal scales. The effects of necessary simplifications merit investigation. To this end, this study focuses on one aspect, model geometry, which is particularly pertinent to fossil material where taphonomic processes often destroy the finer details of anatomy or in models built from clinical CTs where the resolution is limited and anatomical details are lost. We manipulated the details of a finite element (FE) model of an adult human male cranium and examined the impact on model performance. First, using digital speckle interferometry, we directly measured strains from the infraorbital region and frontal process of the maxilla of the physical cranium under simplified loading conditions, simulating incisor biting. These measured strains were then compared with predicted values from FE models with simplified geometries that included modifications to model resolution, and how cancellous bone and the thin bones of the circum-nasal and maxillary regions were represented. Distributions of regions of relatively high and low principal strains and principal strain vector magnitudes and directions, predicted by the most detailed FE model, are generally similar to those achieved in vitro. Representing cancellous bone as solid cortical bone lowers strain magnitudes substantially but the mode of deformation of the FE model is relatively constant. In contrast, omitting thin plates of bone in the circum-nasal region affects both mode and magnitude of deformation. Our findings provide a useful frame of reference with regard to the effects of simplifications on the performance of FE models of the cranium and call for caution in the interpretation and comparison of FEA results
Wide Field Imaging. I. Applications of Neural Networks to object detection and star/galaxy classification
[Abriged] Astronomical Wide Field Imaging performed with new large format CCD
detectors poses data reduction problems of unprecedented scale which are
difficult to deal with traditional interactive tools. We present here NExt
(Neural Extractor): a new Neural Network (NN) based package capable to detect
objects and to perform both deblending and star/galaxy classification in an
automatic way. Traditionally, in astronomical images, objects are first
discriminated from the noisy background by searching for sets of connected
pixels having brightnesses above a given threshold and then they are classified
as stars or as galaxies through diagnostic diagrams having variables choosen
accordingly to the astronomer's taste and experience. In the extraction step,
assuming that images are well sampled, NExt requires only the simplest a priori
definition of "what an object is" (id est, it keeps all structures composed by
more than one pixels) and performs the detection via an unsupervised NN
approaching detection as a clustering problem which has been thoroughly studied
in the artificial intelligence literature. In order to obtain an objective and
reliable classification, instead of using an arbitrarily defined set of
features, we use a NN to select the most significant features among the large
number of measured ones, and then we use their selected features to perform the
classification task. In order to optimise the performances of the system we
implemented and tested several different models of NN. The comparison of the
NExt performances with those of the best detection and classification package
known to the authors (SExtractor) shows that NExt is at least as effective as
the best traditional packages.Comment: MNRAS, in press. Paper with higher resolution images is available at
http://www.na.astro.it/~andreon/listapub.htm
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