Statistical atlas based registration and planning for ablating bone tumors in minimally invasive interventions

Bone tumor ablation has been a viable treatment in a minimally invasive way compared with surgical resections. In this paper, two key challenges in the computer-Assisted bone tumor ablation have been addressed: 1) establishing the spatial transformation of patient's tumor with respect to a global map of the patient using a minimum number of intra-operative images and 2) optimal treatment planning for large tumors. Statistical atlas is employed to construct the global reference map. The atlas is deformably registered to a pair of intra-operative fluoroscopy images, constructing a patient-specific model, in order to reduce the radiation exposure to the sensitive patients such as pregnant and infants. The optimal treatment planning system incorporates clinical constraints on ablations and trajectories using a multiple objective optimization, which obtains optimal trajectory planning and ablation coverage using integer programming. The proposed system is presented and validated by experiments. © 2012 IEEE.published_or_final_versio

PCTV: A biologically- and psychologically-inspired edge and line detection

A novel method for detecting edges and lines simultaneously and automatically is proposed. This method, based on phase congruency and tensor voting (hence PCTV), makes use of the properties of how edges and lines are built from the Fourier decomposition of an image, and how the primary visual cortex responds to them, instead of making assumptions on the intensity profiles of the regions near a feature. Experiments showed that the detection results were more consistent to the "ground truth" manually drawn by humans. For detecting edges, this method is superior to three commonly used detectors in that it reduces the production of false detections. © 2010 IEEE.published_or_final_versionThe 17th IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP 2010), Hong Kong, 26-29 September 2010. In Proceedings of the 17th IEEE ICIP, 2010, p. 1621-162

Robustness and Accuracy of Feature-Based Single Image 2-D–3-D Registration Without Correspondences for Image-Guided Intervention

published_or_final_versio

Assessing 3D tunnel position in ACL reconstruction using a novel single image 3D-2D registration

Poster Session: 2D/3D and FluoroscopyConference Theme: Image-Guided Procedures, Robotic Interventions, and ModelingThe routinely used procedure for evaluating tunnel positions following anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstructions based on standard X-ray images is known to pose difficulties in terms of obtaining accurate measures, especially in providing three-dimensional tunnel positions. This is largely due to the variability in individual knee joint pose relative to X-ray plates. Accurate results were reported using postoperative CT. However, its extensive usage in clinical routine is hampered by its major requirement of having CT scans of individual patients, which is not available for most ACL reconstructions. These difficulties are addressed through the proposed method, which aligns a knee model to X-ray images using our novel single-image 3D-2D registration method and then estimates the 3D tunnel position. In the proposed method, the alignment is achieved by using a novel contour-based 3D-2D registration method wherein image contours are treated as a set of oriented points. However, instead of using some form of orientation weighting function and multiplying it with a distance function, we formulate the 3D-2D registration as a probability density estimation using a mixture of von Mises-Fisher- Gaussian (vMFG) distributions and solve it through an expectation maximization (EM) algorithm. Compared with the ground-truth established from postoperative CT, our registration method in an experiment using a plastic phantom showed accurate results with errors of (-0.43°±1.19°, 0.45°±2.17°, 0.23°±1.05°) and (0.03±0.55, -0.03±0.54, -2.73±1.64) mm. As for the entry point of the ACL tunnel, one of the key measurements, it was obtained with high accuracy of 0.53±0.30 mm distance errors. © 2012 Copyright Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE).published_or_final_versionSPIE Medical Imaging 2012, San Diego, CA., 4-9 February 2012. In Progress in Biomedical Optics and Imaging, 2012, v. 8316, art. no. 83162

Correspondenceless 3D-2D registration based on expectation conditional maximization

Cum Laude Poster AwardConference Theme: Visualization, Image-Guided Procedures, and Modeling3D-2D registration is a fundamental task in image guided interventions. Due to the physics of the X-ray imaging, however, traditional point based methods meet new challenges, where the local point features are indistinguishable, creating difficulties in establishing correspondence between 2D image feature points and 3D model points. In this paper, we propose a novel method to accomplish 3D-2D registration without known correspondences. Given a set of 3D and 2D unmatched points, this is achieved by introducing correspondence probabilities that we model as a mixture model. By casting it into the expectation conditional maximization framework, without establishing one-to-one point correspondences, we can iteratively refine the registration parameters. The method has been tested on 100 real X-ray images. The experiments showed that the proposed method accurately estimated the rotations (< 1°) and in-plane (X-Y plane) translations (< 1 mm). © 2011 SPIE.published_or_final_versionThe SPIE Medical Imaging 2011, Lake Buena Vista, FL., 12-17 February 2011. In Progress in Biomedical Optics and Imaging, 2011, v. 7964, art. no. 79642

Designing ultrafine lamellar eutectic structure in bimodal titanium alloys by semi-solid sintering

We report on a novel approach to design typical ultrafine lamellar eutectic structure in bimodal alloys fabricated by semi-solid sintering (SSS) of a eutectic mixture. In our work ultrafine lamellar eutectic structure was implemented by controlling the phase composition of eutectic reaction and consequently by regulating the structure of eutectic reaction-induced liquid phase through varying component number. Microstructure analysis indicate that although all SSSed alloys have the same three phase constitutions of bcc beta-Ti(Fe Co) and fcc Ti-2(Co Fe) the morphology and distribution of the eutectic structure transforms from limited length and minor quantity to partial fine alternating bcc beta-Ti and bcc Ti(Fe Co) lamellae and further to typical complete ultrafine alternating continuous lamellae in the SSSed ternary Ti-Fe-Co quaternary Ti-Fe-Co-Nb and quinary Ti-Fe-Co-Nb-Al alloys. Interestingly the SSSed Ti-Fe-Co-Nb-Al alloy presents a novel bimodal microstructure of coarse fcc Ti-2(Co Fe) surrounded by an ultrafine lamellar eutectic matrix containing ultrafine bcc beta-Ti and bcc Ti(Fe Co) lamellae. This bimodal microstructure exhibits ultra-high yield strength of 2050 MPa with plasticity in compression of 19.7% which exceed published values of equivalent materials. Our results provide a novel pathway for fabricating new-structure metallic alloys for high-performance structural applications. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.</p

Effect of the H1N1 Influenza Pandemic on the Incidence of Epidemic Keratoconjunctivitis and on Hygiene Behavior: A Cross-Sectional Study

Background: EKC is transmitted chiefly by direct hand contact. It is suspected that the 2009/2010 influenza pandemic influenced hand washing. This study aims to examine the relationship between the 2009/2010 H1N1 influenza pandemic and hygiene behavior. Methods: We compared the EKC prevalence trends before, during and after the 2009/2010 influenza pandemic by using a t-test comparison of EKC sentinel surveillance. Results: During the pre-pandemic period, the incidence of EKC increased from the 21st to the 44th week each year. However, during the pandemic period in 2009, there was no epidemic peak. In the post-pandemic period, the epidemic curve was similar to that in the pre-pandemic period. Compared to the pre-pandemic period, the total number of EKC patients during the pandemic period showed a decrease of 44.9 % (t value = 27.23, p = 0.002). Comparing the pre-pandemic and pandemic periods by age group, we found there to be a significant decrease in the number of EKC patients for all age groups (24.12#t value#27.23, all P,0.05). This finding was most evident in the teenage group (62%) compared to the other age groups (decreases of 29 to 44%). Conclusions: A continuing effort should be made to educate the public on basic infection prevention behaviors in th

Initial Responses to the Great East Japan Earthquake by the Academic Community in the United States

Malaria burden on Bioko Island has decreased significantly over the past 15 years. The impact of interventions on malaria prevalence, however, has recently stalled. Here, we use data from island-wide, annual malaria indicator surveys to investigate human movement patterns and their relationship to Plasmodium falciparum prevalence. Using geostatistical and mathematical modelling, we find that off-island travel is more prevalent in and around the capital, Malabo. The odds of malaria infection among off-island travelers are significantly higher than the rest of the population. We estimate that malaria importation rates are high enough to explain malaria prevalence in much of Malabo and its surroundings, and that local transmission is highest along the West Coast of the island. Despite uncertainty, these estimates of residual transmission and importation serve as a basis for evaluating progress towards elimination and for efficiently allocating resources as Bioko makes the transition from control to elimination