2 research outputs found
Kartezio: Evolutionary Design of Explainable Pipelines for Biomedical Image Analysis
An unresolved issue in contemporary biomedicine is the overwhelming number
and diversity of complex images that require annotation, analysis and
interpretation. Recent advances in Deep Learning have revolutionized the field
of computer vision, creating algorithms that compete with human experts in
image segmentation tasks. Crucially however, these frameworks require large
human-annotated datasets for training and the resulting models are difficult to
interpret. In this study, we introduce Kartezio, a modular Cartesian Genetic
Programming based computational strategy that generates transparent and easily
interpretable image processing pipelines by iteratively assembling and
parameterizing computer vision functions. The pipelines thus generated exhibit
comparable precision to state-of-the-art Deep Learning approaches on instance
segmentation tasks, while requiring drastically smaller training datasets, a
feature which confers tremendous flexibility, speed, and functionality to this
approach. We also deployed Kartezio to solve semantic and instance segmentation
problems in four real-world Use Cases, and showcase its utility in imaging
contexts ranging from high-resolution microscopy to clinical pathology. By
successfully implementing Kartezio on a portfolio of images ranging from
subcellular structures to tumoral tissue, we demonstrated the flexibility,
robustness and practical utility of this fully explicable evolutionary designer
for semantic and instance segmentation.Comment: 36 pages, 6 main Figures. The Extended Data Movie is available at the
following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r74gdzb6hdA. The source code
is available on Github: https://github.com/KevinCortacero/Kartezi
Evolutionary design of explainable algorithms for biomedical image segmentation
International audienceAn unresolved issue in contemporary biomedicine is the overwhelming number and diversity of complex images that require annotation, analysis and interpretation. Recent advances in Deep Learning have revolutionized the field of computer vision, creating algorithms that compete with human experts in image segmentation tasks. However, these frameworks require large human-annotated datasets for training and the resulting “black box” models are difficult to interpret. In this study, we introduce Kartezio , a modular Cartesian Genetic Programming-based computational strategy that generates fully transparent and easily interpretable image processing pipelines by iteratively assembling and parameterizing computer vision functions. The pipelines thus generated exhibit comparable precision to state-of-the-art Deep Learning approaches on instance segmentation tasks, while requiring drastically smaller training datasets. This Few-Shot Learning method confers tremendous flexibility, speed, and functionality to this approach. We then deploy Kartezio to solve a series of semantic and instance segmentation problems, and demonstrate its utility across diverse images ranging from multiplexed tissue histopathology images to high resolution microscopy images. While the flexibility, robustness and practical utility of Kartezio make this fully explicable evolutionary designer a potential game-changer in the field of biomedical image processing, Kartezio remains complementary and potentially auxiliary to mainstream Deep Learning approaches