Construction of a Statistical Atlas of the Whole Heart from a Large 4D CT Database

International audienceWe present in this work an efficient and robust framework for the construction of a high-resolution and spatio-temporal atlas of the whole heart from a database of 138 CT 4D images, the largest sample to be used for cardiac statistical modeling to date. The data is drawn from a variety of pathologies, which benefits its generalization to new subjects and physiological studies. In the proposed technique, spatial and temporal normalization based on non-rigid image registration are used to synthesize a population mean image from all CT image. With the resulting transformation, a detailed 3D mesh representation of the atlas is warped to fit all images in each subject and phase. The obtained level of anatomical detail (a total of 13 cardiac structures) and the extendability of the atlas present an advantage over most existing cardiac models published previously

100% transparant floating glass boxes

b Si-X, the Netherlands The C&A building in Eindhoven will be modernised and therefore UNStudio designed several glass structures for the building. One of these glass structures are four glass boxes of 5,5 meters wide and 7 meters high, which are floating in front of the existing façade. In addition, each glass box contains a work of light art designed by Arnout Meijer. LED strips illuminate the box from the inside, while the reflective film on the glass creates an unusual and striking effect. To optimize this effect no metal connections were allowed in the design. The size of 5,5 by 7 meters was exceeding every international standard format in the glass industry. ABT designed an ‘Origami’ glass box with glass panels glued together. This geometry solved the problem of the limited size of the panels and also made a more economic structural form. The glass panels are connected seamless with different type of glues. ABT made an extensive research for the right type of glues in cooperation with the university of Leuven. The glued connections are combined with glass notches; a new type of connection, inspired by timber connections and earlier research of stacked glass columns. FEM DIANA models showed that this is a promising way to connect glass structures. Sober thinking of the engineers about mechanical schemes solved the demand of UNStudio, seamless floating glass boxes. The result can be seen at the 18 September plein in Eindhoven

A groupwise mutual information metric for cost efficient selection of a suitable reference in cardiac computational atlas construction

International audienceComputational atlases based on nonrigid registration have found much use in the medical imaging community. To avoid bias to any single element of the training set, there are two main approaches: using a (random) subject to serve as an initial reference and posteriorly removing bias, and a true groupwise registration with a constraint of zero average transformation for direct computation of the atlas. Major drawbacks are the possible selection of an outlier on one side, and an initialization with an invalid instance on the other. In both cases there is great potential for affecting registration performance, and producing a final average image in which the structure of interest deviates from the central anatomy of the population under study. We propose an inexpensive means of reference selection based on a groupwise correspondence measure, which avoids the selection of an outlier and is independent from the atlas construction approach that follows. Thus, it improves tractability of reference selection and robustness of automated atlas construction. We illustrate the method using a set of 20 cardiac multislice computed tomography volumes

Atlas-based Quantification of Myocardial Motion Abnormalities: Added-value for the Understanding of CRT Outcome?

International audienceIn this paper, we present the use of atlas-based indexes of abnormality for the quantification of cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) outcome in terms of motion. We build an atlas of normal motion from 21 healthy volunteers to which we compare 88 CRT candidates before and after the therapy. Abnormal motion is quantified locally in time and space using a statistical distance to normality, and changes induced by the therapy are related with clinical measurements of CRT outcome. Results correlate with recent clinical hypothesis about CRT response, namely that the correction of specific mechanisms responsible for cardiac dyssynchrony conditions the response to the therapy

Estimation of trabecular bone parameters in children from multisequence MRI using texture-based regression

PURPOSE: This paper presents a statistical approach for the prediction of trabecular bone parameters from low-resolution multisequence magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in children, thus addressing the limitations of high-resolution modalities such as HR-pQCT, including the significant exposure of young patients to radiation and the limited applicability of such modalities to peripheral bones in vivo. METHODS: A statistical predictive model is constructed from a database of MRI and HR-pQCT datasets, to relate the low-resolution MRI appearance in the cancellous bone to the trabecular parameters extracted from the high-resolution images. The description of the MRI appearance is achieved between subjects by using a collection of feature descriptors, which describe the texture properties inside the cancellous bone, and which are invariant to the geometry and size of the trabecular areas. The predictive model is built by fitting to the training data a nonlinear partial least square regression between the input MRI features and the output trabecular parameters. RESULTS: Detailed validation based on a sample of 96 datasets shows correlations >0.7 between the trabecular parameters predicted from low-resolution multisequence MRI based on the proposed statistical model and the values extracted from high-resolution HRp-QCT. CONCLUSIONS: The obtained results indicate the promise of the proposed predictive technique for the estimation of trabecular parameters in children from multisequence MRI, thus reducing the need for high-resolution radiation-based scans for a fragile population that is under development and growth

A statistical dynamic cardiac atlas for the virtual physiological human: construction and application

This thesis is centered on the construction of a cardiac atlas to serve as a common reference frame in the Virtual Physiological Human (VPH). The construction covers the entire construction pipeline, starting from a set of 3D+t multislice computed tomography images, then performing a spatial normalization of these images, segmentation of the synthesized mean image, multi-structure meshing, and finally mapping of the mesh back to the population of images. In addition, two applications are presented in this thesis. First, the atlas is used to frame a spatio-temporal model of cardiac morphology which models the variability along both 'axes' simultaneously. Such a unified approach should be preferable over existing methods, which decouple the two sources of variation and then model them separately, in isolation. Second, the proposed atlas is applied to develop an acceleration technique for performing personalized simulation of cardiac electrophysiology (EP). The prior knowledge encapsulated in our atlas is used, in conjunction with a numerical solver of cardiac EP, to build a statistical model linking cardiac morphology with the steady states of myocardial cell models that pre condition detailed cardiac EP simulations. This application puts the proposed dynamic cardiac atlas in the context of VPH-related simulations, of which the computational costs are currently greatly in excess of what is acceptable for their adoption in current clinical practice.Esta tesis está centrada en la construcción de un atlas cardiaco, para servir como marco común de referencia en el Virtual Physiological Human (VPH). La construcción consiste en la trayectoria completa, empezando con un conjunto de imágenes 3D+t de tomografía computacional multi-corte, y entonces hacer una normalización espacial de las imágenes, segmentación de la imagen promedio sintetizada, un mallado multi-estructura, y finalmente la transformación de la malla a la población de imágenes. Adicionalmente, la tesis presenta dos aplicaciones del atlas. Primero, el atlas se usa para enmarcar un modelo espacio-temporal de la morfología cardiaca que modela la variación a lo largo de ambos 'ejes' simultáneamente. Tal propuesta debe ser preferible sobre otros m\'etodos existentes, los cuales desacoplan las dos fuentes de variación para modelarlas separadamente, en isolación. Segundo, el atlas está aplicado al desarrollo de una técnica de aceleración para simulaciones personalizadas de electrofisiología (EF) cardiaca. El conocimiento previo encapsulado en nuestro atlas se usa, en conjunto con un solver de EF cardiaca, para construir un modelo estadístico conectando morfología cardiaca con los steady states de modelos celulares del miocardio que precondicionan a simulaciones detalladas de EF cardiaca. Esta aplicación posiciona el propuesto atlas dinámico cardiaco en el contexto de simulaciones relacionadas al VPH, cuyo costo computacional actual está en gran exceso de lo aceptable para su adopción en la práctica clínica de hoy en día