Abstract: Approaches that use more than two consecutive video frames in the optical flow estimation have a long research history. However, almost all such methods utilize extra information for a pre-processing flow prediction or for a post-processing flow correction and filtering. In contrast, this paper differs from previously developed techniques. We propose a new algorithm for the likelihood function calculation (alternatively the matching cost volume) that is used in the maximum a posteriori estimation. We exploit the fact that in general, optical flow is locally constant in the sense of time and the likelihood function depends on both the previous and the future frame. Implementation of our idea increases the robustness of optical flow estimation. As a result, our method outperforms 9% over the DCFlow technique, which we use as prototype for our CNN based computation architecture, on the most challenging MPI-Sintel dataset for the non-occluded mask metric. Furthermore, our approach considerably increases the accuracy of the flow estimation for the matching cost processing, consequently outperforming the original DCFlow algorithm results up to 50% in occluded regions and up to 9% in non-occluded regions on the MPI-Sintel dataset. The experimental section shows that the proposed method achieves state-of-the-arts results especially on the MPI-Sintel dataset.

Abstract: This paper proposes a new framework for extracting dense disparity maps from a multispectral stereo rig. The system is constructed with an infrared and a color camera. It is intended to explore novel multispectral stereo matching approaches that will allow further extraction of semantic information. The proposed framework consists of three stages. Firstly, an initial sparse disparity map is generated by using a cost function based on feature matching in a multiresolution scheme. Then, by looking at the color image, a set of planar hypotheses is defined to describe the surfaces on the scene. Finally, the previous stages are combined by reformulating the disparity computation as a global minimization problem. The paper has two main contributions. The first contribution combines mutual information with a shape descriptor based on gradient in a multiresolution scheme. The second contribution, which is based on the Manhattan-world assumption, extracts a dense disparity representation using the graph cut algorithm. Experimental results in outdoor scenarios are provided showing the validity of the proposed framework.

Abstract: Wireless capsule endoscopy involves inspection of hours of video material by a highly qualified professional. Time episodes corresponding to intestinal contractions, which are of interest to the physician constitute about 1% of the video. The problem is to label automatically time episodes containing contractions so that only a fraction of the video needs inspection. As the classes of contraction and non-contraction images in the video are largely imbalanced, ROC curves are used to optimize the trade-off between false positive and false negative rates. Classifier ensemble methods and simple classifiers were examined. Our results reinforce the claims from recent literature that classifier ensemble methods specifically designed for imbalanced problems have substantial advantages over simple classifiers and standard classifier ensembles. By using ROC curves with the bagging ensemble method the inspection time can be drastically reduced at the expense of a small fraction of missed contractions.

Abstract: Video alignment is important in different areas of computer vision such as wide baseline matching, action recognition, change detection, video copy detection and frame dropping prevention. Current video alignment methods usually deal with a relatively simple case of fixed or rigidly attached cameras or simultaneous acquisition. Therefore, in this paper we propose a joint video alignment for bringing two video sequences into a spatio-temporal alignment. Specifically, the novelty of the paper is to formulate the video alignment to fold the spatial and temporal alignment into a single alignment framework. This simultaneously satisfies a frame-correspondence and frame-alignment similarity; exploiting the knowledge among neighbor frames by a standard pairwise Markov random field (MRF). This new formulation is able to handle the alignment of sequences recorded at different times by independent moving cameras that follows a similar trajectory, and also generalizes the particular cases that of fixed geometric transformation and/or linear temporal mapping. We conduct experiments on different scenarios such as sequences recorded simultaneously or by moving cameras to validate the robustness of the proposed approach. The proposed method provides the highest video alignment accuracy compared to the state-of-the-art methods on sequences recorded from vehicles driving along the same track at different times.

Abstract: Deep understanding of myocardial structure linking morphology and function of the heart would unravel crucial knowledge for medical and surgical clinical procedures and studies. Several conceptual models of myocardial fiber organization have been proposed but the lack of an automatic and objective methodology prevented an agreement. We sought to deepen in this knowledge through advanced computer graphic representations of the myocardial fiber architecture by diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging (DT-MRI).
We performed automatic tractography reconstruction of unsegmented DT-MRI canine heart datasets coming from the public database of the Johns Hopkins University. Full scale tractographies have been build with 200 seeds and are composed by streamlines computed on the vectorial field of primary eigenvectors given at the diffusion tensor volumes. Also, we introduced a novel multi-scale visualization technique in order to obtain a simplified tractography. This methodology allowed to keep the main geometric features of the fiber tracts, making easier to decipher the main properties of the architectural organization of the heart.
On the analysis of the output from our tractographic representations we found exact correlation with low-level details of myocardial architecture, but also with the more abstract conceptualization of a continuous helical ventricular myocardial fiber array.
Objective analysis of myocardial architecture by an automated method, including the entire myocardium and using several 3D levels of complexity, reveals a continuous helical myocardial fiber arrangement of both right and left ventricles, supporting the anatomical model of the helical ventricular myocardial band described by Torrent-Guasp.

Abstract: Cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (Cardiac MRI) has become a gold standard diagnostic technique for the assessment of cardiac mechanics, allowing the non-invasive calculation of left ventric- ular long axis longitudinal shortening (LVLS) and absolute myocardial torsion (AMT) between basal and apical left ventricular slices, a movement directly related to the helicoidal anatomic disposition of the myocardial fibers. The aim of this study is to determine AMT and LVLS behaviour and normal values from a group of healthy subjects. A group of 21 healthy volunteers (15 males) (age: 23–55 y.o., mean:30.7 ± 7.5) were prospectively included in an obser- vational study by Cardiac MRI. Left ventricular rotation (degrees) was calculated by custom-made software (Harmonic Phase Flow) in consecutive LV short axis planes tagged cine-MRI sequences. AMT was determined from the difference between basal and apical planes LV rotations. LVLS (%) was determined from the LV longitudinal and horizontal axis cine-MRI images. All the 21 cases studied were interpretable, although in three cases the value of the LV apical rotation could not be determined. The mean rotation of the basal and apical planes at end-systole were -3.71° ± 0.84° and 6.73° ± 1.69° (n:18) respectively, resulting in a LV mean AMT of 10.48° ± 1.63° (n:18). End-systolic mean LVLS was 19.07 ± 2.71%. Cardiac MRI allows for the calculation of AMT and LVLS, fundamental functional components of the ventricular twist mechanics conditioned, in turn, by the anatomical helical layout of the myocardial fibers. These values provide complementary information about systolic ventricular function in relation to the traditional parameters used in daily practice.

Abstract: Accurate detection of in-vivo vulnerable plaque in coronary arteries is still an open problem. Recent studies show that it is highly related to tissue structure and composition. Intravascular Ultrasound (IVUS) is a powerful imaging technique that gives a detailed cross-sectional image of the vessel, allowing to explore arteries morphology. IVUS data validation is usually performed by comparing post-mortem (in-vitro) IVUS data and corresponding histological analysis of the tissue. The main drawback of this method is the few number of available case studies and validated data due to the complex procedure of histological analysis of the tissue. On the other hand, IVUS data from in-vivo cases is easy to obtain but it can not be histologically validated. In this work, we propose to enhance the in-vitro training data set by selectively including examples from in-vivo plaques. For this purpose, a Sequential Floating Forward Selection method is reformulated in the context of plaque characterization. The enhanced classifier performance is validated on in-vitro data set, yielding an overall accuracy of 91.59% in discriminating among fibrotic, lipidic and calcified plaques, while reducing the gap between in-vivo and in-vitro data analysis. Experimental results suggest that the obtained classifier could be properly applied on in-vivo plaque characterization and also demonstrate that the common hypothesis of assuming the difference between in-vivo and in-vitro as negligible is incorrect.