Abstract: The Quantitative Coronary Angiography (QCA) is a methodology used to evaluate the arterial diseases and, in particular, the degree of stenosis. In this paper we propose AQCA, a fully automatic method for vessel segmentation based on graph cut theory. Vesselness, geodesic paths and a new multi-scale edgeness map are used to compute a globally optimal artery segmentation. We evaluate the method performance in a rigorous numerical way on two datasets. The method can detect an artery with precision 92.9 +/- 5% and sensitivity 94.2 +/- 6%. The average absolute distance error between detected and ground truth centerline is 1.13 +/- 0.11 pixels (about 0.27 +/- 0.025 mm) and the absolute relative error in the vessel caliber estimation is 2.93% with almost no bias. Moreover, the method can discriminate between arteries and catheter with an accuracy of 96.4%.

Abstract: In volume visualization, the voxel visibitity and materials are carried out through an interactive editing of Transfer Function. In this paper, we present a two-level GPU-based labeling method that computes in times of rendering a set of labeled structures using the Adaboost machine learning classifier. In a pre-processing step, Adaboost trains a binary classifier from a pre-labeled dataset and, in each sample, takes into account a set of features. This binary classifier is a weighted combination of weak classifiers, which can be expressed as simple decision functions estimated on a single feature values. Then, at the testing stage, each weak classifier is independently applied on the features of a set of unlabeled samples. We propose an alternative representation of these classifiers that allow a GPU-based parallelizated testing stage embedded into the visualization pipeline. The empirical results confirm the OpenCL-based classification of biomedical datasets as a tough problem where an opportunity for further research emerges.

Abstract: Video alignment consists of integrating multiple video sequences recorded independently into a single video sequence. This means to register both in time (synchronize
frames) and space (image registration) so that the two videos sequences can be fused
or compared pixel–wise. In spite of being relatively unknown, many applications today may benefit from the availability of robust and efficient video alignment methods.
For instance, video surveillance requires to integrate video sequences that are recorded
of the same scene at different times in order to detect changes. The problem of aligning videos has been addressed before, but in the relatively simple cases of fixed or rigidly attached cameras and simultaneous acquisition. In addition, most works rely
on restrictive assumptions which reduce its difficulty such as linear time correspondence or the knowledge of the complete trajectories of corresponding scene points on the images; to some extent, these assumptions limit the practical applicability of the solutions developed until now. In this thesis, we focus on the challenging problem of aligning sequences recorded at different times from independent moving cameras following similar but not coincident trajectories. More precisely, this thesis covers four studies that advance the state-of-the-art in video alignment. First, we focus on analyzing and developing a probabilistic framework for video alignment, that is, a principled way to integrate multiple observations and prior information. In this way, two different approaches are presented to exploit the combination of several purely visual features (image–intensities, visual words and dense motion field descriptor), and
global positioning system (GPS) information. Second, we focus on reformulating the
problem into a single alignment framework since previous works on video alignment
adopt a divide–and–conquer strategy, i.e., first solve the synchronization, and then
register corresponding frames. This also generalizes the ’classic’ case of fixed geometric transform and linear time mapping. Third, we focus on exploiting directly the
time domain of the video sequences in order to avoid exhaustive cross–frame search.
This provides relevant information used for learning the temporal mapping between
pairs of video sequences. Finally, we focus on adapting these methods to the on–line
setting for road detection and vehicle geolocation. The qualitative and quantitative
results presented in this thesis on a variety of real–world pairs of video sequences show that the proposed method is: robust to varying imaging conditions, different image
content (e.g., incoming and outgoing vehicles), variations on camera velocity, and
different scenarios (indoor and outdoor) going beyond the state–of–the–art. Moreover, the on–line video alignment has been successfully applied for road detection and
vehicle geolocation achieving promising results.

Abstract: OBJECTIVES:
This study used intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) to evaluate radial artery volume changes after intraarterial administration of nitroglycerin and/or verapamil.
BACKGROUND:
Radial artery spasm, which is associated with radial artery size, is the main limitation of the transradial approach in percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI).
METHODS:
This prospective, randomized study compared the effect of two intra-arterial vasodilator regimens on radial artery volume: 0.2 mg of nitroglycerin plus 2.5 mg of verapamil (Group 1; n = 15) versus 2.5 mg of verapamil alone (Group 2; n = 15). Radial artery lumen volume was assessed using IVUS at two time points: at baseline (5 minutes after sheath insertion) and post-vasodilator (1 minute after drug administration). The luminal volume of the radial artery was computed using ECOC Random Fields (ECOC-RF), a technique used for automatic segmentation of luminal borders in longitudinal cut images from IVUS sequences.
RESULTS:
There was a significant increase in arterial lumen volume in both groups, with an increase from 451 ± 177 mm³ to 508 ± 192 mm³ (p = 0.001) in Group 1 and from 456 ± 188 mm³ to 509 ± 170 mm³ (p = 0.001) in Group 2. There were no significant differences between the groups in terms of absolute volume increase (58 mm³ versus 53 mm³, respectively; p = 0.65) or in relative volume increase (14% versus 20%, respectively; p = 0.69).
CONCLUSIONS:
Administration of nitroglycerin plus verapamil or verapamil alone to the radial artery resulted in similar increases in arterial lumen volume according to ECOC-RF IVUS measurements.

Abstract: Product graph has been shown to be an efficient way for matching subgraphs. This paper reports the extension of the product graph methodology for subgraph matching applied to symbol spotting in graphical documents. This paper focuses on the two major limitations of the previous version of product graph: (1) Spurious nodes and edges in the graph representation and (2) Inefficient node and edge attributes. To deal with noisy information of vectorized graphical documents, we consider a dual graph representation on the original graph representing the graphical information and the product graph is computed between the dual graphs of the query graphs and the input graph.
The dual graph with redundant edges is helpful for efficient and tolerating encoding of the structural information of the graphical documents. The adjacency matrix of the product graph locates similar path information of two graphs and exponentiating the adjacency matrix finds similar paths of greater lengths. Nodes joining similar paths between two graphs are found by combining different exponentials of adjacency matrices. An experimental investigation reveals that the recall obtained by this approach is quite encouraging.