Abstract: In somatic cells, chromosomes occupy specific nuclear regions called chromosome territories which are involved in the
maintenance and regulation of the genome. Preliminary data in male germ cells also suggest the importance of chromosome
territoriality in cell functionality. Nevertheless, the specific characteristics of testicular tissue (presence of different
cell types with different morphological characteristics, in different stages of development and with different ploidy)
makes difficult to achieve conclusive results. In this study we have developed a methodology to approach the threedimensional
study of all chromosome territories in male germ cells from C57BL/6J mice (Mus musculus). The method
includes the following steps: i) Optimized cell fixation to obtain an optimal preservation of the three-dimensionality cell
morphology, ii) Chromosome identification by FISH (Chromoprobe Multiprobe® OctoChrome™ Murine System; Cytocell)
and confocal microscopy (TCS-SP5, Leica Microsystems), iii) Cell type identification by immunofluorescence
iv) Image analysis using Matlab scripts, v) Numerical data extraction related to chromosome features, chromosome
radial position and chromosome relative position. This methodology allows the unequivocally identification and the
analysis of the chromosome territories of all spermatogenic stages. Results will provide information about the features
that determine chromosomal position, preferred associations between chromosomes, and the relationship between chromosome
positioning and genome regulation.

Abstract: Obstacle avoidance remains a challenging task for Micro Aerial Vehicles (MAV), due to their limited payload capacity to carry advanced sensors. Unlike larger vehicles, MAV can only carry light weight sensors, for instance a camera, which is our main assumption in this work. We explore passive monocular depth estimation and propose a novel method Position Aided Depth Estimation
(PADE). We analyse PADE performance and compare it against the extensively used Time To Collision (TTC). We evaluate the accuracy, robustness to noise and speed of three Optical Flow (OF) techniques, combined with both depth estimation methods. Our results show PADE is more accurate than TTC at depths between 0-12 meters and is less sensitive to noise. Our findings highlight the potential application of PADE for MAV to perform safe autonomous navigation in
unknown and unstructured environments.

Abstract: IntraVascular UltraSound (IVUS) imaging is a useful tool in diagnosis of cardiac diseases since sequences completely show the morphology of coronary vessels. Vessel borders detection, especially the external adventitia layer, plays a central role in morphological measures and, thus, their segmentation feeds development of medical imaging techniques. Deterministic approaches fail to yield optimal results due to the large amount of IVUS artifacts and vessel borders descriptors. We propose using classification techniques to learn the set of descriptors and parameters that best detect vessel borders. Statistical hypothesis test on the error between automated detections and manually traced borders by 4 experts show that our detections keep within inter-observer variability.

Abstract: Medial representations are a widely used technique in abdominal organ shape representation and parametrization. Those methods require good medial manifolds as a starting point. Any medial
surface used to parametrize a volume should be simple enough to allow an easy manipulation and complete enough to allow an accurate reconstruction of the volume. Obtaining good quality medial
surfaces is still a problem with current iterative thinning methods. This forces the usage of generic, pre-calculated medial templates that are adapted to the final shape at the cost of a drop in volume reconstruction.
This paper describes an operator for generation of medial structures that generates clean and complete manifolds well suited for their further use in medial representations of abdominal organ volumes. While being simpler than thinning surfaces, experiments show its high performance in volume reconstruction and preservation of medial surface main branching topology.

Abstract: Early diagnosis and accurate treatment of Left Ventricle (LV) dysfunction significantly increases the patient survival. Impairment of LV contractility due to cardiovascular diseases is reflected in its motion patterns. Recent advances in medical imaging, such as Magnetic Resonance (MR), have encouraged research on 3D simulation and modelling of the LV dynamics. Most of the existing 3D models [1] consider just the gross anatomy of the LV and restore a truncated ellipse which deforms along the cardiac cycle. The contraction mechanics of any muscle strongly depends on the spatial orientation of its muscular fibers since the motion that the muscle undergoes mainly takes place along the fibers. It follows that such simplified models do not allow evaluation of the heart electro-mechanical function and coupling, which has recently risen as the key point for understanding the LV functionality [2]. In order to thoroughly understand the LV mechanics it is necessary to consider the complete anatomy of the LV given by the orientation of the myocardial fibres in 3D space as described by Torrent Guasp [3].
We propose developing a 3D patient-sensitive model of the LV integrating, for the first time, the ven- tricular band anatomy (fibers orientation), the LV gross anatomy and its functionality. Such model will represent the LV function as a natural consequence of its own ventricular band anatomy. This might be decisive in restoring a proper LV contraction in patients undergoing pace marker treatment.
The LV function is defined as soon as the propagation of the contractile electromechanical pulse has been modelled. In our experiments we have used the wave equation for the propagation of the electric pulse. The electromechanical wave moves on the myocardial surface and should have a conductivity tensor oriented along the muscular fibers. Thus, whatever mathematical model for electric pulse propa- gation [4] we consider, the complete anatomy of the LV should be extracted.
The LV gross anatomy is obtained by processing multi slice MR images recorded for each patient. Information about the myocardial fibers distribution can only be extracted by Diffusion Tensor Imag- ing (DTI), which can not provide in vivo information for each patient. As a first approach, we have
Figure 1: Scheme for the Left Ventricle Patient-Sensitive Model.
computed an average model of fibers from several DTI studies of canine hearts. This rough anatomy is the input for our electro-mechanical propagation model simulating LV dynamics. The average fiber orientation is updated until the simulated LV motion agrees with the experimental evidence provided by the LV motion observed in tagged MR (TMR) sequences. Experimental LV motion is recovered by applying image processing, differential geometry and interpolation techniques to 2D TMR slices [5]. The pipeline in figure 1 outlines the interaction between simulations and experimental data leading to our patient-tailored model.