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Marta Diez-Ferrer, Debora Gil, Cristian Tebe, & Carles Sanchez. (2018). "Positive Airway Pressure to Enhance Computed Tomography Imaging for Airway Segmentation for Virtual Bronchoscopic Navigation " . Respiration, 96(6), 525–534.
Abstract: Abstract
RATIONALE:
Virtual bronchoscopic navigation (VBN) guidance to peripheral pulmonary lesions is often limited by insufficient segmentation of the peripheral airways.
OBJECTIVES:
To test the effect of applying positive airway pressure (PAP) during CT acquisition to improve segmentation, particularly at end-expiration.
METHODS:
CT acquisitions in inspiration and expiration with 4 PAP protocols were recorded prospectively and compared to baseline inspiratory acquisitions in 20 patients. The 4 protocols explored differences between devices (flow vs. turbine), exposures (within seconds vs. 15-min) and pressure levels (10 vs. 14 cmH2O). Segmentation quality was evaluated with the number of airways and number of endpoints reached. A generalized mixed-effects model explored the estimated effect of each protocol.
MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS:
Patient characteristics and lung function did not significantly differ between protocols. Compared to baseline inspiratory acquisitions, expiratory acquisitions after 15 min of 14 cmH2O PAP segmented 1.63-fold more airways (95% CI 1.07-2.48; p = 0.018) and reached 1.34-fold more endpoints (95% CI 1.08-1.66; p = 0.004). Inspiratory acquisitions performed immediately under 10 cmH2O PAP reached 1.20-fold (95% CI 1.09-1.33; p < 0.001) more endpoints; after 15 min the increase was 1.14-fold (95% CI 1.05-1.24; p < 0.001).
CONCLUSIONS:
CT acquisitions with PAP segment more airways and reach more endpoints than baseline inspiratory acquisitions. The improvement is particularly evident at end-expiration after 15 min of 14 cmH2O PAP. Further studies must confirm that the improvement increases diagnostic yield when using VBN to evaluate peripheral pulmonary lesions.
Keywords: Multidetector computed tomography; Bronchoscopy; Continuous positive airway pressure; Image enhancement; Virtual bronchoscopic navigation
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Maurizio Mencuccini, Jordi Martinez-Vilalta, Josep Piñol, Lasse Loepfe, Mireia Burnat, Xavier Alvarez, et al. (2010). "A quantitative and statistically robust method for the determination of xylem conduit spatial distribution " . American Journal of Botany, 97(8), 1247–1259.
Abstract: Premise of the study: Because of their limited length, xylem conduits need to connect to each other to maintain water transport from roots to leaves. Conduit spatial distribution in a cross section plays an important role in aiding this connectivity. While indices of conduit spatial distribution already exist, they are not well defined statistically. * Methods: We used point pattern analysis to derive new spatial indices. One hundred and five cross-sectional images from different species were transformed into binary images. The resulting point patterns, based on the locations of the conduit centers-of-area, were analyzed to determine whether they departed from randomness. Conduit distribution was then modeled using a spatially explicit stochastic model. * Key results: The presence of conduit randomness, uniformity, or aggregation depended on the spatial scale of the analysis. The large majority of the images showed patterns significantly different from randomness at least at one spatial scale. A strong phylogenetic signal was detected in the spatial variables. * Conclusions: Conduit spatial arrangement has been largely conserved during evolution, especially at small spatial scales. Species in which conduits were aggregated in clusters had a lower conduit density compared to those with uniform distribution. Statistically sound spatial indices must be employed as an aid in the characterization of distributional patterns across species and in models of xylem water transport. Point pattern analysis is a very useful tool in identifying spatial patterns.
Keywords: Geyer; hydraulic conductivity; point pattern analysis; Ripley; Spatstat; vessel clusters; xylem anatomy; xylem network
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Marta Diez-Ferrer, Arturo Morales, Rosa Lopez Lisbona, Noelia Cubero, Cristian Tebe, Susana Padrones, et al. (2019). Ultrathin Bronchoscopy with and without Virtual Bronchoscopic Navigation: Influence of Segmentation on Diagnostic Yield . Respiration, 97(3), 252–258.
Abstract: Background: Bronchoscopy is a safe technique for diagnosing peripheral pulmonary lesions (PPLs), and virtual bronchoscopic navigation (VBN) helps guide the bronchoscope to PPLs. Objectives: We aimed to compare the diagnostic yield of VBN-guided and unguided ultrathin bronchoscopy (UTB) and explore clinical and technical factors associated with better results. We developed a diagnostic algorithm for deciding whether to use VBN to reach PPLs or choose an alternative diagnostic approach. Methods: We compared diagnostic yield between VBN-UTB (prospective cases) and unguided UTB (historical controls) and analyzed the VBN-UTB subgroup to identify clinical and technical variables that could predict the success of VBN-UTB. Results: Fifty-five cases and 110 controls were included. The overall diagnostic yield did not differ between the VBN-guided and unguided arms (47 and 40%, respectively; p = 0.354). Although the yield was slightly higher for PPLs ≤20 mm in the VBN-UTB arm, the difference was not significant (p = 0.069). No other clinical characteristics were associated with a higher yield in a subgroup analysis, but an 85% diagnostic yield was observed when segmentation was optimal and the PPL was endobronchial (vs. 30% when segmentation was suboptimal and 20% when segmentation was optimal but the PPL was extrabronchial). Conclusions: VBN-guided UTB is not superior to unguided UTB. A greater impact of VBN-guided over unguided UTB is highly dependent on both segmentation quality and an endobronchial location of the PPL. Segmentation quality should be considered before starting a procedure, when an alternative technique that may improve yield can be chosen, saving time and resources.
Keywords: Lung cancer; Peripheral lung lesion; Diagnosis; Bronchoscopy; Ultrathin bronchoscopy; Virtual bronchoscopic navigation
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Debora Gil, & Petia Radeva. (2005). "Extending anisotropic operators to recover smooth shapes " . Computer Vision and Image Understanding, 99(1), 110–125.
Abstract: Anisotropic differential operators are widely used in image enhancement processes. Recently, their property of smoothly extending functions to the whole image domain has begun to be exploited. Strong ellipticity of differential operators is a requirement that ensures existence of a unique solution. This condition is too restrictive for operators designed to extend image level sets: their own functionality implies that they should restrict to some vector field. The diffusion tensor that defines the diffusion operator links anisotropic processes with Riemmanian manifolds. In this context, degeneracy implies restricting diffusion to the varieties generated by the vector fields of positive eigenvalues, provided that an integrability condition is satisfied. We will use that any smooth vector field fulfills this integrability requirement to design line connection algorithms for contour completion. As application we present a segmenting strategy that assures convergent snakes whatever the geometry of the object to be modelled is.
Keywords: Contour completion; Functional extension; Differential operators; Riemmanian manifolds; Snake segmentation
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Fernando Vilariño, Debora Gil, & Petia Radeva. (2004). "A Novel FLDA Formulation for Numerical Stability Analysis " In P. R. and I. A. J. Vitrià (Ed.), Recent Advances in Artificial Intelligence Research and Development (Vol. 113, pp. 77–84). IOS Press.
Abstract: Fisher Linear Discriminant Analysis (FLDA) is one of the most popular techniques used in classification applying dimensional reduction. The numerical scheme involves the inversion of the within-class scatter matrix, which makes FLDA potentially ill-conditioned when it becomes singular. In this paper we present a novel explicit formulation of FLDA in terms of the eccentricity ratio and eigenvector orientations of the within-class scatter matrix. An analysis of this function will characterize those situations where FLDA response is not reliable because of numerical instability. This can solve common situations of poor classification performance in computer vision.
Keywords: Supervised Learning; Linear Discriminant Analysis; Numerical Stability; Computer Vision
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Mireia Sole, Joan Blanco, Debora Gil, Oliver Valero, Alvaro Pascual, B. Cardenas, et al. (2021). Chromosomal positioning in spermatogenic cells is influenced by chromosomal factors associated with gene activity, bouquet formation, and meiotic sex-chromosome inactivation . Chromosoma, 130, 163–175.
Abstract: Chromosome territoriality is not random along the cell cycle and it is mainly governed by intrinsic chromosome factors and gene expression patterns. Conversely, very few studies have explored the factors that determine chromosome territoriality and its influencing factors during meiosis. In this study, we analysed chromosome positioning in murine spermatogenic cells using three-dimensionally fluorescence in situ hybridization-based methodology, which allows the analysis of the entire karyotype. The main objective of the study was to decipher chromosome positioning in a radial axis (all analysed germ-cell nuclei) and longitudinal axis (only spermatozoa) and to identify the chromosomal factors that regulate such an arrangement. Results demonstrated that the radial positioning of chromosomes during spermatogenesis was cell-type specific and influenced by chromosomal factors associated to gene activity. Chromosomes with specific features that enhance transcription (high GC content, high gene density and high numbers of predicted expressed genes) were preferentially observed in the inner part of the nucleus in virtually all cell types. Moreover, the position of the sex chromosomes was influenced by their transcriptional status, from the periphery of the nucleus when its activity was repressed (pachytene) to a more internal position when it is partially activated (spermatid). At pachytene, chromosome positioning was also influenced by chromosome size due to the bouquet formation. Longitudinal chromosome positioning in the sperm nucleus was not random either, suggesting the importance of ordered longitudinal positioning for the release and activation of the paternal genome after fertilisation.
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Albert Andaluz. (2009). "LV Contour Segmentation in TMR images using Semantic Description of Tissue and Prior Knowledge Correction " (Vol. 142). Master's thesis, , Bellaterra 08193, Barcelona, Spain.
Abstract: The Diagnosis of Left Ventricle (LV) pathologies is related to regional wall motion analysis. Health indicator scores such as the rotation and the torsion are useful for the diagnose of the Left Ventricle (LV) function. However, this requires proper identification of LV segments. On one hand, manual segmentation is robust, but it is slow and requires medical expertise. On the other hand, the tag pattern in Tagged Magnetic Resonance (TMR) sequences is a problem for the automatic segmentation of the LV boundaries. Consequently, we propose a method based in the classical formulation of parametric Snakes, combined with Active Shape models. Our semantic definition of the LV is tagged tissue that experiences motion in the systolic cycle. This defines two energy potentials for the Snake convergence. Additionally, the mean shape corrects excessive deviation from the anatomical shape. We have validated our approach in 15 healthy volunteers and two short axis cuts. In this way, we have compared the automatic segmentations to manual shapes outlined by medical experts. Also, we have explored the accuracy of clinical scores computed using automatic contours. The results show minor divergence in the approximation and the manual segmentations as well as robust computation of clinical scores in all cases. From this we conclude that the proposed method is a promising support tool for clinical analysis.
Keywords: Active Contour Models; Snakes; Active Shape Models; Deformable Templates; Left Ventricle Segmentation; Generalized Orthogonal Procrustes Analysis; Harmonic Phase Flow; Principal Component Analysis; Tagged Magnetic Resonance
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Marta Diez-Ferrer, Debora Gil, Elena Carreño, Susana Padrones, Samantha Aso, Vanesa Vicens, et al. (2016). Positive Airway Pressure-Enhanced CT to Improve Virtual Bronchoscopic Navigation . Chest Journal, 150(4), 1003A.
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Debora Gil, Jose Maria-Carazo, & Roberto Marabini. (2006). "On the nature of 2D crystal unbending " . Journal of Structural Biology, 156(3), 546–555.
Abstract: Crystal unbending, the process that aims to recover a perfect crystal from experimental data, is one of the more important steps in electron crystallography image processing. The unbending process involves three steps: estimation of the unit cell displacements from their ideal positions, extension of the deformation field to the whole image and transformation of the image in order to recover an ideal crystal. In this work, we present a systematic analysis of the second step oriented to address two issues. First, whether the unit cells remain undistorted and only the distance between them should be changed (rigid case) or should be modified with the same deformation suffered by the whole crystal (elastic case). Second, the performance of different extension algorithms (interpolation versus approximation) is explored. Our experiments show that there is no difference between elastic and rigid cases or among the extension algorithms. This implies that the deformation fields are constant over large areas. Furthermore, our results indicate that the main source of error is the transformation of the crystal image.
Keywords: Electron microscopy
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Patricia Marquez. (2010). "Conditions Ensuring Accuracy of Local Optical Flow Schemes " (Vol. 157). Master's thesis, , Bellaterra 08193, Barcelona, Spain.
Abstract: Accurate computation of optical flow is a key-point in many image processing fields. Detection of anomalous and unpredicted agents (such as pedestrians, bikers or cars) in urban scenes or pathology discrimination in medical imaging sequences, to mention just a two. The above kinds sequences present two main difficulties for standard optical flow techniques. On one hand, variability in acquisition conditions (illuminance, medical imaging modality, ...) force an alterantive representation for images fulfilling the britghtness constancy constrain. On the hand, current variational schemes produce oversmoothed fields unable to properly model discontinuous behaviours such as collisions or functionless pathological areas. This master project explores the abilities and limitations of local and global optical flow approaches. The master student will put especial emphasis in the theoretical grounds behind in order to design a variational framework combining the theoretical advantages of the considered techniques. In particular an optical flow based on Gabor phase tracking (developed in the group for medical imaging) will be generalized to urban scenes.
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