Abstract: Assessing the reliability of termination conditions for evolutionary algorithms (EAs) is of prime importance. An erroneous or weak stop criterion can negatively affect both the computational effort and the final result. We introduce a statistical framework for assessing whether a termination condition is able to stop an EA at its steady state, so that its results can not be improved anymore. We use a regression model in order to determine the requirements ensuring that a measure derived from EA evolving population is related to the distance to the optimum in decision variable space. Our framework is analyzed across 24 benchmark test functions and two standard termination criteria based on function fitness value in objective function space and EA population decision variable space distribution for the differential evolution (DE) paradigm. Results validate our framework as a powerful tool for determining the capability of a measure for terminating EA and the results also identify the decision variable space distribution as the best-suited for accurately terminating DE in real-world applications.

Abstract: Among all filtering techniques, those based exclu- sively on image level sets (geometric flows) have proven to be the less sensitive to the nature of noise and the most contrast preserving. A common feature to existent curvature flows is that they penalize high curvature, regardless of the curve regularity. This constitutes a major drawback since curvature extreme values are standard descriptors of the contour geometry. We argue that an operator designed with shape recovery purposes should include a term penalizing irregularity in the curvature rather than its magnitude. To this purpose, we present a novel geometric flow that includes a function that measures the degree of local irregularity present in the curve. A main advantage is that it achieves non-trivial steady states representing a smooth model of level curves in a noisy image. Performance of our approach is compared to classical filtering techniques in terms of quality in the restored image/shape and asymptotic behavior. We empirically prove that our approach is the technique that achieves the best compromise between image quality and evolution stabilization.

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: Three-dimensional intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) allows to visualize and obtain volumetric measurements of coronary lesions through an exploration of the cross sections and longitudinal views of arteries. However, the visualization and subsequent morpho-geometric measurements in IVUS longitudinal cuts are subject to distortion caused by periodic image/vessel motion around the IVUS catheter. Usually, to overcome the image motion artifact ECG-gating and image-gated approaches are proposed, leading to slowing the pullback acquisition or disregarding part of IVUS data. In this paper, we argue that the image motion is due to 3-D vessel geometry as well as cardiac dynamics, and propose a dynamic model based on the tracking of an elliptical vessel approximation to recover the rigid transformation and align IVUS images without loosing any IVUS data. We report an extensive validation with synthetic simulated data and in vivo IVUS sequences of 30 patients achieving an average reduction of the image artifact of 97% in synthetic data and 79% in real-data. Our study shows that IVUS alignment improves longitudinal analysis of the IVUS data and is a necessary step towards accurate reconstruction and volumetric measurements of 3-D IVUS.

Abstract: In this paper we present a technique to interpret hand line drawings as objects in a three-dimensional space. The object domain considered is based on planar surfaces with straight edges, concretely, on ansextension of Origami world to hidden lines. The line drawing represents the object under orthographic projection and it is sensed using a scanner. Our method is structured in two modules: feature extraction and feature interpretation. In the first one, image processing techniques are applied under certain tolerance margins to detect lines and junctions on the hand line drawing. Feature interpretation module is founded on line labelling techniques using a labelled junction dictionary. A labelling algorithm is here proposed. It uses relaxation techniques to reduce the number of incompatible labels with the junction dictionary so that the convergence of solutions can be accelerated. We formulate some labelling hypotheses tending to eliminate elements in two sets of labelled interpretations. That is, those which are compatible with the dictionary but do not correspond to three-dimensional objects and those which represent objects not very probable to be specified by means of a line drawing. New entities arise on the line drawing as a result of the extension of Origami world. These are defined to enunciate the assumptions of our method as well as to clarify the algorithms proposed. This technique is framed in a project aimed to implement a system to create 3D objects to improve man-machine interaction in CAD systems.