2010 |
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Jaume Garcia, Debora Gil, Luis Badiella, Aura Hernandez-Sabate, Francesc Carreras, Sandra Pujades, et al. (2010). "A Normalized Framework for the Design of Feature Spaces Assessing the Left Ventricular Function " . IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging, 29(3), 733–745.
Abstract: A through description of the left ventricle functionality requires combining complementary regional scores. A main limitation is the lack of multiparametric normality models oriented to the assessment of regional wall motion abnormalities (RWMA). This paper covers two main topics involved in RWMA assessment. We propose a general framework allowing the fusion and comparison across subjects of different regional scores. Our framework is used to explore which combination of regional scores (including 2-D motion and strains) is better suited for RWMA detection. Our statistical analysis indicates that for a proper (within interobserver variability) identification of RWMA, models should consider motion and extreme strains.
Cite Key: GGH2009
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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
Cite Key: MMG2010
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2009 |
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Aura Hernandez-Sabate, Debora Gil, Eduard Fernandez-Nofrerias, Petia Radeva, & Enric Marti. (2009). "Approaching Artery Rigid Dynamics in IVUS " . IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging, 28(11), 1670–1680.
Abstract: Tissue biomechanical properties (like strain and stress) are playing an increasing role in diagnosis and long-term treatment of intravascular coronary diseases. Their assessment strongly relies on estimation of vessel wall deformation. Since intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) sequences allow visualizing vessel morphology and reflect its dynamics, this technique represents a useful tool for evaluation of tissue mechanical properties. Image misalignment introduced by vessel-catheter motion is a major artifact for a proper tracking of tissue deformation. In this work, we focus on compensating and assessing IVUS rigid in-plane motion due to heart beating. Motion parameters are computed by considering both the vessel geometry and its appearance in the image. Continuum mechanics laws serve to introduce a novel score measuring motion reduction in in vivo sequences. Synthetic experiments validate the proposed score as measure of motion parameters accuracy; whereas results in in vivo pullbacks show the reliability of the presented methodologies in clinical cases.
Keywords: Fourier analysis; intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) dynamics; longitudinal motion; quality measures; tissue deformation.
Cite Key: HGF2009
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Misael Rosales, Petia Radeva, Oriol Rodriguez-Leon, & Debora Gil. (2009). "Modelling of image-catheter motion for 3-D IVUS " . Medical image analysis, 13(1), 91–104.
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.
Keywords: Intravascular ultrasound (IVUS); Motion estimation; Motion decomposition; Fourier
Cite Key: RRR2009
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2008 |
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Debora Gil, Oriol Rodriguez-Leon, Petia Radeva, & Josepa Mauri. (2008). "Myocardial Perfusion Characterization From Contrast Angiography Spectral Distribution " . IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging, 27(5), 641–649.
Abstract: Despite recovering a normal coronary flow after acute myocardial infarction, percutaneous coronary intervention does not guarantee a proper perfusion (irrigation) of the infarcted area. This damage in microcirculation integrity may detrimentally affect the patient survival. Visual assessment of the myocardium opacification in contrast angiography serves to define a subjective score of the microcirculation integrity myocardial blush analysis (MBA). Although MBA correlates with patient prognosis its visual assessment is a very difficult task that requires of a highly expertise training in order to achieve a good intraobserver and interobserver agreement. In this paper, we provide objective descriptors of the myocardium staining pattern by analyzing the spectrum of the image local statistics. The descriptors proposed discriminate among the different phenomena observed in the angiographic sequence and allow defining an objective score of the myocardial perfusion.
Keywords: Contrast angiography; myocardial perfusion; spectral analysis.
Cite Key: GRR2008
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Jaume Garcia, Debora Gil, Sandra Pujades, & Francesc Carreras. (2008). "A Variational Framework for Assessment of the Left Ventricle Motion " . International Journal Mathematical Modelling of Natural Phenomena, 3(6), 76–100.
Abstract: Impairment of left ventricular contractility due to cardiovascular diseases is reflected in left ventricle (LV) motion patterns. An abnormal change of torsion or long axis shortening LV values can help with the diagnosis and follow-up of LV dysfunction. Tagged Magnetic Resonance (TMR) is a widely spread medical imaging modality that allows estimation of the myocardial tissue local deformation. In this work, we introduce a novel variational framework for extracting the left ventricle dynamics from TMR sequences. A bi-dimensional representation space of TMR images given by Gabor filter banks is defined. Tracking of the phases of the Gabor response is combined using a variational framework which regularizes the deformation field just at areas where the Gabor amplitude drops, while restoring the underlying motion otherwise. The clinical applicability of the proposed method is illustrated by extracting normality models of the ventricular torsion from 19 healthy subjects.
Keywords: Key words: Left Ventricle Dynamics, Ventricular Torsion, Tagged Magnetic Resonance, Motion Tracking, Variational Framework, Gabor Transform.
Cite Key: GGC2008a
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Jaume Garcia, Debora Gil, Sandra Pujades, & Francesc Carreras. (2008). "Valoracion de la Funcion del Ventriculo Izquierdo mediante Modelos Regionales Hiperparametricos " . Revista Española de Cardiologia, 61(3), 79.
Abstract: La mayoría de la enfermedades cardiovasculares afectan a las propiedades contráctiles de la banda ventricular helicoidal. Esto se refleja en una variación del comportamiento normal de la función ventricular. Parámetros locales tales como los strains, o la deformación experimentada por el tejido, son indicadores capaces de detectar anomalías funcionales en territorios específicos. A menudo, dichos parámetros son considerados de forma separada. En este trabajo presentamos un marco computacional (el Dominio Paramétrico Normalizado, DPN) que permite integrarlos en hiperparámetros funcionales y estudiar sus rangos de normalidad. Dichos rangos permiten valorar de forma objetiva la función regional de cualquier nuevo paciente. Para ello, consideramos secuencias de resonancia magnética etiquetada a nivel basal, medio y apical. Los hiperparámetros se obtienen a partir del movimiento intramural del VI estimado mediante el método Harmonic Phase Flow. El DPN se define a partir de en una parametrización del Ventrículo Izquierdo (VI) en sus coordenadas radiales y circunferencial basada en criterios anatómicos. El paso de los hiperparámetros al DPN hace posible la comparación entre distintos pacientes. Los rangos de normalidad se definen mediante análisis estadístico de valores de voluntarios sanos en 45 regiones del DPN a lo largo de 9 fases sistólicas. Se ha usado un conjunto de 19 (14 H; E: 30.7±7.5) voluntarios sanos para crear los patrones de normalidad y se han validado usando 2 controles sanos y 3 pacientes afectados de contractilidad global reducida. Para los controles los resultados regionales se han ajustado dentro de la normalidad, mientras que para los pacientes se han obtenido valores anormales en las zonas descritas, localizando y cuantificando así el diagnóstico empírico.
Cite Key: GRP2008
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2006 |
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Debora Gil, & Petia Radeva. (2006). "Inhibition of false landmarks " . Pattern Recognition Letters, 27(9), 1022–1030.
Abstract: Corners and junctions are landmarks characterized by the lack of differentiability in the unit tangent to the image level curve. Detectors based on differential operators are not, by their own definition, the best posed as they require a higher degree of differentiability to yield a reliable response. We argue that a corner detector should be based on the degree of continuity of the tangent vector to the image level sets, work on the image domain and need no assumptions on neither the image local structure nor the particular geometry of the corner/junction. An operator measuring the degree of differentiability of the projection matrix on the image gradient fulfills the above requirements. Because using smoothing kernels leads to corner misplacement, we suggest an alternative fake response remover based on the receptive field inhibition of spurious details. The combination of both orientation discontinuity detection and noise inhibition produce our inhibition orientation energy (IOE) landmark locator.
Cite Key: GIR2006
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Debora Gil, Aura Hernandez-Sabate, Oriol Rodriguez, Josepa Mauri, & Petia Radeva. (2006). "Statistical Strategy for Anisotropic Adventitia Modelling in IVUS " . IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging, 25(6), 768–778.
Abstract: Vessel plaque assessment by analysis of intravascular ultrasound sequences is a useful tool for cardiac disease diagnosis and intervention. Manual detection of luminal (inner) and mediaadventitia (external) vessel borders is the main activity of physicians in the process of lumen narrowing (plaque) quantification. Difficult definition of vessel border descriptors, as well as, shades, artifacts, and blurred signal response due to ultrasound physical properties trouble automated adventitia segmentation. In order to efficiently approach such a complex problem, we propose blending advanced anisotropic filtering operators and statistical classification techniques into a vessel border modelling strategy. Our systematic statistical analysis shows that the reported adventitia detection achieves an accuracy in the range of interobserver variability regardless of plaque nature, vessel geometry, and incomplete vessel borders. Index Terms–-Anisotropic processing, intravascular ultrasound (IVUS), vessel border segmentation, vessel structure classification.
Keywords: Corners; T-junctions; Wavelets
Cite Key: GHR2006
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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
Cite Key: GCM2006
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