Zexuan Ji

Bio: Zexuan Ji is an academic researcher from Nanjing University of Science and Technology. The author has contributed to research in topics: Image segmentation & Segmentation. The author has an hindex of 22, co-authored 88 publications receiving 1758 citations. Previous affiliations of Zexuan Ji include University of Sydney & Nanjing University.

RETOUCH: The Retinal OCT Fluid Detection and Segmentation Benchmark and Challenge

Abstract: Retinal swelling due to the accumulation of fluid is associated with the most vision-threatening retinal diseases. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is the current standard of care in assessing the presence and quantity of retinal fluid and image-guided treatment management. Deep learning methods have made their impact across medical imaging, and many retinal OCT analysis methods have been proposed. However, it is currently not clear how successful they are in interpreting the retinal fluid on OCT, which is due to the lack of standardized benchmarks. To address this, we organized a challenge RETOUCH in conjunction with MICCAI 2017, with eight teams participating. The challenge consisted of two tasks: fluid detection and fluid segmentation. It featured for the first time: all three retinal fluid types, with annotated images provided by two clinical centers, which were acquired with the three most common OCT device vendors from patients with two different retinal diseases. The analysis revealed that in the detection task, the performance on the automated fluid detection was within the inter-grader variability. However, in the segmentation task, fusing the automated methods produced segmentations that were superior to all individual methods, indicating the need for further improvements in the segmentation performance.

Fuzzy c-means clustering with weighted image patch for image segmentation

Abstract: Fuzzy c-means (FCM) clustering has been widely used in image segmentation. However, in spite of its computational efficiency and wide-spread prevalence, the FCM algorithm does not take the spatial information of pixels into consideration, and hence may result in low robustness to noise and less accurate segmentation. In this paper, we propose the weighted image patch-based FCM (WIPFCM) algorithm for image segmentation. In this algorithm, we use image patches to replace pixels in the fuzzy clustering, and construct a weighting scheme to able the pixels in each image patch to have anisotropic weights. Thus, the proposed algorithm incorporates local spatial information embedded in the image into the segmentation process, and hence improve its robustness to noise. We compared the novel algorithm to several state-of-the-art segmentation approaches in synthetic images and clinical brain MR studies. Our results show that the proposed WIPFCM algorithm can effectively overcome the impact of noise and substantially improve the accuracy of image segmentations.

Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning

Abstract: Probability Distributions.- Linear Models for Regression.- Linear Models for Classification.- Neural Networks.- Kernel Methods.- Sparse Kernel Machines.- Graphical Models.- Mixture Models and EM.- Approximate Inference.- Sampling Methods.- Continuous Latent Variables.- Sequential Data.- Combining Models.

IEEE transactions on pattern analysis and machine intelligence

Abstract: In the real world, a realistic setting for computer vision or multimedia recognition problems is that we have some classes containing lots of training data and many classes contain a small amount of training data. Therefore, how to use frequent classes to help learning rare classes for which it is harder to collect the training data is an open question. Learning with Shared Information is an emerging topic in machine learning, computer vision and multimedia analysis. There are different level of components that can be shared during concept modeling and machine learning stages, such as sharing generic object parts, sharing attributes, sharing transformations, sharing regularization parameters and sharing training examples, etc. Regarding the specific methods, multi-task learning, transfer learning and deep learning can be seen as using different strategies to share information. These learning with shared information methods are very effective in solving real-world large-scale problems. This special issue aims at gathering the recent advances in learning with shared information methods and their applications in computer vision and multimedia analysis. Both state-of-the-art works, as well as literature reviews, are welcome for submission. Papers addressing interesting real-world computer vision and multimedia applications are especially encouraged. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: • Multi-task learning or transfer learning for large-scale computer vision and multimedia analysis • Deep learning for large-scale computer vision and multimedia analysis • Multi-modal approach for large-scale computer vision and multimedia analysis • Different sharing strategies, e.g., sharing generic object parts, sharing attributes, sharing transformations, sharing regularization parameters and sharing training examples, • Real-world computer vision and multimedia applications based on learning with shared information, e.g., event detection, object recognition, object detection, action recognition, human head pose estimation, object tracking, location-based services, semantic indexing. • New datasets and metrics to evaluate the benefit of the proposed sharing ability for the specific computer vision or multimedia problem. • Survey papers regarding the topic of learning with shared information. Authors who are unsure whether their planned submission is in scope may contact the guest editors prior to the submission deadline with an abstract, in order to receive feedback.