We model a family of closed kinematic chains, known as Kaleidocycles, with the theory of discrete spatial curves. By leveraging the connection between the deformation of discrete curves and the semi-discrete integrable systems, we describe the motion of a Kaleidocycle by elliptic theta functions. This study showcases an interesting example in which an integrable system generates an orbit in the space of the real solutions of polynomial equations defined by geometric constraints.
Deep-learning-based image processing has emerged as a valuable tool in recent years owing to its high performance. However, the quality of deep-learning-based methods relies heavily on the amount of training data, and the cost of acquiring a large amount of data is often prohibitive in medical fields. Therefore, we performed CT modality conversion based on deep learning requiring only a small number of unsupervised images. The proposed method is based on generative adversarial networks (GANs) with several extensions tailored for CT images. This method emphasizes the preservation of the structure in the processed images and reduction in the amount of training data. This method was applied to realize the conversion of mega-voltage computed tomography (MVCT) to kilo-voltage computed tomography (kVCT) images. Training was performed using several datasets acquired from patients with head and neck cancer. The size of the datasets ranged from 16 slices (for two patients) to 2745 slices (for 137 patients) of MVCT and 2824 slices of kVCT for 98 patients. The quality of the processed MVCT images was considerably enhanced, and the structural changes in the images were minimized. With an increase in the size of training data, the image quality exhibited a satisfactory convergence from a few hundred slices. In addition to statistical and visual evaluations, these results were clinically evaluated by medical doctors in terms of the accuracy of contouring. We developed an MVCT to kVCT conversion model based on deep learning, which can be trained using a few hundred unpaired images. The stability of the model against the change in the data size was demonstrated. This research promotes the reliable use of deep learning in clinical medicine by partially answering the commonly asked questions: "Is our data enough? How much data must we prepare?"
Studies on acquiring appropriate continuous representations of discrete objects, such as graphs and knowledge base data, have been conducted by many researchers in the field of machine learning. In this study, we introduce Nested SubSpace (NSS) arrangement, a comprehensive framework for representation learning. We show that existing embedding techniques can be regarded as special cases of the NSS arrangement. Based on the concept of the NSS arrangement, we implement a Disk-ANChor ARrangement (DANCAR), a representation learning method specialized to reproducing general graphs. Numerical experiments have shown that DANCAR has successfully embedded WordNet in ${\mathbb R}^{20}$ with an F1 score of 0.993 in the reconstruction task. DANCAR is also suitable for visualization in understanding the characteristics of graphs.
We introduce Cubical Ripser for computing persistent homology of image and volume data (more precisely, weighted cubical complexes). To our best knowledge, Cubical Ripser is currently the fastest and the most memory-efficient program for computing persistent homology of weighted cubical complexes. We demonstrate our software with an example of image analysis in which persistent homology and convolutional neural networks are successfully combined. Our open-source implementation is available online.