Cognition Network Technology: Object Orientation and Fractal Topology in Biomedical Image Analysis. Method and Applications

Abstract

Data analysis in general and image analysis in particular require multi-scale approaches when dealing with complex structures. Relational information between structures on different scales needs to be taken into account. In many application fields, automated image interpretation still is a significant bottleneck due to the lack of appropriate image analysis technology. A new approach, Cognition Network Technology, is presented that was developed to handle and analyze complex data. This contribution focuses on how it handles and analyzes image data based on an object oriented, hierarchical and networked data model. A specific programming language allows building a semantic knowledge base that is used to interpreting image data by creating and processing instances of this data model. In many operational analysis tasks the approach has proven to produce reliable results fully automatically. It especially extracts structures of interest even in challenging cases such as low signal to noise ratio images, heterogeneous or variable structures of interest or tasks which include a complex semantic.