arXiv Computer Vision

Segmentation Confidence for Arbitrary CNNs

The paper presents a method for estimating segmentation confidence in convolutional neural networks without requiring custom architectures or retraining. It introduces voxel‑based uncertainty estimation that can be integrated into existing pipelines and proposes a novel technique to derive a single confidence score from uncertainty maps. Experiments across various regions of interest and imaging modalities demonstrate that the proposed score predicts segmentation performance on unseen data.

arXiv Machine Learning
Oct 15

Contrastive uncertainty learning for robust multi-structure segmentation in lower-pelvic MR

The paper introduces Contrastive Uncertainty Learning (CUL), a supervised framework that leverages voxel‑wise predictive uncertainty to guide representation learning for multi‑structure segmentation in lower‑pelvic MRI. Using Monte Carlo Dropout, CUL identifies uncertain voxels and shapes the embedding space so that low‑uncertainty, correctly predicted features become stable while high‑uncertainty or misclassified features are repelled, preventing feature collapse at challenging boundaries. Evaluated on 589 prostate MRI scans with a ViT‑based UperNet decoder, CUL achieves comparable Dice scores to a baseline while significantly reducing surface distance for most structures, and ablation studies confirm the necessity of both uncertainty‑guided sampling and the contrastive objective.

By Bilal Sidiqi, Yipei Wang, Wen Yan, Shaheer U. Saeed, Daniel C. Alexander, Yipeng Hu
arXiv AI
Aug 20

The Impact of CutMix on Reliability and Robustness in Semantic Segmentation

The paper investigates how the CutMix data augmentation technique affects reliability and robustness in semantic segmentation. It evaluates two architectures—CNN-based DeepLabV3+ and transformer-based SegFormer—on both in-domain and out-of-domain data. Results show that CutMix has a minor effect on segmentation accuracy but consistently improves reliability, especially under distribution shifts, by enhancing calibration and uncertainty quality.

By Steven Landgraf, Markus Ulrich
arXiv Machine Learning
Aug 27

Performance uncertainty in medical image analysis: a large-scale investigation of confidence intervals

The study investigates how confidence intervals (CIs) behave in medical imaging AI by analyzing 24 segmentation and classification tasks with 19 models per task, various metrics, aggregation strategies, and CI methods. It finds that required sample sizes for reliable CIs vary widely, CI behavior depends on performance metrics, aggregation strategy, and problem type, and that different CI methods differ in reliability and precision. The authors provide a decision tree to guide researchers in selecting appropriate CI methods, aiming to support future consensus guidelines on reporting performance uncertainty.

By Pascaline Andr\'e (Sorbonne Universit\'e, Institut du Cerveau - Paris Brain Institute - ICM, CNRS, Inria, Inserm, AP-HP, H\^opital de la Piti\'e-Salp\^etri\`ere, Paris, France), Charles Heitz (Sorbonne Universit\'e, Institut du Cerveau - Paris Brain Institute - ICM, CNRS, Inria, Inserm, AP-HP, H\^opital de la Piti\'e-Salp\^etri\`ere, Paris, France), Evangelia Christodoulou (German Cancer Research Center), Annika Reinke (German Cancer Research Center), Carole H. Sudre (Unit for Lifelong Health and Ageing at UCL, Department of Population Science and Experimental Medicine and Hawkes InstituteCentre for Medical Image Computing, Department of Computer Science, University College London, UK), Michela Antonelli (School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Science, King's College London, UK), Patrick Godau (German Cancer Research Center), M. Jorge Cardoso (School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Science, King's College London, UK), Antoine Gilson (Sorbonne Universit\'e, Institut du Cerveau - Paris Brain Institute - ICM, CNRS, Inria, Inserm, AP-HP, H\^opital de la Piti\'e-Salp\^etri\`ere, Paris, France), Sophie Tezenas du Montcel (Sorbonne Universit\'e, Institut du Cerveau - Paris Brain Institute - ICM, CNRS, Inria, Inserm, AP-HP, H\^opital de la Piti\'e-Salp\^etri\`ere, Paris, France), Ga\"el Varoquaux (SODA project team, Inria Saclay-\^Ile-de-France, France), Lena Maier-Hein (German Cancer Research Center), Olivier Colliot (Sorbonne Universit\'e, Institut du Cerveau - Paris Brain Institute - ICM, CNRS, Inria, Inserm, AP-HP, H\^opital de la Piti\'e-Salp\^etri\`ere, Paris, France)
arXiv Machine Learning
Aug 18

Beyond Boundary Noise: Aggregated Aleatoric Uncertainty Fails to Capture Presence Ambiguity in 3D Lung Nodule Segmentation

arXiv:2608. 14766v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Uncertainty estimation is critical for the safe clinical deployment of deep learning in medical image segmentation, with aleatoric uncertainty theoretically designed to capture irreducible data ambiguity.

By Simon Baur, Arne Schernich, Ekin B\"oke, Wojciech Samek, Jackie Ma
arXiv Machine Learning
Jul 28

Trustworthy Medical Segmentation: Uncertainty-Aware U-Net Evaluation Under Clinical Image Degradation

arXiv:2607. 22727v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Medical image segmentation models often report high benchmark accuracy under ideal imaging conditions, yet their failures under clinical degradation can be quiet: sensor noise, patient motion, low- resolution acquisition, and contrast variability may all alter model behavior without producing an obvious warning.

By Pranav Kaliaperumal, Manisha Kaliaperumal