Principles and Purpose

MIUA is a multi-disciplinary annual conference. It aims to be the principal UK forum for communicating research progress within the community interested in image analysis applied to medicine and related biological sciences. This document defines the principles that specify the form and purpose of MIUA. In setting this document as a set of principles it is recognised that the form and purpose of the conference may change over time. The principles laid out in the document should be subject to review by the steering committee.

Interdisciplinary Community

Medical Image Analysis is an intrinsically interdisciplinary activity, drawing on expertise from computer science, engineering, physics, clinical practice and fundamental bioscience. Many researchers with an interest in MIUA topics will also belong to wider communities in each of these disciplines, which overlap, but are not congruent with, the MIUA community.

Scope of the Conference

MIUA concerns itself with the interpretation of images that are important to medicine and related biological sciences. The principal interest of the conference is in methods of analysis that extract meaningful and quantitative information from appropriate images. The images may come from established diagnostic or therapeutic imaging modalities, or from innovative developments of these, or novel experimental imaging methods. Other topics of interest include: the physical principles behind novel imaging methods, the theoretical and statistical basis for algorithm design, thorough and quantitative evaluations of image analysis applications that demonstrate the clinical or scientific validity of novel or established methods, and the use of image analysis to provide visual feedback during clinical procedures.

Format of the Conference

The conference takes place annually in the United Kingdom. The format of the conference is not specified in this statement of principles. It is likely that the format will evolve over time along with the size and interests of the community. However, it is important to retain some stability in the format. Annex 1 specifies the current format of the conference and the procedures for conducting it. Changes to the format and procedures should be discussed by the steering committee and approved by a majority of members. If such changes are agreed, Annex 1 should be amended accordingly so that there is an up-to date statement of how the conference should be conducted.

Criteria for Inclusion

The main criterion for inclusion of papers in MIUA should be that the work described should make a contribution to the body of knowledge of the subject in the United Kingdom research community. As such, the work should be scientifically sound and recent. Novelty of the work itself, while desirable, is not of over-riding importance. MIUA can provide a useful forum for communicating interesting research that may have been published elsewhere, but which may not be widely known throughout the UK MIUA community. The key issue is that work should make a contribution to knowledge in terms of scientific or technical insight or quantitative analysis. In particular, it is acceptable that papers submitted to other conferences may be simultaneously submitted to MIUA (though this acceptability may not be reciprocal). Due to the significant overlap between the technical interests of MIUA and the British Machine Vision Association, papers with identical content may be simultaneously submitted to the British Machine Vision Conference (BMVC) and MIUA and, if accepted, presented at both conferences.

Steering Committee

The membership of the steering committee will normally comprise the current, immediate past and immediate future conference organisers and others co-opted as necessary. The committee will have no fewer than four and no more than seven members. No member of the committee will serve for more than three years. As the roles of past, current and future organiser change immediately after each conference, retiring members will be replaced at that time. The chairman will be elected by a majority of the committee to serve for two years. The committee will appoint one of its members to act as committee secretary. The committee will meet as necessary to discuss business. At least one meeting should be held annually at the conference. Discussions may be held by email without the necessity to call formal meetings. The secretary will retain a record of discussion and maintain a repository of relevant documentation. Decisions of the committee will be taken by a majority of committee members; those members not present at meetings should have the opportunity to vote by email. The main tasks of the steering committee are:

• To actively promote the conference
• To seek sponsorship of the conference from commercial and public organisations
• To foster and maintain links with appropriate professional organisations, including the British Machine Vision Association, the Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine, the British Institute of Radiology, the British chapter of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, the British Computer Society
• To assist the organiser of the current conference, reviewing arrangements and ensuring that the conference conforms with the principles in this document and is adequately managed
• To oversee the financial arrangements of each conference and ensure continuing financial stability of the conferences
• To approve a review committee for each conference, proposed by the organiser, and ensure that the papers accepted for the conference are of suitable content and scientific value. The committee should ensure that the review committee properly represents the breadth of the MIUA community
• To seek volunteers or nominations of individuals to organise future conferences and, where necessary, to choose among candidates
• To seek individuals who may be co-opted onto the steering committee to fill specific roles or to replace retiring members
• To review and update this document as necessary every three years, and to review and amend Annex 1 as appropriate

Annex 1: Normal Conduct of the Conference

The form of the conference

The conference takes place over one and a half or two days. Oral sessions consist of twenty-minute presentations, including five-minute question periods. A number of papers are presented as posters. Specific sessions are dedicated to poster viewing. Invited keynote talks may be included in the programme at the discretion of the organiser. The organiser of each conference should arrange it at a suitable time, taking reasonable care to avoid clashes with other conferences that might attract MIUA delegates, both in the dates of the conference and the deadlines for paper submission. A conference dinner at the end of the first day provides a useful setting for maintaining personal contacts between members of the community. Conference organisers should maintain a current list of useful facts, actions, dates etc. to act as a guide for future organisers.

Technical scope of the conference

The current list of suitable topics is the following.

Analysis of time series	Quantitative image analysis	Analysis of functional images
Artificial intelligence in imaging	Segmentation/classification	Cardiac imaging
Decision support	Shape analysis	Computer-aided pathology
Image interpretation	Statistical methods in imaging	Computer-aided radiology
Image perception	Systematic testing & validation	Computer assisted surgery
Image registration	Texture analysis	Human computer interaction
Intelligent imaging systems	Virtual reality	Image guided intervention
Motion analysis	Visualisation	Tissue perfusion
Multi modality	Data fusion	Novel imaging methods
Analysis of cellular images	Design of image analysis algorithms	Imaging physics
Clinical and scientific evaluation of imaging studies

Paper submission and review

Papers are submitted for review in final form, with sufficient detail, background and references to allow scientific evaluation. Each paper is evaluated by three reviewers from the review committee. Decisions on acceptance for oral presentation, poster presentation or rejection are made by the review committee, chaired by the conference organiser, based on the reviewers’ advice. It may be sufficient for the review committee to reach its final decision by email.

Proceedings

Accepted papers are published in full in bound proceedings available at the conference. It is the duty of the organiser to see to it that the proceedings are appropriately registered with an ISBN number so that papers may be cited. An on-line version of the proceedings is made available on the MIUA website