🍩 Database of Original & Non-Theoretical Uses of Topology

(found 2 matches in 0.00094s)

  1. Predicting Clinical Outcomes in Glioblastoma: An Application of Topological and Functional Data Analysis (2019)

    Lorin Crawford, Anthea Monod, Andrew X. Chen, Sayan Mukherjee, Raúl Rabadán
    Abstract Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is an aggressive form of human brain cancer that is under active study in the field of cancer biology. Its rapid progression and the relative time cost of obtaining molecular data make other readily available forms of data, such as images, an important resource for actionable measures in patients. Our goal is to use information given by medical images taken from GBM patients in statistical settings. To do this, we design a novel statistic—the smooth Euler characteristic transform (SECT)—that quantifies magnetic resonance images of tumors. Due to its well-defined inner product structure, the SECT can be used in a wider range of functional and nonparametric modeling approaches than other previously proposed topological summary statistics. When applied to a cohort of GBM patients, we find that the SECT is a better predictor of clinical outcomes than both existing tumor shape quantifications and common molecular assays. Specifically, we demonstrate that SECT features alone explain more of the variance in GBM patient survival than gene expression, volumetric features, and morphometric features. The main takeaways from our findings are thus 2-fold. First, they suggest that images contain valuable information that can play an important role in clinical prognosis and other medical decisions. Second, they show that the SECT is a viable tool for the broader study of medical imaging informatics. Supplementary materials for this article, including a standardized description of the materials available for reproducing the work, are available as an online supplement.

  2. Measuring Hidden Phenotype: Quantifying the Shape of Barley Seeds Using the Euler Characteristic Transform (2021)

    Erik J. Amézquita, Michelle Y. Quigley, Tim Ophelders, Jacob B. Landis, Daniel Koenig, Elizabeth Munch, Daniel H. Chitwood
    Abstract Shape plays a fundamental role in biology. Traditional phenotypic analysis methods measure some features but fail to measure the information embedded in shape comprehensively. To extract, compare, and analyze this information embedded in a robust and concise way, we turn to Topological Data Analysis (TDA), specifically the Euler Characteristic Transform. TDA measures shape comprehensively using mathematical representations based on algebraic topology features. To study its use, we compute both traditional and topological shape descriptors to quantify the morphology of 3121 barley seeds scanned with X-ray Computed Tomography (CT) technology at 127 micron resolution. The Euler Characteristic Transform measures shape by analyzing topological features of an object at thresholds across a number of directional axes. A Kruskal-Wallis analysis of the information encoded by the topological signature reveals that the Euler Characteristic Transform picks up successfully the shape of the crease and bottom of the seeds. Moreover, while traditional shape descriptors can cluster the seeds based on their accession, topological shape descriptors can cluster them further based on their panicle. We then successfully train a support vector machine (SVM) to classify 28 different accessions of barley based exclusively on the shape of their grains. We observe that combining both traditional and topological descriptors classifies barley seeds better than using just traditional descriptors alone. This improvement suggests that TDA is thus a powerful complement to traditional morphometrics to comprehensively describe a multitude of “hidden” shape nuances which are otherwise not detected.