Cornell University
Library
Cornell UniversityLibrary

eCommons

Help
Log In(current)
  1. Home
  2. Cornell University Graduate School
  3. Cornell Theses and Dissertations
  4. Making AI Accessible to Radiology: Robust Pre-processing, Segmentation, and Adaptation for Medical Imaging

Making AI Accessible to Radiology: Robust Pre-processing, Segmentation, and Adaptation for Medical Imaging

File(s)
He_cornellgrad_0058F_15572.pdf (10.24 MB)
Permanent Link(s)
https://doi.org/10.7298/2v3n-fw98
https://hdl.handle.net/1813/126533
Collections
Cornell Theses and Dissertations
Author
He, Xinzi
Abstract

This dissertation studies a question that limits the clinical usefulness of imaging AI: how can a model remain usable when data are heterogeneous, target structures are irregular, and deployment conditions change after training? I argue that accessibility in radiology AI is not achieved by a single high-performing model. Rather, it emerges when the pipeline, from input preparation, to segmentation representation, to post-deployment adaptation, to quantitative reporting, is designed to tolerate realistic variability without imposing excessive operational burden on clinicians. The thesis develops this argument through three methodological contributions and two application-oriented chapters. First, I present Neural Pre-Processing (NPP), a weakly supervised framework for end-to-end brain MRI pre-processing. NPP jointly addresses skull stripping, intensity normalization, and affine spatial normalization while separating geometry-preserving appearance correction from spatial transformation. This formulation improves speed and accuracy relative to traditional stepwise pipelines and makes downstream model inputs more usable. Second, I introduce InstaBound, a shape-agnostic approach to instance segmentation based on regression of an instance-aware signed distance field. Unlike methods that assume star-convexity or require multi-branch gradient heads, InstaBound uses a single branch to encode semantic and geometric information. This representation improves separation of touching structures while keeping the architecture simple. Third, I develop Seg-NuSA, a replay-free continual adaptation strategy for medical image segmentation. Seg-NuSA constrains updates to low-interference subspaces derived from pretrained weights, reducing catastrophic forgetting under privacy-constrained deployment. Across cross-modality and sequential adaptation settings, it yields a stronger retention-adaptation trade-off than fine-tuning and regularization-based baselines. These methodological chapters are then connected to a translational program in autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD). I synthesize work on test-retest reproducibility, MRI quality control, liver cyst segmentation, pancreatic cyst detection, and the TraceOrg platform for automated measurement of kidney, liver, and cyst volumes. I then show how these workflow advances enable biomarker studies including growth-rate modeling, water therapy, tolvaptan response assessment, pregnancy-associated cyst dynamics, and spleen contouring in myelofibrosis. Taken together, the dissertation advances a framework for accessible radiology AI in which technical robustness, deployment stability, and measurement reproducibility are treated as mutually dependent design goals rather than independent stages of a pipeline.

Description
127 pages
Date Issued
2026-05
Keywords
Artificial Intelligence
•
Deep learning
•
Radiology
•
Segmentation
Committee Chair
Sabuncu, Mert
Committee Member
Doerschuk, Peter
Zabih, Ramin
Degree Discipline
Biomedical Engineering
Degree Name
Ph. D., Biomedical Engineering
Degree Level
Doctor of Philosophy
Type
dissertation or thesis

Site Statistics | Help

About eCommons | Policies | Terms of use | Contact Us

copyright © 2002-2026 Cornell University Library | Privacy | Web Accessibility Assistance