Research Associate Wellcome/EPSRC Centre for Interventional and Surgical Sciences Department of Computer Science University College London Charles Bell House (WEISS) London, W1W 7TY, UK Email: sophia.bano-at-ucl.ac.uk

Biography

I am a Senior Research Fellow with interests in Computer Vision and Artificial Intelligence applications in Healthcare. Currently, I am associated with the Surgical Robot Vision Group in the Wellcome/EPSRC Centre for Interventional and Surgical Sciences (WEISS) and I am working on the Guided Instrumentation for Fetal Therapy and Surgery (GIFT-Surg) project. I am keen at establishing collaborations at International level to introduce Artificial Intelligence in clinical settings. Previously, I worked on the Augmenting Communication using Environmental Data to Drive Language Prediction (ACE-LP) project as a Postdoctoral Research Assistant at University of Dundee.

I received Bachelor in Mechatronics Engineering and Master in Electrical Engineering degrees from National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Pakistan. Following this, I secured Erasmus Mundus Scholarship for the highly competitive MSc in Computer Vision and Robotics (VIBOT) programme run jointly by Heriot-Watt University (UK), University of Girona (Spain) and University of Burgundy (France), and received my MSc degree in 2011, under the supervision of Prof. Ferdinando Rodriguez y Baena following an internship at Imperial College London (UK). I received a joint PhD from Queen Mary University of London (UK) and Technical University of Catalonia (Spain), through the Erasmus Mundus Fellowship, under the supervision of Prof. Andrea Cavallaro , in 2016.

Research Highlights

Areas of Interest

Computer Vision, Surgical Vision, Surgical Data Science, Medical Imaging, Geometric Understanding, Image Registration, Robotics, Multimodal Content Analysis (Audio, Video, Inertial Sensor), Unconstrained Multimedia Analysis.

News

• [05/2021] [MICCAI2021] Co-organising Women in MICCAI (WiM) Inspirational Leadership legacy (WILL). Click HERE for more details.
• [04/2021] [MICCAI2021] Co-organising EndoVis2021 FetReg Challenge on Placental Vessel Segmentation and Registration in Fetoscopy. Click HERE for more details and registration.
• [04/2021] [MICCAI2021] Co-organising aFfordable healthcare and AI for Resource diverse global health (FAIR). Click HERE for CfP details.
• [01/2021] [ICPR2020] Our work Hybrid Loss with Network Trimming for Disease Recognition in Gastrointestinal Endoscopy was top ranked in the EndoTect Challenge organised at ICPR 2020.
• [10/2020] [MICCAI2020] Our paper on Deep Learning-based Fetoscopic Mosaicking for Field-of-View Expansion won the IJCARS - MICCAI2019 Best Paper Award. Video presentation is available HERE. Checkout the MICCAI society website and these tweets for more details.
• [10/2020] [MICCAI2020] Daily Whiteboard featured our work on Computer-Assisted Fetoscopy Surgery. Check out these tweets about my work.
• [10/2020] [MICCAI2020] Won the 2nd prize in the MICCAI2020 EndoVis Cataracts Segmentation Challenge. Check out my tweet on this.
• [10/2020] [MICCAI2020] Oral presentation on Placental Vessel Segmentation for Fetoscopic Video Mosaicking.
• [08/2020] Paper on Field-of-View Expanision in Fetoscopy published in IJCARS.
• [08/2020] Invited talk on Mosaicking using Deep Leaning for Fetoscopic Surgery at WEISS mini-symposium on Artificial Intelligence in Surgery. Click here to watch the recording of my talk.
• [07/2020] In vivo Fetocopic Videos Dataset with vessel annotations has been released. Click here for details.
• [06/2020] Paper on Placental Vessel Segmentation for Fetoscopic Video Mosaicking accepted at MICCAI 2020.
• [04/2020] Paper on Occlusion Detection in Fetoscopic Surgery accepted at IPCAI 2020 and published in IJCARS.
• [04/2020] Paper on Anatomical Site Classification in Upper GI Endoscopy accepted at IPCAI 2020 and published in IJCARS.
• [09/2020] Co-organise Endoscopic Computer Vision Challenge and workshop at ISBI 2020.
• [06/2019] Paper on Mosaicking using Deep Learning in Fetoscopic Surgery accepted at MICCAI 2019.
• [10/2018] Sophia's picks published in Computer Vision News during MICCAI 2018.
• [09/2018] Co-organise Vision for Interaction and Behaviour Understanding workshop at BMVC 2018.
• [08/2018] Paper on Deep learning for Cross-Modality MR Image Inference accepted at MICCAI 2019 PRIME workshop.
• [06/2018] Joined Surgical Robot Vision Group in WEISS at University College London (UCL), UK.
• [06/2018] Multimodal Focused Interaction Dataset has been released. Click here for details.
• [06/2018] Paper on Multimodal Egocentric Analysis of Focused Interactions accepted to IEEE Access.
• [11/2017] Talk on Egocentric Focused Interaction Classification at BMVA meeting on Human Activity Monitoring & Recognition.
• [08/2017] Paper on Focused Interaction Detection in Egocentric Video accepted at ICCV 2017 EPIC worshop.
• [09/2016] Interview appeared in Computer Vision News Special Section on Women in Computer Vision.
• [09/2016] Attended International Computer Vision Summer School in Sicily, Italy.
• [04/2016] Joined Computer Vision and Image group at University of Dundee (UoD), UK.
• [01/2016] Delievered Public Presentation of PhD Thesis, in line with the Erasmus Mundus Joint Doctorate in Interactive and Cognitive Environments regulations, at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL), UK
• [10/2015] Multimodal User-Generated Videos Dataset has been released. Click here for details.
• [10/2015] Paper on Gyro-based Camera Motion Detection in UGVs accepted at ACM Multimedia Conference 2015.
• [10/2015] Successfully defended PhD thesis at Queen Mary University of London for the award of Erasmus Mundus Joint Doctorate in Interactive and Cognitive Environments.

Selected Publications

For complete list of publications, CLICK HERE.

	AutoFB: Automating Fetal Biometry Estimation from Standard Ultrasound Planes S. Bano, B. Dromey, F. Vasconcelos, R. Napolitano, A. L. David, D. M. Peebles, D. Stoyanov 24th International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention (MICCAI), accepted, Springer, 2021 [arxiv-preprint]
	Automating Periodontal Bone Loss Measurement via Dental Landmark Localisation R. P. Danks, S. Bano, A. Orishko, H. J. Tan, F. M. Sancho, F. D'Aiuto, & D. Stoyanov International Journal of Computer Assisted Radiology and Surgery (IJCARS), Vol.16, pp. 1189–1199, 2021 [PDF] [IPCAI2021 talk] [Slides]
	FetReg: Placental Vessel Segmentation and Registration in Fetoscopy Challenge Dataset S. Bano, A. Casella, F. Vasconcelos, S. Moccia, G. Attilakos, R. Wimalasundera, A. L. David, D. Paladini, J. Deprest, E. D. Momi, L. S. Mattos, D. Stoyanov arXiv preprint arXiv:2106.05923, 2021 [PDF]
	A Fluidic Soft Robot for Needle Guidance and Motion Compensation in Intratympanic Steroid Injections L. Lindenroth, S. Bano, A. Stilli, J. G. Manjaly, & D. Stoyanov IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 6(2), 871-878, 2021 [PDF]
	Deep learning for detection and segmentation of artefact and disease instances in gastrointestinal endoscopy S. Ali, M. Dmitrieva, N. Ghatwary, S. Bano, G. Polat, A. Temizel, A. Krenzer et al. Medical Image Analysis, 70, 102002, 2021 [PDF]
	Deep Learning-based Fetoscopic Mosaicking for Field-of-View Expansion Sophia Bano, Francisco Vasconcelos, Marcel Tella Amo, George Dwyer, Caspar Gruijthuijsen, Jan Deprest, Sebastien Ourselin, Emmanuel Vander Poorten, Tom Vercauteren, Danail Stoyanov International Journal of Computer Assisted Radiology and Surgery (IJCARS), 2020 [PDF] [Talk][IJCARS - MICCAI2019 Best Paper Award]
	Deep Human Activity Recognition with Localisation of Wearable Sensors Isah A. Lawal, Sophia Bano IEEE Access, 2020 [PDF]
	Deep Placental Vessel Segmentation for Fetoscopic Mosaicking Sophia Bano, Francisco Vasconcelos, Luke M. Shepherd, Emmanuel Vander Poorten, Tom Vercauteren, Sebastien Ourselin, Anna L. David, Jan Deprest, Danail Stoyanov International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention (MICCAI), 2020 [Arxiv-preprint] [Data][Video] [MICCAI2020 talk]
	FetNet: A Recurrent Convolutional Network for Occlusion Identification in Fetoscopic Videos Sophia Bano, Francisco Vasconcelos, Emmanuel Vander Poorten, Tom Vercauteren, Sebastien Ourselin, Jan Deprest, Danail Stoyanov International Journal of Computer Assisted Radiology and Surgery (IJCARS), 2020 [PDF] [Video] [IPCAI2020 talk] [Slides]
	Deep Learning Based Anatomical Site Classification for Upper Gastrointestinal Endoscopy Qi He, Sophia Bano, Omer F. Ahmad, Bo Yang, Xin Chen, Pietro Valdastri, Laurence B. Lovat, Danail Stoyanov, Siyang Zuo International Journal of Computer Assisted Radiology and Surgery (IJCARS), 2020 [PDF] [IPCAI2020 talk] [Slides]
	Deep Sequential Mosaicking of Fetoscopic Videos Sophia Bano, Francisco Vasconcelos, Marcel Tella Amo, George Dwyer, Caspar Gruijthuijsen, Jan Deprest, Sebastien Ourselin, Emmanuel Vander Poorten, Tom Vercauteren, Danail Stoyanov International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention (MICCAI), 2019 [PDF] [Video] [Poster]
	Deep Human Activity Recognition using Wearable Sensors Isah A. Lawal, Sophia Bano International Conference on PErvasive Technologies Related to Assistive Environments (PETRA), 2019 [Preprint]
	XmoNet: A Fully Convolutional Network for Cross-Modality MR Image Inference Sophia Bano, Muhammad Asad, Ahmed E. Fetit, Islem Rekik International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention - PRIME Workshop (MICCAI), 2018 [PDF][Poster]
	Multimodal Egocentric Analysis of Focused Interactions Sophia Bano, Tamas Suveges, Jianguo Zhang, Stephen J. Mckenna IEEE Access, 2018 [PDF] [Data] Finding Time Together: Detection and Classification of Focused Interaction in Egocentric Video Sophia Bano, Jianguo Zhang, Stephen J. Mckenna IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision - EPIC Workshop (ICCV), 2017 [PDF][Poster] [Data]
	ViComp: Composition of User-Generated Videos Sophia Bano, Andrea Cavallaro Springer Multimedia Tools and Applications(MTA), 2016 [PDF]
	Gyro-based Camera Motion Detection in User-Generated Videos Sophia Bano, Andrea Cavallaro ACM Multimedia Conference (ACM-MM), 2015 [PDF][Poster][Data]
	Discovery and Organization of Multi-Camera User-Generated Videos of the Same Event Sophia Bano, Andrea Cavallaro Elsevier Information Sciences, 2015 [PDF]
	Smooth Path Planning for a Biologically-Inspired Neurosurgical Probe Sophia Bano, Seong Young Ko, Ferdinando Rodriguez y Baena International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 2012 [PDF][Poster]

For complete list of publications, CLICK HERE.

Datasets

Fetoscopy Placenta Data

The fetoscopy placenta dataset is associated with our MICCAI2020 publication titled “Deep Placental Vessel Segmentation for Fetoscopic Mosaicking” (insert arxiv link). The dataset contains 483 frames with ground-truth vessel segmentation annotations taken from six different in vivo fetoscopic procedure videos. The dataset also includes six unannotated in vivo continuous fetoscopic video clips (950 frames) with predicted vessel segmentation maps obtained from the leave-one-out cross validation of our method.





Visit Fetoscopy Placenta Dataset website to access the data.

Reference

Deep Placental Vessel Segmentation for Fetoscopic Mosaicking

S. Bano, F. Vasconcelos, L. M. Shepherd, E. Vander Poorten, T. Vercauteren, S. Ourselin, A. L. David, J. Deprest, D. Stoyanov
International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention (MICCAI), 2020
[arxiv-preprint] [Data][Video]

Focused Interaction Dataset

The Focused Interaction Dataset} contains 19 egocentric continuous videos (378 mins) captured, at high resolution (1080p) and at a frame rate of 25 fps, using a shoulder-mounted GoPro Hero4 camera and a smartphone (for inertial and GPS data), at 18 different locations and with 16 different conversational partners. This dataset is annotated into periods of no focused interaction, focused interaction (non-walk) and focused interaction (walk). This dataset is captured at several indoor and outdoor locations at different times of the day and night, and in different environmental conditions.





Visit Focused Interaction Dataset website to access the data.

References

• Multimodal Egocentric Analysis of Focused Interactions

  S. Bano, , T. Suveges, J. Zhang, S. J. Mckenna
  IEEE Access, Vol. 6, pp. 37493 - 37505, 2018
  [PDF] [Data]

• Finding Time Together: Detection and Classification of Focused Interaction in Egocentric Video

  S. Bano, J. Zhang, S. J. McKenna
  IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision - EPIC Workshop (ICCV), 23-29 October, Venice, Italy, 2017
  [PDF][Poster] [Data]

Multimodal User-Generated Videos (UGV) Dataset

The multimodal dataset contains 24 user-generated videos (70 mins) captured using handheld mobile phones in high brightness and low brightness scenarios (e.g. day and night-time). The video (audio and visual) along with the inertial sensor (accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer) data is provided for each video. These recordings are captured using single camera at distinct timings and locations, changing lights and varying camera motions. Each captured video was manually annotated to get labels for camera motions (pan,tilt, shake) at each second. The ground-truth labels are included in the dataset.





Visit UGV Dataset website to access the data.

Reference

• Gyro-based Camera Motion Detection in User-Generated Videos

  S. Bano and A. Cavallaro
  ACM Multimedia (ACM-MM), 26-30 October, Brisbane, Australia, 2015
  [Pdf][Poster][Data]

Services

Organising roles:

• Co-organised 2nd Endoscopy Computer Vision (EndoCV2020) Challenge and Workshop in conjuction with the 17th IEEE International Symposium on Biomedical Imaging (ISBI), Iowa (Virtual Conference), USA, 2020
• Co-organised Vision for Interaction and Behaviour undErstanding (VIBE2018) workshop in conjuction with the 29th British Machine Vision Conference (BMVC), Newcastle, UK, 2018

Peer Review roles:

• Area chair for 24th International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention (2021)
• Area chair for 16th International Conference on Computer Vision Theory and Applications (2021)
• Area chair for 15th International Conference on Computer Vision Theory and Applications (2020)
• Grant proposal reviewer for Health Research Council of New Zealand (2019)
• Program committee member for the Women in Computer Vision Workshop at CVPR (201821)

Journal Reviewers:

• IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters
• Elsevier Pattern Recognition Letters
• IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging
• IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics
• IEEE Transactions on Multimedia
• IET Computer Vision
• Springer The Visual Computer

Conference Reviewers:

• Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention (MICCAI 2020)
• International Symposium on Intelligent Computing Systems (ISICS 2020)
• Predictive Intelligence in Medicine (PRIME-MICCAI 2019)
• Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention (MICCAI 2019)
• International Conference on COmputer Vision (ICCV 2019)
• Medical Imaging with Deep Learning (MIDL 2019)
• Assistive Computer Vision and Robotics (ECCV-ACVR 2018)
• Women in Computer Vision (CVPR-WiCV 2018)
• ACM Multimedia (ACMMM 2016)