Report: KU-UM Collaboration between Universiti Malaya and Kyushu University


(Jeannie Hsiu Ding Wong, Kwan Hoong Ng, Hidetaka Arimura, Masatoshi Kondo)
Department of Biomedical Imaging, Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Division of Medical Quantum Science, Kyushu University, Japan

Introduction

The 4th Symposium on Intelligent Data Science for Radiological Imaging (iDSRI) between Universiti Malaya and Kyushu University was successfully held on the March 7, 2023 at the Department of Biomedical Imaging, Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Malaya, Malaysia. The meeting was co-host by the Medical Physics Division of the Malaysian Institute of Physics and the Department of Biomedical Imaging, Universiti Malaya. The aim of this symposium is to enhance research and teaching collaboration between the two universities in medical physics.

Brief history

The symposium was a result of a long standing collaboration between the two universities, starting with the signing of the memorandum of understanding between Universiti Malaya and Kyushu University. Under this collaboration, we discussed student exchange programme, short-term visit and attachment.

This led to the first visit by Professor Arimura and his team in March 13-14, 2017 and subsequently in December 13 – 14, 2018. Since then, we had started a research collaboration on radiomics research in approach to the identification of EGFR mutations among patients with NSCLC and published a paper. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the physical visits were halted for a couple of years. Then in March 2021, the first iDSRI was held to continue the collaborative relationship between the two universities in the new paradigm. This was followed by the subsequent iDSRI, held twice a year, with the two universities hosting it alternatively. Table 1 – 3 shows the list of presentations and speakers for the first three iDSRI held online over Zoom and Google Meet platforms. The presentations covered various disease domain, medical imaging modalities, from radiomics, artificial intelligence to radiological science and dosimetry research.

Table 1 : The 1st Symposium on Intelligent Data Science for Radiological Imaging held on September 13, 2021.

Talk titleSpeaker
Genetic biomarker profiling in lung cancer and its role in treatment and prognosisProf. Chong Kin Liam
Imaging in COVID-19 : The challenges in radiology and artificial intelligenceDr. Wai Yee Chan
Response Assessment of Cancer TherapyAssoc. Prof. Mohammad Nazri
Analysis of pulmonary blood flow using CT and MRIProf. Hidetake Yabuuchi
Radiological technology education utilizing virtual realityProf. Toshioh Fujibuchi
Radiomics-based imaging biopsy approaches for precision radiologyProf. Hidetaka Arimura
New biomarkers for beta-thalassemia using MRIMs. Umi Nabilah Ismail
Magnetic Resonance Imaging Phenotypes of Breast Cancer Molecular SubtypesDr. Nazimah Mumin
Semi-supervised GAN-based Radiomics Model for Data Augmentation in Breast Ultrasound Mass ClassificationMs. Pang Ting
Accelerating magnetic resonance imaging with compressed SENSE of quasi-dynamic shoulderMs. Namie Asano
Proposal of a radiation protection education method using a x-reality visualization tool for scattered radiation behavior in a web browserMr. Kazuki Nishi
Radiomics analysis for prognostic prediction for time to progression in non-small cell lung cancer patients treated with stereotactic ablative radiotherapyMr. Takumi Kodama

Table 2 : The 2nd iDSRI held on March 16, 2022

Talk titleSpeaker
Recent achievements of radiomics researchProf Hidetaka Arimura
AI roles in Healthcare ApplicationsDr Shier Nee Saw
Research in Radiation DosimetryAssoc Prof Dr Jeannie Wong
Research in radiation protection using monte carlo simulation and virtual realityProf Toshioh Fujibuchi

Table 3 : The 3rd iDSRI held online on September 20, 2022

Talk titleSpeaker
Sustainable AI for sustainable development goals (SDGs)Prof. Loo Chu Kiong
Overview of radiomics in breast cancer diagnosis and prognostication.Prof. Kartini Rahmat
Correlating COVID-19 disease severity and pulmonary vascular manifestations on CT pulmonary angiography.Dr Farhana Fadhli
Situations and reuse of dual-energy CT dataAssistant Professor (Lecturer) Masatoshi Kondo
Data science in clinical imaging: toward its applicationAssistant Professor Masateru Kawakubo
Usefulness of recent image processing for digital radiography systemAssistant Professor Nobukazu Tanaka
A radiomics study: classification of breast lesions by textural features from mammography imagesMiss Nishta Letchumanan
A Radiomics-Reporting Network with Text Attention for Interpretable deep learning in BI-RADS classification of mammographic calcification.Miss Pang Ting
Automatic localization of anatomical landmarks in fluoroscopy images via deep learningMr Wilbur Fum
CycleGAN-based Synthesis of virtual contrast-enhanced MR Images for prostate cancer patientsMr. Yuya Hirakawa
Evaluation of utility of MR spirometry using 4D FreeBreathingMr. Tomonori Matsushita
Development of a warning system for occupational exposure using body tracking with a depth camera and AR markersMr. Kenta Honiden

Table 4 : The 4th iDSRI held in hybrid mode on March 7, 2023

Talk titleSpeaker
Achievements of radiomics AI research and its coming issuesProfessor Dr Hidetaka Arimura
Embracing humanistic artificial intelligence in medicineEmeritus Professor Dr Kwan Hoong Ng
Reuse of dual-energy CT dataAssistant Professor Dr Masatoshi Kondou
Generation of Digitally Reconstructed (Fluoroscopy-alike) Radiographs from Contrasted Computed Tomography Volumetric DataDr Li Kuo Tan
Improving 3D breast reconstruction using photogrammetry techniqueAssociate Professor Dr Mee Hoong See
PET-CT scan time optimisationAssociate Professor Dr Mohammad Nazri Md Shah
Topological radiomics prediction of cancer relapse in non-small cell lung cancer patients prior to stereotactic ablative radiotherapyMr Takumi Kodama

In March 2023, Professor Arimura led a 3-person team for the third visit to Malaysia. During this visit, the 4th iDSRI (Table 4) was held as a hybrid meeting at the Universiti Malaya. Seven speakers were invited, they were Professor Dr Hidetaka Arimura, Assistant Professor Dr Masatoshi Kondo, and Mr Takumi Kodama from Kyushu University and Emeritus Professor Dr Kwan Hoong Ng, Dr Li Kuo Tan, Associate Professor Dr Mee Hoong See, and Associate Professor Dr Mohammad Nazri Md Shah from the Universiti Malaya. The symposium was chaired by Dr Jeannie Wong and Dr Tan. The symposium was well attended with close to 60 attendees, including online and physical attendees.

Emeritus Prof Ng closed the symposium quoting from ‘The Little Prince’ “As for the future, your task is not to foresee it, but to enable it.” – Saint-Exupery. The visitors from Kyushu Universiti were also presented with souvenir as a token of appreciation from the International Unit of the Faculty of Medicine (IUFOM), Universiti Malaya. The symposium ended with a group photo taken (Figure 1).

During the visit, Prof Arimura and his team also met the Deputy Vice Chancellor (Academic & International), Prof Yvonne Lim at her office at the UM chancellery. At the Faculty of Medicine, they also met with the deputy dean of student affairs, Associate Professor Dr Tengku Ahmad Shahrizal Tengku Dato’ Omar, and the deputy dean of postgraduate studies, Professor Dr Shahrul Bahyah kamaruzzaman.

In the UM-KU collaboration, we explored activities such as student exchange and short-term attachment.


Figure 1: Meeting the Deputy Vice Chancellor (Academic & International), Prof Yvonne Lim

Figure 2: Meeting the deputy deans of the Faculty of Medicine. From left: Emeritus Professor Dr Ng Kwan Hoong, Deputy dean (Student affairs) Associate Professor Dr Tengku Ahmad Shahrizal Tengku Dato’ Omar, Professor Dr Hidetaka Arimura, Deputy dean (Postgraduate) Professor Dr Shahrul Bahyah kamaruzzaman, Assistant Professor Dr Masatoshi Kondo, Mr Takumi Kodama, and Associate Professor Dr Jeannie Wong.

Figure 3: Group photo of the 4th iDSRI.