The Ninth IEEE International Conference on Machine
Learning and Applications (ICMLA 2010)

Sponsored by AMLA, WSU, CSUB and IEEE SMCS (Tech. Sponsorship)

Bethesda, Washington D.C., USA 12-14 Dec. 2010

 
Special Session Call for Papers

Special Session on

Machine Learning Methods in Cancer and Radiation Therapy

http://www.icmla-conference.org/icmla10/

AIMS AND SCOPE

Cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide and can affect people at all ages. It is responsible for about 13% of all deaths in the world. Cancer treatment is based on different methods, such as surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, targeted gene therapy or combinations of these. The majority of cancer patients receive chemotherapy and radiotherapy as part of their care. Patients tend to respond differently to standard care. This is due to complex interactions between the treatment method, disease, and patient’s bio-profile. Moreover, radiation therapy involves the use of high-energy radiation beams to kill cancer cells, while sparing nearby normal tissues. Computational techniques, such as Machine Learning (ML) techniques, have been increasingly used in radiotherapy to help accurately localize the tumors in images, precisely target the radiation to the tumors, analyze treatment outcomes, and improve treatment quality and patient safety. This session aims to provide a platform to present and discuss recent advancements in the application of ML methods in the radiotherapy field.

Topics:

This session would solicit original research papers on modeling treatment outcomes (radiotherapy, chemotherapy, etc.) of cancer patients as well as on general application of ML in radiotherapy, including but not limited to the following topics:

Treatment outcomes modeling using linear and nonlinear kernel-based models

Extraction of cancer prognostic factors from clinically and biologically relevant data

Analysis of high through-put biotechnology data (genomics and proteomics) related to treatment response

Treatment metrics and biomarkers methods for predicting outcomes

Imaging patterns as predictor of response

Image guided radiotherapy

Medical image segmentation and analysis

Machine learning to support diagnosis

Analysis and prediction of anatomical motion

Gating of respiratory motion

Treatment outcome analysis

Treatment quality assurance

IMORTANT DATES

Paper Submission Deadline:                   July 15, 2010
Notification of acceptance:                        September 7, 2010
Camera-ready papers & Pre-registration:    October 1, 2010
The ICMLA Conference:                            December 12-14, 2010
 
This special session will be held as part of the ICMLA’10 conference. Authors should submit papers through the main conference submission website. Papers must correspond to the requirements detailed in the instructions to authors. All conference submissions will be handled electronically. Detailed instructions for submitting the papers are provided on the conference home page at: 

http://www.icmla-conference.org/icmla10/.

Accepted papers must be presented by one of the authors to be published in the conference proceedings. Authors with accepted papers will be invited to send expanded manuscripts to be published in a special issue of the new Journal for Radiation Oncology Informatics (JROI). If you have any questions, do not hesitate to direct your questions to ielnaqa@medphys.mcgill.ca or any of the program committee members below.

Program Committee Members:

· Dr. Martin J. Murphy, Virginia Commonwealth University

· Dr. Steve Jiang, University of California, San Diego, USA

· Dr. Lei Xing, Stanford University School of Medicine, USA

· Dr. Shiva K Das, Duke University, USA

· Dr. Jan Seuntjens, McGill University, Canada

· Dr. John Kildea, McGill University, Canada

· Dr. Mustapha Lebbah, University of Paris 13, France

· Dr. Warren D'Souza, University of Maryland School of Medicine, USA

· Dr. Andre Dekker, MAASTRO Clinic, Netherlands

· Dr. Paul Putora, Kantonsspital St. Gallen, Switzerland

· Mr. Collin Brack, University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, USA

· Dr. Moyed Miften, University of Colorado Denver, USA

· Dr. Issam El Naqa, McGill University, Canada