Transfer Risk Map: Mitigating Pixel-level Negative Transfer in Medical Segmentation

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Duan, Shutong, Yang, Jingyun, Tan, Yang, Zhang, Guoqing, Li, Yang, Zhang, Xiao-Ping
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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_version_ 1866912219382415360
author Duan, Shutong
Yang, Jingyun
Tan, Yang
Zhang, Guoqing
Li, Yang
Zhang, Xiao-Ping
author_facet Duan, Shutong
Yang, Jingyun
Tan, Yang
Zhang, Guoqing
Li, Yang
Zhang, Xiao-Ping
contents How to mitigate negative transfer in transfer learning is a long-standing and challenging issue, especially in the application of medical image segmentation. Existing methods for reducing negative transfer focus on classification or regression tasks, ignoring the non-uniform negative transfer risk in different image regions. In this work, we propose a simple yet effective weighted fine-tuning method that directs the model's attention towards regions with significant transfer risk for medical semantic segmentation. Specifically, we compute a transferability-guided transfer risk map to quantify the transfer hardness for each pixel and the potential risks of negative transfer. During the fine-tuning phase, we introduce a map-weighted loss function, normalized with image foreground size to counter class imbalance. Extensive experiments on brain segmentation datasets show our method significantly improves the target task performance, with gains of 4.37% on FeTS2021 and 1.81% on iSeg2019, avoiding negative transfer across modalities and tasks. Meanwhile, a 2.9% gain under a few-shot scenario validates the robustness of our approach.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2502_02340
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Transfer Risk Map: Mitigating Pixel-level Negative Transfer in Medical Segmentation
Duan, Shutong
Yang, Jingyun
Tan, Yang
Zhang, Guoqing
Li, Yang
Zhang, Xiao-Ping
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
How to mitigate negative transfer in transfer learning is a long-standing and challenging issue, especially in the application of medical image segmentation. Existing methods for reducing negative transfer focus on classification or regression tasks, ignoring the non-uniform negative transfer risk in different image regions. In this work, we propose a simple yet effective weighted fine-tuning method that directs the model's attention towards regions with significant transfer risk for medical semantic segmentation. Specifically, we compute a transferability-guided transfer risk map to quantify the transfer hardness for each pixel and the potential risks of negative transfer. During the fine-tuning phase, we introduce a map-weighted loss function, normalized with image foreground size to counter class imbalance. Extensive experiments on brain segmentation datasets show our method significantly improves the target task performance, with gains of 4.37% on FeTS2021 and 1.81% on iSeg2019, avoiding negative transfer across modalities and tasks. Meanwhile, a 2.9% gain under a few-shot scenario validates the robustness of our approach.
title Transfer Risk Map: Mitigating Pixel-level Negative Transfer in Medical Segmentation
topic Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.02340