Age estimation of living individuals and the analysis of the phenomenon of long bone compression after epiphyseal closure based on non-invasive MRI image sequences of the knee.

活着的人的年龄估计，特别是青少年和成年人之间的区别，是庇护法和刑法的一个重要组成部分。因此，采用了身体检查、手部X线照相以及牙科检查。由于辐射防护，射线照相术只能在刑法情况下使用。除了这个限制，大多数已发表的方法在应用于任何个人时都应严格评价。这是因为，大多数年龄估计方法所依据的群体统计分析只涵盖与社会地位或出身有关的一部分人口。非侵入性成像技术，如磁共振成像（MRI），能够评估骨骺生长的骨化过程。在这里，生长过程的等级和个体的年龄之间的相关性被计算并用于实际年龄估计。但是，在大多数情况下，手动评估是耗时的，并且分级不明确。这可能导致用户依赖的结果和错误分类。此外，使用图像分析方法进行自动和鲁棒的年龄估计，使更多的数据集的评估尚未公布。另一种生物现象是在完成生长过程后长骨的长度减少。在过去几年中，这种收缩是偶然描述的，但没有测量纵向长度。2012年，第一项研究使用Knemometer进行纵向测量。在此，首次记录了胫骨近端骨骺完全闭合后的收缩。本课题的目的是基于MRI图像序列对膝关节骨骺骨化进行评估，建立一种新的年龄估计方法。应该开发一种新的方法，使用3D MRI数据集对骨化等级进行自动和可靠的分类。这个程序的适用性应调查青少年和成人之间的差异分析了大量的数据集。此外，应防止长骨压缩现象。因此，应在3年内多次采集和分析新的数据库，包括每例受试者的3D MRI图像数据、纵向测量和特征参数（例如体重和身高）。然后，应使用基于MRI图像数据的计算机方法计算胫骨长度。然后，这些结果应与Knemometer值进行比较，以证明基于计算机的方法的质量。此外，应评估非线性配准以定位长骨收缩区域。最后，应该研究哪些提取的图像参数与法医年龄估计（16和18）相关，以及如何准确地识别成年人年龄。

Age estimation of living individuals especially the differentiation between adolescent and adult is an important part of asylum and criminal law. Therefore examinations of the body, radiography of the hand as well as odontology inspections were used. Due to radiation protection radiography can only use in case of criminal law. Beside this constraint most of the published methods should be rated critically in case of applying them to any individual. This is due to the fact that most of the age estimation methods are based on the statistical analysis of groups that covers only a subset of the population related to social status or origin. Non-invasive imaging techniques, like the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), enable the assessment of the ossification process of epiphyses growth. Here, the correlation between the grade of the growth process and the age of the individuals is calculated and used for actual age-estimation. But, in most cases the manual assessment is time-consuming and the grading is not clear. This can lead to user dependent results and misclassification. Also the use of image analysis methods for automatic and robust age estimation enabling the evaluation of a greater number of datasets is not published yet. Another biological phenomenon is the length reduction of long bones after the completed growth process. In the last years this shrinkage was incidentally described but without measuring the longitudinal length. In 2012 the first study was published using a Knemometer for longitudinal measuring. Here, the shrinkage after complete closing of the epiphysis of the proximal tibia was documented for the first time. The aim of this project is the evaluation of the epiphyses ossification in the knee based on MRI image sequences to establish a new method for age estimation. A new method should be developed which enables an automatic and robust classification of the grade of ossification using 3D MRI datasets. The applicability of this procedure should be investigated for the differentiation between adolescent and adult analyzing a large collective of datasets. Additionally, the phenomenon of long bone compression should be proofed. Therefore, a new data base including 3D MRI image data, longitudinal measurement and characteristic parameters (e.g. weight and height) for each subject should be acquired and analyzed several times over a period of 3 years. Then, the length of the tibia should be calculated using computer based methods on MRI image data. Afterwards these results should be compared to the Knemometer values proving the quality of the computer based methods. Furthermore, non-linear registration should be evaluated to localize the area of long bone shrinkage. Finally, it should be investigated which of the extracted image parameters are relevant for forensic age estimation (16 and 18) and how precise the majority age can be identified.