Common Baseline Research Articles

Evolution of fundus autofluorescence patterns over time in patients with chronic central serous chorioretinopathy.

To determine the evolution of fundus autofluorescence (FAF) patterns in chronic central serous chorioretinopathy (CSCR) over time. We retrospectively studied the changes in FAF patterns over time in 157 eyes of 112 patients with chronic CSCR using the Heidelberg Retina Angiography with a 488-nm excitation light and a 500-nm cutoff barrier filter. The mean duration of follow-up was 37.2months. The most common baseline pattern was that of granular hypoautofluorescence (51.0%). The earliest change in chronic CSCR is diffuse hyperautofluorescence and it occurs approximately 4months after the reported first episode. The most common change observed at this stage is a change within areas of hyperautofluorescence where hyper-reflective dots appeared or disappeared. Change in FAF patterns from areas of hyperautofluorescence to hypoautofluorescence was slow. Only 25% of eyes showed such a change in pattern by 36months. It takes an average of 24months for granular hypoautofluorescent pattern to develop confluent hypoautofluorescence. There were no predictive patterns for the development of confluent CSCR. Fundus autofluorescence (FAF) changes in CSCR evolve very gradually and so is not a good outcome measure for clinical trials.

A supporting marine information system for maritime spatial planning: The European Atlas of the Seas

The European Atlas of the Seas is a web-based coastal and marine information system, originally aimed at the general public, but capable also of supporting non-specialist professionals in addressing environmental matters, human activities and management policies related to the sea. It is based on a combination of data (and metadata), which present a snapshot of both natural and socio-economic elements of coastal and marine regions in the European Union and its Outermost Regions. The first idea of a European Atlas of the Seas was set forward in 2007 with the launch of the Integrated Maritime Policy for the European Union. Early work on the Atlas was conducted by the Directorate General for Maritime Affairs of the European Commission, while further development of system architecture, data collection, map services and descriptive text was assigned in 2013 to the Joint Research Centre, with the aim to offer new services and features, as well as the interaction with other available information tools. The present European Atlas of the Seas consists of background data layers designed to be displayed as map backdrop, as well as a number of thematic data layers, classified under 8 main categories: geography, nature, tourism, security and safety, people and employment, transport and energy, governance and European policies, fisheries and aquaculture. These can be used to compose customized maps, as user-defined ad hoc indicators, and to probe them with tools such as product-to-product correlations, or time series visualisation. Non-specialist professional users can use such analysis and interpretation capabilities to couple data into ecological and socio-economic indicators for a wide range of applications. The thematic map collection provided a common baseline that can be used by Member States of the European Union in getting started with the Maritime Spatial Planning Directive requirements. As this is seen as a pre-requisite for Blue Growth, the European Atlas of the Seas will help the sustainable use of marine ecosystem services and resources.

Development of clinically relevant QA procedures for the BrainLab ExacTrac imaging system.

PurposeThe aim of this study was to develop Quality Assurance procedures for the BrainLab ExacTrac (ET) imaging system following the TG 142 recommendations for planar kV imaging systems.Materials and MethodsA custom‐designed 3D printed holder was used to position the Standard Imaging QCkV‐1 phantom at isocenter, facing the ET X ray tubes. The linac's light field (collimator at 45⁰) was used to position the phantom holder. The ET images were exported to ARIA where geometric distortion was checked. The DICOM images were analyzed in the PIPSpro software. The following parameters were recorded (technique 80 kV/2mAs): spatial resolution (Modulated Transfer Function (MTF) F50/F40/F30), contrast‐to‐noise ratio (CNR), and noise. A baseline was generated for future image analysis. Beam quality and exposure were measured using the Unfors R/F detector. Using a rod holder, the detector was placed at isocenter, facing each ET X‐ray tube. The measurements were performed for all preset protocols ranging from cranial low (80 kV/6.3 mAs) to abdomen high (145 kV/25 mAs). The total exposure was converted to dose.Results and DiscussionThe image quality parameters were close for the two tubes. A common baseline was therefore generated. The average baseline values (both tubes, both images/tube) were 1.06/1.18/1.30, 1.32, and 67.3 for the MTF F50/F40/F30, noise, and CNR respectively. The procedure described here was used for another 24 sets. Using a positioning template and 3D printed phantom holder, experimental reproducibility has been acceptably high. The measured phantom dimensions were within 1 mm from the nominal values. The measured kV values were within 2% of the nominal values. The exposure values for the two tubes were comparable. The range of total measured dose was 0.099 mGy (cranial low) to 1.353 mGy (abdomen high).ConclusionsA reliable process has been implemented for QA of the ET imaging system by characterizing the system's performance at isocenter, consistent with clinical conventions.

Radiative–convective equilibrium model intercomparison project

Abstract. RCEMIP, an intercomparison of multiple types of models configured in radiative–convective equilibrium (RCE), is proposed. RCE is an idealization of the climate system in which there is a balance between radiative cooling of the atmosphere and heating by convection. The scientific objectives of RCEMIP are three-fold. First, clouds and climate sensitivity will be investigated in the RCE setting. This includes determining how cloud fraction changes with warming and the role of self-aggregation of convection in climate sensitivity. Second, RCEMIP will quantify the dependence of the degree of convective aggregation and tropical circulation regimes on temperature. Finally, by providing a common baseline, RCEMIP will allow the robustness of the RCE state across the spectrum of models to be assessed, which is essential for interpreting the results found regarding clouds, climate sensitivity, and aggregation, and more generally, determining which features of tropical climate a RCE framework is useful for. A novel aspect and major advantage of RCEMIP is the accessibility of the RCE framework to a variety of models, including cloud-resolving models, general circulation models, global cloud-resolving models, single-column models, and large-eddy simulation models.

A Systematic Solution to Multi-Instrument Coregistration of High-Resolution Planetary Images to an Orthorectified Baseline

We address the problem of automatically coregistering planetary images to a common baseline, introducing a novel generic technique that achieves an unprecedented robustness to different image inputs, thus making batch-mode coregistration achievable without requiring the usual parameter tweaking. We introduce a novel image matching technique, which boosts matching performance even under the most strenuous circumstances, and experimentally demonstrate validation through an extensive experimental multi-instrument setup that includes images from eight high-resolution data sets of the Mars and the Moon. The technique is further tested in a batch-mode processing, in which approximately 1.6% of all high-resolution Martian imagery is coregistered to a common baseline.

Energy modelling and the Nexus concept

The Nexus concept is the interconnection between the resources energy, water, food, land and climate. Such interconnections enable to address trade-offs and seek for synergies among them. Several policy areas (e.g. bio-based economy, circular economy) increasingly consider the Nexus concept. Ignoring synergies and trade-offs between energy and natural flows, can generate misleading modelling outcomes. Several modelling tools are available to address energy and the Nexus. Based on six such models, this paper aims to support the design and testing of coherent strategies for sustainable development. Model improvements would be achieved by comparing model outcomes and including a common baseline.

Cost-effectiveness analysis of six therapies for the treatment of lower urinary tract symptoms due to benign prostatic hyperplasia.

ObjectiveTo conduct a cost-effectiveness analysis from payers’ perspectives of six treatments for lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) associated with benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) and to examine positioning of these modalities in the marketplace for the best use of health care funds and quality-of-life benefits for patients.MethodsThe economic analysis was conducted with a Markov model to compare combination prescription drug therapy (ComboRx), minimally invasive therapies (MITs) including convective radiofrequency (RF) water vapor thermal therapy (Rezūm®), conductive RF thermal therapy (Prostiva®), and prostatic urethral lift (UroLift®), and invasive surgical procedures including photovaporization of the prostate (Greenlight® PVP) and transurethral resection of the prostate (TURP). Effects assessed with International Prostate Symptom Score, adverse events, and re-treatment rates were estimated from medical literature; treatments effects were modeled using a common baseline score. Starting with each therapy, patients’ transitions to more intensive therapies when symptoms returned were simulated in 6-month cycles over 2 years. Incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICERs) were calculated for pairs of treatments; uncertainty in ICERs was estimated with probabilistic sensitivity analyses.ResultsComboRx was least effective and provided one-third of the symptom relief achieved with MITs. UroLift was similar in effectiveness to Prostiva and Rezūm but costs more than twice as much. The cheaper MITs were ~$900 more expensive than the cost of ComboRx generic drugs over 2 years. TURP and PVP provided slightly greater relief of LUTS than MITs at approximately twice the cost over 2 years; typically, they are reserved for treatment of more severe LUTS.ConclusionThe analysis evaluated the costs and symptom relief of six treatment options in the continuum of care from a common baseline of LUTS severity. Identification of treatments for LUTS/BPH that demonstrate cost-effectiveness and provide appreciable symptom relief is paramount as reimbursement for patient care moves from volume-based services to value-based services.

A Large-Scale Experimental Evaluation of High-Performing Multi- and Many-Objective Evolutionary Algorithms.

Research on multi-objective evolutionary algorithms (MOEAs) has produced over the past decades a large number of algorithms and a rich literature on performance assessment tools to evaluate and compare them. Yet, newly proposed MOEAs are typically compared against very few, often a decade older MOEAs. One reason for this apparent contradiction is the lack of a common baseline for comparison, with each subsequent study often devising its own experimental scenario, slightly different from other studies. As a result, the state of the art in MOEAs is a disputed topic. This article reports a systematic, comprehensive evaluation of a large number of MOEAs that covers a wide range of experimental scenarios. A novelty of this study is the separation between the higher-level algorithmic components related to multi-objective optimization (MO), which characterize each particular MOEA, and the underlying parameters-such as evolutionary operators, population size, etc.-whose configuration may be tuned for each scenario. Instead of relying on a common or "default" parameter configuration that may be low-performing for particular MOEAs or scenarios and unintentionally biased, we tune the parameters of each MOEA for each scenario using automatic algorithm configuration methods. Our results confirm some of the assumed knowledge in the field, while at the same time they provide new insights on the relative performance of MOEAs for many-objective problems. For example, under certain conditions, indicator-based MOEAs are more competitive for such problems than previously assumed. We also analyze problem-specific features affecting performance, the agreement between performance metrics, and the improvement of tuned configurations over the default configurations used in the literature. Finally, the data produced is made publicly available to motivate further analysis and a baseline for future comparisons.

Prevalence and risk factor for injury in sub-Saharan Africa: a multicountry study

IntroductionInjury-related morbidity is a neglected health concern in many low-income and middle-income countries. Most injury data in Africa have been collected from hospital-based studies, and few studies have occurred across...

Safety and Efficacy of Anidulafungin in the Treatment of Invasive Candidiasis in Children

Background Treatment with an echinocandin is recommended as first-line therapy of patients with invasive candidiasis including candidemia (ICC). Little is known about the efficacy and safety of anidulafungin (ANID) for the management of ICC in children.Methods Subjects aged 1 months to 17 years with ICC were enrolled into a prospective, open-label, non-comparative, multi-center, global study (NCT00761267) to receive ANID (3 mg/kg on day 1, 1.5 mg/kg daily thereafter). An interim analysis was completed in children 2–17 years. Subjects were to receive ANID for at least 10 days up to 35 days. A central venous catheter suspected as a site of infection was to be removed. A switch to oral fluconazole could be made after day 10. Treatment was required for at least 14 days after two negative cultures separated by 24 hours. Efficacy, based on a determination of global response (combination of clinical and microbiological response), was assessed at end of IV treatment (EOIVT), end of treatment (EOT), 2- and 6-week follow-up. Safety was assessed through 6-week follow-up.ResultsIn total, 48 subjects (18, 2 to <5 years; 30, 5–17 years) received at least 1 dose of ANID (mean 11 days; range 1–35 days) and were assessed for safety. Forty-seven subjects had microbiologically confirmed ICC and were evaluated for efficacy. The most common baseline pathogens were C. albicans (38%) and C. parapsilosis (26%). Forty-four (93.6%) subjects had candidemia only. Global response success rates at EOIVT and EOT were 72.3 and 74.5%, respectively. All subjects reported at least one treatment emergent adverse event (AE) with diarrhea (22.9%), vomiting (22.9%), and pyrexia (18.8%) being most frequent. Five subjects discontinued treatment due to AEs of which four [increased transaminases (2), vomiting, pruritus generalis] were considered related to ANID. All-cause mortality by the 2- and 6-week follow-up visit was 12.5 and 14.6%, respectively. Of the seven deaths during the study, one was considered related to ICC; two were related to disease progression (Ewing’s sarcoma, medulloblastoma); the remaining were related to other conditions (intracranial hemorrhage, sepsis/septic shock, and respiratory failure).Conclusion Anidulafungin was effective with an acceptable tolerability and safety profile in children aged 2–17 years diagnosed with ICC.Disclosures E. Roilides, Pfizer: Grant Investigator, Investigator, Research Contractor and Speaker’s Bureau, Grant recipient, Research grant and Speaker honorarium. H. Leister-Tebbe, Pfizer: Employee, Salary. U. Conte, Pfizer Inc.: Employee, Salary. J. L. Yan, Pfizer: Employee, Salary. P. Liu, Pfizer: Employee, Salary. M. Tawadrous, Pfizer: Employee, Salary. J. Aram, Pfizer Inc.: Employee, Salary. F. Queiroz-Telles, Pfizer: Grant Investigator, Research grant

“What’s in a Name?” A Consensus Proposal for a Common Nomenclature in the Endovascular Resuscitative Management and REBOA Literature

The emerging techniques of REBOA and other Endovascular Trauma Managment (EVTM) concepts has introduced new terminology to the medical vernacular. As research in this fi eld continues, the authors propose a common baseline nomenclature for the initial core essentials of EVTM concepts.

Sport concussion assessment tool—Third edition normative reference values for professional Rugby Union players

ObjectivesTo establish normative reference data for the SCAT3 in professional Rugby Union players. DesignA cross sectional study in professional Rugby Union players competing in national and international professional competitions between 2015 and 2016. MethodsThe SCAT3 was administered pre-season or prior to tournaments. Data was collected electronically using a custom tablet application. SCAT3 subcomponents distributions were described and normative ranges determined using percentile cut-offs for average, unusually low/high, and extremely low/high scores. The association between player characteristics and performance in SCAT3 subcomponents was also investigated in exploratory analyses. ResultsA total of 3611 professional Rugby Union players were included. The most common baseline symptom was fatigue (14%). The symptom score median (md) was 0 (interquartile range (IQR)=0–1). Symptom severity md was 0 (IQR=0–1). The md of the SAC score was 28 (IQR=26–29). The md of the MBESS was 2 (IQR=0–4). The Tandem gait md was 11.1s (IQR=10.0–12.7s). Upper limb coordination was normal in 98.4%. Younger age and lower educational level were associated with worse performance on delayed recall and reverse month sub-components of the SCAT3 (p<0.0001). No statistically significant differences in SCAT3 subcomponents were evident across gender. ConclusionsRepresentative normative reference values for the SCAT3 among professional Rugby Union players are provided. Baseline performance on concentration and delayed recall tests may be lower in younger athletes or in those with lower educational level.

Understanding human performance in sociotechnical systems – Steps towards a generic framework

Humans, their performance, actions and decisions play a significant role in a vast range of operations in complex sociotechnical systems. Numerous studies have therefore endeavoured to understand people’s actions and/or inactions within their working environment and to identify those factors, also known as Performance Shaping Factors (PSFs), that contribute either positively or negatively to sociotechnical system performance. However, the majority of those studies are often created based on data and research derived from a specific domain, and therefore are difficult to apply beyond the domain of interest. Thus, this paper presents a generic framework to develop a standardised list of PSFs, referred to as (Cross-Sectoral Performance Shaping Factors, C-PSFs), to be used across sectors to describe the immediate and latent factors that affect human performance in a structured and consistent manner. Building upon the existing Railway-Performance Shaping Factors taxonomy and the fundamental concepts of Cognitive and Behavioral Science, the new C-PSFs taxonomy illustrates the numerous possible interdependencies between the human operator and a system’s constraints. The former provides the empirical evidence for the C-PSFs taxonomy’s generic factors, while the latter justifies the transferability and applicability of the taxonomy to a broad range of sociotechnical sectors. The analysis of two accidents, from the railway and energy sectors, support such evidence. The proposed taxonomy provides a common baseline set of PSFs across sectors and its usage can greatly improve safety management systems of cross-sectoral organisations.

Association of distinct baseline tissue biomarkers with response to nivolumab (NIVO) and ipilimumab (IPI) in melanoma: CheckMate 064.

9515 Background: CheckMate 064 (open label, phase 2) randomized advanced melanoma pts to NIVO 3 mg/kg Q2W for 6 doses then IPI 3 mg/kg Q3W for 4 doses (n = 70; cohort A), or the reverse (IPI then NIVO; n = 70; cohort B). More cohort A than cohort B pts had complete or partial response (54% and 31%, respectively). We sought to determine whether common or distinct baseline biomarkers were associated with response for each cohort. Methods: Protein expression of biomarkers identifying a broad array of cell lineages and immunoregulatory factors was determined by IHC and evaluated by 2 pathologists, with concordance. Global transcript expression was determined by RNAseq from frozen tissue. An elastic net predictor was trained on cohort A (α = 0.1, λ = 0.05) using leave-one-out cross-validation. RECIST v1.1 was used to assess tumor response. Results: Patients with tumors showing a pro-inflammatory transcriptional signature at baseline had superior overall response in cohort A, but not cohort B. Consistent with this observation, a parsimonious classifier of 10 immune/IFNγ-related genes predicted BOR (AUC 0.87) and OS (CPH log-likelihood P= 0.0003) for patients in cohort A, but not cohort B. In contrast, low baseline expression of MHC class I protein by malignant cells ( &lt; 50% positive) was associated with disease progression (MHCI &lt; 50% vs ≥50%: 12/13 vs 16/28 progressed) and inferior OS for patients in cohort B (MHCI &lt; 50%: 6.42 mo [2.20, 9.66]; MHCI ≥50%: mOS 18.02 mo [7.98, not reached]: P= 0.0021, log-rank test), but not cohort A. Conclusions: Different pre-treatment biological characteristics of melanoma are associated with clinical response to NIVO followed by a planned switch to IPI (cohort A) and clinical response to IPI followed by NIVO (cohort B). Improved outcome with initial NIVO is strongly associated with a pro-inflammatory signature enriched for IFNγ targets. Inferior outcome with initial IPI is associated with reduction/loss of MHC I antigen presentation machinery. These data imply that NIVO broadly activates innate and adaptive immunity, whereas IPI is reliant upon CD8/MHC class I mediated adaptive immunity to effect clinical response. Clinical trial information: NCT01783938.

Predicting Delivery Capability in Iterative Software Development

Iterative software development has become widely practiced in industry. Since modern software projects require fast, incremental delivery for every iteration of software development, it is essential to monitor the execution of an iteration, and foresee a capability to deliver quality products as the iteration progresses. This paper presents a novel, data-driven approach to providing automated support for project managers and other decision makers in predicting delivery capability for an ongoing iteration. Our approach leverages a history of project iterations and associated issues, and in particular, we extract characteristics of previous iterations and their issues in the form of features. In addition, our approach characterizes an iteration using a novel combination of techniques including feature aggregation statistics, automatic feature learning using the Bag-of-Words approach, and graph-based complexity measures. An extensive evaluation of the technique on five large open source projects demonstrates that our predictive models outperform three common baseline methods in Normalized Mean Absolute Error and are highly accurate in predicting the outcome of an ongoing iteration.

Efficacy of anidulafungin in 539 patients with invasive candidiasis: a patient-level pooled analysis of six clinical trials

Objectives: To evaluate the efficacy of anidulafungin for the treatment of candidaemia and invasive candidiasis in a large dataset, including patients with deep-seated tissue candidiasis, neutropenia and infection due to non-albicans Candida species. Methods: Data were pooled from six prospective, multicentre, multinational studies: four open-label, non-comparative studies of anidulafungin and two double-blind, double-dummy, randomized studies of anidulafungin versus caspofungin (clinical trial registrations: NCT00496197, NCT00548262, NCT00537329, NCT00689338, NCT00806351 and NCT00805740; ClinicalTrials.gov). In all studies, patients with culture-confirmed invasive candidiasis received a single intravenous (iv) loading dose of anidulafungin 200 mg on day 1, followed by 100 mg once-daily. Switch to oral fluconazole or voriconazole was permitted after 5–10 days of iv treatment in all studies except one. Antifungal treatment (iv plus oral therapy if applicable) was maintained for ≥14 days after the last positive Candida culture. The primary endpoint was successful global response at end of iv therapy (EOivT) in the modified ITT (mITT) population. Results: In total, 539 patients were included (mITT population). The most common baseline Candida species were Candida albicans (47.9%), Candida glabrata (21.0%), Candida tropicalis (13.7%), Candida parapsilosis (13.2%) and Candida krusei (3.5%). Median duration of anidulafungin iv treatment was 10.0 days. The global response success rate at EOivT was 76.4% (95% CI 72.9%–80.0%). All-cause mortality was 13.0% on day 14 and 19.1% on day 28. Adverse events (AEs) were consistent with the known AE profile for anidulafungin. Conclusions: These data demonstrate that anidulafungin is effective for treatment of candidaemia and invasive candidiasis in a broad patient population.

Wireless fingerprinting indoor positioning using affinity propagation clustering methods

According to rapid extension of wireless sensor network localization, indoor localization using fingerprint has turned out to be more considerable lately. It contains of a database called Receive Strength Signal Indicator vectors, which is a primitive amount in wireless sensor network fingerprinting positioning. The equivalence of a few strategies is brought up from the literary works, and some new variants are presented in this study. A combination of a clustering strategy named affinity propagation and statistical and probabilistic positioning procedures is considered in this review and at the same time, the impact of some components in our methodology onto positioning precision will be investigated. Affinity propagation clustering method set up a common baseline for assessing the relative accuracy of various indoor location methods effectively. Eventually two coarse localization methods as Mahalanobis norm method and similarity to exemplar receive strength signal vector are compared based on positioning accuracy and performance. Experimental outcomes prove that the intended algorithm will advance the accuracy and localization error compared with the method without clustering.

A Density‐Ratio Model of Crop Yield Distributions

AbstractThis paper proposes a density ratio estimator of crop yield distributions, wherein the number of observations for individual distributions is often quite small. The density ratio approach models individual densities as distortions from a common baseline density. We introduce a probability integral transformation to the density ratio method that simplifies the modeling of distortion functions. We further present an implementation approach based on the Poisson regression, which facilitates model estimation and diagnostics. Monte Carlo simulations demonstrate good finite sample performance of the proposed method. We apply this method to estimate the corn yield distributions of ninety‐nine Iowa counties, and to calculate crop insurance premiums. Lastly, we illustrate that we can employ the proposed method to effectively identify profitable insurance policies.

Defining System Boundaries of an Institution Nitrogen Footprint.

A nitrogen (N) footprint quantifies the amount of reactive nitrogen released to the environment and can be measured at different scales. The N footprint of a university includes activities and consumption within its geographic boundaries as well as activities that support the institution. Determining system bounds of an N footprint depends on the institution's mission and provides a common baseline for comparison. A comparison of three scopes of the N footprint, which describe how emissions are directly related to an institution's activities, was conducted for seven institutions. Scopes follow the established definition for the carbon footprint. In this article, the authors propose a new system bounds definition (core campus versus adjunct). Two case studies were explored: how the N footprint of Dickinson College changed with air travel, and how the N footprint of the Marine Biological Laboratory changed with scientific research. Of the three scopes, scope 3 was consistently the largest proportion of the N footprint for all seven institutions. The core campus activities of Dickinson College made up 99 percent of its N footprint, with air travel making up the remaining 1 percent. The Marine Biological Laboratory's core campus activities made up 51 percent of its N footprint and the scientific research made up the remaining 49 percent. Institutions should define system bounds based on their mission and stay consistent with their boundaries following the baseline year. The core campus footprint could be used to compare institution footprints using consistent system bounds. How institutions define their boundaries will impact the recorded amount of nitrogen as well as how the institution will set reduction strategies.

Quantifying Variability in Longitudinal Peripapillary RNFL and Choroidal Layer Thickness Using Surface Based Registration of OCT Images

PurposeTo assess within-subject variability of retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) and choroidal layer thickness in longitudinal repeat optical coherence tomography (OCT) images with point-to-point measurement comparison made using nonrigid surface registration.MethodsNine repeat peripapillary OCT images were acquired over 3 weeks from 12 eyes of 6 young, healthy subjects using a 1060-nm prototype swept-source device. The RNFL, choroid and the Bruch's membrane opening (BMO) were segmented, and point-wise layer thicknesses and BMO dimensions were measured. For each eye, the layer surfaces of eight follow-up images were registered to those of the baseline image, first by rigid alignment using blood vessel projections and axial height and tilt correction, followed by nonrigid registration of currents-based diffeomorphisms algorithms. This mapped all follow-up measurements point-wise to the common baseline coordinate system, allowing for point-wise statistical analysis. Measurement variability was evaluated point-wise for layer thicknesses and BMO dimensions by time-standard deviation (tSD).ResultsThe intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) of BMO area and eccentricity were 0.993 and 0.972, respectively. Time-mean and tSD were computed point-wise for RNFL and choroidal thickness and color-mapped on the baseline surfaces. tSD was less than two coherence lengths of the system 2ℓ = 12 μm at most vertices. High RNFL thickness variability corresponded to the locations of retinal vessels, and choroidal thickness varied more than RNFL thickness.ConclusionsOur registration-based end-to-end pipeline produced point-wise correspondence among time-series retinal and choroidal surfaces with high measurement repeatability (low variability). Blood vessels were found to be the main sources contributing to the normal variability of the RNFL thickness measure. The computational pipeline with a measurement of normal variability can be used in future longitudinal studies to identify changes that are above the threshold of normal point-wise variability and track localized changes in retinal layers in high spatial resolution.Translational RelevanceUsing the registration-based approach presented in this study, longitudinal changes in retinal and choroidal layers can be detected with higher sensitivity and spatial precision.