{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,6]],"date-time":"2026-03-06T17:22:23Z","timestamp":1772817743509,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":25,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"3","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,6]],"date-time":"2026-03-06T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1772755200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100004837","name":"European Union NextGenerationEU\/PRTR","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["TED2021-129221B-I00"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["TED2021-129221B-I00"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100004837","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100004837","name":"European Union NextGenerationEU\/PRTR","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["MCIN\/AEI\/10.13039\/501100011033"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["MCIN\/AEI\/10.13039\/501100011033"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100004837","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Algorithms"],"abstract":"<jats:p>The performance of deep-learning-based segmentation models is strongly dependent on the quality of the input data, which is frequently heterogeneous or degraded in real-world medical imaging scenarios. This work presents a data-centric algorithmic pipeline designed to improve cardiac MRI segmentation accuracy through systematic image enhancement and automatic slice-quality filtering. The proposed method is formalized as deterministic algorithm that combines image processing and supervised learning components. The approach integrates a contrast- and structure-preserving enhancement stage, based on bilateral filtering and adaptive histogram equalization, with a quality-aware selection algorithm. Slice quality is assessed using anatomical attributes extracted via YOLOv11s-based localization and a supervised classification model trained to identify diagnostically reliable images. When applied to transformer-based segmentation architectures such as ViTUNeT, the pipeline yields consistent improvements across all evaluation metrics without increasing model complexity or training cost. These findings emphasize the importance of algorithmic data curation as an effective strategy for enhancing robustness and stability in deep-learning segmentation pipelines and demonstrate the broader applicability of the proposed approach to computer-vision tasks involving heterogeneous or low-quality image datasets.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/a19030200","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,6]],"date-time":"2026-03-06T11:05:44Z","timestamp":1772795144000},"page":"200","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["A Data-Centric Algorithmic Pipeline for Enhancing Cardiac MRI Segmentation Using ViTUNeT and Quality-Aware Filtering"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"19","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0008-5327-7448","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Salvador","family":"de Haro","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Computer Engineering, University of Murcia, 30100 Murcia, Spain"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-2176-8273","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Jes\u00fas","family":"C\u00e1mara","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Informatics, University of Valladolid, 47011 Valladolid, Spain"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-1681-5442","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Pilar","family":"Gonz\u00e1lez-F\u00e9rez","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Computer Engineering, University of Murcia, 30100 Murcia, Spain"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-6388-2835","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Jos\u00e9 Manuel","family":"Garc\u00eda","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Computer Engineering, University of Murcia, 30100 Murcia, Spain"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-7265-3508","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Gregorio","family":"Bernab\u00e9","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Computer Engineering, University of Murcia, 30100 Murcia, Spain"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,6]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","first-page":"711","article-title":"Genetic, Clinical and Imaging Characteristics in Noncompaction Cardiomyopathy","volume":"71","author":"Caliskan","year":"2018","journal-title":"J. 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