A Self-Supervised Multi-Scale Fusion Framework for Accurate and Efficient Image Segmentation

Authors

  • Elmira Haci Yusifova Azerbaijan University of Languages
  • Fuad Fazil Osmanov Vizja University
  • Elman Azizov John Jay College of Criminal Justice
  • Kamran Azizli Carleton University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.70063/techcompinnovations.v2i2.125

Keywords:

Self-Supervised Learning, Multi-Scale Image Segmentation, Medical Imaging Frameworks, Feature Representation Fusion, Deep Learning Architectures

Abstract

This study conceptually examines a self-supervised multi-scale fusion framework designed to enhance accuracy and computational efficiency in medical image segmentation, a domain where data scarcity and annotation cost remain major challenges. Traditional supervised approaches are constrained by their reliance on extensive labeled datasets, limiting applicability in real-world clinical environments. Self-supervised learning (SSL) mitigates this issue by extracting supervisory signals directly from unlabeled data, enabling the model to learn rich feature representations without human annotation. Simultaneously, multi-scale fusion architectures integrate global contextual information with fine-grained local features, supporting robust segmentation across varying anatomical structures and image resolutions. Through a qualitative methodology involving library research and content analysis, this study synthesizes state-of-the-art SSL-driven segmentation techniques and highlights how adaptive multi-scale fusion mechanisms address limitations of existing convolutional and transformer-based architectures. The analysis indicates that combining SSL and multi-scale strategies leads to more generalizable, scalable, and computationally efficient segmentation pipelines suitable for diverse medical imaging modalities. The proposed framework represents a promising direction for developing next-generation diagnostic tools capable of handling sparse labels, complex textures, and real-time deployment constraints.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biographies

Elmira Haci Yusifova, Azerbaijan University of Languages

Department of İnformation technologies

Fuad Fazil Osmanov, Vizja University

Vizja University

Elman Azizov, John Jay College of Criminal Justice

Finance and Economic Officer

Kamran Azizli, Carleton University

Carleton University

References

Abıdın, Z. U., Naqvi, R. A., Haider, A., Kim, H. S., Jeong, D., & Lee, S. W. (2024). Recent deep learning-based brain tumor segmentation models using multi-modality magnetic resonance imaging: a prospective survey [Review of Recent deep learning-based brain tumor segmentation models using multi-modality magnetic resonance imaging: a prospective survey]. Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology, 12, 1392807. Frontiers Media. https://doi.org/10.3389/fbioe.2024.1392807

An, T., Huang, W., Xu, D., He, Q., Hu, J., & Lou, Y. (2025). A Deep Learning Framework for Boundary-Aware Semantic Segmentation. https://doi.org/10.48550/ARXIV.2503.22050

Andrade-Miranda, G., Jaouen, V., Bourbonne, V., Lucia, F., Visvikis, D., & Conze, P.-H. (2022). Pure Versus Hybrid Transformers For Multi-Modal Brain Tumor Segmentation: A Comparative Study. 2022 IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP), 1336. https://doi.org/10.1109/icip46576.2022.9897658

Arasteh, S. T., Misera, L., Kather, J. N., Truhn, D., & Nebelung, S. (2023). Enhancing Network Initialization for Medical AI Models Using Large-Scale, Unlabeled Natural Images. arXiv. https://doi.org/10.48550/ARXIV.2308.07688

Arasteh, S. T., Misera, L., Kather, J. N., Truhn, D., & Nebelung, S. (2024). Enhancing diagnostic deep learning via self-supervised pretraining on large-scale, unlabeled non-medical images. European Radiology Experimental, 8(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s41747-023-00411-3

Azad, B., Azad, R., Eskandari, S., Bozorgpour, A., Kazerouni, A., Rekik, I., & Merhof, D. (2023). Foundational Models in Medical Imaging: A Comprehensive Survey and Future Vision. arXiv (Cornell University). https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2310.18689

Azizi, S., Culp, L., Freyberg, J., Mustafa, B., Baur, S., Kornblith, S., Chen, T., Tomašev, N., Mitrović, J., Strachan, P. H., Mahdavi, S. S., Wulczyn, E., Babenko, B., Walker, M., Loh, A., Chen, P.-H. C., Liu, Y., Bavishi, P., McKinney, S. M., … Natarajan, V. (2023). Robust and data-efficient generalization of self-supervised machine learning for diagnostic imaging. Nature Biomedical Engineering, 7(6), 756. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41551-023-01049-7

Azizi, S., Mustafa, B., Ryan, F., Beaver, Z., Freyberg, J., Deaton, J., Loh, A., Karthikesalingam, A., Kornblith, S., Chen, T., Natarajan, V., & Norouzi, M. (2021). Big Self-Supervised Models Advance Medical Image Classification. 2021 IEEE/CVF International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV), 3458. https://doi.org/10.1109/iccv48922.2021.00346

Baareh, A. K. (2024). Facial Recognition and Discovery Using Convolution Deep Learning Neural Network. Journal of Computer Science, 20(11), 1559. https://doi.org/10.3844/jcssp.2024.1559.1568

Bhagat, D., Vakil, A., Gupta, R. K., & Kumar, A. (2024). Facial Emotion Recognition (FER) using Convolutional Neural Network (CNN). Procedia Computer Science, 235, 2079. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procs.2024.04.197

Bian, Y., Li, J., Ye, C., Jia, X., & Yang, Q. (2025). Artificial intelligence in medical imaging: From task-specific models to large-scale foundation models [Review of Artificial intelligence in medical imaging: From task-specific models to large-scale foundation models]. Chinese Medical Journal. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. https://doi.org/10.1097/cm9.0000000000003489

Bougourzi, F., & Hadid, A. (2025). Recent Advances in Medical Imaging Segmentation: A Survey. arXiv (Cornell University). https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2505.09274

Chen, J., Chen, R., Wang, W., Cheng, J., Zhang, L., & Chen, L. (2024). TinyU-Net: Lighter Yet Better U-Net with Cascaded Multi-receptive Fields. In Lecture notes in computer science (p. 626). Springer Science+Business Media. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-72114-4_60

Chen, R., He, S., Xie, J., Wang, T., Xu, Y., Fang, J., Zhao, X., Zhang, S., Wang, G., Lu, H., & Yang, Z. (2025). MedFuseNet: fusing local and global deep feature representations with hybrid attention mechanisms for medical image segmentation. Scientific Reports, 15(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-89096-9

Cheng, S., Starosolski, Z. A., & Subramanian, D. (2024). Self-Supervised Learning for Building Robust Pediatric Chest X-ray Classification Models. https://doi.org/10.48550/ARXIV.2409.00231

Cheung, Y. S. J., Chen, X., Yang, L., & Zhao, H. (2023). A Lightweight Clustering Framework for Unsupervised Semantic Segmentation. arXiv (Cornell University). https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2311.18628

Chi, J., On, C. K., Zhang, H., & Chai, S. S. (2023). A Review of Deep Convolutional Neural Networks in Mobile Face Recognition [Review of A Review of Deep Convolutional Neural Networks in Mobile Face Recognition]. International Journal of Interactive Mobile Technologies, 17(23), 4. kassel university press. https://doi.org/10.3991/ijim.v17i23.40867

Ciampi, L., Lagani, G., Amato, G., & Falchi, F. (2025). Semi-Supervised Biomedical Image Segmentation via Diffusion Models and Teacher-Student Co-Training. https://doi.org/10.48550/ARXIV.2504.01547

Fardela, R., Milvita, D., Almuhayar, M., Mardiansyah, D., Rasyada, L. A., & Hakim, L. (2024). Classification of Thoracic X-Ray Images of COVID-19 Patients Using the Convolutional Neutral Network (CNN) Method. Journal of Computer Science, 20(4), 357. https://doi.org/10.3844/jcssp.2024.357.364

Fu, Z., Li, J., Chen, Z., & Ren, L. (2024). DmADs-Net: dense multiscale attention and depth-supervised network for medical image segmentation. International Journal of Machine Learning and Cybernetics. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13042-024-02248-7

Goldblum, M., Souri, H., Ni, R., Shu, M., Prabhu, V., Somepalli, G., Chattopadhyay, P., Ibrahim, M., Bardes, A., Hoffman, J., Chellappa, R., Wilson, A. G., & Goldstein, T. (2023). Battle of the Backbones: A Large-Scale Comparison of Pretrained Models across Computer Vision Tasks. arXiv (Cornell University). https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2310.19909

Gomariz, Á., Kikuchi, Y., Li, Y. Y., Albrecht, T., Maunz, A., Ferrara, D., Lu, H., & Göksel, O. (2024). Joint semi-supervised and contrastive learning enables zero-shot domain-adaptation and multi-domain segmentation. arXiv (Cornell University). https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2405.05336

Hamamcı, İ. E., Er, S., Almas, F., Simsek, A. G., Esirgün, S. N., Doğan, İ., Dasdelen, M. F., Durugol, O. F., Wittmann, B., Amiranashvili, T., Simsar, E., Simsar, M., Erdemir, E. B., Alanbay, A., Sekuboyina, A., Lafci, B., Blüthgen, C., Özdemir, M. K., & Menze, B. (2024). Developing Generalist Foundation Models from a Multimodal Dataset for 3D Computed Tomography. Research Square. https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-5271327/v1

Haripriya, R., Khare, N., & Pandey, M. (2025). Privacy-preserving federated learning for collaborative medical data mining in multi-institutional settings. Scientific Reports, 15(1), 12482. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-97565-4

He, Y., Bi, Y., Li, L., Pun, C.-M., Jiao, W., & Jin, Z. (2025). Mutual Evidential Deep Learning for Medical Image Segmentation. https://doi.org/10.48550/ARXIV.2505.12418

He, Y., Yu, H., Liu, X., Yang, Z., Sun, W., Anwar, S., & Mian, A. (2024). Deep Learning Based 3d Segmentation: A Survey. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4824679

Hoang, C. M. (2025). Unsupervised Instance Segmentation with Superpixels. Pattern Recognition, 172, 112402. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.patcog.2025.112402

Huang, S.-C., Jensen, M., Yeung, S., Lungren, M. P., Poon, H., & Chaudhari, A. (2024). Multimodal Foundation Models for Medical Imaging - A Systematic Review and Implementation Guidelines [Review of Multimodal Foundation Models for Medical Imaging - A Systematic Review and Implementation Guidelines]. medRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory). Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.10.23.24316003

Huang, S.-C., Pareek, A., Jensen, M., Lungren, M. P., Yeung, S., & Chaudhari, A. (2023). Self-supervised learning for medical image classification: a systematic review and implementation guidelines [Review of Self-supervised learning for medical image classification: a systematic review and implementation guidelines]. Npj Digital Medicine, 6(1). Nature Portfolio. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41746-023-00811-0

Indra, Z., Jusman, Y., Elfizar, E., Salambue, R., Kurniawan, R., & Melia, T. (2024). Computer-Assisted Disease Diagnosis Application for Malaria Early Diagnosis Based on Modified CNN Algor.pdf.

Iqbal, S., Khan, T., Alhussein, M., Naqvi, S. S., Usman, M., & Aurangzeb, K. (2023). LDMRes-Net: Enabling Efficient Medical Image Segmentation on IoT and Edge Platforms. arXiv (Cornell University). https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2306.06145

Islam, M. S., Rahman, Md. A., Mazumder, Md. T. R., & Shourov, S. H. (2024). Comparative Analysis of Neural Network Architectures for Medical Image Classification: Evaluating Performance Across Diverse Models. American Journal of Advanced Technology and Engineering Solutions, 4(1), 1. https://doi.org/10.63125/feed1x52

Jiang, J., Wang, M., Tian, H., Cheng, L., & Liu, Y. (2024). LV-UNet: A Lightweight and Vanilla Model for Medical Image Segmentation. 2021 IEEE International Conference on Bioinformatics and Biomedicine, 4240. https://doi.org/10.1109/bibm62325.2024.10822465

Kalapos, A., & Gyires-Tóth, B. (2023). Self-supervised Pretraining for 2D Medical Image Segmentation. In Lecture notes in computer science (p. 472). Springer Science+Business Media. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25082-8_31

Kareem, D. N. A., Fiaz, M., Novershtern, N., Hanna, J. H., & Cholakkal, H. (2023). Improving 3D Medical Image Segmentation at Boundary Regions using Local Self-attention and Global Volume Mixing. IEEE Transactions on Artificial Intelligence, 5(6), 3233. https://doi.org/10.1109/tai.2023.3346833

Kavita, R. S. C. (2024). Innovative Integration of Convolutional Neural Networks for Enhanced Face Recognition., 20, 1941. https://doi.org/10.52783/jes.1740

Lai, M., Chen, J., Huang, Y., Wang, X., Xu, N., Zhou, S., Zhu, X., Wu, Y., Yang, B., Chen, G., & Li, J. (2025). LESS-Net: a lightweight network for epistaxis image segmentation using similarity-based contrastive learning. Frontiers in Physiology, 16. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2025.1644589

Lee, H. H., 池谷裕二, Zhao, T., Xu, Y., Yang, J., Usuyama, N., Wong, C., Mu, W., Landman, B. A., Huo, Y., Santamaría-Pang, A., & Poon, H. (2024). Foundation Models for Biomedical Image Segmentation: A Survey. arXiv (Cornell University). https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2401.07654

Lee, S., & Lee, M. (2024). MetaSwin: a unified meta vision transformer model for medical image segmentation. PeerJ Computer Science, 10. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj-cs.1762

Li, B., Mao, J., Sun, Z., Li, C., Zhao, Q., & Tanaka, T. (2024). MAProtoNet: A Multi-scale Attentive Interpretable Prototypical Part Network for 3D Magnetic Resonance Imaging Brain Tumor Classification. arXiv (Cornell University). https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2404.08917

Li, G. Y., Chen, J., Jang, S., Gong, K., & Li, Q. (2023). SwinCross: Cross‐modal Swin transformer for head‐and‐neck tumor segmentation in PET/CT images. Medical Physics, 51(3), 2096. https://doi.org/10.1002/mp.16703

Li, X., Ding, H., Yuan, H., Zhang, W., Pang, J., Cheng, G., Chen, K., Liu, Z., & Loy, C. C. (2024). Transformer-Based Visual Segmentation: A Survey. IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, 46(12), 10138. https://doi.org/10.1109/tpami.2024.3434373

Liang, G., Zhou, Q., Chen, J., Wang, Z., & Yao, C. (2024). Advancing Medical Image Segmentation via Self-supervised Instance-adaptive Prototype Learning. 1056. https://doi.org/10.24963/ijcai.2024/117

Liang, P., Pu, B., Huang, H., Li, Y., Wang, H., Ma, W., & Chang, Q. (2025a). Vision Foundation Models in Medical Image Analysis: Advances and Challenges. https://doi.org/10.48550/ARXIV.2502.14584

Liang, P., Pu, B., Huang, H., Li, Y., Wang, H., Ma, W., & Chang, Q. (2025b). Vision Foundation Models in Medical Image Analysis: Advances and Challenges. arXiv (Cornell University). https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2502.14584

Lin, Q., Liu, G.-H., Li, Z., Li, Y., Jiang, Y., & Wu, X. (2025). Multimodal Medical Image Classification via Synergistic Learning Pre-training. https://doi.org/10.48550/ARXIV.2509.17492

Liu, K., Ling, S., & Liu, S. (2024). Semi-Supervised Medical Image Classification with Pseudo Labels Using Coalition Similarity Training. Mathematics, 12(10), 1537. https://doi.org/10.3390/math12101537

Lu, H., Fu, Y., Zhang, F., & Zhang, L. (2025). Efficient Quantization-Aware Training on Segment Anything Model in Medical Images and Its Deployment. In Lecture notes in computer science (p. 137). Springer Science+Business Media. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-81854-7_9

Lu, Y., Fan, Z., & Xu, M. (2023). Multi-dimensional Fusion and Consistency for Semi-supervised Medical Image Segmentation. arXiv (Cornell University). https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2309.06618

Lu, Y., Wu, Y., Kateb, R., & Chaddad, A. (2025). SEMI-Supervised Medical Image Segmentation via Dual Networks. 1. https://doi.org/10.1109/isbi60581.2025.10980890

Manna, S., Das, S., Ghosh, S., & Bhattacharya, S. (2025). Federated Self-Supervised Learning for One-Shot Cross-Modal and Cross-Imaging Technique Segmentation. https://doi.org/10.48550/ARXIV.2503.23507

Manzari, O. N., Asgariandehkordi, H., Koleilat, T., Xiao, Y., & Rivaz, H. (2025). Medical Image Classification with KAN-Integrated Transformers and Dilated Neighborhood Attention. https://doi.org/10.48550/ARXIV.2502.13693

Mao, Y., Li, H., Lai, Y., Papanastasiou, G., Qi, P., Yang, Y., & Wang, C. (2025). Semi-Supervised Medical Image Segmentation via Knowledge Mining from Large Models. https://doi.org/10.48550/ARXIV.2503.06816

Moor, M., Banerjee, O., Abad, Z. S. H., Krumholz, H. M., Leskovec, J., Topol, E. J., & Rajpurkar, P. (2023). Foundation models for generalist medical artificial intelligence [Review of Foundation models for generalist medical artificial intelligence]. Nature, 616(7956), 259. Nature Portfolio. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-05881-4

Myakala, P. K. (2025). Scaling AI with Limited Labeled Data: A Self-Supervised Learning Approach. 2(1), 26. https://doi.org/10.62762/tetai.2025.607708

Nemavhola, A., Chibaya, C., & Viriri, S. (2025). A Systematic Review of CNN Architectures, Databases, Performance Metrics, and Applications in Face Recognition [Review of A Systematic Review of CNN Architectures, Databases, Performance Metrics, and Applications in Face Recognition]. Information, 16(2), 107. Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute. https://doi.org/10.3390/info16020107

Nohel, M., Ulrich, C., Suprijadi, J., Wald, T., & Maier‐Hein, K. (2025). A Unified Framework for Foreground and Anonymization Area Segmentation in CT and MRI Data. arXiv (Cornell University). https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2501.04361

Ostrowski, E., & Shafique, M. (2024). Embedded Deployment of Semantic Segmentation in Medicine through Low-Resolution Inputs. https://doi.org/10.48550/ARXIV.2403.05340

Otaghsara, S. S. T., & Rahmanzadeh, R. (2025). Multi-encoder nnU-Net outperforms transformer models with self-supervised pretraining. https://doi.org/10.48550/ARXIV.2504.03474

Papanastasiou, G., Δικαίος, Ν., Huang, J., Wang, C., & Yang, G. (2023). Is Attention all You Need in Medical Image Analysis? A Review [Review of Is Attention all You Need in Medical Image Analysis? A Review]. IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics, 28(3), 1398. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. https://doi.org/10.1109/jbhi.2023.3348436

Perera, S., Erzurumlu, Y., Gulati, D., & Yılmaz, A. (2025). MobileUNETR: A Lightweight End-to-End Hybrid Vision Transformer For Efficient Medical Image Segmentation. In Lecture notes in computer science (p. 281). Springer Science+Business Media. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-91721-9_18

Perera, S., Navard, P., & Yılmaz, A. (2024). SegFormer3D: an Efficient Transformer for 3D Medical Image Segmentation. 2022 IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Workshops, 4981. https://doi.org/10.1109/cvprw63382.2024.00503

Preetha, R., M, J. P. P., & Nisha, J. S. (2025). Brain tumor segmentation using multi-scale attention U-Net with EfficientNetB4 encoder for enhanced MRI analysis. Scientific Reports, 15(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-94267-9

Qayyum, A., Mazher, M., Ugurlu, D., Lemus, J. A. S., Rodero, C., & Niederer, S. A. (2025). Foundation Model for Whole-Heart Segmentation: Leveraging Student-Teacher Learning in Multi-Modal Medical Imaging. https://doi.org/10.48550/ARXIV.2503.19005

Qayyum, A., Xu, H., Halliday, B. P., Rodero, C., Lanyon, C. W., Wilkinson, R. D., & Niederer, S. (2024). Transforming Heart Chamber Imaging: Self-Supervised Learning for Whole Heart Reconstruction and Segmentation. arXiv (Cornell University). https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2406.06643

Qian, L., Wen, C., Li, Y., Hu, Z., Zhou, X., Xia, X., & Kim, S.-H. (2023). Multi-scale context UNet-like network with redesigned skip connections for medical image segmentation. Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine, 243, 107885. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cmpb.2023.107885

Qiu, Z., Wang, X., Xie, Z., Zhou, J., Wang, Y., Yang, L., Jiang, X., Bae, J., Son, M. H., Ye, Q., Chen, D., Zhang, R., Li, T., Mahboobani, N. R., Vardhanabhuti, V., Duan, X., Zhao, Y., & Chen, H. (2025). Large-scale Multi-sequence Pretraining for Generalizable MRI Analysis in Versatile Clinical Applications. https://doi.org/10.48550/ARXIV.2508.07165

Qu, L., Liu, S., Liu, X., Wang, M., & Song, Z. (2022). Towards label-efficient automatic diagnosis and analysis: a comprehensive survey of advanced deep learning-based weakly-supervised, semi-supervised and self-supervised techniques in histopathological image analysis [Review of Towards label-efficient automatic diagnosis and analysis: a comprehensive survey of advanced deep learning-based weakly-supervised, semi-supervised and self-supervised techniques in histopathological image analysis]. Physics in Medicine and Biology, 67(20). IOP Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6560/ac910a

Queiroz, D., Carlos, A., Anjos, A., & Berton, L. (2025). Fair Foundation Models for Medical Image Analysis: Challenges and Perspectives. https://doi.org/10.48550/ARXIV.2502.16841

Rani, V., Nabi, S. T., Kumar, M., Mittal, A., & Kumar, K. (2023). Self-supervised Learning: A Succinct Review [Review of Self-supervised Learning: A Succinct Review]. Archives of Computational Methods in Engineering, 30(4), 2761. Springer Science+Business Media. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11831-023-09884-2

Ranjbarzadeh, R., Anari, S., Crane, M., & Bendechache, M. (2025). A Hybrid UNet and Vision Transformer Architecture with Multi-scale Fusion for Brain Tumor Segmentation. In Lecture notes in electrical engineering (p. 484). Springer Science+Business Media. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-96-3863-5_44

Ren, S., Huang, X., Li, X., Xiao, J., Mei, J., Wang, Z., Yuille, A., & Zhou, Y. (2024). Medical Vision Generalist: Unifying Medical Imaging Tasks in Context. arXiv (Cornell University). https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2406.05565

Rodríguez-Ibáñez, M., Casánez-Ventura, A., Castejón-Mateos, F., & Cuenca-Jiménez, P.-M. (2023). A review on sentiment analysis from social media platforms [Review of A review on sentiment analysis from social media platforms]. Expert Systems with Applications, 223, 119862. Elsevier BV. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2023.119862

Ryando, C., Sigit, R., Setiawardhana, S., & Dewantara, B. S. B. (2025). Face Recognition for Logging in Using Deep Learning for Liveness Detection on Healthcare Kiosks. JOIV International Journal on Informatics Visualization, 9(1), 295. https://doi.org/10.62527/joiv.9.1.2759

Ryu, J.-W., Kang, H., Chu, Y., & Yang, S. (2025). Vision-language foundation models for medical imaging: a review of current practices and innovations [Review of Vision-language foundation models for medical imaging: a review of current practices and innovations]. Biomedical Engineering Letters, 15(5), 809. Springer Science+Business Media. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13534-025-00484-6

Saleh, M. A., & Biswal, B. B. (2025). From U-Net to Swin-Unet Transformers: The Next-Generation Advances in Brain Tumor Segmentation with Deep Learning. Journal of Biomedical Science and Engineering, 18(8), 328. https://doi.org/10.4236/jbise.2025.188024

Schäfer, R., Nicke, T., Höfener, H., Lange, A., Merhof, D., Feuerhake, F., Schulz, V., Lotz, J., & Kießling, F. (2024). Overcoming data scarcity in biomedical imaging with a foundational multi-task model. Nature Computational Science, 4(7), 495. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43588-024-00662-z

Shaker, A., Maaz, M., Rasheed, H., Khan, S., Yang, M., & Khan, F. S. (2024). UNETR++: Delving Into Efficient and Accurate 3D Medical Image Segmentation. IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging, 43(9), 3377. https://doi.org/10.1109/tmi.2024.3398728

Shao, H., & Hou, Q. (2025). MedSeg-R: Medical Image Segmentation with Clinical Reasoning. https://doi.org/10.48550/ARXIV.2506.18669

Shi, C., Rezai, R., Yang, J., Dou, Q., & Li, X. (2024). A Survey on Trustworthiness in Foundation Models for Medical Image Analysis. https://doi.org/10.48550/ARXIV.2407.15851

Shi, K., Li, Y., Ho, B., Wang, J., & Guo, K. (2025). Universal Lesion Segmentation Challenge 2023: A Comparative Research of Different Algorithms. arXiv (Cornell University). https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2502.10608

Shurrab, S., & Duwairi, R. (2022). Self-supervised learning methods and applications in medical imaging analysis: a survey. PeerJ Computer Science, 8. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj-cs.1045

Singh, P., Chukkapalli, R., Chaudhari, S., Chen, L., Chen, M., Pan, J., Smuda, C., & Cirrone, J. (2024). Shifting to machine supervision: annotation-efficient semi and self-supervised learning for automatic medical image segmentation and classification. Scientific Reports, 14(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-61822-9

Soh, W. K., & Rajapakse, J. C. (2023). Hybrid UNet transformer architecture for ischemic stoke segmentation with MRI and CT datasets. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 17. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2023.1298514

Song, Z., Zhao, Y., Li, X., Fei, M., Zhao, X., Liu, M., Chen, C., Yeh, C., Wang, Q., Zheng, G., Ai, S., & Zhang, L. (2024). REHRSeg: Unleashing the Power of Self-Supervised Super-Resolution for Resource-Efficient 3D MRI Segmentation. arXiv (Cornell University). https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2410.10097

Sreeram, S., & Kainz, B. (2023). Sculpting Efficiency: Pruning Medical Imaging Models for On-Device Inference. arXiv (Cornell University). https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2309.05090

Sun, K., Xue, S. D., Sun, F., Sun, H., Luo, Y., Wang, L., Wang, S., Guo, N., Liu, A., Zhao, T., Xinzhou, W., Yang, L., Jin, S., Yan, J., & Dong, J. (2024). Medical Multimodal Foundation Models in Clinical Diagnosis and Treatment: Applications, Challenges, and Future Directions. arXiv (Cornell University). https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2412.02621

Taher, M. R. H., Haghighi, F., Gotway, M. B., & Liang, J. (2025). Large-scale benchmarking and boosting transfer learning for medical image analysis. Medical Image Analysis, 103487. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.media.2025.103487

Talasila, A., Maity, M., & Priyakumar, U. D. (2024). Self-Supervised Modality-Agnostic Pre-Training of Swin Transformers. arXiv (Cornell University). https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2405.12781

Tiu, E., Talius, E., Patel, P. R., Langlotz, C. P., Ng, A. Y., & Rajpurkar, P. (2022). Expert-level detection of pathologies from unannotated chest X-ray images via self-supervised learning. Nature Biomedical Engineering, 6(12), 1399. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41551-022-00936-9

Uden, C. V., Irvin, J., Huang, M., Dean, N. C., Carr, J., Ng, A. Y., & Langlotz, C. P. (2023). How to Train Your CheXDragon: Training Chest X-Ray Models for Transfer to Novel Tasks and Healthcare Systems. arXiv (Cornell University). https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2305.08017

van Veldhuizen, V., Botha, V., Lu, C., Cesur, M. E., Lipman, K. G., de Jong, E. D., Horlings, H., Sanchez, C. I., Snoek, C. G. M., Wessels, L., Mann, R., Marcus, E., & Teuwen, J. (2025). Foundation Models in Medical Imaging -- A Review and Outlook. https://doi.org/10.48550/ARXIV.2506.09095

VanBerlo, B., Hoey, J., & Wong, A. (2024). A survey of the impact of self-supervised pretraining for diagnostic tasks in medical X-ray, CT, MRI, and ultrasound [Review of A survey of the impact of self-supervised pretraining for diagnostic tasks in medical X-ray, CT, MRI, and ultrasound]. BMC Medical Imaging, 24(1). BioMed Central. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12880-024-01253-0n

Vo, H. Q., Yuan, P., Yin, Z., Wong, K. K., Ezeana, C. F., Ly, S. T., Wong, S. T. C., & Nguyen, H. V. (2025). MIRAM: Masked Image Reconstruction Across Multiple Scales for Breast Lesion Risk Prediction. https://doi.org/10.48550/ARXIV.2503.07157

Wang, C., Chen, Z., Yang, J., & Kim, J. (2025). Improving Lesion Segmentation in Medical Images by Global and Regional Feature Compensation. arXiv (Cornell University). https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2502.08675

Wang, G., Li, Y., Chen, W., Ding, M., Cheah, W. P., Qu, R., Ren, J., & Shen, L. (2024). {S$^3$-Mamba}: Small-Size-Sensitive Mamba for Lesion Segmentation. arXiv (Cornell University). https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2412.14546

Wang, H., Cao, P., Yang, J., & Zaı̈ane, O. R. (2023). MCA-UNet: multi-scale cross co-attentional U-Net for automatic medical image segmentation. Health Information Science and Systems, 11(1). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13755-022-00209-4

Wang, S., Li, C., Wang, R., Liu, Z., Wang, M., Tan, H., Wu, Y., Liu, X., Sun, H., Yang, R., Liu, X., Chen, J., Zhou, H., Ayed, I. B., & Zheng, H. (2021). Annotation-efficient deep learning for automatic medical image segmentation. Nature Communications, 12(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-26216-9

Wang, Y., Li, Z., Mei, J., Wei, Z., L, L., Wang, C., Sang, S., Yuille, A., Xie, C., & Zhou, Y. (2023). SwinMM: Masked Multi-view with Swin Transformers for 3D Medical Image Segmentation. In Lecture notes in computer science (p. 486). Springer Science+Business Media. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43898-1_47

Wang, Y., Ni, H., Zhou, J., Liu, L., Lin, J., Yin, M., Gao, J., Zhu, S., Yin, Q., Zhu, J., & Li, R. (2024). A Semi-Supervised Learning Framework for Classifying Colorectal Neoplasia Based on the NICE Classification. Journal of Imaging Informatics in Medicine, 37(5), 2342. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10278-024-01123-9

Wang, Y., Wang, L., Huang, Z., Zhang, Y., & Han, Y. (2024). Multimodal Medical Image Fusion Method based on the Swin Transformer and Self-supervised Contrast Learning. Recent Advances in Electrical & Electronic Engineering (Formerly Recent Patents on Electrical & Electronic Engineering), 18(7), 819. https://doi.org/10.2174/0123520965311272240709053422

Wang, Y., Xu, J., Guan, Y., Ahmad, F., Mahmood, T., & Rehman, A. (2025). MSegNet: A Multi-View Coupled Cross-Modal Attention Model for Enhanced MRI Brain Tumor Segmentation. International Journal of Computational Intelligence Systems, 18(1). https://doi.org/10.1007/s44196-025-00787-7

Xu, G., Udupa, J. K., Luo, J., Zhao, S., Yu, Y., Raymond, S. B., Peng, H., Ning, L., Rathi, Y., Liu, W., & Zhang, Y. (2025). Is the medical image segmentation problem solved? A survey of current developments and future directions. arXiv (Cornell University). https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2508.20139

Xu, Y., Khan, T., Song, Y., & Meijering, E. (2025). Edge deep learning in computer vision and medical diagnostics: a comprehensive survey. Artificial Intelligence Review, 58(3). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10462-024-11033-5

Xu, Z., Chen, D., & Gong, W. (2024). UMSSNet: A Unified Multi-Scale SegmentationNetwork for Heterogeneous Medical Images. Research Square. https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-4001737/v1

Yao, L., Zhang, Z., & Bağcı, U. (2023). Ensemble Learning with Residual Transformer for Brain Tumor Segmentation. 2022 IEEE 19th International Symposium on Biomedical Imaging (ISBI), 1. https://doi.org/10.1109/isbi53787.2023.10230404

Yazdani, E., Karamzadeh-Ziarati, N., Cheshmi, S. S., Sadeghi, M., Geramifar, P., Vosoughi, H., Jahromi, M. K., & Kheradpisheh, S. R. (2024). Automated segmentation of lesions and organs at risk on [68Ga]Ga-PSMA-11 PET/CT images using self-supervised learning with Swin UNETR. Cancer Imaging, 24(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40644-024-00675-x

Zeineldin, R. A., & Mathis-Ullrich, F. (2024). Unified HT-CNNs Architecture: Transfer Learning for Segmenting Diverse Brain Tumors in MRI from Gliomas to Pediatric Tumors. https://doi.org/10.48550/ARXIV.2412.08240

Zhang, C., Deng, X.-Y., Ling, S. H., Zhang, C., Deng, X.-Y., & Ling, S. H. (2024). Next-Gen Medical Imaging: U-Net Evolution and the Rise of Transformers [Review of Next-Gen Medical Imaging: U-Net Evolution and the Rise of Transformers]. Sensors, 24(14), 4668. Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute. https://doi.org/10.3390/s24144668

Zhang, C., & Gu, Y. (2022). Dive into Self-Supervised Learning for Medical Image Analysis: Data, Models and Tasks. arXiv (Cornell University). https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2209.12157

Zhang, S., & Metaxas, D. (2023). On the challenges and perspectives of foundation models for medical image analysis. Medical Image Analysis, 91, 102996. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.media.2023.102996

Zhao, L., Wang, T., Chen, Y., Zhang, X., Tang, H., Lin, F., Li, C., Li, Q., Tan, T., Kang, D., & Tong, T. (2025). A novel framework for segmentation of small targets in medical images. Scientific Reports, 15(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-94437-9

Zhao, Y., Wang, C., Hao, Y., Li, L., & Liao, T. (2025). DyGLNet: Hybrid Global-Local Feature Fusion with Dynamic Upsampling for Medical Image Segmentation. https://doi.org/10.48550/ARXIV.2509.12763

Zhao, Z., Alzubaidi, L., Zhang, J., Duan, Y., Naseem, U., & Gu, Y. (2025). Robust and explainable framework to address data scarcity in diagnostic imaging. Computers in Biology and Medicine, 197, 111052. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compbiomed.2025.111052

Zheng, H., Chen, Y., Mu, N., & Li, X. (2025). Multi-Disease-Aware Training Strategy for Cardiac MR Image Segmentation. https://doi.org/10.48550/ARXIV.2503.17896

Zhou, P., Zhang, L., & Li, W. (2025). Boosting Semi-Supervised Medical Image Segmentation via Masked Image Consistency and Discrepancy Learning. https://doi.org/10.48550/ARXIV.2503.14013

Zhou, S. K., Greenspan, H., Davatzikos, C., Duncan, J. S., Ginneken, B. van, Madabhushi, A., Prince, J. L., Rueckert, D., Summers, R. M., Zhou, S. K., Greenspan, H., Davatzikos, C., Duncan, J. S., Ginneken, B. van, Madabhushi, A., Prince, J. L., Rueckert, D., & Summers, R. M. (2021). A Review of Deep Learning in Medical Imaging: Imaging Traits, Technology Trends, Case Studies With Progress Highlights, and Future Promises. Proceedings of the IEEE, 109(5), 820. https://doi.org/10.1109/jproc.2021.3054390

Zhou, X., Sun, Y., Deng, M., Chu, C. W., & Dou, Q. (2024). Robust Semi-supervised Multimodal Medical Image Segmentation via Cross Modality Collaboration. In Lecture notes in computer science (p. 57). Springer Science+Business Media. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-72378-0_6

Zhou, Z., Siddiquee, M. M. R., Tajbakhsh, N., & Liang, J. (2019). UNet++: Redesigning Skip Connections to Exploit Multiscale Features in Image Segmentation. IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging, 39(6), 1856. https://doi.org/10.1109/tmi.2019.2959609

Downloads

Published

2025-12-23

How to Cite

Yusifova, E. H., Osmanov, F. F., Azizov, E., & Azizli, K. (2025). A Self-Supervised Multi-Scale Fusion Framework for Accurate and Efficient Image Segmentation. TechComp Innovations: Journal of Computer Science and Technology, 2(2), 66–89. https://doi.org/10.70063/techcompinnovations.v2i2.125

Similar Articles

<< < 1 2 

You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.