... extraction techniques and have been widely applied in image segmentation and shape modelling, boundary detection and extraction, motion tracking and analysis, and deform-able registration (Wang and ... forces and external forces. To handle the difculties of concavity and sensitivity during initialization, classic snakes, balloon model (Cohen and Cohen 1993) and gradient vector ow (GVF) (Xu and ... inference from data, ranking of the hypothesis and experimental planning, we can easily understand the crucial role of DM and KM (see Figure 2).HypothesisData and e videnceData M iningData A...