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Deep learning models for semantic segmentation are able to learn powerful representations for pixel-wise predictions, but are sensitive to noise at test time and do not guarantee a plausible topology. Image registration models on the other hand are able to warp known topologies to target images as a means of segmentation, but typically require large amounts of training data, and have not widely been benchmarked against pixel-wise segmentation models. We propose Atlas-ISTN, a framework that jointly learns segmentation and registration on 2D and 3D image data, and constructs a population-derived atlas in the process. Atlas-ISTN learns to segment multiple structures of interest and to register the constructed, topologically consistent atlas labelmap to an intermediate pixel-wise segmentation. Additionally, Atlas-ISTN allows for test time refinement of the model's parameters to optimize the alignment of the atlas labelmap to an intermediate pixel-wise segmentation. This process both mitigates for noise in the target image that can result in spurious pixel-wise predictions, as well as improves upon the one-pass prediction of the model. Benefits of the Atlas-ISTN framework are demonstrated qualitatively and quantitatively on 2D synthetic data and 3D cardiac computed tomography and brain magnetic resonance image data, out-performing both segmentation and registration baseline models. Atlas-ISTN also provides inter-subject correspondence of the structures of interest, enabling population-level shape and motion analysis.

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Hegel is a towering figure in modern philosophy, and he is interestingly a thinker for whom philosophical modernity and traditional religion are necessary partners in the pursuit of shared truth. In this paper, I use Hegel’s unique rendition on natural theology as a test-case for examining the intersection of traditional Christian religion and Idealist reason in Hegel’s philosophical modernity. Specifically, I raise the question of whether Hegel’s philosophy of religion is faithful to what philosopher William Desmond has called the “religious between,” within which God exists as superior, transcendent other to the finite human being existing in created dependence on Him. I argue that Hegel’s Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion contain a German idealist conception of natural theology that counterfeits this “between” by subordinating it to a pseudo-mystical quest for noetic union with God that obliterates what should be the irreducible difference between the human and the divine essence.