Biomedical education for clinical engineers.

Biomedical equipment Master's degree is recognized by the French Ministry of Health, since its creation in 1975 under the denomination of "Specialization for Hospital Biomedical Engineers". Since the new national status of technical staff in the public service by decree of September 5th of 1991, it allows to access directly to the level of Chief Hospital Engineer (first category, second class, by ordinance of October 23rd, 1992). Biomedical Engineers jobs in French hospitals are selected after an examination organized by the recruiting hospital.

Clinical engineering education in France situation in 2007 and evolution.

Compiegne's University of Technology is one of the main contributors in clinical engineering education in France. Knowledge and skills have been acquired since 1974 through professional specialization courses and new programs such as master's degrees, engineering and PhD degrees, and continuing education courses for technicians. To face current hospitals needs, new investments in distance learning have been made.

[Intravascular ultrasound: limitation and prospects].

The aims of intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) are visualization of the arterial wall, characterization of the arterial plaque, measurement of vessel diameter and endoluminal procedure assessment. The main sources of errors are: limitation of resolution, distortion of images due to non uniform angular velocity of mechanical type transducers, overestimation or underestimation of cross sectional area secondary to eccentric position or non coaxial orientation of the catheter. Awareness of these problems may prevent misinterpretations.

Scalp potential and current density mapping with an enhanced spherical spline interpolation.

A method for producing rapid and accurate scalp electroencephalography, evoked potential and current density mapping is described. This method is based on the spherical spline interpolation, which has been validated as the most suitable function for this application. In comparison with the basic algorithm, the proposed technique is accurate and fast: it reduces the computation time by a factor of 10, while preserving the desired precision level.